Neighbourhood Carol Singing - Monday 20th December

Carol singing will take place on Monday 20 December. Assemble outside ST Stephen's Church at 6:30pm. Bring torches - we will provide carol sheets. All are welcome, particularly those with musical instruments.

Refurbishment of the Tradescant Statue

As planned, members of the Association washed and cleaned the Tradescant statue on November 4. Sculptor Hilary Cartmel arrived from Doncaster to work with year 5 children from St Stephen's school in Dorset Road to repaint the metal work, designed in conjunction with a previous generation of St Stephen's children. Year 5 came out in groups of ten, escorted by the class assistant and another adult from the Association. Their class teacher, Costas Evangelinos, had assisted the children in researching the Tradescant family. Hilary did a brilliant organisational job with the children. We are grateful for a lot of practical help from Charlie Clark of the Church and for those who came out to lend support: the head teacher Steve Williamson, the head boy and head girl, and Anthony Bottrall, Lambeth Council's Executive Member for Education as well as one of our Ward Councillors. We are grateful for the encouragement from numerous passers by, and special thanks to Costas.

Exciting new possibilities for recapturing OUR Streets.
Residents of Fentiman Road have convinced the Council and Transport for London that a radical approach to removing through traffic is feasible. The Council actually has the money to fund it. Fentiman Road has been declassified (it is no longer an official B road) and this has opened a pot of money to deal with the consequences. Transport for London and the Council have earmarked a total of £140,000 between them. The sums are only available for the year 2005-06 so detailed planning needs to get underway ASAP. Fentiman residents are proposing a scheme that covers the whole triangle between Clapham Road, South Lambeth Road and Fentiman Road, making it a "residential cell" - only residents and delivery vehicles to the area should be permitted access. All junctions on to main roads would be signed "no entry except for authorised vehicles". There would also be structures at some junctions to discourage through traffic. They also propose giving the whole area a 20MPH speed limit. What is new is official recognition that it is feasible to prohibit entry without barriers. This approach has worked North of the river. While some drivers may ignore the signs, most will not. The police have also indicated that they are prepared to undertake some enforcement. Your Committee will be joining the discussions with the Council and TFL to make this happen. We must avoid the scheme happening in Fentiman Road only and not our area too, as this would divert even more traffic into our area. There is also a proposal to re-open Miles Street. Fentiman residents are opposing this, as should we.

Freemans site: alarming news

It appears that Lambeth Planning Department are withdrawing their recommendation to refuse permission for the latest scheme to develop the site on Clapham Road, apparently under pressure from central government and the mayor, who want more high density housing. Once they have completed their report it will be submitted to councillors for decision, with a recommendation to grant permission. This will leave us with a design that is fundamentally flawed and unworthy of the site. We need a radical redesign to produce a scheme that will enhance the area, not a blot on the landscape. We have not yet been asked for formal comments, but we need to remind our local councillors that we are strongly opposed to the scheme submitted.

Rubbish and recycling: update

Refuse and recycling are now both collected on Thursdays, often very early in the morning. Please put your contributions out on Wednesday night - any earlier and the bags are often torn open by the local fox and feral cat populations, this is both unsightly and a health hazard and it will not be removed by the bin men! As our bin men will not collect small shopping bags of rubbish please use either your recycling bags, recycling boxes or black plastic bin bags. Please recycle newspapers, magazines, cardboard, glass, tin cans and plastic bottles and containers. Broken glass should be wrapped in newspaper and labelled as such and put out as rubbish Please try to avoid putting refuse on the pavement as this may inconvenience passers-by, such as those with visual impairment, wheelchair users and people with pushchairs.