onionbagblog

With spring arriving in the Wivenhoe air, now is the time for Jardine to announce a new schedule of events to light up our evenings.

Essex author James Gurbutt will be holding court on the corner of Belle Vue Road on the evening of 6th April, from 7:30 onwards. James will be talking about his bestseller First Frost. Here’s hoping that his Wivenhoe visit doesn’t bring a return to what would be the second, third, fourth etc frost of what has been a horrid winter.

The title itself is a reference to R.D. Wingfield’s Jack Frost, made popular on TV by David Jason. £12.95 and a two-course supper is the rather affordable cost for the evening of food and fiction. Bookings are currently being taken on 01296 820390.

What has been rather wonderful about the (eventual) opening of Jardine has been the ethos of it’s not all about the food, splendid though it is. Local artist Lee Thomas is still exhibiting (and selling!)

But cometh a new month, cometh a new exhibition. Brightlingsea based Julie Cuthbert will displaying her mix of paintings, sculpture and photography throughout April. The private viewing takes place on 4th April, with an RSVP being only polite to attend on the evening.

And finally we come to an evening with the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met.

Cripes.

This looks rather interesting – Brian Paddick will be at Jardine on 18th April for a talk and a meal. Brian was the Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Met (know him from my Brixton days…) as well as the LibDem Mayoral candidate for London last time round. He’s a great speaker, with plenty of interesting views. Once again a polite email is required to reserve a place.

Anyone who has walked down Belle Vue Road of late would have noticed the completion of the outdoor area at the back of Jardine. I know that this has been a rather delicate local matter, with some rather particular planning conditions having had to be met. It now looks totally splendid, and is all set for a summer of al fresco dining.

With the Transition Town network rapidly growing throughout the UK (I hear St Reatham is being rolled out next – blimey…) it is with apt timing that the fine folk of Transition Town Wivenhoe update us with news of their many varied and sustainable activities around the town.

The Transition ethos of changing your little local part of the world, rather than the bigger picture of the planet, is evident once again with a well though out schedule of events for Wivenhoe:

“Broomgrove School need help with their garden on Friday 18th March, any time you can spare between 9am-3pm. We plan to dig up some established tree trunks, old plants and create willow arches and bamboo fences in our sensory garden. The more the merrier!”

Many hands make light work – an email over here should be sufficient to register an interest in helping out.

With spring finally saying hello around the estuary wilds, the monthly Wivenhoe Farmer’s Market gets to head outdoors by the Congregational Hall once again. A venture out on Saturday morning between 9-12, and you may even bump into these delightful ladies.

Plus TTW will also have a presence:

“This Saturday 19th March, 9-12 Farmers Market. TTW stall includes seed swapping – bring your seeds (not too old please!) to get swapsies. If you don’t have any seeds, just make a donation.”

But as ever, it’s all about the bike…

“Want to learn about bike generators – what they can be used for or how to build your own? There will be two workshops in Wivenhoe on Saturday afternoons 2nd and 9th April. To register interest, please email hello-bikepower@transitionwivenhoe.org.uk

“Interested in car sharing or want to help get a TTW cargo bikes scheme going? Interested in sustainable transport initiatives? Please get in touch and we’ll organise a get together.”

Anyone wanting to make their home more energy efficient in Wivenhoe may want to take up the very kind offer of a free home energy assessment:

“TTW Energy Assessors have started carrying out free home energy assessments, book yours by emailing hello-energy@transitionwivenhoe.org.uk or calling Bob on 07507 841158.”

Anything um, Brixton (blimey!) can do, Wivenhoe can hopefully do even better:

“TTW wants to plan an ‘unleashing’ event / party, any helpers welcome, first meeting Tuesday 5th April, 7.30pm. Please get in touch if you are interested. Just to get your creative juices flowing, here’s how Norwich and Brixton did theirs…”

The Broad Lane Future project may have gone rather quiet since the New Year, but TTW’s part of the grand project at least seems to be bearing some fruition:

“Wivenhoe Town Football Club are starting some temporary allotments in large builders bags and may need help to set things up. No date for action days yet, but please let us know if you are interested to help and we’ll keep you posted.”

And keeping it #hyperlocal (ish) – our nearby neighbours are starting to get a feel of the benefits of setting up a Transition Town:

“Welcome to Transition Chelmsford, recently started; and here’s a link to Transition Colchester“

And finally…

It’s not all about acting under the banner of TTW. What I very much like about this group is the willingness to help other organisations out around the town. As well as the ace Halloween event down at the Quay, and a considerable presence in helping out at the May Fair, TTW is also offering support for the spring riverbank clean up being organised by the Wivenhoe Society.

The 10th April at 10am is the date for your diary, meeting outside The Station for a morning of making the Colne an even pleasanter part of the world in which to live.

Early Sunday morning and @BrockwellLido was bloody closed – again. After the run of five closures during the balmy days of June, I thought Fusion had finally understood how to manage an outdoor swimming pool.

Only yesterday and I was commenting to the lovely Lido Peter how the clear, blue waters of Lake Brockwell have returned, just in time for the season close at the end of September. Sunday morning however had the familiar “chemical imbalance” given as the reason for the lack of aquatic action.

Bugger.

To be fair to Fusion, all members have been offered a 10% discount on the joining fee for the 2011 season. Cynics might say that this serves only as an incentive to sign up yet again. What’s the point if you’re buggering off @BrockwellLido continues to suffer the same fate next summer?

Having dragged my backside down to Brockwell Park early on Sunday morning, the inconvenience for me was more of a personal and emotional disappointment.

The tally chart counting down my final days of outdoor swimming in SE24 is almost in single digits. A closed pool is about as welcome as a LambethLabour pledge of “free swimming for every resident” right now.

Ah yes – about that pre-election promise of “free swimming for every resident…”

In the absence of any @BrockwellLido action, I returned down Railton Road and found myself staring into the abyss of Brixton Rec.

Blimey.

The queue at reception finally cleared after five minutes – this was 9am on a Sunday morning, after all. Ahead of me to be served was a young mother with three small kids. She asked for an adult swimming ticket, and three passes for the free swimming for her children.

“Sorry,” said the GLL receptionist. “Free swimming is no longer available.” A price was quoted, which didn’t leave much change out of a £20 note. Not surprisingly the young mother had to explain to her three small kids that swimming wasn’t going to happen today.

I paid my £3.50, and then walked past the petition on the wall set up by the Brixton Rec Users Group. It calls for @LambethLabour to reconsider its decision to slash free swimming for under 16′s and over 60′s. The election pledge of “free swimming for every resident” has long since been sacrificed.

I’m told that just over 2,000 signatures have so far been collected by local leisure users – quite an achievement. One thousand more are still required for the Rec Users Group to force the next Full Council meeting to actually take the petition seriously and debate the matter.

That Lambeth Life Power to the People twaddle of a headline is looking more false as the @LambethLabour cuts start to kick in.

With the disappointment of Brockwell behind me, and now ready to experience the delights of Brixton Rec on a Sunday morning, I showered and slipped into the pool. Five minutes later and I was finished.

It was simply impossible to undertake any form of exercise in a public pool that is rammed bumper to bumper with swimmers early on a Sunday morning. That’s what happens when the “success story” of leisure in Lambeth leads to only one pool that is actually open in the entire borough.

I’ll be back at the waters of Lake Brockwell come Monday morning. If the “chemical imbalance” is still lingering, I’ll have to admit defeat and accept that the buggers have won.

“Free swimming for every resident?”

Only in the Rotten Borough…

The political hot potato that is privatised public swimming continues to rumble on. Whilst we’re still waiting for the roll out of the @LambethLabour election manifesto pledge of “free swimming for every resident,” our Red Flag flying friends in the Rotten Borough have now pulled free swimming for under 16′s and over 60′s.

Ah – but have they? Not on my watch etc, and it is of course those nasty ConDems who have been doing the cutting, according to the Comrades @LambethLabour. Using this logic, and your entire election manifesto might as well have been written on the back of a fag packet, with the handy opt out cause of blaming the bigger Westminster political picture whenever you get your kickers in a twist over the calculations locally.

Cripes.

But swimming is still a public service that resonates with many. There’s votes out there in those swimming lanes, doncta know. Right of centre politicians, be they ConDems or @LambethLabour, know this all too well. This is the political logic behind the passing the buck policy of #bigsociety and #lambethcoop.

But could swimming actually be left to the Little People to run? Patrick Butler has posted up an excellent blog post over at Guardian Society, examining specifically what is required for the pubic to take over the management of a local authority owned pool.

The sales pitch for #lambethcoop states that everything is up for grabs – housing, education, swimming. It’s the great Rotten Borough give away – the buggers will give to the Little People, and then bugger off until polling day comes around once again.

Butler makes the worthy point that the public management of swimming pools will probably only work in middle class suburbs where the locals have the time, knowledge and political capital to make such a proposition happen. The only collective spirit you’ll find at Brixton Rec is the continued moaning over the state of the changing rooms, the queues at reception or the over crowding of the pool.

The advice offered by Butler to any Speedo clad civic minded swimmer is to get support from the local authority:

“The state and its agencies still matter: big society swimming pools don’t survive in an infrastructure support-free zone.”

Too true here in Lambeth. Streatham is propped up (and closed) with support from the corporate paymaster of Tesco. Clap’ham is propped up (and running two years plus behind schedule) thanks to the Cathedral Group’s mismanagement of private capital.

I often think that we have reached the nadir of leisure provision here in Lambeth. It was looking bleak when Streatham closed last year. Clap’ham soon followed, and then in the same month, Brixton operated the bonkers 7am – 9am only swimming policy.

With only one leisure centre now remaining in the Rotten Borough, and ALL free swimming removed, the plug has all but been pulled from the public provision of leisure in Lambeth.

Maybe it is this absolute rock bottom that might just kick start the Little People to fight back and actually consider running the facilities collectively? Offering an inferior service than that currently provided by @LambethLabour isn’t possible.

But then this would be the reaction that the Comrades at the Town Hall would no doubt see as an endorsement of the PR farce that is #lambethcoop. The reality would be the exact opposite – collective action against the inability of the local authority to provide a service, rather than a co-operative partnership working in support of the local council.

Either way, it still represents a failure of the right wing privatisation of leisure in Lambeth by @LambethLabour, and the long-term consequences that this will leave for years within the Rotten Borough.

I have so far kept away from #brixvill, the Thursday night pop up events taking place at Granville Arcade Brixton Village, and organised by the splendid folk of @spacemkrs. Nothing sinister – simply work commitments have clogged up the summer schedule.

But with an Evening Standard praise piece, and the clock counting down ever faster towards the Great Escape, I thought it was about time I took in the weekly highlight of Thursday Lates that has got so many locals buzzing about the bottom up regeneration of Brixton.

The basic idea is to extend the highly successful spacemakers pop up shop formula to a late night opening once a week. Since the start of the year, Brixton Village has had new life breathed into the empty units. Spacemakers has encouraged local businesses and event organisers to work alongside the more traditional traders.

With an art angle added into many of these ideas, it makes sense to open up the Arcade into the evening once a week, and to encourage diners to try out the many new restaurants. Weekly open meetings take place on a Tuesday across the road at the Dogstar. Anyone with an idea or theme for a future Thursday Late is invited to share his or her thoughts.

It all sounds incredibly altruistic, not to mention slightly idealistic -but it also works rather well. Thursday Lates has seen the coming together of old school Brixton, affluent young professionals and the Bright Yong Hipsters, all working and learning together to create something that is uniquely Brixton in outlook.

The old school Brixton boys provide the bass, the affluent young professionals pontificate over the fine food (in a picky, but appreciative manner.) The Bright Young Hipsters simply hang around and add a creative edge.

Meanwhile, @AnnaJCowen and I simply wandered up and down the diverse aisles, looking slightly out of place, but still not feeling left out. I like to think that there is some of the old school Brixton, the affluent young professionals and the Bright Young Hipsters contained within our collective coupling psyche.

The very existence of spacemakers at Brixton Village is a short-term proposition by choice. The business model (if there even is one) is directly related to the direction that the economy may, or may not take, over the coming months.

But by breathing life back into the area, spacemakers has helped to stimulate Brixton Market at a time when our friends from @lambeth_council seem intent on giving the traders a bloody kick in the teeth.

The decision to relocate the permanent temporary Streatham Ice Rink to Pope’s Road Car Park could well wipe out all of the economic goodwill that spacemakers has helped to put in place.

A public meeting to keep the temporary ice pad out of the market is being held at 7pm next Tuesday at the nearby Karibu. If any sense of the co-operation and community that can be found at Thursday Lates is present at the meeting, then Pope’s Road just may well have a future in supporting the traders, once spacemakers feel that it is time to move out.

Here we go again…

Streatham Hub – it’s the Lambeth planning hot potato that no one wants to take hold of. Especially so Tesco, the corporate paymaster.

The latest twist in the decade long running farce to build a new ice rink and leisure centre in SW16 took another spin this week. With @lambeth_council cabinet planning to place the permanent temporary ice pad down the A23 at Pope’s Road, resistance has already started to organise.

The fine Friends of Brixton Market [disclosure: I am a member, along with a rather decent @LambethLabour councillor] voted on Tuesday to formally oppose the planning application for Pope’s Road.

With the council owned car park having been closed since December 2009 because of “structural difficulties,” traders have reported a loss of up to 30% in earnings. As one representative stated at the recent cabinet meeting, customers buy in bulk in Brixton. With nowhere to park, the trade moves out of the area.

There is a feeling of a double whammy by @lambeth-council, straight in the face of the Friends of Brixton Market. Not allowing customers to use cars to shop in the area is bad enough, but trade is then shifted out elsewhere – probably to Streatham, and probably towards the corporate paymaster that is Tesco, once the new store is built.

Meanwhile, back in SW16 and the hockey players and skaters of Streatham don’t want to make the reverse journey down to Brixton. Never the twain shall meet, or so it seems.

The decision by the Friends of Brixton Market to directly take on @lambeth_council is a repeat all over again of the highly successful campaign put in place by the Hands Off Our Common group.

Alarmed that a public space was going to be the permanent temporary place for the ice pad, the group mobilised and campaigned, forcing cabinet to make an embarrassing U-turn. A similar show of resistance from local people will cause considerable embarrassment to a cabinet that has pretty much run out of ideas when it comes to the Streatham Question.

It is unlikely that any of the other twelve sites will now be considered. Brixton was the best of a bad bunch. Brockwell Park and Clap’ham Common will meet the same show of resistance from the respective Friends groups.

The tragedy of the situation is that local communities are being pitted against one another by a cabinet that has the answer sitting right on it’s SW16 doorstep. The possible site along Streatham High Road remains vacant. All that it requires is for the corporate paymaster to put its fingers in the pie and cough up a bit more.

With a demand for 40% more retail space from the original planning application, it seems that the you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours arrangement that has come to characterise Streatham Hub, isn’t quite as equal as both bed fellows like to portray.

The second @lambeth_council cabinet meeting of the new administration and any online observer who had downloaded the agenda front sheet in advance would have been caught out.

Whoops.

Bumped up ahead of items including the Schools Exclusion Scrutiny Commission Action Plan, the Council Performance Digest and the Response to Dogs Scrutiny Commission (cripes) were the small matters of the Emergency Budget and Streatham Hub.

Blimey.

It was a collision of cabinet management, or even mis-management, depending on your own political point of view. Judging by the packed attendance in a sultry Room 8 at Lambeth Town Hall, it tended to suggest that the electorate had turned out to witness how the mis-management could best be resolved..

The Emergency Budget has mobilised a broad *shhh* coalition of objectors – Unison, the NUT and even the lovely Lambeth Tories. There was a vocal protest ahead of the meeting, but not much placard waving from the Blue Rinse mob on the steps of the Town Hall.

You can’t but help think that the Union representation is left wondering exactly who is the enemy here – the ConDem coalition for picking up the pieces left by the fag end of the New Labour government, or the local @LambethLabour party that is implementing the public sector cuts locally.

Inside Room 8 and I was greeted with the sight of @lambeth_council Chief Executive Derrick Anderson standing on top of a committee table. Cripes – was the big man about to stage his own one man Chief Exec protest, or perhaps even participate in some table top dancing?

Um, nope – he was simply getting more seats down to accommodate the larger than anticipated angry crowd at cabinet. That’s what I like about Lambeth politics – the big cheese is even doing his bit to appease the Little People.

@cllrstevereed introduced the debate, pointing the finger of blame for the Lambeth cuts on the ConDem coalition government. Councillor McGlone, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources followed the lead.

Repeating the Nu Labour manifesto strap line of “we’re on you’re side” [clever] Councillor McGlone pointed out how the BSF and Connexions shortfall in funding are directly accountable to the national government. He was heckled down within the first minute.

Speaking for the @LambethLibDems opposition, Councillor Gavin Dodsworth stated that this was a “shocking introduction to the emergency budget.”

“No figures have been available and so we are not in a position to see if there is a better way of managing these cuts. It is complete gibberish. Lambeth Life has just been given a £1m plus increase in funding, and you have made no reference to the synergies [urgh!] that were pledged in the Lambeth Labour manifesto.”

Conservative Councillor John Whelan was then left in the absurd position to criticise the @LambethLabour cuts, a financial necessity that is of a direct consequence of his own political party. The good Councillor just about got away with it, adding:

“You should have put in place this Emergency Budget before the election, rather than wait to blame the Conservatives. The local Labour party speaks to the media about taking legal action against the BSF programme, but I have yet to see any evidence of this.”

Which is a good point and well put.

But it is at the blunt end of the frontline activity where these savage cuts will be felt the strongest. This is a point recognised by the Unison representative, who like Councillor Whelan, was left with a ridiculous ideological position in criticising a Labour council that is keen to make cuts and redundancies. It’s a funny old business this Nu politics.

“I am so disgusted and angry that it is hard to get my feelings out. A Labour council is planning to make 400 people redundant. This is unforgivable.”

A somewhat tenuous link was then made that this is a racist policy and is in breach of the Race Relations Act. The misguided thinking is that it is ethnic minority staff that will suffer as they are predominantly employed within this sector.

Many things in the Rotten Borough are the direct fault of @LambethLabour, but a wider sociological study linking ethnicity with social status would probably provide a more informed response.

Sarah Thompson of the NUT added:

“It is so frustrating that cabinet has only given me three minutes to talk about over three hundred job losses. The people of Lambeth didn’t vote Labour to be hit by public sector cuts.”

@cllr_robbins, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People looked elsewhere for the blame, stating:

“The ConDem coalition has taken a wrecking ball to public services. It is the government that is making savage cuts.”

Councillor Jim Dickson, the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing offered a partial solution:

“I have been in local government for twenty years. It makes sense to make these cuts in bureaucracy rather then frontline services.”

Which is all rather strange, seeing as this is the exact opposite of what @LambethLabour is proposing.

“We need to share the pain fairly. We will be working with our neighbouring boroughs.”

I wonder if this *shhh* co-operation will also include Wandsworth? It would be a shame if in this new spirit of co-operation, @lambeth_council only chose to partner neighbouring boroughs that share the same political persuasion.

Speaking of co-operation – no one actually did. There wasn’t a single mention of #lambethcoop throughout the half hour Emergency Budget debate. Let us not forget that the rolling out of #lambethcoop is all about balancing the books. @cllrstevereed has stated previously:

“The Labour Government and Conservative and Lib Dem parties nationally have signalled significant cuts in public spending after the General Election. The cuts facing local councils could be greater than 20% overall. This means all councils are looking at how they can deliver services differently in future.”

#lambethcoop is all about the budget, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

The removal of democratic responsibility and accountability of elected councillors would be a mighty high price to pay if the cost-saving agenda wasn’t actually bundled in with #lambethcoop.

It was then left to @cllrstevereed to close the cabinet Emergency Budget debate with the Leader of @lambeth_council arguing:

“We are operating under the constraints of a government of a different [political] colour to us. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be any pain, but we need to minimise this. We will not be making cuts that are not inflicted by the government.”

At least that is what I think @cllrsteverred said. It was difficult to hear underneath all of the heckling.

As with all @lambeth_council matters, the Emergency Budget was passed without debate from the cabinet. No objectors, and the agenda item was ticked off the list.

Deep breath. Here comes Streatham Hub.

Oh Lordy.

Pretty much everything that has to be said about the failed Hub project was spoken @ChukaUmunna‘s People’s Question Time staged in Streatham last week. Listening and answering questions at Dunraven School on Thursday was @QueenFlo, the Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and the Olympics.

@QueenFlo made no reference at cabinet to the packed People’s Question time that she attended in Streatham less than a week ago. Not one person at @ChukaUmunna’s crisis meeting spoke in support of the Pope’s Road compromise. It seems that the strong message coming out of SW16 wasn’t relayed to cabinet.

Speaking about the plan to shift the temporary ice rink away from Streatham and to Pope’s Road car park in Brixton, Councillor Prentice, the Cabinet Member for Regeneration, admitted that:

“This is not the prefect solution.”

As for swimming in Streatham, @QueenFlo added:

“We did investigate a site for the temporary pool. The priority was always the continuity of ice. We don’t wish to peruse temporary swimming in Streatham.”

Not wishing to peruse swimming seems to be a strong theme within the Rotten Borough right now. The Brixton Rec Users Group have found out on this very same evening that cabinet is now planning to axe free swimming for under-5′s and over 60′s. Where this leaves the @LambethLabour election pledge of “free swimming for every resident” is open to speculation.

But back to Streatham. Or even back to Brixton. @LambethLibDems’ Councillor Alex Davies said:

“This is a further assault on Streatham. Tesco said that it can’t afford to help fund the temporary rink to remain in Streatham.”

This is no laughing matter, although @JackHopkins_Lab, my local Oval councillor, couldn’t but help find some humour in this rather serious point.

Meanwhile, @LambethLabour’s Councillor David Malley spoke as though a loaded gun was pointed towards his head, accepting with no opposition the removal of one of the major cultural and economic landmarks in his Streatham South ward.

A local Streatham swimmer tried to offer his view, but his three minutes at the mic were curtailed somewhat by @cllrstevereed, who was keen to question the swimmer under what capacity he was speaking – a swimmer or as a member of a local political party.

*sigh*

It’s all about the swimming, isn’t it?

Peter Newmark from the very successful Hands Off Our Common group was:

“Happy that the temporary ice rink is not going to be on the Common, but the alternative site should be in Streatham. Brixton has had plenty of regeneration. Streatham remains in relative poverty.”

But it’s not all about Streatham – Brixton is going to take a huge economic hit if Pope’s Road car park becomes a new ice rink. More to the point, Brixton Market will be left to die on its backside.

This was a point ably demonstrated by the Secretary of the Brixton Market Trader’s Association, who brought into cabinet an industrial size packet of rice and a barrel of cooking oil.

The message was that with nowhere to park cars in central Brixton, locals couldn’t be expected to carry such items on public transport. Members of cabinet were invited to road test the weight of the items. I had my camera at the ready, but sadly this was a photo opp that wasn’t going to happen.

“The multi-cultural, working class market will cease to exist” was the claim.

“Shops specialise in selling in bulk. This move is contrary to the council supposed support of the Brixton £. The council PR states that Brixton is Open for Business. Not anymore it isn’t.”

The final word on Streatham Hub was left to Councillor Lib Peck, the Cabinet Member for Housing:

“We need to be clear with Tesco. We need to get out of it what we want, and they need to get out of it what they want.”

Ever danced with the devil in the Devil in the pale moonlight?

And so with apologies to the Schools Exclusion Scrutiny Commission Action Plan, the Council Performance Digest and the Response to Dogs Scrutiny Commission (the decent @imogenwalker showing that her bark is as fierce as her bite) – it really was all about cuts and ice-skating at cabinet.

One of them involves blaming the free market ConDem coalition; the other is all about doing dirty deals with a corporate paymaster to provide a council run service.

See what I’ve done there?