Thursday 17 November 2011

Convoy wharf latest update

Convoy Wharf Huge plan to create hundreds of local long-term jobs Ray Woolford and other supporters of Lewisham People before Profit have submitted proposals to the developer of the Convoy Wharf site, which, if they are approved, will create hundreds of long-term local jobs. The proposal contains a business plan to use the protected wharfs to create a green energy site that could generate green energy to fuel up to 8000 homes in Deptford and New Cross. The wharfs themselves would serve as a training centre to train local residents as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and qualified installers of home insulation, who will soon be in great demand once the government's new green deal agenda passes into law next year. The plan also includes the creation of a local Maritime History Museum, which, as a major tourist attraction, will boost jobs and the wider local economy while protecting and preserving the site's historical importance. Another branch of the Come the Revolution community cafe will open on the site, together with a state of the art cookery school and a green energy store that will provide all you need to inform yourself about and to start using and even generating green energy. This realistic and viable plan will provide tremendous benefits for the local community but it needs the support of Lewisham's Labour Council if it is going to happen. So far the Labour council's only comment on these plans is that they are 'interesting' while they continue to allow the development of luxury apartment blocks throughout the borough and neglect the real need for the creation of more local long-term jobs and more affordable housing as part of a responsible, just and sustainable approach to the stimulation and maintenance of the local economies and communities. The proposals outlined above would not cost the tax payer a penny as government funding is already available, and they will generate real incomes and benefits for local residents and the local economy. We have already offered to trial a free insulation programme and green energy initiative on any Lewisham Council estate to demonstrate how fuel costs can be drastically reduced and fuel poverty can be successfully tackled. But Labour Lewisham, ever the friend of Big Business and indifferent to interests of those it was elected to serve, was not willing to allow local people get cost receive these benefits. At the last local elections, Lewisham People before Profit proposed a cable car to link Deptford High Street with Convoy Wharf and Canary Wharf, but Labour Lewisham and our third-rate MP dismissed the idea as fanciful and unrealistic. Boris, however, loved the idea, though, due to Lewisham Council's customary lack of vision, the cable car will be built in Greenwich. We also proposed a ship school for the Convoy site, which was responsibly coasted at £6 million would have been ready within 11 months. But sadly Lewisham People before Profit did not win the local elections, so profit continues to be put before local people who continue to suffer from real school crises and a lack of proper investment in the area.

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