Streatham Vale Adventure Playground - public asked to look at bids

As part of its budget cuts, Lambeth council is handing over control of its adventure playgrounds, and other youth and play sites, to organisations who are being invited to bid to run them. This includes Streatham Vale Adventure Playground.

It follows substantial cuts in the youth services budget which has seen cuts to the opening hours of one-o-clock clubs staff losing their jobs, and adventure playgrounds running on tiny budgets.

Some local people like Love Streatham have been doing some great work at Streatham Vale Playground, alongside staff and children, stepping in to liven up the youth centre at a time when it is facing great hardship.

But the next stage in the cuts process is that the council in handing over the playgrounds to organisations who are being invited to bid for them. You can get to hear the proposals of the organisations who want to take over these sites if you turn up to the presentation meeting.

This will be held on 12th June 2012 from 6.00pm to 7.30pm

The address is:

Streatham Vale Adventure Playground
Abercairn Road,
Streatham Vale Park, London SW16 5AG

This isn't a consultation in which people can reject the bids, and local people won't have a majority say. But at the meeting local people will be asked to choose between the bids and score the presentations. The scores will count for 30% of the total score of the organisation in the selection process.

Streatham Vale Farmer's Market

It's great news that from this weekend Streatham Vale Farmer's Market will be up and running.

The first one will be on Saturday 26th May 2012 at Granton Road Primary School, Granton Road SW16 5AN.

It is hoped that in the Autumn the market will move to Farmhouse Road SW16 every Friday and Saturday.

Richard Laidlaw (a driving force behind it) has just announced that in attendance will be (amongst others) Animal Farm, Brambletye Fruit Farm, Spice Caravan, Rosie's Preserves, Teds Veg, Giggly Pig, The Parsons Nose and The Wild Country organics farm. Facepainting for the kids with Sarah from EyeloveLight, Free Dr Bike maintenance with Lambeth Sustainabletravel,

It all kicks off a 10.00 am on Saturday 26th May (Listen out for the advert on Radio Jackie from Tuesday)

Success: Improved access on Tooting Bec Gardens

It's taken around eight months, but we have finally got Transport for London to improve pedestrian access on Tooting Bec Gardens.

For those not familiar with the road, its a very busy one way street which runs from Tooting Common up to Streatham High Road. It is very hard to cross with two or three lanes of traffic, except at the pedestrian crossings at either end, which are about 250-300m away from each other.

There were three vehicle crossovers which were impossible for wheelchairs to go across, and also difficult for others with mobility impairments, about three quarters of the way down one side of the road. If you reached them and couldn't get past them, the only option was to go back a long way to the nearest crossing, or take your life in your hands and go into the road. But even on the other side there is a large tree at the junction near Tooting Common, which is very hard to navigate past in a wheelchair without tipping off the pavement into the road.

I approached Transport for London (who have responsibility for them as this is a Red Route) back in October last year about these issues. After a significant amount of chasing, a couple of weeks ago they finally got around to ramping the vehicle crossovers. The work it seems, in the end took less than a day to complete, but will make a huge difference to anyone with mobility difficulties. I am still chasing about widening the pavement around the tree!

Streatham Guardian splashes on co-op housing

This weeks local Guardian has splashed on the issue we raised a couple of weeks ago around housing, and how Lambeth is turning its back on co-operative housing.

The scheme, that originally included a stock of 1,200 homes, now has just 170 houses left.

It quotes us as (the only party apparently) opposed to what Lambeth council is doing. Two articles are now online here and here. Some quotes:

"The self-styled “co-operative borough” has been booting out hundreds of people living in housing co-operatives so it can make millions by selling the run-down houses they have looked after for decades.

"Hundreds of people living in “short-life” housing co-operatives are being handed repossession orders by Lambeth Council and told they must move out, or face criminal prosecution.

"Their houses, which they have spent thousands repairing and sometimes maintained for more than 40 years, are now being sold at auction for bargain-basement prices."

"One property, a 10-bedroom house in the Chase, Clapham, recently netted £1.6m for the council in July 2011, but a smaller six-bedroom house on the same road is being marketed at £2.6m.

"Meanwhile, a three-bed maisonette in Rosendale Road, West Norwood, was sold for £260,000 two years ago, and the flat above, which is the same size, is also in the process of being sold for a similar price.

"Despite this, a neighbouring six-bedroom house was sold for £925,000 in November last year.

"Scores of properties are being sold for more than £575,000 each, according to campaigners, often short of their full market value."

"Those being threatened with repossession, many of whom are families with young children, were recruited by the council in the 1980s to look after homes that it could not afford to repair.

"They were given charge of managing run-down properties, spending thousands on maintenance, while paying rent to a central co-op body.

"Campaigners estimated co-operatives have spent more than £50,000 in maintenance and management on each property over a 30-year period, and co-op members carried out the equivalent of £150,000-worth of labour on their homes over the same period.

"But now, the council is threatening tenants with court orders and occupation charges, as well as refusing to re-house them if they reject calls to leave."

Is time running out for Streatham library?

It's good to see a growing public awareness in Lambeth about the Council's plans for its libraries.

The Tradescant Road blog nails it when it observes:

"Lambeth is not going to shut any libraries - it's simply going to under-fund them to the point where most of them probably shut themselves."

I met with Lee Alley from Streatham Action to discuss the council's proposals last week, and specifically how they will impact Streatham Library, and it is clear that there is rapidly growing concern in Streatham where substantial money will need to be spent on the building, which is not being provided by the council.

You can read the consultation document here. But in a nutshell, the Council is planning to abdicate responsibility and offload its old buildings, and with it their running costs, onto the community - whilst it reserves some key powers for itself.

The proposals saddle local communities with responsibility for:

- Building management and maintenance
- Cleaning contracts
- Rates & utilities
- Refuse collection
- Insurance
- Photocopiers, stationery, equipment, cash collection
- Income generation

In a move akin to the McDonaldisation of Lambeth’s libraries, it is going to turn them into franchises, using similar principles to the privatisation of the railways and the NHS. Or in the words of the council's own consultation document:

“This contract or franchising method is widely used in both the public and private sector in everything from providing public healthcare services to popular chain restaurants.”

The proposals threaten to return Lambeth’s Victorian libraries to the Victorian era, leaving local communities with a choice between financing potentially crippling costs or closing them.

You can respond to the consultation here.

Little Big Peace in Streatham

It was great hear that Anna Nolan ( @annapannalondon ) has been awarded £5,000 toward the Little Big Peace event which started in Streatham last year.

She won the money after entering a nationwide competition.

For the uninitiated, Little Big Peace (@littlebigpeace) is a festival that takes place in September. It celebrates peacemaking, and coincides with the International Day of Peace.

What is refreshing about the event is that is it seeks to engage with the reality of everyday life and explore difficult questions about what peace might mean in local communities, rather than being something untenable or ethereal.

Peacemaking raises tough questions of course, but they are ones that need to be asked. Neither are there simple answers. Peacemaking is messy. I know this from painful experience having been involved with a number of peacemaking initiatives both abroad and in the UK, including working with peacemakers taken hostage in Iraq.

But unless we are prepared to ask difficult questions and explore alternatives we will make little, in any, progress, in making our communities more peaceful.

There are however many examples from elsewhere in the UK, and indeed around the world that we can draw upon for our own local communities. There are restorative justice initiatives, for example, in policing, the criminal justice system and in school discipline, which pursue a more peaceful - and indeed more satisfactory outcome for the actors involved. (see for example: http://www.restorativejustice.org.uk/ for a range of resources) They tend to reduce reoffending, and mean that the community play a bigger part in ensuring just outcomes.

International examples too, show that in order to tackle violence, we need to identify and be honest about the root causes. This is something being hampered by politicians who continue to insist that the recent riots were "just criminality". The local community can play a part in challenging that, and insisting that such responses are inadequate.

And then of course, it is about the local community learning to build peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict, but as practitioners will tell you, an active process which needs to be learned. This means among other things opportunities for dialogue, training people in nonviolent communication, and forums and spaces where people can overcome fear of others who they might not otherwise come into contact with. It means also that we need to equip people - particularly younger people in our schools - with skills of mediation and conflict prevention.

There's lots of possibilities to make Lambeth more peaceful. But it needs the political will to do it, as well as those who are willing to think creatively about it and pursue it. The Little Big Peace event is exactly the kind of initiative that can encourage us all in that direction.

How the council is selling off co-operative housing

The Lambeth United Housing Co-op are seeking to highlight a massive inconsistency between Lambeth Council's desire to become a "Co-operative Council" and the fact they are selling off Housing Co-ops.

Supporting people to build, refurbish and manage their own homes through co-ops can ensure homes meet the needs of existing local residents and build stronger communities. Self-help groups support people in need to bring empty homes back into use for themselves. They also provide a route into training and employment for volunteers.

However, in Lambeth, despite paying lip service to co-ops the council now appears to be turning its back on co-operative housing, seeing an opportunity instead to sell off property, as part of its programme of cuts. Concerns have been growing steadily over the last few years. Now the sell-off appears to be part of a wider programme in which the council is liquidating the community’s assets in order get cash. The council has form for selling off social housing when it overspends.

In this particular case, Lambeth used “Shortlife” (hard to let or run down property) to secure vulnerable housing stock without having to provide legal tenancies. This was invested in by residents. It is now being sold off, with the interests of those residents being disregarded. The action comes at a huge price to the people in the local community who have invested heavily in the co-operative schemes.

Below are some excerpts from a short briefing that Lambeth United Housing Co-op have produced tracing the history, and to highlight what Lambeth is doing now:


Late 1970s & early 1980s

Housing Co-ops established between Lambeth and people who had begun to maintain housing abandoned by the borough, people who were homeless and on the council's housing waiting list.

Lambeth recognises that Co-ops substantially reduce reliance on undesirable lodgings and house many “vulnerable” members of the community.


Early - Mid 1990s

Co-ops encouraged to become permanent; the promise of which disappears abruptly when Lambeth attempts transfer of its ‘Shortlife’ stock to Housing Associations. “Deals” evaporate due to Lambeth's frequent policy changes.


1997 onwards

Housing Co-operatives receive renewed threats of “recall” and eviction.

Consultations between Lambeth and Housing Co-ops a stated aim but none occur; suggestions that residents could remain in-situ, if their houses were not “under-occupied”, are not pursued.

Occupants are offered the “opportunity” to buy their homes based on vacant possession, at inflated and unrealistic prices.


2011 – present

Lambeth’s cabinet decrees all decisions regarding “Shortlife” will be private, made by a small group of council officers.

Despite interest from other social housing providers to manage stock, Lambeth deal exclusively with Notting Hill Housing Group (NHHG).

By end of 2011 the NHHG deal collapses but it takes months for Lambeth to acknowledge this. Lambeth continue to use this “deal” as reason for possession in the court cases they are bringing against “Shortlifers”.

Lambeth state NHHG deal was refused because too many houses would be sold off but, ironically, Sale By Auction is now their only disposal tool.

Vacated properties are deliberately damaged by council workers or by “vacant property managers” Camelot. Some ex-Coop homes are re-occupied, due to Camelot’s bizarre operation. In some cases serious anti-social behaviour occurs in buildings soon after stable Co-op communities have been vacated.

Meanwhile, in its legal proceedings, Lambeth engages in intimidation and coercion, threatening unreasonably high “unauthorised occupation” charges, removal of the offer to re-house, and imposition of full legal costs.

Offers to re-house residents (after first making them homeless) involve joining “Choice-Based Lettings”, a system already failing most people on Lambeth's waiting list. “Shortlife” residents report the lettings team is acting especially vindictively in their cases.


Analysis

Those who brought empty properties back into use in the 1980s, on a budget and using labour from within the community, were completely in line with current government thinking as influenced by The Great British Property Scandal that is highlighting the current housing crisis.

Housing Co-ops have been praised by international management consultants Price Waterhouse as a housing model that offers the best value for money and "are a flexible model capable of delivering housing services which compare with the best of mainstream providers.”

However, Lambeth used “Shortlife” to secure their vulnerable housing stock without having to provide legal tenancies.

"Shortlife” residents invested time, effort and money on their houses, including carrying out major repairs. Their efforts have increased the value of housing stock originally bought via a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) for a couple of thousand pounds and then scheduled for demolition. These houses are now selling at auction for upwards of £575,000.

Housing Co-operative residents are largely low-waged, with little or no savings or outside financial support. Many are of pensionable age, others are disabled and housebound, dependent on their immediate neighbours.

These are the vulnerable people suffering whilst Lambeth uses “Shortlife” as a “piggy bank”, raiding it to offset the deficit accrued through mismanagement and internal fraud. This comes in the context of Lambeth spending £25m on new council offices.

Despite councillors declaring that Housing Coop communities have brought “a welcome permanence and continuity to the area”, Lambeth has instituted a de facto social and economic purge.


In Conclusion

The difference between the policy and attitude of the Lambeth c.1980 and the Lambeth of today is shocking in its disparity.

Lambeth recently published “The Co-operative Council” White Paper, trumpeting support of community and co-operative led housing. Yet Lambeth is simultaneously destabilising and destroying community led co-operative housing that has existed for the best part of half a century and was previously supported by them.


You can email lambethunitedhousingcoop (at) gmail.com for more information.