Lewisham Schools Sir Francis Drake Deptford; Teachers and parents concerned about development plans

Contacted today whilst giving out flyers at the school gates today .

Lewisham council plans to knock down the present  popular Sir francis drake Primary  school rebuild to much larger hight and scale ,  and increase number of children by over  200.

 Parents and teachers concerned about quality of teaching with so many kids and the new Class room sizes are much smaller with many local kids living in over crowded homes good size class rooms are key to doing well.

Parents and Teachers say old Tidemills or the former Deptford Green school site should be used, not distroying a much loved small school doing awesome work with many kids with problems.

Teachers and parents have asked that we raise profile so all parents and local residents are aware what is going on.

Would welcome any feed back offers of help for this campaign,

This is Evelyn ward, so Lewisham People Before Profit Evelyn Ward team ,  Barbara, George and Paul Will be leading this. Public notice of consultation to be posted 7 May .

This will be fast moving story;
Follow Ray on twiiter to keep informed@Raywoolford


As you read this People Before Profit are alarmed that plans to turn the former Deptford Green School into a community garden have come to a halt even though condition of planning and reason to knock down a perfectly good school and a 3 bed family home was that site wopuld be uused as a Green space.
Clearly like much else in Lewisham . Labour cannot be trusted.
22 May Vote People Before Profit...We will put community need before developers greed.

 

Lewisham Council Elections Downham ward Lewisham People Before Profit Candidate

Vote Wayne Barron-Woolford for Downham

Wayne Barron-Woolford is a school teacher and only to aware of Labours poor record in the Borough for failing to deliver the top quality education all our kids need.
Wayne has been active in People Before Profit since the start and has been campaigning to protect adult education services, cuts and privatisation and Labours total failure to address Poverty in the borough in all its forms.
Wayne’s priority within People Before Profit is to insure ever child can get a brilliant education in Lewisham Schools and be inspired by teachers engaged and inspired to deliver, lead by a Council, and school Governors who want to be at the forefront of the best education system anywhere in the UK.

School Teacher and community activist Wayne Barron-Woolford is standing as the Lewisham People Before Profit candidate for Downham ward.
Wayne supports our policys of freezing rent for 4 years and seeking to bring in rent controls. Wants to use local roof tops to generate low cost energy for a local residents to bring down fuel bills.Wants to see Jobs for local people and supports our pol;icy of Green Enterprise zone to bring long term well paid jobs to this area not more Tesco metro and is like most local residents appalled that new homes are being sold abroad when we have a homes crises here in Lewisham  and the massive rise of betting shops.
We have had Labour for 39 years says Wayne. We need a Council that puts community need before developers greed, and the new rent rise is just wicked when local people are finding to hard to put food on the table..
Lewisham People Before Profit is the party for the 99% we will fight for people, community and environment and will oppose Labour plans for £95 Million in Cuts after 22 May.
This is the first time you have had a chance to have your say and evict the establishment from robbing us.
You have 3 votes, MAKE THEM COUNT. Please give 1 to Wayne Barron-Woolford and vote John  Hamilton for Mayor.

www.peoplebeforeprofit.org.uk for full policy agenda

Lewisham Council elections Save Lewisham Hospital Lewisham Central ward

Richard Proctor is the Lewisham People Before Profit  Save Lewisham Hospital candidate in this ward.
Richard like many of us in People Before Profit was a  founder member of the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and carried out most of the work in the early days when Labour party had nothing to do with the campaign... The striking banners and design work was made and designed by richard. as a local resident he is passionate about the NHS and like us all concerned that Labour party have hijacked the Save Lewisham Campaign to stop concerns about Labour party PFI deals that lead to hospital crises in the first place.Today SLH is no longer a broad based community campaign as at the AGM a list was circulated a copy of which i have with names approved by the Labour party. this lead to all opposition or concerned members who have dared to be

Founder Member of Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Ladywell PB4P candidate Helen Mercer.

Lewisham People Before Profit a record of standing up to establishment privatisation and cuts.

Ray Barron-Woolford and Barbara Raymond Candidates for PB4P in New Cross Ward at the start of the campaign

We fought hard to insure Lewisham residents could understand PFI and Labours role in it.

critical of Labour getting slung of the board.
Think most lewisham residents reguardless of your politics will be disgusted by what Labour have done and will vote on mass for all Lewisham People Before Profit candidates. With the PFI debt being dumped on Lewisham Our Hospital is AT GREATER RISK THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN.. READERS MAY HAVE FORGOTTON THAT IN 2008 LABOUR GOVERMENT HAD PLANNED TO CLOSE a&e DEPARTMENT .
www.peoplebeforeprofit.org.uk
Follow ray on twitter@Raywoolford

Labour Lewisham PFI time Bomb Vote People Before Profit to end PFI..

Lewisham Council’s budget is facing a double whammy of reduced funding and  ballooning PFI contract payments.

The Council is under pressure to make savings and Mayor Steve Bullock has stated an estimated £40m in further savings are likely to be needed in the next two years (source: letter to residents Lewisham Life Winter 2012).

As budgets are squeezed and the Council faces reduced funding (or below inflation rate increases) from central government further cuts to services are likely to be exacerbated by increasing annual interest charge payments and overall payments due to PFI contractors over the next fifteen years. The Council currently has in place PFI contracts to the value of £1.2 billion.

Interest payable on these PFI contracts is stated in Lewisham Council’s annual accounts for 2011/12 as being £23m due in 2012/13. Total payments, including interest charges, due on PFI contracts in 2012/13 are projected to come in at £44m.

The Council currently has an annual total budget of approx. £280m.

From the Council’s own figures and projections the next few years will see its overall budget pressurised by increasing PFI costs. See table below.

From a total annual payment to PFI Contractors of £44m in 2012/13, annual payments will escalate to nearly £54m a year within the next 6-10 years and peak at £58m per annum in the early 2020s.

Interest payments are due to increase from £23m in 2012/13 to £26.5m per annum by 2014/15 and will stay at over £20m per annum until the early 2020s.

Total forecast accumulated interest charges for the duration of current PFI contracts is £452,925,000. The interest payments alone come to 36.5% of the total PFI contract liabilities.

The Council has been placed in the unenviable position of having to fund school building refurbishment, expansion or new schools through the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. With the Council’s ability to borrow limited by central government it is faced with the stark choice of either signing up to BSF/PFI contracts or severely curtailing its schools programme.

The Council may be between a rock and a hard place come funding school regeneration and building, but it’s PFI contract for Downham Lifestyles leisure centre looks enormously expensive at a total cost of £68m over thirty years of which interest payments of £40m alone make up almost 2/3 thirds of the contract.

Lewisham’s PFI contract with Skanska for street lighting replacement and maintenance runs for twenty-five years at a total cost of £93m of which interest payments of £24m make up almost 25% of the contract.

There also arises the affordability of the current level of PFI liabilities. The requirement for budget cuts would seem to be, in part at least, a consequence of not only negligible annual increases in income (or even declining in real terms), but the escalating annual costs of servicing PFI liabilities. The Council has an annual income of approx. £280m yet has taken on PFI liabilities in excess of £1.2bn, an income-to-debt ratio of 4.5. Historically for a mortgage an individual would expect a lender to allow borrowing of 3.5 times annual income.

PFI contracts are widely viewed as poor value to the taxpayer and in Lewisham we are about to experience the strain these financial instruments will place on budgets for front line services in the coming years.

Notes:

Southwark Council PFI payments

As a comparison the figures for Southwark Council as stated in their most recent accounts are: 
At 31 March 2012 the future obligation to make payments totals £877 million, of which £35.111 million falls in 2012/13.

Greenwich Council PFI payments

And the figures for Greenwich Council, as of 31 March 2012, are future obligation to make payments of £643m over lifetime of current PFI contracts.

Lewisham Council Lewisham PFI contracts

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Lambeth Council Clapham Town Ward Julian Hall best Council Candidate for job.

Ok i am not a Green, the party is running candidates against PB4P in Lewisham, but i care about Housing and the Greens Julian Hall has done huge amount to raise profile of housing crises in Lambeth to a global readership, he has clear understanding of the issues, cares and has no shame in putting community need before developers greed. whatever your politics on 22 May you have 3 votes, Please, Please give Julian Hall one of your 3 Votes, London and Lambeth needs conviction politicians not more Labour party drones.

 This is What Julian has to Say:

I chose to stand against my local Labour councillors in Clapham Town Ward, in Lambeth, because they completely sold-old the housing co-operative communities there.  Despite promising us that they would "fight for your right to remain in your homes" they now support our eviction.  The only one who stood up for us was Cllr Helen O'Malley, but she has now been deselected, an action that only serves to remind us of the appalling way in which Labour organise themselves internally.

Many lifelong Labour voters have been lost because of this.  Meanwhile, the Green Party have actively helpful in support of the campaign against the evictions. Many other anti-cuts groups including People Before Profit have lent their support too, and we are very grateful for that.

Julian Hall

Lambeth United Housing Co-operative

lambethunitedhousingco-op.org.uk

Twitter:  @LUHousingCoop

facebook.com/LambethUnited 

Petition: http://chn.ge/16PkKwv

Ray Woolford Interview wih East London lines on why poor must have a voice and vote in May.

Deprivation and voter turnout in Lewisham

25/04/2014 16:34 #Lewisham's very own @Raywoolford explains why voting in this May's local election is critical: bit.ly/1lNyd3D. Please RT!

 Please Click on blue bit  link to see short film.

Deprivation is not always visible.  In Lewisham, it’s made manifest by its many payday loan lenders– the borough has the highest number in the country, with 7.6 stores for every 100,000 residents.

Lewisham’s high levels of deprivation –- it’s the 16th most deprived local authority in the UK — translate to below average voter turnout in all of the previous decade’s local elections.

Evelyn, the second most deprived ward in Lewisham, has consistently had dismal voter turnout rates. In 2010, when the London average turnout rate was 63%, Evelyn voted at a rate of 52%. In 2006, the ward’s residents voted at a rate of 28% and in 2002, the figure stood at only 20%.

On the other end of the deprivation spectrum, in wards that are less deprived, voter turnout was remarkably higher. In the five least deprived wards in the borough, voter turnout was, on average, 5 percentage points higher than the London average in 2010.

Raymond Woolford, of People Before Profit and founder of the Lewisham Food Bank, explained that the problems that plague the country’s poorest are particularly prevalent in Lewisham.

“What we’re finding [in Lewisham] is that housing poverty is a big issue,” Woolford said. “Rents have gone through the roof. Even for people who are on relatively good pay are finding rent eating up three-quarters of their income, plus council tax and bills.

“[Housing policies] are forcing young families out of the area; it’s forcing families to break up,” Woolford continued. “[The children] of older people in the area who’ve lived here for generations can no longer afford to live in this area.”

Woolford also highlighted the rise of betting shops in Lewisham, which has further exacerbated problems like hunger and domestic violence in the area.

For those unsure about voting in May’s election, this will be your chance to have your voice heard, and to shape the policies your community’s authorities adopt.

The last day to register to vote in the local elections is May 6. For more information on registration, see Lewisham council’s elections webpage here.

By Hajera Blagg & Taku Dzimwasha

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