Skip to main content

One O’Clock Club Update

As some readers will know, there is a great deal of community interest in the future of Peckham Rye One O’Clock Club, partly as a result of the budget cuts which have hit Southwark Council and also as a result of rumours that the club was soon to close.

We’re not sure where the rumours have come from and we remain committed to keeping the club open. We’re now at the stage where we want to set up a community ‘steering group’ for the club to make sure that happens.

The cuts mean that the staffing budget for One O’Clock Clubs across the borough will be cut from next April – the budget to cover maintenance and running costs (heating, lighting etc.) remains. Two One O’Clock Clubs are pretty certain to be run by local children’s centres – i.e. they will take on the club and run the club without charging the council as they will benefit from the use of buildings at other times. We had hoped that this might be a possibility for Peckham Rye and negotiations continue with Rye Oak. However, at the moment there is no certainty that this will happen.

We have therefore been investigating exactly what responsibility the community would take on if a group of people came forward to run the club. On the face of it, it might be quite a big ask as parents would need to organise the club being open, cleaning it up at the end of the day and possibly managing bookings for other users. However, it looks like there would be no cost to community group and no charging for people who use the club. The council will offer some help in getting things set up and also investigate whether the council’s parks team whether they might be able to help out with a few things.

As there is money to rebuild the club, it’s also possible that the rebuild could be timed for April which would allow the community a little more time to get organised before it opened with a new club.

Lots of questions remain and we are a little frustrated that we still have some unanswered questions after having waited so long. However, we’re hoping we’ll have more answers very soon and would also like to hear what interest there is from the local community to help run the club. So we’re suggesting a meeting sometime in the week beginning 7 or 14 Nov. We need to check availability of a few council officers but it would be good to hear any thoughts about what time during the day or evening would be best for people to meet. We’ll then post a finalised date here asap.

Comments

  1. the council aint gonna pay for ya to help ur community i live in london,brixton that needs more help than your neighbourhood.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Know Your Ryes!

A few weeks ago I was in a meeting with some local residents and council officers. During the meeting one person started referring to Rye Lane, when in fact they meant Peckham Rye East. Later on another started talking about Peckham Rye Common and it took us a little while to work out that they really meant Peckham Rye Park.   You can't really blame people for getting a little confused. There are so many references to "Rye" in our little bit of South London that even the locals can get mixed up. So I thought I'd have a go at writing a little glossary of all the Ryes hereabout.  Clearly I'm making a rod for my own back here, so please point out any errors I've made in the comments box below.  Anyway, here are my definitions of the ubiquitous Ryes. Some serious, some not so serious, and in no particular order: Peckham Rye Ward - The council ward area. Peckham Rye Ward was created out of Rye Ward, Waverley Ward and Bellenden Ward following the Local

Lib Dems claim they're not in charge in Peckham Rye

(A tweet from the Peckham Rye Lib Dems) Peckham Rye Lib Dems are now claiming that Labour 'run' Peckham Rye (take a look above). When asked by a local resident "Am I right in thinking Lib Dems run Southwark but Labour run Peckham Rye?", a Peckham Rye Lib Dem candiate replied, "Yes you're right. For the next three months Lab run Peckham Rye. Then we take over..." Given that, just like every other area in Southwark, Peckham Rye is run by the Lib Dem-Tory Executive it seems this is just the latest in a string of attempts to mislead people into thinking they've got nothing to do with Southwark's failures. Of course, Peckham Rye does have three Labour councillors, who do a great job of representing our area and our concerns at the Town Hall. However this is very different from 'running' Peckham Rye. If only we could just opt out of the Lib Dem chaos! In truth, the policy levers and almost all the money spent by the council are under the cont

Peckham Rye Adventure Playground: protected

As local residents will know, Southwark Council has suffered as a result of unprecedented cuts Government funding since 2010.  The council has had a third of its funding cut. As  a result  of these deep cuts, the council has been forced to consider reduc ing   adventure  play services.  This could have meant that Peckham Rye Adventure Playground, while keeping its weekend sessions, might have lost of its four after-school sessions . Many local people spoke to us about this issue and Renata, Victoria and I  were committed to using our local devolved budget to protect the hours to ensure the reduction would have been avoided. I’m very pleased to tell you that, at last night’s budget setting meeting, w e managed to secure a commitment that Peckham Rye Adventure Playground will see no change in opening hours.  We are now taking a look at how the hours are structured to see if it would be possible to open up the playground to more people over the whole of the weekend.  Watch thi