I received both notices (HOP)

Warning – you will be treated with secret disdain at this meeting. The decision has been made and the Council simply want to justify it.

Recent Freedom of Information requests have been ignored. They think they are above the law. They are not.

1. FOI request: “What is the exact number of anti-social incidents reported to the Council by the tenants of the homeless hostels directly managed by Lewisham Council over the past 12 months?” The reply is overdue and the statutory notification as to why has not been sent to me. They do not want to reply until they have the application granted. Ask yourself why.

2. FOI Request: “How many commercial/industrial properties empty for more than six months are there is LB Lewisham?” The Council hid behind S40 of the FOI Act (Data Protection – “we can’t give out owner’s details”, even though they are publically available), pretending that the question was of a personal nature!

3. The most recent FOI request made by the Taxpayers’ Alliance sought to show the surprising scale of local councils’ asset portfolios. No data exists for Lewisham, so did they again fail to supply the information required by law?

4. When all is done and dusted, a FOI request will go in to see the total amount of money spent on this project. This will be the most shocking aspect, as the kind of money they want to throw at this could be invested in permanent housing for three, four, even five times the amount of families they are proposing to house on these sites.

Firstly. The residents who have put up with the issues on Canonbie Road for the past 3 years (and still ongoing with 114 Canonbie) you have my greatest sympathy. I honestly feel depressed thinking about it right now. Totally unacceptable what you've had to put up with/still put up with. And Lewisham Council and the Police appear powerless to stop it. It's no wonder there were many upset people there, who directed that feeling towards this planning application.


Concerns of mine that they successfully addressed/made me feel better about:

1. It’s for homeless families ONLY.

2. It’s for homeless Lewisham families ONLY. Therefore the borough as a whole, will not see an increase in pressure on services, as a whole.

3. It’s short term, on average 26 weeks and families are top of the priority list when it comes to finding permanent housing solutions.

4. No guarantee on school places but I’m reasonably satisfied it is highly unlikely they will take up places.

5. They will make it concrete that the usage can not be changed. It’s for families only.

6. Costs - I’m no expert so I can’t verify their claims. But they said something like on a net basis, it’s cheaper than putting the people in B&Bs. Which sounds right if you consider the cost of capital etc.

MOST IMPORTANTLY

7. The tenants must sign an agreement with Lewisham Council, who can remove them for breaching that contract WITHOUT going to court.

See that’s the key issue with 118/114 Canonbie/Mariam Lodge (all privately managed). The Council has little power to do anything.

I want OUR council to run the properties. Not private landlords so we can make them accountable.

My ideal dream solution would be to sort out the issues at 114 Canonbie BEFORE going ahead with Hamilton Lodge. God knows those residents deserve it.

Finally! Can I just say the passion shown at the meeting makes me proud to be SE23. This includes the councillors who did a good job in a difficult situation.

Also it was pretty funny the woman who literally had no idea how to put her phone on silent Quite funny indeed.

If you submit an FOI request to Lewisham you need to be persistent.

They may try and use the statutory exemptions to block your application without being too scrupulous about whether they actually apply.

Don't let them miss the deadline for replying and if they refuse disclosure appeal at every stage.

I have just returned from a meeting with the Lewisham councillors
And they assure me there will be no problems.

The meeting was very well attended with the vast majority were against the proposed change of use for both properties.
The presentation by the council was just a repeat of the previous presentation with little
said to alleviate the fears of the local residents.

The claim that the transient children would not put a burden on local
schools was based on the presumption that they would already have a school place in another part of the borough, but if they had special needs would be treated like any other school place applicant.

The councillors confirmed that they have no influence on the provision of doctors
surgery places but again presumed that as the people in the hostels were temporary
they would continue to use their current doctors surgery (if they have one)..

With regard to parking issues, the poorly paid consultant pointed out that a survey
was conducted one night and there were 100 available parking spaces available close to these hostels, this revelation was met with jeers and laughter and for me summed up
the whole meeting as a waste of time, as we were being told what ever was needed to be said to get this application approved.

I have had a similarly frustrating exchange of email with the planning consultant this morning.
I have reiterated the need for an accurate transport statement.
I think he finds it a bit frustrating that he was brought in after most of the work had taken place and he is left to defend some pretty tough issues, like the council planning statement - section 9.19:

They might not have said that if they had carried out a proper PTAL assessment (it took me 2 minutes) and establish that Canonbie Road is PTAL 2.

But as Decker has done, I would also highlight a number of assurances that we did get last night:
1. It is unlikely that this will put additional pressure on school places.
2. There was a clear agreement to ensure that the use would be for families only. We had already made progress on this issue since last year and they were talking about placing this in the S106 agreement with the council.
3. Some reassurance about legitimate concerns relating to anti-social behaviour, and the suggestion that monthly meetings take place with the police and housing officers to ensure that the situation improves rather than gets worse.
4. It is unusual for people in hostel accommodation to own their own cars.

My primary concerns remain about the quality of accommodation (and transport access) provided to the future residents. And poor quality accommodation can impact beyond the four walls in which families are housed.

Neighbours will have to make up their own minds about the potential impact, but I think some of the concerns will have been alleviated last night.

In our discussions with the police yesterday at the SNT ward panel, we discussed the issue of hostels. The police were keen to point out that Lewisham council run hostels are well managed and do not present any particular concerns to police. They described these hostels as no different from any other housing type.

There was further discussion of 114 Canonbie Road and the continuing problems of anti-social behaviour. The police emphasised the need to report incidents to them to help them catalogue events and deal with them effectively in conjunction with other agencies. Call 101 if it is a non-urgent report of anti-social behaviour. If an urgent response is required call 999.

Yes, but Hamilton Lodge will not be managed – unless one person and one floating housing worker looking after 100 persons is “management” – even though there are already issues on Canonbie Road. And 118 Canonbie Road will have zilch management, just a satellite service from Hamilton Lodge if they’re lucky.

Perhaps if we probe the Police a little further via a FOI request, which I will lodge, we will find the true extent, as I have had reports that the large Lewisham-run large hostels (as opposed to the smaller street properties) are rife with anti-social behaviour.

The Hamilton Lodge proposal is three times the average hostel size, and across the two sites our community is being asked to accommodate more than one in ten of all borough run hostel tenants.

Welcome to the hell that will be the Upex Hilton!

Hamilton Lodge will be managed in the same way as other council run hostels in the borough.

It is certainly true that we are getting a different picture of anti-social behaviour from the police and management compared to other voices in the community (for example http://www.se23.com/forum/showthread.php...6#pid68726)

I believe that one of the larger hostels is in the SE26 section of Forest Hill ward, so the Forest Hill police SNT know the situation fairly well, and I would like to think that they are fairly candid when speaking to the SNT ward panel (they tend to be on a range of other subjects).

The information we had at the Wednesday meeting to the question:

Four incidents in the last 12 months in the 27 properties managed by the Homeless Families team.
In answer to a follow up question I asked, two incidents resulted in eviction of the tenants.

I think there are a lot of properties that are perceived to be run by the Council, when in fact they are run by private landlords.(Mariam lodge for example).


If those statistics are right. Then I think I'm not going to engage in this any longer.


The other issues such as transport, number of bathrooms, population density, etc. I don't think I'm qualified to comment on.


Yeah there's not enough schools or GP services etc. But the councillors have made a decision on the best usage of the property.


My focus now will be on asking the council to change the sibling preference rules for people who move away from the school area eg: >1 mile.

What a shame the Tewkesbury Lodge Estate Residents (sic) Association has become the mouthpiece of local Councillors.

Just got the recent newsletter and there's a page and a half (including the front page!) written by Cllr Upex in full support of the hostel proposals. I always though TLERA was there to fight our corner. Not so. There are many, many objections to these proposals, but we are being fully ignored, there little mention of this. I think they have both forgotten what their remits are, so I will be personally calling both to explain their 'Kim Jong-un supreme leader' stances.

So what happens next ?.

Or is this

" The End & they ALL lived happily ever after..."

Living happily will be become a distant memory with the anticipated rise in the population of high support need, socially misbehaving individuals in the neighbourhood.
I agree that TLERA's stance on the hostels has been a disgrace. The lead article in the recent newsletter is simply a crude apologia for the Council. This political bias is compounded by a sickly supporting article from the Labour Party. No opposing opinion gets a look in.
But all is not yet lost. Representations can still be made at the Planning committee meeting and the 'leadership' of TLERA and other organisations can be called to account.

Well said Anthony.

TLERA seems to be able to send out leaflets and newsletters no problem. What then would have been the problem in canvassing the community in a similar manner to gauge the true strength of feeling against these proposals? I would certainly have helped to deliver leaflets and collect answers.

TLERA should be dissolved, as it no longer relates to its own constitution.

We are being thrown a big con here. At the last meeting the applicant stated that the cost of the development will be up to £3.1M (this is minuted). But if Hamilton Lodge cost £2.7M in a distressed sale (the owners wanted £3.5M), that would mean that the cost of both 118 Canonbie Road together with all the refurbishments will be £400,000. Hahahahaha…

Yet the Council’s Corporate Budget Book 2014 -15 states: “Property Acquisition – Hamilton Lodge/Canonbie Road. Total Cost £9.6M.” It states this on the last page (21). So how much is it? £3.1M or £9.6M? Will somebody come clean?

This goes to planning committee on thursday
details of officer recommendations can be read at http://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/i...3&MId=3890

Thanks for that Michael.

There are some bonkers and costly recommendations in that document, so this cannot be about saving money: it’s just herding people about, as there are more people than homes, so it’s not a solution.

A planning condition preventing residents staying longer than 26 weeks is NOT recommended – these people are going to end up trapped in their modern poorhouses, and everything which comes with that, for a lot longer than the Council have continually insisted will be the case.

At Hamilton Lodge, there are still 5 units with shared facilities – this should be zero, it’s a dreadful predicament to put children through when their privacy is already so limited. And the “Emergency Overnight Admissions & Assessments Room” remains. A planning condition that households be classified as “at least one adult with at least one child” is recommended. Why would any mother/father and child be made homeless during the night (DV maybe)? I could understand a high dependent individual needing this service, but under the proposed planning constraints that can’t happen. This does seem a wasted space.

This Planning Committee is being led to believe that no other use options of the buildings are viable. The Officers state: “Following an inspection in June 2013, it was concluded the home (Hamilton Lodge) no longer met Care Quality Commission standards and it was not considered by the owners to be economically viable or practical to refurbish the property. As such it closed and has remained vacant since.”

The CQC report says nothing, absolutely zilch, about the fabric of the building or its suitability for use as a care home. This has been the line spun by the Council all along, and it’s clearly a smokescreen. The CQC report of October 2013 identified 5 key areas where enforcement action had been taken, the most serious one involving some equipment: specifically, battery-operated hoists were not in use because one had been repossessed and the other had flat batteries because the charger had also been repossessed. Consequently, patients were transferred via a manual hoist and this had caused some injuries to patients. The Officers should make this absolutely clear to those Councillors sitting on Planning Committee A, as they cannot make an informed decision without that information. A growing older population needs care homes too.

And is it right that Cllr Upex sits on this committee which makes the decision when he has already professed his support for the proposals (TLERA newsletter, se23.com)?

I realise that the meeting date and time suits most people, but I can’t make it. Is anyone speaking up on behalf of the many objectors (“31 letters of objection”, “numerous objections on the loss of the nursing home”, etc., they’re all in the document which Michael has kindly provided the link to)?

Both applications were granted tonight as there were no planning rules that the committee felt were relevant, and they were almost certainly correct.
However many of the committee expressed strong misgivings over the quality of the accommodation being provided to their residents. Size of rooms, lack of laundry facilities, shared toilets, and over development all came in for criticism.
officers had to prevent a councillor who proposed adding a note that they were unhappy with the approved application.
I do hope that councillor Upex, who spoke in favour in the application with a series of concerns about the quality of the accommodation, will ask the housing department to reconsider some of the least impressive aspects of the accommodation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWm03wYBTbM

Maybe if they had built that block of flats atop the hill in Tewkesbury Lodge Estate in the 1960s then we wouldn’t have the same lack of social housing right now…maybe…that was the start, that was the absolute protectionism of the various but mainly 1930s-house (note hyphen) owners on the ‘estate’ (or ‘Horniman Heights’ as the estate agents would have it now!), and we all at some time or another (okay…just me) eschewed and, hopefully not, voted (I didn’t) Thatcher the Milk Snatcher in to protect that. Well done, that was absolutely the right thing. ‘Thing’ being the important word there.

Mind you, realistically, it wasn’t “on top of the hill” though, was it? The site is where Horniman School is now, and could have been a Beautiful Brutalist Block, in keeping with some of its neighbours, and provided at least enough space for all those families proposed to be accommodated at the Hamilton Lodge and Canonbie Road hostels.

Let’s not mention the halving in storeys of the Wood Vale flats too, thereby halving the number of people that could have been accommodated there. Views, views, views. Wonder what Messrs Bayer’s, du Fresne’s and others’ views of it would be (no, it’s not a law company. Yet)?

Brutalist one way or another.

Fortunately Hamilton lodge and 118 Canonbie Road are on plots of land that have distinct boundaries, this will ensure that in the unlikely event that there are any anti social problems it will be contained and the majority of good folk beyond earshot will not be affected.
There are of course positives from the influx of so many families;
For instance: the local cubs, scouts and guides could see a surge in membership
and maybe the adults will join the local Am-dram society or become enthusiastic new members of the local gardening group.

As long as we welcome our new residents I can see no reason why we
will not all get along.

A nice gesture might be for the TLERA and the Forest Hill society to offer a cut price or even free temporary membership for the average 26 week period that they will be with us.

There is nothing to fear, we have the assurances from our councillors Paul Upex and
Marjorie Hilton that this will be a well managed project and they will want to be re- elected at the next council election . (have faith!)