Post from old forum ...
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Councillorsusanwise
Joined 20-03-2005
Posted on Friday, 05 October, 2007 - 12:47 pm:
There will be a Perry Vale Ward meeting hosted by your ward councillors, Susan Wise, John Paschoud and Alan Till to dicuss how ward members would like the next round of the Localities Fund to be spent. The ?10,000 is funded by the Mayor Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, and the meeting will take place at St.George's Church (at the junction of Vancouver and Woolstone Roads SE23) on Monday, 29th October, at 7.30pm. All ward members welcome.
A further reminder about our Perry Vale ward meeting on 29/10/07.
All Perry Vale residents welcome
A further reminder about our meeting next week.
again time; 29th October 2007 @7.30pm ; place St George's Church Woolstone/ Vancouver Roads junction SE23; all Perry Vale residents welcome to discuss how to spend the ?10K Localities Fund allocation from the Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock
regards
Susan Wise
My recommendation for spending the ?10k is to open up access between the southbound platform and FH station and the Perry Vale car park, owned by Lewisham Council. This would provide improved accessibility to the station for residents of Perry Vale and avoid the need for half the passengers to walk down a badly lit, steep flight of stairs, which is often a bit smelly due to its use as a public inconvenience.
Opening up access to the car park would enable faster exits for many people living in Perry Vale, a step free route for users with buggies, suitcases, or who have difficultly with stair. It would also encourage commuter parking in a car park rather than on local roads.
I know there are other worthy projects but this will have a significant effect on the largest number of Perry Vale residents, and ?10k could easily implement the necessary changes.
Alternatively the money could be spent sending the chair of the Forest Hill Society on fact-finding missions to other Forest Hills and Perry Vales across the globe. I am particularly keen to visit Forest Hill near Wagga Wagga in Australia, San Fransisco and New York.
Michael
thanks for you comments, the constructive one re the carpark will be put forward. However, if there are any fact finding missions for members to go on, I would like to visit Barbados, as the island has a similar sized population to Lewisham with similar issues, and I could compare how they are dealing with them to how we are in Lewisham-obviously this is in jest.
does anyone know how they decided to spend the ten grand?
my vote would be for something to improve the appearance of the underpass - surely one of the ugliest and least user friendly places in the borough! lighting, redecoration - even a proper clean and pressure wash would make a big difference.
someone in the other thread mentioned the notice board outside the station as being an eye-sore. I agree, but rather than get rid of it, perhaps the FH Society could adopt it?
Am I right in thinking that there is another 10 grand for the Forest Hill ward (Feakes et al) as opposed to the Perry Vale ward? Who is deciding about that money?
The underpass will be significantly improved as part of the section 106 agreement from the Berkeley Homes development (Forest Hill Central).
There is ?10k for each of the wards and the councillors make the final decision regarding how the money is to be allocated.
The underpass will be significantly improved as part of the section 106 agreement from the Berkeley Homes development (Forest Hill Central).
Speaking of Sn. 106 deals, I hope there will be something from the Sydenham gas works site development (opp. Sainsburys) for the road that passes in front of it. The surface is truly appalling, but I reckon the Council have been avoiding resurfacing it, pending the development.
The underpass will be significantly improved as part of the section 106 agreement from the Berkeley Homes development (Forest Hill Central).
Excellent. Hopefully that spells the end to the hated stairs too.
If they do that and open up a gate into the car park on the south bound platform, that would give the station reasonable disability access.
Frankly, if I was in a wheelchair, I would not want to have to rely on 2 lifts to get me from one side of the station to the other.
(I believe that is the current proposal).
What are the chances that one or the other is out of action?
We definitely need improvements to the subway and better mobility access from platfrom 2 to Perry Vale.
Michael is quite right (see other thread) about the money spent by councillors on fact finding trips. I had the pleasure of reading in the New Shopper only the other day that Steve Bullock -the Mayor of Lewisham - has just returned from a jolly to some far flung place to identify the bleeding obvious.
Interestingly there's nothing on the Lewisham website that I could immediately find promoting the Mayor's trip and identifying the benefits.
Michael is quite right (see other thread) about the money spent by councillors on fact finding trips.
I don't remember making any such accusations about any of our councillors. I did suggest within this thread that I get a free holiday (as a joke of course) but did not intend this to be seen as any form of accusation against anybody else within our council or beyond.
I do however think there is a lot that we could learn from the pedestrian traffic signals in Washington DC, railway accessibility in Amsterdam, and pesto in Genoa.
Michael do you know how did Sydenham managed to get a ?2 milion Regeneration Fund, about to be spent for their high street ugrade ? Why was Forest Hill not considered for this ?