onionbagblog

*Monday 16th August update*

Sadly it seems that the information provided on Saturday by the Oval Safer Neighborhood Team is incorrect. The bonkers 5am licence HAS NOT been withdrawn. Today is the deadline for any objections. You can email Ross Hill at Lambeth Council BEFORE 5pm if you wish to comment on the application.

Many thanks to Councillor Hopkins for confirming the situation:

Hi there,

I just wanted to let you know that Kelly’s licence has not been withdrawn yet and today is the last date to make representations.

If you can email Ross Hill by 5pm stating your objections against the 4 licensing objectives:

* the prevention of crime and disorder;
* public safety;
* the prevention of public nuisance; and
* the protection of children from harm.

Myself and Cllr Edbrooke will be putting forward an objection on behalf of the residents who are continuing to sign the petition.

Original blog post…

The campaign to close Kelly’s along the Clap’ham Road continues!

Sort of, and before it’s even opened.

Confused?

Cripes.

And so I spent a very enjoyable and rewarding Saturday afternoon with the most excellent @janeinlondon / E Hants (yep, I was wrong) and Jack the Lad Hopkins, our two fine @LambethLabour councillors here in the Oval ward. Oh, and another local resident as well.

The reason? We are all rather concerned about the fallout from the bonkers 10am – 5am booze and live music licence that someone from outside of our borough had made to our friends from @lambeth_council.

The aim of Saturday afternoon was to spread the message about the proposed plans, and to stimulate conversation about what this might mean for our #hyperlocal patch of South London as we continue to strive forward as a community.

Kelly’s creates confusion on so many fronts. First there is the uncertainty about the bonkers 10am – 5am licence, and how this fits in with the planning application lodged to build yuppie flats. The planning application includes a bar for downstairs. But is this is a separate application from the late night booze den? Who would want to live above a bonkers 5am bar anyway?

The current landlord has past form in pimping out parts of the building for a quick buck. We witnessed this at the start of the summer with the makeshift car wash that appeared without any planning permission. Some liaison with my decent local councillors soon led to the swift closure of the unlicensed business premises.

Saturday afternoon saw more uncertainty creep into the Kelly’s conundrum. We encountered a couple of the nice local cops from the Safer Neighbourhood Team whilst out on our door-to-door campaign.

I had received an email earlier from the Oval SNP, confirming that they oppose the bonkers licence on crime and disorder grounds. I took the opportunity of asking the police face to face if they had any powers to actually speak at the Licensing Committee to expand on these concerns.

The response was revealing: our friendly local police heard on Friday that the licence has now been withdrawn. Hurrah! This hasn’t been confirmed, but I have been promised some clarity on this at the start of the week.

Apparently it seems that the sponsors of the bonkers licence wish to re-think their plans. Too damn right. But not quite time to celebrate just yet. The word on the street (Richbourne Terrace, actually) is that a new licence will be re-submitted, sometime later in the year.

Although 5am may be slightly optimistic, there is no guarantee that a similar highly unsocial hour for serving booze and playing live music may still be part of the application. The police mentioned that the owners want to try and convince the local community that a late night drinking den is just what the area needs right now.

So yeah – it seems that possibly the initial threat to our neighbourhood may have been put temporarily on hold. The mystery that is Kelly’s still needs monitoring however, to see what crazy plans some inconsiderate nightclub promoter wishes to inflict upon us next.

We are not against Kelly’s trading as a pub – we actually welcome the return of the business operating as part of the community, and not as an unsocial business that will divide our neighbourhood. Slapping in 5am alcohol licence requests, with no prior consultation with the locals, is no way to go about building this trust.

Meanwhile, the yuppie flats planning application requires some clarification. Who is behind this, and what is the relationship with the apparently aborted bonkers 5am licence?

Details aside, Saturday was rather ace, I resisted all temptation to do the door knocking thing wearing a @LambethLabour sticker, as was sported by our fine councillors. I was happy to post flyers with their names and party logo on – it was jolly decent of the Jack ‘n Jane roadshow to give up their weekend to rally around our cause.

It is hoped that this new level of understanding (arf!) may even extend out into the badlands of @LambethLabour Stockwell territory. Apparently Kelly’s technically sits within the ward boundary of Councillors Walker, Bowyer and Bigham.

Blimey.

Many, many thanks to @janeinlondon / E Hants and Jack the Lad Hopkins for helping out. Community does exist around these parts. I needed a drink after all of this co-operation. Kelly’s was sadly closed. It was only Saturday afternoon, after all.

Yep – it’s almost that time of year again in Sunny Stockwell where we celebrate all things fruity (and particularly pineapples – it’s an SW8 thing) as the super Sunny Stockwell Festival comes to Larkhall Park.

A few more details have reached my way, care of the lovely folk at the Stockwell Partnership. Dr Bike, a licensed bar and “a chance to meet your local Councillors” – cripes, who could resist? Best visit the beer tent first…

Stockwell Partnership Presents the Stockwell Festival L & Expo – Celebrating 10 Years!

Saturday 25th September 2010

Larkhall Park, Courland Grove, SW8 2PX

1.00pm – 6.00pm

Stockwell Festival & Expo, produced by Stockwell Partnership in association with Lambeth Council, is an annual highlight of the South London cultural calendar. 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of Stockwell Festival and there’s a great programme of activities promised, many of them FREE. The theme, delivered in partnership with local service providers, local organisations and community groups this year is COHESION, CREATIVIY & WELLBEING.

Event highlights includes:

The Stockwell Festival & Expo Stage with a vibrant local line up including Dance Starz and professional Congolese favourites Grupo Lokito.

Children’s Village with face painting, arts and craft workshops, Punch and Judy shows, magic and circus workshops, interactive drumming workshops with Lambeth Music Service plus the Pineapple Car is back to take you on a hair-raising ride around the park!

Celebrating 10 years of local artists – Art 4 Space invite us to make A Wish For Stockwell – watch out for the giant birthday cake.

Later in the afternoon, Lady Pineapple leads the Pineapple Parade around the park with an array of pineapple puppets, masks and hats culminating in a performance on the main stage.

Well Being Zone: Trust Art invite you to join them for The Big Tea – pull up a chair, have a brew and a slice of yummy cake. NHS Lambeth and Communities for Health will be offering health checks and sharing information about local services. Or why not pamper yourself with a 30 minute massage or reflexology treatment; local therapists are on hand to treat you.

Peace Zone: As part of Peace Week, come and meet your local safer neighbourhood teams, their police dogs and horses and find out information about local safety.

Stockwell EXPOsed – find out what’s available on your local doorstep as organisations and Council services offer a one stop shop of information. There’s a chance to meet your local councillors [um, thanks but no thanks] and put your burning questions to them or simply browse around the many arts and craft stalls selling their wares.

Dr Bike – Get your bike fixed for FREE! London Sustainable transport offer advice and mechanical know how. Friends of Larkhall Park showcase the latest park developments.

Caterers and bar – taste the flavours of Stockwell from the spice of the Caribbean and the heat of a hot dog to the chilling delight of a whippy ice-cream or a nice cold beer – you’ll not be hungry or thirsty that’s for sure!

If you’d like to get involved, have a stall or volunteer please contact Anna or call 07973 711173.

Election expenses – it’s enough to send a shiver down the spine of any self-respecting local politician (assuming they still have a spine left, that is.) How much exactly does it cost to buy a @lambeth_council seat?

Ooh, just under £500 if you consider the average amount spent on each candidate by our friends from @LambethLabour and @LambethLibDems in the May local council elections. But even this doesn’t guarantee a seat. If only it was as simple as that.

Inspired by @darryl1974‘s poking around of the election expenses register over in Greenwich, I made my own appointment with the Electoral Services team at Lambeth Town Hall to have a snifter around the receipts that have now been filed.

It was all very co-operative, dare I say, being given my own desk space and the complete run of the accounts. By law, the party agents that are propping up the candidates have to declare all the expenditure spent during the campaign.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for in Lambeth; evidence of an equal contest would have been encouraging. This is more or less the conclusion I came out with just over an hour and a half later as I left Lambeth Town Hall.

First of all, one would hope the electorate vote for policies, and not be pampered by the amount of cash spent on a campaign. Local election campaigns are a world away from the Westminster seat buying option, with strict guidelines in place dictating the maximum spend within each ward.

This is worked out as a ratio of the number of votes up for grabs – so for example a candidate could spend no more than £756.20 on their campaign in the Oval ward. You really wouldn’t want to spend any more around here to be honest.

With twenty-one wards to peruse, I needed some focus as I took up my seat in the Electoral Services office. Best keep it local I thought, and immediately got my grubby paws to work, leafing through the receipts for the Oval ward.

Let’s start off with the winners.

The good @janeinlondon / E Hants has declared election expenses of £569.88. This is a figure worth remembering – I soon found out that this is the exact same amount that every single @LambethLabour candidate in the borough has filed as an expense.

In fact every single @LambethLabour candidate in the borough has filed an exact same copy of expenses, pound for pound, penny for penny. This includes £38.83 on accommodation (slightly strange, seeing as though one would hope all candidates live locally,) £33.33 for staff and £6 for a rosette. Bless. Let’s hope they weren’t blue.

It soon became clear as I thumbed through the various ward expense sheets that all the returns for @LambethLabour were in fact photocopies of the exact same expenses sheet. It’s good to know that for a party where some are more equal than others, this thankfully isn’t the case when declaring election expenses. The same sheet was bundled in for every single @LambethLabour candidate.

But who pays for this campaign?

The entire funding for all @LambethLabour candidates came from an organisation called the Lambeth Campaigns Forum. Google is no friend here; it simply appears to be the name being used to print and publish the promotional material. The postcode of SE24 9DL (Rosendale Road) also appears across the campaign blogs.

It all appears above board, but it would be decent to know who or what the Lambeth Campaigns Forum is, and where exactly it obtains any funding from itself. If it is simply a collective pot for all @LambethLabour subscriptions, then why not publish under the name of Lambeth Labour, as is the case with the Libdems and Tories?

Ah, about those Love Me I’m a Liberal Lot…

Councillor Brown, the lone LibDem here at the Oval spent £426.25 on her successful campaign. The same figure has also been filed for @LambethLibDem candidates Andrew Brown and Claudette Hewitt, both of whom failed to get elected.

The Vauxhall LibDem party kindly donated £380.85 for each LibDem candidate in the ward. It wasn’t clear where the rest of the cash came from.

The breakdown of expenses here locally for Councillor Brown includes figures of £30.00 paid towards the Streatham LibDem manifesto and £15.40 for an item called the Streatham LibDem Housing Tabloid.

Blimey.

And so with @janeinlondon / E Hants, Jack the Lad Hopkins and Councillor Brown all elected to serve the Oval ward, what of those that missed out? Pity poor old Karim Palant, who despite having the deep pockets of the affluent Lambeth Campaigns Forum at his disposal, still managed to miss out on a council seat, seemingly on account of his surname.

As for the Blue Rinse lot? For a party that prides itself on running a tight ship, it is pleasing to see that each Conservative candidate in the Oval ward only spent £22.33 on their campaign. Given the absence of any Tory literature through my letterbox, I hope the party agent has kept a receipt.

Further down the political food chain and you start to see where the political realists lay. The three English Democrat candidates for the Oval ward have all filed away a great big blank zero on their campaign expenditure. Now that’s what I call cost cutting.

And so going back to the original question of how much does a vote cost? Matching up the election expenses data with the actual votes, and we find that @janeinlondon / E Hants’ 2,274 votes clock in at 25p per endorsement; Jack the Lad Hopkins comes in slightly more costly at almost 26p per vote.

In these days of austerity, it is the LibDem Councillor Brown who is more cost effective in absolute terms, coming in at 19p per vote. The Tories meanwhile are valued at tuppence each, which in relative terms, is probably about right.

To be honest and that was all that I could be arsed to work out. The lovely chaps at the Electoral Services team were starting to get curious as to why a lycra clad bloke was flicking through their books at 9am on a Monday morning, and yep, I really did have better things to do.

But just one more task though…

You may remember the incredibly vile election campaign attack mounted by @LambethLabour over in Herne Hill. Having first refused to even acknowledge the existence of the Green vote, a final smear was put in place by party agent Alexis Darby, claming that the Green party had plans to turn Herne Hill into a “drugs supermarket.”

We should expect nothing less from someone whose job description is basically to s*** stir.

It was truly sickening electioneering, but did the job in scaring the electorate to vote for three @LambethLabour councillors, with the Green party losing its one previous seat in the borough.

But what of the cost involved? As we have seen, @LambethLabour is consistent is spunking away £569.88 on every single candidate in the borough. The Green party however proved slightly trickier to get a handle on.

The Electoral Services team file away the receipts for all parties via wards. There is a ring bound folder for each ward, where all candidates that stood are lumped together. All except the Green party that it. How very strange.

A separate file is kept at Lambeth Town Hall on the Greens. The index sheet is a revealing read, stating that a total of zero pence was spent on all Green candidates in Lambeth. All except Herne Hill that is.

It was no secret back in May that the Greens were targeting Herne Hill as a possible hunting ground. The figures now filed away confirm this. A total of £1,782.29 has been returned for election expenses for ALL THREE Green candidates in Herne Hill. An individual costing was not made available.

As a comparison, @LambethLabour spent £1,709.63 on ALL THREE mud slinging red flag flying candidates in Herne Hill – £72.65 less than the Greens. You would have to say that with a return of three councillors, this is either money well spent, or money well manipulated, depending on your political point of view. The LibDems meanwhile spent absolutely nothing in Herne Hill, leaving @LambethLabour and the Greens to slog it out.

And so with apologies for any readers out in St Leonards, Streatham Hill or Streatham South – one and a bit wards was really all that I could stomach. Of course it’s not about the filthy wonga and the cash from chaos. Oh nope, not here. It’s all about value, or even perceived value.

I’m still struggling to make any sense of the figures.

This is rather lovely – I’ve spoken with more folk in my local community over the past few days than I have in the four years since we have lived here. The unifying strand is the bonkers licensing application at Kelly’s along the Clap’ham Road to serve booze until five in the morning.

I wouldn’t exactly call it a coordinated campaign, but connections have been made, and a strategy has been put in place. I’ve even been invited by our friends from @lambeth_council to speak at the Licensing Committee, in opposition to the plans.

My first conversation was literally over the garden fence. I spoke to my neighbours for the first time ever. I’m not sure why it has taken so long, but now some common ground has been established, I’m hopeful of continuing good relations. We both agreed that the licence would be an extreme nuisance in our residential area.

Remembering my evening spent mixing with the disparate (but rather nice) bunch that is the Fentiman, Richbourne and Dorset Road Resident’s Association, I contacted the Chair and asked for advice and support.

The good folk of the Bolney Meadow Resident’s Association are also objecting to the licence. Although still along Dorset Road, the Bolney Meadow estate is a five minute walk away from Kelly’s. This shows the strength of opposition against the application.

And then evening all, evening all – it’s only a pledge from the local police to also speak out against the planned licence. The fine folk of the Oval Safer Neighbourhood Team have very real crime and disorder concerns about allowing alcohol to be sold until 5am, in what was up until very recently, still a Police Dispersal Zone.

And then to complete the alliance of friendly locals, we even have cross party support from @LambethLabour and @LambethLibDems – blimey.

The very good @janeinlondon / E Hants has agreed to represent residents at the Licensing Committee. The Lone LibDem, Councillor Brown, is also asking questions with both the Licensing Committee and the Planning Applications Committee, in an attempt to find out if there is any connection between the two recent (and seemingly separate) applications.

So yeah – it’s all been rather rewarding in uniting the local community against the plans for a business outside of the borough to come into our neighbourhood and create a social nuisance. The real reward however will be if the bonkers licence is thrown out, and some proper local and social use can be made of the old Kelly’s building.

This is highly annoying. Captured along the Clap’ham Road during the weekend, the lorry below was blocking the CS7 Cycle Superhighway all day on Saturday.

The regulations governing CS7 makes them a mandatory cycling route, and therefore being out of bounds for other road users, either moving or stationary. Flexibility is of course needed from cyclists and all other road users. But parking and blocking CS7 all day?

The workmen were carrying out repairs to a property along the Clap’ham Road. I appreciate that access to the property is required, but not at the cost of blocking a dedicated cycling lane.

Any approaching cyclist had to swerve way over to the right, and then run the risk of being bumped from behind by oncoming cars that weren’t expecting such a move.

I’m still broadly in favour of CS7. It has made cycling along the Clap’ham Road at least a more visible experience, if not offering total protection.

Time to educate other road users though.

#lambethcoop, Porto pastry and an out of context moment with a man I usually see half naked each morning – what could possibly go wrong at the quarterly forum organised by the fine folk of the Stockwell Partnership?

I always find it confusing seeing people out of context. Straight outta, um, Brixton Rec showers, and down the Stockwell Road to the Community Resource Centre; I almost didn’t recognise Swimmer David as he greeted me on the door, fully clothed and without Speedos.

But there was little time for chitter chatter about shampooing the short ‘n curlies. It was straight down to #lambethcoop business (yeah, *business*) with the good @LabourStockwell doing his PR pitch on behalf of @LambethLabour.

Councillor Bigham came well prepped. He outlined the overview of the Co-operative Council plans, stating that the objectives are twofold:

“There is a moral need – councils don’t always know better than citizens about how to run services. Secondly there is a financial need – it could be cost effective for the community to run local authority services

The first point is probably just about right, although there are some major concerns over democratically elected officials washing their hands of all accountability and responsibility.

The highest-ranking Co-operative Party MP, Ed Balls, has already dismissed the second point as not being the right reason for @lambeth_council to become a co-operative. The Labour Party leadership contender even went as far as saying:

“Cutting corners is not what a co-operative council is about. Does being a co-operator save money in public services? I’m not sure that it will. I think that it might actually encourage us to spend more money for local people.”

@LabourStockwell then gave examples of how #lambethcoop has been successful during the trial period. He stated the Tenant Managed Organisation of Lambeth Towers at Kennington as a shining example of how #lambethcoop should work. Except a FOI request I made to @lambeth_council earlier this year confirmed:

“Consequently, no savings / losses are incurred as a result of a creation of new TMO.”

The cash saving ethos of #lambethcoop was also justified by @LabourStockwell as a consequence of: “the 20% cuts that are being put in place by the coalition government.”

Nasty, nasty ConDems, but #lambethcoop was part of the @LambethLabour manifesto *before* the Love Me I’m a Liberal Lot sold their soul to the Nasty Party. #lambethcoop was coming, for whatever reason, irrespective of what financial constraints may, or may not, be imposed from Westminster.

I pitched in (get you) with asking about the role of big business within #lambethcoop. The White Paper talks of “interested partners” in a different context to citizens. @LabourStockwell cited the example of Veoila working successfully to help provide a council service.

I cited in return the example of Veoila getting away with not paying staff a London Living Wage, all with the blessing of @LambethLabour as part of this brave new world of co-operation.

The old Lilian Baylis site is apparently another example of how co-operation within the borough is working. I didn’t like to mention how this partnership is currently costing Lambeth Council Tax payers £380,000 a year, and still there is not definite conclusion as to what will be the future of the site.

My fully clothed swimming partner made a great point from the floor. He pointed towards the, um, Stockwell Partnership as a model that #lambethcoop should be looking at to see how genuine citizen involvement can be successfully implemented.

The Stockwell Partnership has spent the past ten years securing investments for the local area, and then consulting with local people about how best to distribute the funds for the benefit of the whole community. Local residents get to sit at the top table and make decisions.

Meanwhile the #lambethcoop Citizen’s Commission still hasn’t appointed any citizens to sit alongside the three high ranking members of the @LambethLabour cabinet.

It was jolly decent of @LabourStockwell to put forward the justification by @LambethLabour for walking away from all local responsibility. Cynical, jaded and in disbelief (me, *not* @LabourStockwell) but still I applaud the information that is finally coming our way.

The exact mechanics of how #lambethcoop will actually work are slowly, slowly trickling down from the top table, with more events planned around the borough to try and pull off the PR trick on behalf of @LambethLabour. But any genuine citizen power is still not part of the deal.

Time for a break. Time for some Porto dancing.

Hurrah!

And so it was straight outta #lambethcoop and best foot forward as some rather ace young Porto kids gave us a brilliant demonstration of how the traditional meets the contemporary, Sunny Stockwell style.

It was hungry work just watching. Which all boded rather well for the table laid out with Porto food, all kindly donated to the Stockwell Partnership Forum from the good folk of the local Porto cafes.

Now that’s what I call co-operation.

A brief break, and then a Q and A followed with Ian Beaver, a planning expert who represents the Stockwell Partnership. Ian outlined some of the major developments that are heading our your way over the course of the next few years.

The thirty-three-storey Vauxhall Sky Garden is an interesting case in how developers can backtrack on all original promises, and yet somehow come away with a done deal that suits the commercial agenda, and not that of the local residents.

The original planning application contained fifteen floors of social housing, a bonkers two floor space of an indoor garden, and then fifteen floors of high rent, high class commercial property.

The joined up thinking that ticked all the correct boxes in terms of council corporate talk of inclusiveness, is that the garden would be the common ground. Quite literally.

Never the twain shall meet however. The revised plan, now accepted by @lambeth_council, contains the small detail of pushing the social housing out towards a separate site on Wyvil Road. The implication is that the bonkers indoor garden is out of bounds for social housing residents.

Clever. And quite a con as well.

The fifty-storey Vauxhall Tower was next up for discussion. When complete, this will be the tallest residential tower in all of the country.

Cripes.

Completing the trilogy of Vauxhall high rises is the Octave Tower on Bondway. Having had the wisdom to turn down the original plan, the appeal starts next week at Lambeth Town Hall. It will be interesting to see how close @lambeth_council wants to cuddle up to commercial partners in an attempt to justify this new age of *shhh* co-operation.

Ace Porto food btw.

The idea was to cycle the length of the Cycle Superhighway around my #hyperlocal patch of South London, and then write a cynical, sneering blog post about how Boris’ bicycling solution is little more than lip service to the cycling lobby.

But for all the faults of CS7 [PDF], I would rather be given the opportunity to freewheel along the big blue bicycle lane, than to be left at the mercy of the free for all that is the traditional car haven that is the Clap’ham Road.

Yes – parked cars tend to clog up CS7; busses are no better. The stop / start random nature of the big blue experiment seems slightly confusing as well. Plus the paint is already starting to peel off around my #hyperlocal patch, less than a month since it was first put down, and before the official opening as well.

But never mind the length – feel the thickness. There is a certain feeling of elevated safety gained from cycling in a dedicated blue lane that warns away any non-pedal power modes of transport. There is also the safety in numbers element, as the pelaton hurtles down my #hyperlocal patch each morning and early evening.

The visual element of the Cycle Superhighway will be what defines it as a success. You simply can’t miss the great big blue swathes currently cutting through the main routes of the city. Cyclists are attracted towards it, creating a genuine critical mass of cyclists.

It is difficult to imagine just how dire cycling was in London less than a decade ago. Anyone seen around town on two wheels was viewed even lower down the social scale than a Bus Stop Johnny. Cycling wasn’t cool – it was the form of transport for the have nots, the losers, the weirdoes.

I’m pleased that I’ve stuck with cycling, and although I may not have fully escaped from this demographic, cycling down the Cycle Superhighway with the Bright Young Things of SW8, now no longer means having insults, or even objects, thrown at you.

Chapeau!