Gavin Edwards

The latest update on what is happening with this toilet block building can be found here. Gavin Edwards Councillor for Peckham Rye Peckham Rye Labour Blog

If I were a Lib Dem at the moment I wouldn?t bang too much on about broken promises prior to elections. . . I too am going to keep an open mind. This is clearly a finely balanced issue and I?d like to listen to as wide a cross section of views as possible before making a decision. People are very welcome to attend Community Council but getting in touch in advance of that will allow us more time to raise queries with officers. Gavin Edwards Tel: 07956624529 e-mail: [email protected] www.peckhamryelabour.blogspot.com Peckham Rye News Facebook Group

Townley Green - The implication of your post seems to be that Labour supporters are unable to distinguish between council and general elections, whereas Liberal Democrat supporters have no trouble in telling the difference. I don't understand why you make this assumption. Higher turnout brings out more people to vote for all parties surely? I think most people would agree that a council elected with a higher turnout has more legitimacy and a stronger democratic mandate than a council elected by a lower turnout. There are a couple of posts on this thread which seem to be bemoaning the high turnout in the election. The excitement of a General Election has significantly increased the number of people voting in a local election on the same day. Even if this hasn't delivered the council you would have chosen, this is something to be celebrated not sneered at. Gavin Peckham Rye Labour

James, You?re last post about free school meals for primary school children is riddled with factual errors. 1. You?re maths are wrong on the overall cost of introducing free primary school meals. There are roughly 20,000 children in primary school, but about 7,000 of those already receive free school meals. This means that the amount per meal (using your back of the envelope methodology) is more like 96p. The average amount spent on ingredients for school meals in 2007, on the other hand, was 57p. 2. You?re also wrong to say Labour?s proposals are funded by one-off resources. The ?4m contingency that is being proposed by your own executive (and opposed by Labour councillors) is a year-on-year revenue commitment, not a one-off. I am genuinely surpised that you did not know this. 3. You?re also wrong about the regeneration projects fund. This is already provided by a separate regeneration reserve budget, which the council has been increasing over the last few years, by way of one-off funding it receives, such as the unexpected windfall of ?6.7m that Southwark received last year. (from the Local Authority Business Growth Incentives) 4. The cost of the free primary school meals in Labour?s budget is met by the savings that Labour is proposing for the restructuring consultancy and agency costs ? Southwark has spent over ?2 million more on consultants this year than it did last year. 5. You?re also wrong about Canada Water. The capital costs for the library have already been agreed and are met through the council?s capital budget, not its revenue budget. The expenditure in the capital budget, reconfirmed by your executive a couple of weeks ago, has already agreed this cost. Consequently, there is no threat to the building work if the additional revenue isn?t agreed at the council?s budget setting meeting tonight. A decision not to meet the additional running costs (on top of the ?0.5m agreed last year) for a library that won?t open this year would have no impact on the library?s construction UNLESS there is a further increase in the cost of the development. If you know of such an increase, perhaps you could tell us about it? I suspect that most people will be more supportive of a proposal for free school meals for primary school children than you and your Lib Dem colleagues. If anyone's interested in signing the petition in support of this policy, you can find the details here Gavin Edwards Peckham Rye Labour

The first meeting of the sub-group went ahead tonight. Victoria went along to it. A full update can be found here. Specifically regarding the toilet building, the latest is as follows: "It was confirmed tonight that Peckham Rye Projects (PRP) have now signed the lease on the building. However, this does not quite mean that the deal is signed, sealed and delivered. PRP are still waiting for the outcome of their bid to the local pot of "cleaner, greener safer" money and still need planning permission to be granted. We've e-mailed Anna at PRP to see if she can give us any further details on PRP latest plans." Gavin Peckham Rye Labour

First mate and Peckham Rose. In fairness, the first post on this thread was signed off "Gavin Edwards, Peckham Rye Labour [email protected]". Most of VikkiM's posts are pretty clear too. I promise I'm not trying to go incognito. I think that a thread about a building in our area, especially one on the Rye which is such a big part of the area, do belong to this section of the forum. The comments that have wondered off thread are as much down to others as to us. The information on this thread has communicated information about our area that people might not otherwise have known about. It's also let me find out a bit more about what people think of the toilet building. I'd be keen to keep this thread going as plans for the toilets develop and so that forum users can keep expressing ideas and suggestions. Isn't that a good thing? If local candidates/councillors from all parties never did this kind of thing I think we might be accused of not engaging or ignoring people. Gavin Edwards Peckham Rye Labour [email protected]

Hi Eileen, The post on here was first, the blog came second. Putting the message on both means more people see it (as you've demonstrated). The comments facility on our blog is turned on and anyone can comment, so not sure what happened there. As I say, I hope we can continue to work together on this whatever our respective political affiliations. Gavin

Steady on Eileen! I can confirm the use of the word "we" referred to the local community. Apols for my sudden appearance ?but unlike some recent arrivals to our area, I do live here ;-) PS. I?m really pleased that you?re also welcoming this development as, like me, you?ve seemed to be equally exasperated at council officers at recent community council meetings. I?ve asked if Peckham Project might be invited to a meeting of the sub-group in the new year to talk about their plans. Hope to see you there. Gavin

An important development. It seems we may have had some success in convincing the council that this shouldn't be a commercial enterprise. We've just received an e-mail from "Peckham Rye Projects" saying that the council have now offered them the contract to restore and maintain the toilets building. For those who haven't previously heard of Peckham Rye projects, I'm sure they won't mind me briefly quoting their e-mail here: "We are a not-for-profit gallery offering outreach programs to local schools and groups. We intend to sensitively restore the building, maintain the gardens and to open the gallery toilets to the public. We also intend to offer the building to community groups for use when the gallery is closed for business. We are aware that M.O.L and common land restrictions apply to any alteration of the building." They applied for a Cleaner Greener Safer grant to restore this building before the council offered it as a commercial contract - an application that was supported by the Peckham Rye, Lane and Nunhead councillors. Although it wasn't successful in the 2009 round they were encouraged by the councillors to re-apply for 2010 - something they have now done. They are also seeking the support of the sub-group (set up by the Community Council and mentioned above) for their bid. Personally, I think their suggestion is the best I've heard for the re-opening of this building and their willingness to make the toilet facilities open to the public will overcome objections from many people hoping to see the building returned to its former use. Obviously, this is not the end of the story, as Peckham Rye Projects will need to await the outcome of their bid to the CGS fund. Events have overtaken us to some degree, but in this case I think this is positive.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Keep them coming. Peckham Rose - yes, I think a council funded scheme which paid money to local businesses to open up their toilet facilities to non-customers has been running in Greenwich (I think). Depending on the outcome of this process, this sounds like a sensible policy. Clearly there is a need for public toilets in some form and if clearly signed pubs and cafes can provide a this, why not?

Thanks Boomerang. Will do. Alice - I'm pretty sure that building is on the Park rather than the common. But I think your point stands anyway because of the cafe Peckham Rye Common. That shows that there is no hard and fast rule that businesses can't operate on common land. I just think in the case of an existing public builiding on common land (albeit a closed one) should preferably be maintained as a community facility. . . or at least local people should be consulted on how its use might change. That's one reason why I think this new sub-group is a welcome development.

Thanks bossboss and Alice. Alice - I think you're right, there are loopholes and there are examples of commercial ventures on common land. However, it can clearly get very complicated. The council officers report (page 25) shows the number of grounds on which the current plans could run into trouble. Is the building you're referring to a business or shop? Or is it a private house?

Hi Tuffie, I should have mentioned that we recieved a verbal update at the Community Council meeting advising us that the cycle shop owner had pulled out. The council is now offering the property to other potential commercial tenants. On the general issue of whether or not this should be opened as a commercial venture, I think the fact that we're talking about common land (as opposed to park land) is relevant. The lack of clarity over the legality of renting this building out as a commercial venture is an issue. I don't really understand why council officers didn't clarify this before trying to rent it out, but months after this process started I think there is still a big question mark over whether or not the council is actually allowed to do this. Personally, I think that using this existing building for a community enterprise/facility might be more appropriate for this location. However, I take your point and I'm open to any ideas/suggestions people have. Gavin Edwards Peckham Rye Labour [email protected]

Hi, Some of you might already know about the saga surrounding the toilet building on Peckham Rye Common (East Dulwich Road). To cut a long story short, Southwark council has been attempting to rent the building out as a commercial property despite the fact that it is situated on common land. If you'd like more background you can find it here and here. Anyway, at the last meeting of the Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council the consensus view was strongly opposed to the council's policy of allocating a building on common land for commercial purposes. Councillor Gordon Nardell (Nunhead Ward) offered to set up a sub-group which would propose alternatives to the council on how the building might be used. I'm going to be a member of this group and I think membership is open to anyone who is interested in this issue. I'd be interested to know what local people think the building could be used for. Should it be returned to it former use as public toilets, or could it be used for something else? I'll take any ideas posted here and feed them into the sub-group meeting. Gavin Edwards Peckham Rye Labour [email protected]

. . . but I think you're wrong to take that generic view of politics. OK, some national politicians have a developed the bad habit of sounding like robots, but does that mean we should write off the whole thing, from lowly council candidates to everyone else who decides they want to stand for an election? Cynicism is as much a weakness as slavish point scoring, and it leads us down a path which stops politics from making a difference. I don't want to sound too corny, but I think that's what it comes down to: politics can change things. If we all give up on politics (and ALL politicians), then we're left with nothing but unfettered free markets and a completely incoherent debate. And this thread IS about a debate. Southwark's recycling is too low. One of the reasons it might never go up is because nobody knows it's too low in the first place. Hence the blog entry... http://peckhamryelabour.blogspot.com/

???? - Fair enough, I'd agree EDF shouldn't be dominated by politicians. But I don't think there's much danger of that from what I've seen. That said, if there are issues of genuine local concern - like recycling - I thinks its fair enough to post about the possible political causes and solutions to these problems. Despite its current low reputation, politics is the way we debate and address these issues. On the recession - I'd be happy to debate this with you if you'd like to start a new thread. But then again, you'd probably think that's too "political" ;-)

Willow. I disagree that recycling Tetra paks won't improve Southwark's performance on this issue. 3% is not an insignificant proportion of waste. We should be giving residents this option, and look to other councils who are vastly outperforming Southwark. I'm afraid the buck has to stop with council on this one. The figures quoted on the Peckham Rye Labour Blog compare councils across the country, in all types of circumstances, and the fact is Southwark is right down the bottom of the league table. The key measure of success on recycling is the % of waste recycled and composted. There's no way around the fact that 20.89% is simply too low and there aren't any mitigating circumstances that can excuse this situation. Almost everyone else in England is able to do better, and if we really care about this issue we have to ask why Southwark is being left behind. It's an issue of political priorities - and for the Lib Dems this clearly hasn't been put far enough up the list.

For anyone doubting the seriousness of the problem in Southwark on recycling, see the latest post on Peckham Rye Labour Blog: http://peckhamryelabour.blogspot.com/2009/11/recycling-in-southwark-now-were-6th.html Incredibly, Southwark has now gone from 10th worst in England to 6th worst. Gavin

???? if you live in Peckham Rye ward, give me your address details or PM or send them to the hotmail address above and a Labour canvasser of my description would be happy to make sure we have knocked on your door and that of your neighbours.

The point about engaging people from all backgrounds and not just the middle classes is an important one. I hope that reading and posting messages on this forum (and other places online) will help us to enagage with a wide cross section of people, but I accept that this may not always be the case. The point for us is to engage with a variety of different people in different ways. Only this evening we were out knocking on doors, speaking to residents about the housing repairs service, recycling and lots of other issues. Some of these people might use EDF and some won't. But I don't see this as an either/or thing. Speaking to people face to face and letting people know what we're doing via the internet has to be the way to do it.

Peckham Rose - I do agree with you re: the relative importance of the surveys etc. Online activity such as surveys, blogs and even this forum are ultimately a small part of communicating with residents. The real hard work, as you say, is done on the doorstep and in community meetings. But in fairness to Victoria, Renata and I, we've been doing this work too! Take a look at the other blog stories on community council meetings, school places meetings, canvassing, community forums and Rye Lane and Station Action Group to name but a few. Our aim is to emulate those excellent local representatives that you mention. You're right to set the bar high, and we're going to do our best to meet that standard. Gavin

Completely agree. Perhaps not that surprising as I'm also one of the Labour candidates! Appreciate the supportive comments fom Moos. I think Peckham Rose's response to the survey is perhaps misjudging the spirit in which it was offered. But as Victoria says we will be opening ourselves up to residents views in many other forums, so I hope that will convince you that our intentions are genuine! That said, I'm pleased to say that many people have already taken the chance to complete the survey online. We've had 52 responses in just a few hours. A superb response. Please keep them coming in. Gavin