Peckham Rye Labour

This new poster showing our contact and ward surgery details will be put up in locations across the ward. Apologies in advance for any children who are frightened by the slightly odd facial expressions in our photos!

Great news that children will still be able to swim for free in Southwark despite Government cuts. In even better news this will be at no extra cost to the council and council tax payers after the new Labour administration managed to get Fusion (our local leisure provider) to cover the costs. Southwark Council introduced free swimming in April 2009 with funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Since its introduction there have been 2000 free visits each month at our local pools. Sadly, it looked like this would all come to an end when this funding was one of the things cut in June by the new Tory-Lib Dem Government. The timing could hardly have been worse with school holiday just about to start. So it's a real testiment to the lobbying of the new Labour Council that we managed to secure this agreement with Fusion. From September the council will introduce a 60p swims for under-16s and over-60s. It's disappointing that this isn't quite the same cheap day out...

I thought it was about time for a general update on our activities as ward councillors for Peckham Rye. Having been a councillor for more than two months I think we can say that Victoria, Renata and I are starting to get our feet firmly under the table. From my point of view, the work seems to break down into three distinct areas. 1. Casework – These are individual issues which residents living in our ward approach us about because they need some help. Casework can be picked up at our regular surgeries, via e-mail, telephone calls and even just passing people in the street. It is can be particularly rewarding to be able to help people in this way because it’s clear when you’ve got a result. Examples of casework we’ve dealt with so far include: complaints about the housing repairs service, problems with the collection of recycling and a noise nuisance issue in the Nunhead part of our ward. Casework can often put us at odds with the council bureaucracy (which can sometimes also be the so...

I was delighted to be shown round what will be the community wildlife garden in Peckham Rye Park today. This is a project that has been driven forward by the Friends of Peckham Rye Park. Not far from the park toilets is a fenced off area that I confess I had never noticed before today. Behind the gates is a substantial area that, once transformed, will include a pond, some beehives, a summer and winter garden and a pergola. It's marked on the plan below: Despite the Friends of Peckham Rye Park successfully bidding for several pots of money, only work on the pathway in the garden is complete. Sadly, this project was let down by the previous Lib Dem-Tory administration which failed to make as much progress as it might have done. The Friends are now determined to have one final push to get the wildlife garden completed in time for their September 2011 fete. As well as committing some of their own funds to the project, they are also bidding for National Lottery funding. As a result of ...