Supersewer: residents urged to turn out on Friday to oppose Chambers Wharf plans

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Southwark Council and the the Save Your Riverside campaign are  urging residents and Londoners to voice their opinions on the super sewer at the Planning Inspectorate’s open floor hearings on Thames Water’s proposed Thames Tideway Tunnel or ‘super sewer’.

One such hearing will be held this Friday (22 November) at Glaziers Hall near London Bridge. The session starts at 9.30am with registration from 9am.

“All residents opposing the use of Chambers Wharf as a drilling site for the tunnel will have an opportunity to be heard at the Open Floor Hearing at Glaziers Hall,” said Rita Cruise O’Brien, chair of Save Your Riverside.

“The strength of community support is vital. We have an opportunity to let the Planning Inspectors know how devastating this proposal will be on our peaceful community, involving six years of work, three of those 24/7 with hundreds of lorries using local streets daily. For the sake of local residents, young and old and school children, we must make our views known. Please attend.”

Simon Hughes MP will be speaking at Friday’s hearing along with Cllr Peter John, leader of Southwark Council.

Cllr John said:  “We strongly believe these proposals will blight the lives and safety of families living in the Chambers Wharf area, day and night, for far too long, and just to make life a little easier for Thames Water.

“Our own assessment shows that the reasons given for creating the main tunnel drive at Chambers Wharf are not essential to the plans, there are other more suitable sites that have been dismissed out of hand that will have much less of an impact on fewer people, and Thames Water are wrong to suggest otherwise.

“I would welcome anyone who wants to come down and join us on Friday to show how strongly they object to these plans.”

Albion Street ‘sustainability centre’ idea debated by Southwark cabinet

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Last month we reported on a controversial proposal to turn the former Rotherhithe Library in Albion Street into a ‘sustainability centre’.

Sublime Magazine attracted more than 500 signatures on its petition to Southwark Council urging the authority to reconsider its plans to demolish the old library to make way for new council housing and shops.

The petition was discussed on Tuesday at Southwark’s November cabinet meeting.

listen to ‘Sustainability Centre for old Rotherhithe Library: Southwark cabinet receives petition’ on Audioboo

Harmsworth Quays: university campus, homes and a new leisure centre for Canada Water?

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listen to ‘Southwark Cabinet discusses Harmsworth Quays development’ on Audioboo

Southwark’s cabinet has agreed to enter a cooperation agreement with British Land and King’s College London to work towards the development of a major new university campus and hundreds of new homes at Harmsworth Quays, the former Daily Mail print works.

The scheme is likely to include council homes towards the authority’s target of 11,000 new units.

“I think we also have the potential to deliver a new leisure centre for Rotherhithe,” said Cllr Fiona Colley, cabinet member for regeneration. The new centre – on Harmsworth Quays or another site – would replace the “crumbling” Seven Islands complex.

Cabinet is due to receive a further report in the spring.

Councillors ask TfL to tackle Rotherhithe ‘gridlock’

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Local Liberal Democrats held discussions with Transport for London at City Hall last week to ask for action to tackle what they describe as “daily gridlock” on Jamaica Road and the Rotherhithe peninsula.

Lib Dem councillors and representatives from Simon Hughes MP’s office attended the talks last week, hosted by Leader of the City Hall Liberal Democrats Caroline Pidgeon AM.

TfL used the meeting to discuss early ideas for changes at the roundabout after on-going complaints about queues going into Rotherhithe tunnel blocking access.

Local councillors have said they are pleased that action is finally being taken to look at this junction but expressed concern that work would not be done until 2015. As well as pushing TfL to do the work faster, they suggested ideas to ease the situation in the meantime.

Liberal Democrat councillors from Rotherhithe argued that right turns should be allowed from Lower Road into Surrey Quays Road as this would reduce the volume of traffic needed to come up and go around the roundabout.

And the Bermondsey councillors say that they pushed TfL to look at the junctions on Jamaica Road, such as St James Road and Abbey Street, where there are currently no yellow boxes to stop cars entering when the road is blocked. They also asked TfL to look at allowing right hand turns into West Lane as this may help with some of the congestion.

“It’s good news that TfL have started looking at new designs for the Rotherhithe roundabout,” said Cllr David Hubber.

“Local Liberal Democrats will continue to push them to take action sooner rather than later to get this problem dealt with. We are on the side of local residents and commuters who want to see this sorted out as soon as possible.”

Bermondsey’s Grace Jones – UK’s oldest resident – dies aged 113

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Grace Jones, the UK’s oldest resident, has died just short of her 114th birthday.

Grace Jones, born on 7 December 1899 and the only surviving Briton to have lived for the whole of the 20th century,  died peacefully on Thursday morning.

Grace was 113 years and 342 days old, and as well as being Britain’s oldest resident, was the sixth oldest person in the world.

Grace Jones was born and lived nearly all her life in Bermondsey, continued to live in her own council flat until just a few weeks ago, but after a fall, and treatment in St Thomas’ Hospital, had to spend her last few weeks in a local nursing home, where she died peacefully this morning.

Grace – who was engaged during the first world war to a fiancé who was killed on active service – never married, worked as a seamstress and for the Government during and after the second world war until her retirement about half a century ago.

Grace continued to live with her mother, brother and sister until the final member of her close family, George, died about thirteen years ago. Since then Grace continued to live in her own flat, looked after by  neighbours Carol Pooke and Sue Wilmer and other friends.

Grace did her own shopping until only a few years ago, went out as recently as this autumn, and was mentally as bright as a button with a brilliant memory. A committed and lifelong Christian, Grace was visited in the last 24 hours by her local parish priest as well as several close friends.

Reacting to the news of her death Simon Hughes, MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who with other friends last visited Grace yesterday, said this morning:

“Grace’s friends and neighbours and the wider Bermondsey community are very sad today at the news of Grace’s death. But we pay tribute to Grace for her wonderful long life, for her commitment to her faith, her family and her community, and we know that a woman of such strong Christian faith faced death with no fear. Although she found her failing strength frustrating, right up until her last week Grace’s memory and intellect were undimmed.

“Enormous thanks are due to her neighbours, Carol and Sue, to her friends Ron and Eileen, Joan and Fred and Sandra and Trevor and to the nurses and other staff of Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, the local health and social services team and the nursing home where she died. All those who met Grace knew they had met one of London’s most doughty individuals and she will never be forgotten.”

Arrangements for Grace Jones’ funeral will be made by FA Albin and Sons of Bermondsey and announced in due course.

Simon Hughes sorry for failure to register interests and declare donations

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IF

Bermondsey & Old Southwark MP Simon Hughes apologised to the House of Commons last week after an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

The investigation by the commissioner  and subsequent report by the standards committee were triggered by a complaint made last year by Cllr Peter John, Labour leader of Southwark Council.

The investigation looked at the handling of donations of £5,000 made by two companies – Southwark Metals and Westminster Waste – as well as sponsorship of Mr Hughes’ Christmas cards by the City Cruises company.

The MP had had dealings with Southwark Metals and Westminster Waste in connection with the proposed development of a high-rise building and new accommodation for the Southwark Free School in Rotherhithe New Road.

“From the beginning I believed that I had not breached the lobbying rules and I am grateful and relieved that the commissioner and the committee have rejected these complaints,” Mr Hughes told the Commons last Thursday.

“The committee has found that there was no attempt to conceal any donations, which were all reported to the Electoral Commission and therefore in the public domain, but that I failed to register in the register of members’ financial interests, some donations to my local party, that I failed to make declarations in debate and in connection with one meeting in relation to two of these donations, and that I registered two donations late.

“I have of course admitted my mistakes and apologised from the outset to the commissioner and to the committee. Although the commissioner found that none of these breaches of the rules was intentional, I accept entirely the committee’s finding that I was not as attentive to these matters or as careful as I should have been, and therefore in these ways failed properly to observe the code of conduct, and that I did not sufficiently seek advice from the registrar. I will immediately register the outstanding interests as the committee recommends.

“I take full responsibility for these failures and I apologise unreservedly to the House.”

Commenting on the report Cllr Peter John, leader of Southwark Council, said: “This damning report shows that Hughes accepts he was meeting company directors and then asking them for money to pay for interns in his office. At the same time he was setting up meetings with the council. That’s not in the best interests of people in Southwark, that’s about the best interests of the Lib Dems.

“The committee found Hughes guilty of failing to declare over £30,000 of donations from companies and then speaking about them in Parliament.  This is not just embarrassing for him, it more importantly falls well short of the standards people in Southwark would expect from their MP.

“One breach on its own could have been easily dealt with, but months of investigation were needed because of the number of breaches, the large value of the donations and allegations of paid advocacy.

“I referred this to the parliamentary commissioner on standards to shine a light on what Simon Hughes is up to and welcome the decision that he has breached the rules and has to apologise to the House of Commons.”

* Read the committee’s report in full

SE16 slow broadband: latest from BT and Simon Hughes

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Two updates this week on the ongoing saga of SE16’s painfully slow broadband.

Firstly, Andrew Campling of BT has posted a detailed response to the recent blog post by Val Shawcross AM:

As you may be aware, fibre broadband is available from our Bermondsey exchange but a fair number of existing premises in the Rotherhithe area are not included with our current deployment plans as it is uneconomic to deploy service to the area. The fundamental problem is the cost of converting the very large number of so-called “exchange only lines” in the area in order to make it practical to provide fibre broadband to those properties. We are looking at options to address this, and your Assembly Member, Val Shawcross, has already put forward some potential solutions.

He adds:

Although fibre broadband is not available to all premises in Rotherhithe, the situation is different for larger new developments, where it is often possible to provide fibre broadband during the construction phase, subject to agreement with the developers of course. So there is no reason that new developments will have a problem, however I’m afraid this will not by itself address the separate issue for the majority of the existing premises in the area.

In other parts of the UK where the market is unable to deliver fibre broadband, government funding is available to make it economically viable and we are currently investing the best part of £1bn of our own funds alongside the government to deliver faster broadband in these areas – this is on top of the £2.5bn we are investing within our commercial programme. Unfortunately state aid rules currently prevent public funding being offered in London in this way in order to benefit areas that are otherwise uneconomic for ourselves and other network providers, so this option is not currently available to address issues in areas like Rotherhithe. I know that this is an issue that Val Shawcross has raised directly with the Mayor.

Alternative options include working with larger landlords or residents associations to provide service to groups of dwellings, with joint investment by both parties. Where this takes place the subsequent network functions identically to that provided elsewhere, offers the same wide range of service provider options, ensuring residents are not tied in to a single providers and instead are able to take full advantage of any packages or other promotions that are being offered. There are no on-going obligations once the network infrastructure has been provided, with all subsequent operational aspects being undertaken by Openreach, the infrastructure business of BT Group.

In summary, whilst there is access to fibre broadband for premises connected to our Bermondsey exchange, this is not the case for all, in particular in the Rotherhithe area. I’ve outlined above some of the options that are available, notably for new sites and for larger landlords and residents groups, and we are continuing to look at options as we want to deliver fibre broadband as widely as is economically possible, so it may be that the position changes. If it does then we will update our website accordingly (www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/), as well as notifying key stakeholders such as Val, the local authority etc. In addition, I’ve no doubt service providers with customers in the area will be in touch directly with their customers as appropriate.

Meanwhile Simon Hughes MP has written to BT, the Mayor of London and Virgin Media.

“I have 45,000 constituents living in SE16 and it is totally unacceptable that they should be forgotten about when it comes to appropriate broadband speeds,” said Simon Hughes.

“The internet is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. Councils and governments require people to use the internet in order to access their services but then don’t provide them with internet fast enough to do the job.

“I have been informed that some of the businesses operating in my constituency have decided to pay huge amounts of money to BT in order to set up their own individual direct internet line. And I’m not talking about big conglomerates; I know of mid-sized companies which have had to look into such drastic measures in order to survive in this tough economy. It’s just simply not acceptable.”

David Hubber, Liberal Democrat councillor for the Surrey Docks ward, said “Residents of Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks find it hard to understand why they should be deprived of a good service while they are paying the same for a very poor service. We are in an inner city area, where the population is still growing and more people are working from home, so good broadband speeds are essential.”

Green light for Sellar’s 40-storey tower at Decathlon site

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Southwark’s planning committee this week resolved to grant outline planning permission for Sellar’s proposed development of a 40-storey tower on the site of the Decathlon store at Canada Water.

The scheme includes a new Decathlon store, more than 1,000 homes, a cinema and other facilities.

Local Lib Dem councillor Lisa Rajan spoke against the scheme at the committee meeting, raising concerns about increased density, impact on traffic and lack of affordable housing.

Cllr Fiona Colley, cabinet member for regeneration and planning, said: “The new homes, with their bold and exciting architecture will replace the lifeless, out-of town, retail-park look the area is associated with.

“The new Decathlon store will be retained as an anchor to the town centre we’re beginning to see emerge. This approval will help to realise the vision of the area action plan to create a new heart for Rotherhithe.”

20,000 watch Southwark Park fireworks

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“We were really pleased to see so many turning out to see last night’s fireworks display at Southwark Park,” said Cllr Veronica Ward, Southwark’s cabinet member for culture, leisure, sport and volunteering.

“It was a great family atmosphere and wonderful to see the community come together to enjoy and celebrate such a milestone calendar event. Thank you to everyone who helped organise and keep everyone safe on the night.”