Just to let people know that the Council will be delivering leaflets this weekend consulting on a proposed 20mph zone in the central Lewisham area.  The boundaries of the proposed zone are formed by Lee High Road to the north, Lewisham High Street to the west, then up along Mount Pleasant Road, Stainton Road, with Brownhill Road forming the southern boundary, and the Hither Green railway line forming the eastern boundary.  The leaflet will be consulting on traffic calming measures for the area.

There are a couple of issues along Hither Green Lane which have been festering for some time, so I thought I'd relieve some of my frustration by blogging about them.

The first is the state of the pavement, which is to put it politely, good in parts.  There's a particularly bad stretch between between Duncrievie Road and Brightside Road which has been in a terrible state for years.  The Council have said that they will not repair it until 2009/10 at the earliest but will undertake a safety inspection and repair where necessary.

Which they seem to have done. 

As you can see from these photographs which I took today , the result is appalling.  A few slabs have been removed and replaced by glaring black tarmac, while other cracked slabs remain in situ.  It really does look like a dog's dinner, if that wasn't an insult to dogs and their dinners!  I'm almost tempted to believe that this was part of the industrial action by Council staff.

At the bottom end of Hither Green Lane, there's a problem which has been festering for weeks.  Foul smelling water has been seeping from the area of the Lewisham Homes block of flats on Courthill Road, just east of the junction with Hither Green Lane.  The water has been collecting in a fetid puddle and forming a stream along the pavement on Hither Green Lane until it crosses the road and fails to drain on the opposite side because the drain is full.  Again, my photographs tell the story.

Last Saturday was Lewisham People's Day at Mountsfield Park.  Among other things, i did a stint at the Be A Councillor stand, encouraging people to think about putting themselves forward as local council candidates. Not without some success: got quite a few people to put themselves on the list to receive further information and possibly attend an event to tell them more about it. Or perhaps they signed up just to stop me pestering them.

One thing that might put them off is the image that local politicians have.  In general, we get along pretty well across party lines and do the job pretty preofessionally.  But  I fear the public's suspicions would be confirmed if they saw how we sometimes behave at Full Council meetings: at best childish, at worst intimidating to those of a nervous disposition.  The June meeting, I felt, was rather bad, and I made my views known afterwards in the appropriate quarters.

The July meeting last Wednesday was better tempered, although I might have got myself into some trouble with my own party by voting for a Lib Dem motion on the health service but speaking in a way which some might have interpreted as being mildly critical of it, in parts.  I just wanted to make the point that i wasn't personally opposed to private sector involvement in the health service if that delivered better results for patients and better value for money.

But rumours of my imminent defection to the Labour Party, or the Greens, or the Conservatives, are greatly exaggerated. 

All part of the fun of Being A Councillor. 

A bit late, but I thought I'd publish the letter which i received last month from Sir Simon Milton (as far as I know, no relation!) about what I perceived as the over-development of Lewisham Town Centre.  Of course, the prospects for the economy have changed dramatically since then and the possible risk now is of planning blight if these new developments remain on the table but they don't actually go ahead.  Which could be the worst of both worlds:

 
 
Date:  12 June 2008
Dear Andrew
 
Thank-you for your e-mail of 11th May outlining your concerns about the potential for over-
development in Lewisham Town Centre. 
 
I would like to take this opportunity to re-iterate how keen the Mayor is to have strong
relationships with all the boroughs and that this Mayoralty will listen to the boroughs’ needs. This
means developers will no longer be able to go behind boroughs’ backs, straight to the Mayor. 
 
Whilst I do not intend to re-open old planning permissions and consents, I intend to spend time
visiting the boroughs and listening to their ideas on regeneration. 
 
The Mayor wants to see beautiful new public spaces for London and striking architecture that will
excite and delight Londoners and visitors alike. Making London a more liveable city is part of our
vision, including creating better public spaces, protecting playing fields and back gardens and
developing new quality standards for housing. As a priority, we will look to find ways to give
further protection through the London Plan to small shops and high streets.  
 
Thank you again for writing and together with the Mayor I look forward to developing a strong and
constructive working relationship with all the London boroughs. 
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
 
 
 
Sir Simon Milton
 
Senior Adviser to the Mayor on Planning 
 
 
 

The Picture of Health Decision Making meeting will be on Monday 21 July 2008 at 10.30am to 5pm at Glaziers Hall, London Bridge.

The papers for this meeting have been published at the following link:

http://www.apictureofhealth.nhs.uk/documents/category.aspx?category_id=24

The "key" documents for Mondays meeting (outlining the recommendations to the decision making Joint Committee of PCT's) are document numbers 4 and 15, the other documents are the supporting reports, letters, assessment criteria etc.

The meeting is being held in public, although the venue only accomodates 180 people so admittance will be on a first come-first in basis. This will be where we hear for the first time what will happen to services in Lewisham Hospital, among others in SE London.