Peckham Rye Labour

With Peckham Rye Park and Common right at the heart of our area why not tell Southwark what's good and bad about Peckham Rye, how often you use it and what might improve it? You have until 30th April to fill in this online survey from the council . Many of you will be aware of the plans for a new One O'clock Club and new changing rooms and pitches for local sports clubs. This survey is another good opportunity to tell the council to get on with this much needed work. Of course, the Rye isn't the only green space in our area, so if you're a fan of One Tree Hill or Brenchley Gardens or Nunhead Cemetery then this is also a chance for you to express your opinions. Southwark's website says that information collected from the survey will be used to inform future council decisions related to parks and open spaces. For those of you in the East Dulwich part of the ward, you may also be interested in the Goose Green consultation that is currently taking place. This consultati...

We’ve just been given some really shocking news about the school admissions forum – the body which oversees almost all aspects of Southwark’s school admissions. Many readers will already know about the chaotic allocation of primary school places in East Dulwich and Nunhead for 2009-10, when the council hugely underestimated the demand for places in local schools and failed to provide enough staff to administer the process adequately. Having a cross party appraoch on the admissions forum was essential to ensuring that officers were challenged to improve the process this year. With the apparent support of Peckham Rye Lib Dems, Southwark’s Lib Dem/Tory coalition, have thrown the Labour representative off the committee, without any explanation. Southwark Labour’s Education spokesperson Cllr Veronica Ward had been a member of the School Admissions Forum for almost four years, before being chucked off at a meeting of Lib Dems and Tories on Monday night. She had attended the forum far mor...

Speaking to people when we're out and about in Peckham Rye, there does seem to be some confusion about how well Southwark is performing on recycling. Tory and Lib Dem canvassers seem eager to muddy the waters on this important issue. What follows is a quick summary of the facts and our own position on recycling. In November 2009, the latest official league tables for recycling rates in England were published. Incredibly, the figures reveal that Southwark council has become the 6th worst council in the country for recycling. Southwark recycles less than 21% of household waste and the Lib Dems and Tories couldn't even manage a 1% increase in the recycling rate over last year. When they took charge of Southwark in 2002, the Lib Dems and Tories promised to increase the borough’s recycling rate to 30% by 2010. Not only have they failed to meet that promise but, when compared to the rest of the country, they have dramatically moved backwards. Recycling rates in neighbouring Labour La...

Just a very quick update to tell you about Val Shawcross' (our Labour London Assembly Member) question to the Mayor of London about the extension of the 63 bus route that we're campaigning for. Val asked what the prospects were of getting an extension but was given this dissapointing response . Nevertheless, residents of Peckham Rye shouldn't give up hope of us eventually getting a result on this. It may take some time, but I'm sure we can get there in the end. I recently wrote to Southwark News to promote the campaign and we've got further activities planned for the future. Watch this place for more on the 63. P.S. If you find the link to Val Shawcross' question isn't working, this is because of a temporary problem with the GLA website. You might need to keep refreshing the link before you can see it.

Many readers will already know about the chaotic allocation of primary school places in East Dulwich and Nunhead for 2009-10. The council hugely underestimated the demand for places in local schools and failed to provide enough staff to administer the process adequately. As a result, many children were allocated to schools far away from where they lived and many parents were left in the dark about the status of their applications. Following pressure from local parents, Labour councillors and MPs, the council has promised to provide extra classes in local schools for 2010-11 and to employ more staff to improve the administration of the applications process and communication with local parents. In recent weeks, after a successful campaign by our local MPs, Tessa Jowell and Harriet Harman, highlighting the acute shortage of primary school places in our area, the Government has reacted by allocating an additional £12million to Southwark council to address this problem. This is a serious am...

Just a very quick reminder that today sees the introduction of Oyster Pay As You Go on Southern and South Eastern trains. After a very, very long wait, this means that people travelling from Nunhead, Peckham Rye, East Dulwich, Honor Oak and Brockley can now travel using this form of payment. Frustratingly, some stations don’t yet allow you to update your card at the station, meaning you might need to go to a local newsagents instead. Also, some of the changes to ticket prices don’t see that fair. You can see more info from the train companies here and here . It may have taken years to reach this point with the train companies, but its better late than never.

Cheeky, I admit, but we’ve decided to make an offer to our Lib Dem opponents in Peckham Rye. Some of the recent statements made by Lib Dems standing in this ward for the council elections have been a little wacky to say the least. They seem determined to steer clear of the issues and their local newsletters routinely deny any responsibility for running Southwark council for the past 7 ½ years. We thought that maybe their refusal to talk about the concerns of local people (such as the allocation of primary school places, the hole in the housing maintenance budget and the council’s poor recycling record) might be down to the distance they live from the ward. You see, none of them live in Peckham Rye and two of the three live a twenty minute bus ride away. Maybe they’re having trouble getting over to our part of Southwark? Maybe the recent rain and cold weather has been putting them off making the trip? It’s relatively easy for us to talk to people in Peckham Rye because they’re our neigh...

Victoria and Gavin with Cllr Fiona Colley, who chaired the meeting which looked into the council's handling of primary school admissions in our area. Those of you who attended last month’s public meeting on primary school admissions in our area were treated a good deal of bluff from both Lib Dem councillors and council officers. At times they made it sound as if local parents were being positively rude for asking questions about the council’s administration of this year’s admissions. But the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. We know the process has been poorly handled because of the huge levels of concern demonstrated by local parents. This didn’t happen in other boroughs, and it happened in Southwark for a reason. Peckham Rye’s Labour Councillor Robert Smeath recently sought to get to the bottom of the situation in Southwark with a question at the last full council meeting. Councillor Smeath asked the Leader of the Council to: “Please detail the percentage of ne...

We braved the rain and wind earlier today to talk to people on St Aidan's Road, Marcus Garvey Mews and Dunstan's Road about local bus services. We know that in Peckham Rye ward lots of people, including ourselves, are reliant on bus services. That’s why we’re particularly worried by the Mayor’s recent proposals to cut bus services and funding. We were delighted that our London Assembly Member, Val Shawcross , who is also deputy chair of the Assembly’s Transport Committee and Labour Spokesperson for Transport was able to join us. You can read Val's response to the Mayor's proposals here . Generally, people are pretty happy with bus services, particularly the 63 and 363. However, many shared our concerns that less buses could have a big impact. I don't have a car so comments about making sure that you give yourself an extra 10 or 15 minutes to get somewhere on the bus ring true. Often you get lucky and a bus turns up straight away, but sometimes you don't, meanin...

Several weeks ago we attended the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting which was investigating admissions to primary schools and the provision of places in Dulwich and East Dulwich. The treatment of parents by Southwark’s admissions team and the action needed to ensure adequate primary school places available were, of course, the main topics discussed. Thanks to pressure from local parents and their Labour representatives, Southwark’s Lib Dem/Tory administration has been forced to add staff to their admissions teams and put in place plans for extra “bulge” classes in local schools to cope with possible extra demand in the future. But in addition to these shorter term measures, there was also discussion about what else could be done to avoid this year’s debacle being repeated in the longer term. One telling contribution to this debate came from the headteacher of a local primary that was performing extremely well for its pupils, but which was still consistently undersubscribed. The s...