Charlton Lido. Nicola Walters People Before Profit candidate Greenwest backs local residents

SIGN OUR PETITION – ‘GLL: It’s called Charlton Lido because it’s in Charlton!’

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Neil Clasper

UPDATE 24th SEPTEMBER 2013: Mark Sesnan, MD of GLL, has left this comment in our original post about the plans to rename Charlton Lido:

Dear Charlton Champion,

I am pleased to be able to inform your readers that GLL has discussed the naming of the Lido further with the Council and we have agreed that there needs to be more consultation as to what is the best name for the new facility.

GLL’s preference is now ‘Charlton Leisure Centre and Lido’, thus retaining Charlton in the name, but being clear that it is ‘more than’ just a Lido, but we are happy to hear other suggestions, however, as the owners and the people making the millions of pounds of investment and the organisation that actually has responsibility to make it work, GLL will of course make the final call on the name.

We very much appreciate the level of local interest in the Lido and hope that this will be reflected in patronage when we are fully up and running.

As soon as we have the relevant information we will let you know the plans for opening the new facilities in the new year and what date the pools will be back up and running in the Spring. Meantime, the pool will stay open until the end of October half term and a timetable leaflet is available at the Lido or on the web. Kids for £1 will run throughout this period.

Lets all look forward to a Charlton success story (in the Royal Borough of Greenwich – of course!).

Mark

Mark Sesnan
Managing Director
GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited)

Many thanks to all who have supported our campaign asking GLL and Royal Borough of Greenwich to rethink their lido renaming plans – those who’ve signed the petition, RT’d our Twitter feed, spoken to their councillors, and so on – it’s clearly an issue that’s provoked strong feelings in SE7 and beyond. The decision’s not been finalised yet, though, so please: sign the petition, pass it on; and let us know what you think of GLL’s new proposal in the comments below Mr Sesnan’s.

————————————————————————————-

Let’s tell the Royal Borough of Greenwich and GLL that our lido’s called Charlton Lido

As covered on this site recently, GLL plan to re-name our local lido as “Royal Greenwich Lido, Charlton”. We polled our readers and found over 75% rejected this new name; many commenters raised passionate objections to the idea and the way that GLL have pushed it without any local consultation.
Our new petition asks GLL and our councillors to reconsider: wecallitcharltonlido.co.uk.

Please sign it – and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. Even if you’re not a lido user you might want to raise an objection to this loss of local identity (and who know what else our royal-obsessed council wants to rebrand next?).

We’ve seen from the success of the campaign to get a pedestrian crossing for Windrush School that this kind of campaign can have an impact – please give up a minute of your time to sign today!

UPDATE 22nd SEPTEMBER 2013

With over 100 signatories in the first 24 hours since launch – and backing from representatives of all the main local political parties – it’s clear that the name change is very unpopular. The petition will be presented to the next full council meeting on October 30th. As well as signing the petition, you can help this campaign by asking a question at the council meeting; more details on how to do this are here.

Some of the comments left by people who’ve already signed:

Charlton Lido, is part of South London Heritage.Sign this petition to keep as is and support Equality agenda

SIGN OUR PETITION – ‘GLL: It’s called Charlton Lido because it’s in Charlton!’

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Neil Clasper

UPDATE 24th SEPTEMBER 2013: Mark Sesnan, MD of GLL, has left this comment in our original post about the plans to rename Charlton Lido:

Dear Charlton Champion,

I am pleased to be able to inform your readers that GLL has discussed the naming of the Lido further with the Council and we have agreed that there needs to be more consultation as to what is the best name for the new facility.

GLL’s preference is now ‘Charlton Leisure Centre and Lido’, thus retaining Charlton in the name, but being clear that it is ‘more than’ just a Lido, but we are happy to hear other suggestions, however, as the owners and the people making the millions of pounds of investment and the organisation that actually has responsibility to make it work, GLL will of course make the final call on the name.

We very much appreciate the level of local interest in the Lido and hope that this will be reflected in patronage when we are fully up and running.

As soon as we have the relevant information we will let you know the plans for opening the new facilities in the new year and what date the pools will be back up and running in the Spring. Meantime, the pool will stay open until the end of October half term and a timetable leaflet is available at the Lido or on the web. Kids for £1 will run throughout this period.

Lets all look forward to a Charlton success story (in the Royal Borough of Greenwich – of course!).

Mark

Mark Sesnan
Managing Director
GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited)

Many thanks to all who have supported our campaign asking GLL and Royal Borough of Greenwich to rethink their lido renaming plans – those who’ve signed the petition, RT’d our Twitter feed, spoken to their councillors, and so on – it’s clearly an issue that’s provoked strong feelings in SE7 and beyond. The decision’s not been finalised yet, though, so please: sign the petition, pass it on; and let us know what you think of GLL’s new proposal in the comments below Mr Sesnan’s.

————————————————————————————-

Let’s tell the Royal Borough of Greenwich and GLL that our lido’s called Charlton Lido

As covered on this site recently, GLL plan to re-name our local lido as “Royal Greenwich Lido, Charlton”. We polled our readers and found over 75% rejected this new name; many commenters raised passionate objections to the idea and the way that GLL have pushed it without any local consultation.
Our new petition asks GLL and our councillors to reconsider: wecallitcharltonlido.co.uk.

Please sign it – and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. Even if you’re not a lido user you might want to raise an objection to this loss of local identity (and who know what else our royal-obsessed council wants to rebrand next?).

We’ve seen from the success of the campaign to get a pedestrian crossing for Windrush School that this kind of campaign can have an impact – please give up a minute of your time to sign today!

UPDATE 22nd SEPTEMBER 2013

With over 100 signatories in the first 24 hours since launch – and backing from representatives of all the main local political parties – it’s clear that the name change is very unpopular. The petition will be presented to the next full council meeting on October 30th. As well as signing the petition, you can help this campaign by asking a question at the council meeting; more details on how to do this are here.

Some of the comments left by people who’ve already signed:

Privatisation. NHS, Zero Hours, Bedroom Tax . What does it take to make you so angry that you will help others fight this injustice?

Ok, i do have a full time job, i am not effected by the bedroom tax, and do not need welfare or food banks, however does this mean i should just sit on my backside because i am ok, whilst people around me are having such a tough time?.
I run the Food bank, because i was angry at seeing my neighbours going through the dustbins looking for food whilst on the way to work, i joined People Before Profit because when ever i became aware of a community campaign from stopping privatisation, closure of youth and childrens provision, sell off by the Council of our homes, our Library facing closure these amaxing people were leading the fight back, so i have been an active member since.
Across the UK, people in small groups are doing stuff to help others, but they cannot do it all alone, in Lewisham alone over 3000 are effected by the Bedroom tax, and yet few if any join the weekly protestes or help with petitions, the food bank has over 1000 clients but we  may have to reduce its hours due to lack of people helping.
If you want to see change , you want to improve things, you want to change laws and policy, then you have to get active and you must change the way you vote.
If you do not help thous fighting today who will be around to help you when you need help?.
www.peoplebeforeprofit.org.uk

New Cross & Deptford Local People Before Profit the only Opposition to Labour Lewisham Council

  Helen Mercer Ladywell People Before profit candidate for ladywell key player in save our Hospital campaign.

Ray Woolford, Helen Mercer, John hamilton People Before Profit Mayor Candidate 2014 with Nicola Walters Candidate for greenwich West 2014 and Local Hero Barbara Raymond one of our Candidates for New Cross ward 2014.
People before Profit are active in campaigns every week, if you have time to spare we are doing Bed Tax petition every week, always need help at our extremly busy food Bank, advice centre and shop on new cross road Deptford, and always need people to deliver newsletters, Carryout door to door petitions, or just to promise to vote for our Candidates, and put up a poster at election time and help at pollling stations.
2014 Will see with your support the first Uk people before profit Councillors elected, putting Local People,, Community and the environment first unlike Labour who only care about the interests of Developers and have allowed our streets to be packed with Betting shops and Pawn brokers. Lack of vision and abuse opf power why it is so important next time round. Labour has a real opposition in the Council chamber.

New cross bin men, In Support of NHS

Bin men 4 the NHS a site that should be seen on every UK street .Lewisham people united they Win pic.twitter.com/2dRwr7BDfi

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Welfare Reform. Unfair Unjust & Cruel .Sign the WOW petition TODAY

Please Click Here To Sign It!

100,000 signatures to stop the War On Welfare! #WOWpetition

We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions

We call for:

A Cumulative Impact Assessment of all cuts and changes affecting sick & disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.

An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association.

Consultation between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits*

An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, daycare centres, access to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal Service.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154

Click Here To Sign It!

*we are against all workfare, the emphasis on disability benefits does not mean to exclude our opposition to all workfare as a general principle.

Our broader strategy:-

Phase One: Gain 100,000 signatures to give our demands democratic legitimacy in seeking parliamentary redress.

Phase Two: With a caucus of supportive MP’s gain as much as possible in the democratic & parliamentary process to stop the human rights abuses against us and restore our health and social security systems. Including debate, free votes, Cumulative Impact Assessment and independent inquiry.

Phase Three: Where parliament and inquiries fail us we will pursue justice through the courts both national and international for the human rights abuse perpetrated by the UK government and its associated corporate allies.

Twitter @WOWpetition & @WOWpetitionchat

Facebook WOWpetition 

The WOW Petition Forum

www.peoplebeforeprofit.org.uk

Twitter@Raywoolford 

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Bedroom Tax 10 Reasons why it should be banned.

1. Bedroom Tax is targeted to victimise the most vulnerable members of society. Two thirds of the victims of Bedroom Tax were receiving Incapacity Benefit: over 440,000 nationally.

2. An extra bedroom is not an extravagance if you need additional space for medical equipment, a room for carers to sleep in or live in a household where an ill person is too unwell to sleep in the same room as their partner and to do so would negatively affect the health and wellbeing of both.

3. Bedroom Tax will not resolve the housing crisis. We do not have enough homes of the right size, in the right places at affordable cost. Local authorities’ housing stock has been smashed apart in the last thirty years through the Tory Right to Buy policy. Councils have been unable to build new homes because they have been inadequately funded.

4. Bedroom Tax is intrinsically unfair because it does not apply to every social tenant. Pensioners  have been, cynically, exempt only because of the millions of votes they hold in their hands. But bringing pensioners under the tax is not the solution; that would merely spread the misery, fear, indebtedness and social upheaval.

5. Bedroom Tax wastes millions of already scarce public resources on making new adaptations and undoing perfectly good existing modifications. It can cost £30,000 or more to adapt one home to make it bespoke for a tenant with a disability. How can government justify this unwarranted and undesired profligacy?

6. Tenants have invested time, money and personal commitment in their homes, gardens and communities. In parts of the country where housing is expensive most social tenants cannot afford private rents so the only option is to ship out. Croydon Council suggests that tenants who can’t downsize move to the seaside. The ToryCentre for Social Justice reports these same seaside towns, have become “dumping grounds” for the vulnerable and those in poverty.

7. The social cost of the policy is incalculable. Family support mechanisms collapse when grandchildren are prevented from visiting. Fathers or mothers involved in a family breakdown no longer have acceptable accommodation for their children to visit. Unpaid friends and relatives who enable disabled families on an informal basis will no longer be able to provide respite for main carers.

8. The myth that no one will fall through the safety net must be exposed. Government double-speak reassures us that Discretionary Housing Payments, Hardship Funds and phased introduction will enable victims to gradually adapt to the changes. Why then have tenants around the country fallen into rent arrears for the first time in their lives? Why have applications for one-off grants rocketed? Why are Pay Day Loan companies rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of ever-greater demand for their reprehensible ‘services’?

9. Bedroom Tax is only the first in a raft of cuts thinly disguised as reforms. We have yet to discover the impact of slashing Council Tax Benefit, introducing Universal Credit, increasing the shared room age limit from 25 years to 35, the benefit cap and changing the direct payment of Credit to tenants rather than straight to landlords.

10. The changes massively increase the potential for fraud. By imposing online management of the forthcoming Universal Credit along with centralised processing the vast pools of local knowledge are negated at a stroke and the scope for fraud balloons colossally.
11. As the UN has stated Bedroom Tax is unlawful, how can any UK court enforce and Eviction? We need a legal Challenge once evictions start. People Before profit have set up rapid Support Teams inh London to mobalise people to stop our neighbours being evicted. please email or follow me on twitter to get in touch.
@Raywoolford . email; raymondwoolford@aol.com .www.peoplebeforeprofit.org.uk

Energy could be free & Low cost if we use Council Buildings. Report backs People Before Profit energy policy

Community energy could grow by 89 times but councils block progress, says report

10 September 2013 | By Laurna Robertson

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A think tank report has said community owned energy could grow 89 times if councils started helping, and stopped blocking, the industry.

The Westminster think tank ResPublica The Community Renewables Economy: Starting up, scaling up and spinning out  says community energy could generate £30m a year in tax revenue for cash-strapped local councils, and drive down high energy bills by increasing competition in the energy market.

ResPublica urges councils to step up to the challenge and help, rather than hinder, progress.

It points out that in Germany, community energy accounts for 46% of all energy produced from renewables. In the UK this figure stands at just 0.3%.

The report suggests that by 2020, based on the fact that community energy capacity has increased by over 1300% to nearly 60MW over the last decade, the sector will grow nine-fold to 550MW.

However, it argues with help from local authorities and the right national policy framework, the sector is capable of delivering almost a fifth of total renewable energy capacity - this would be equivalent to 5.27GW by 2020.

Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, said in response to this report: ‘The Coalition is committed to helping hard pressed consumers with the rising cost of living. When it comes to energy bills, this includes supporting communities to take more control over local generation projects, while also empowering them to reduce their energy demand, tackle local fuel poverty, and get the best deal on their energy supply.

‘I warmly welcome the ideas in this report on helping communities navigate the planning system, and on forming productive partnerships so that they are better able to take an active role in their own local projects. Our aim is to help communities and local businesses seize this exciting opportunity.’

Maria McCaffery, chief executive of RenewableUK said: ‘This report highlights the exciting prospect of communities working more closely with local wind farm developers, local businesses and local authorities on jointly-owned projects.

‘Using this socially and economically-inclusive model, we have an opportunity to redefine the relationship between communities and developers to unlock a significant growth in community energy, particularly in onshore wind. This will enable all of us to reap the economic and environmental benefits of wind energy at a truly local level.’

Elephant Castle Regeneration from local community view. This is latest Sep 2013

Something Sinister? Sep 14, 2013 07:35 pm The Evening Standard, Inside Housing, Property Week, as well as the local press, have printed stories about Southwark Council’s appeal against the Information Commissioner’s decision that it make the Heygate masterplan viability assessment public. Regeneration Cabinet member Councillor Fiona Colley blames a minority of people looking fruitlessly for something sinister. Cllr Colley misses the point: the problem isn’t that there might be something sinister going on, the problem is that Southwark has lost about 600 social rented units because Elephant developers routinely use viability assessments to avoid building them. Taken together the Strata Tower, 360 Tower, Tribeca Square, Heygate estate and ‘One the Elephant’ will deliver about 4000 units, but only 79 social rented homes - there should be nearly ten times that amount, 700 or so if Southwark had stuck to its affordable housing policy. All these developments used financial viability assessments. An earlier blog post shows that providing them is a small industry. The trick is to get one which shows that there will be less than 20% profit, after all values, costs and sales revenue are accounted for. The development is then classed as unviable and the affordable housing can be dropped. Developers hide their assessments behind ‘commercial confidentiality’. This prevents planning committee members from seeing them. The same councillors are expected to approve the planning applications nonetheless and more often than not do so. In fact there is probably little developers don’t know about each other’s working methods; they are more concerned that the public doesn’t get an insight into their ways of doing business.   Nor are developers likely to desert Southwark, just because one of them has to reveal a financial viability assessment. Viability assessments are made public in other circumstances, such as developer’ appeals against adverse planning decisions, and the profits to be realised from Southwark’s advantages as a central London borough will remain a big attraction. Lend Lease were fully aware of Southwark Council’s 35% affordable housing policy when it pitched to become the development partner. It signed the regeneration agreement in 2007, which pledged to provide half of the affordable housing as social rented housing. It has successfully beaten down the amount of affordable housing to 25%, and it has successfully reduced the amount of social rented housing to almost zero - all on the strength of confidential dealings including the financial viability assessment. The public have a right to see it.  Linden homes see the light The successful planning application for the Linden Homes development at St. Georges Circus was accompanied by the usual financial viability assessment pleading poverty. On this occasion however - and much to its credit - Southwark Council refused to accept this plea, and at the twelfth hour planning permission the developer discovered he could provide more affordable housing after all. Notwithstanding the other merits of the application (there were many local objections) this shows what can be achieved when you stand your ground. Let’s hope Southwark learns the lesson.  To demolish or not to demolish…… Southwark’s announcement last week that the shopping centre was to be demolished caught everyone by surprise, including the shopkeepers judging by local newspaper reports. The headlines emphasise the demolition and Cllr Fiona Colley is quoted saying that it has been agreed with owners St Modwen and the Greater London Authority. St Modwen seems less sure – it just says that they remain committed to redevelopment and delivering a viable scheme. Southwark has the alternative of compulsory purchase if needs be, but that could be a bruising battle. Like the Heygate estate, the shopping centre has always been viewed as an obstacle by the champions of regeneration and from their point of view demolition makes sense. St Modwen failed in their bid to become the regeneration partner and hasn’t engaged with the local community at all about their ideas, so Southwark Council cannot be blamed for asserting itself against them. But just as on the Heygate the interests of the current occupants seem to be incidental. The shopkeepers and the stall holders that cluster around the centre serve the people who live at the Elephant now, but are in the dark about what is going on. Doesn’t the future include them? The decision to demolish or not should not be left just to the big guns. Shopkeepers and the local community must be allowed their say. Raywoolford

Recent Articles: Here and Now Towering Disgrace The Elephant - Sold on and Sold out How to avoid providing affordable housing - a guide for developers Heygate Figures must be Revealed - Information Commissioner