Last monday Victoria, Renata and I attended our first Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council meeting since becoming councillors. We want this blog to be a source of local news and views, not just for people who can come along these kinds of meetings, but also for those who can't. In that spirit, this post is a summary of the decisions and issues which were discussed at the meeting
Victoria was chairing the meeting for the first time and with a packed agenda she had her work cut out. After the introductions and other formalities we moved onto the community safety update from our local police team. The police informed us that in recent weeks they had been concentrating their efforts a small number of individuals in the Peckham Rye/Nunhead area who were responsible for a significant proportion of local crime and anti-social behaviour. There were then several questions from the floor about other community safety concerns.
The next item on the agenda was "Introduction to Community Councils". There were many new faces at the meeting and so it was good to hear from the Southwark Neighbourhood Co-ordinator for Nunhead and Peckham Rye who explained the remit and purpose of commuity council meetings. Community Council meetings are a forum for consulting local people and provide an opportunity for residents to influence how council services are delivered. They are also the body which allow your local councillors to allocate pots of money for local projects (more of that later).
Next, everyone at the meeting broke up into ward groups and we discussed the kind of practices that make community council work well and those that don't. In my group, People liked the opportunity to discuss controversial issues and the chance to hold council officers (and councillors) to account for the decisions they make. The things people were less keen on were that sometimes meetings seemed too formal and council officers sometimes failed to provide information promised at previous meetings. These were just a few of the numerous suggestions that were made.
All of the ward groups reported back to the Community Council as a whole and the suggestions made will now be used to improve the conduct of future meetings.
Next came the Community Council Fund allocations. Before announcing which projects would recieve money from the Community Council Fund there was a presentation from the Friends of Peckham Rye Park to explain how they had spent a previous allocation of money on helping to organise the increasingly popular Peckham Rye Fete. the full list of projects funded by this round of allocations will soon be available on the Southwark Council website via the minutes. They should be available here soon.
The remainder of the meeting included a presentation on the various technicalities of recycling in Southwark (something that the Labour Administration is determined to to take a close look at in order to boost recycling), an update on Peckham Space and questions from the floor. All in all it was a very succesful meeting and we look forward to getting more done for the Nunhead and Peckham Rye area at the Community Council over the coming months and years.
Victoria was chairing the meeting for the first time and with a packed agenda she had her work cut out. After the introductions and other formalities we moved onto the community safety update from our local police team. The police informed us that in recent weeks they had been concentrating their efforts a small number of individuals in the Peckham Rye/Nunhead area who were responsible for a significant proportion of local crime and anti-social behaviour. There were then several questions from the floor about other community safety concerns.
The next item on the agenda was "Introduction to Community Councils". There were many new faces at the meeting and so it was good to hear from the Southwark Neighbourhood Co-ordinator for Nunhead and Peckham Rye who explained the remit and purpose of commuity council meetings. Community Council meetings are a forum for consulting local people and provide an opportunity for residents to influence how council services are delivered. They are also the body which allow your local councillors to allocate pots of money for local projects (more of that later).
Next, everyone at the meeting broke up into ward groups and we discussed the kind of practices that make community council work well and those that don't. In my group, People liked the opportunity to discuss controversial issues and the chance to hold council officers (and councillors) to account for the decisions they make. The things people were less keen on were that sometimes meetings seemed too formal and council officers sometimes failed to provide information promised at previous meetings. These were just a few of the numerous suggestions that were made.
All of the ward groups reported back to the Community Council as a whole and the suggestions made will now be used to improve the conduct of future meetings.
Next came the Community Council Fund allocations. Before announcing which projects would recieve money from the Community Council Fund there was a presentation from the Friends of Peckham Rye Park to explain how they had spent a previous allocation of money on helping to organise the increasingly popular Peckham Rye Fete. the full list of projects funded by this round of allocations will soon be available on the Southwark Council website via the minutes. They should be available here soon.
The remainder of the meeting included a presentation on the various technicalities of recycling in Southwark (something that the Labour Administration is determined to to take a close look at in order to boost recycling), an update on Peckham Space and questions from the floor. All in all it was a very succesful meeting and we look forward to getting more done for the Nunhead and Peckham Rye area at the Community Council over the coming months and years.
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