Agenda item

This is an opportunity for public questions to be addressed to the chair.

Residents or persons working in the borough may ask questions on any matter in relation to which the council has powers or duties.

Responses may be supplied in writing following the meeting.

The chair took questions from the floor. An issue was raised relating to markets on Peckham Square.

Cllr Barrie Hargrove, Cabinet Member for Transport, Environment and Recycling explained that the decision had been taken by the markets team of the council to allow stalls on the square during the week. Cllr Hargrove asked attendees if they objected on the principle of the stalls or the specific nature of the stalls. Councillor Michael Situ, suggested taking a vote to establish whether people were opposed to stalls on Peckham Square or not. 15 attendees were against any stalls and 0 were in favour. However, some attendees did express a view that the Sunday market was a positive development in the area.

Cllr Hargrove said he would discuss the issue with officers in his role as cabinet member and investigate the implications of terminating existing agreements and exploring alternative opportunities for traders.

A comment was also made relating to the quality of jobcentre services in Southwark compared to other London Boroughs. A suggestion was made that Peckham jobcentre did not provide a comparable service to other areas for young people. Councillor Catherine McDonald, Cabinet Member for Children's Services, outlined some of the measures the council was implementing to help young people with education and job opportunities including a youth fund over approximately £3million over three years which would assist young people to stay in education or find a job.

Councillors agreed to write to Councillor Fiona Colley, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Corporate Strategy, asking her to look into this issue and provide a response to the community council.

An issue was raised about cycle pathways through Peckham square, as a group of people had been noticed asking cyclists to slow down.

Cllr Hargrove explained that Southwark cyclists were the group and they were encouraging other cyclists to slow down on the route and think about pedestrians. He explained that it was an important route for pedestrians and that it was difficult to bring in physical measures to slow cyclists effectively and so it was thought that a publicity campaign was the best solution.

A question was raised relating to housing repairs and whether the work is supervised.

Cllr Livingstone explained that the housing repairs service had been subject of an overview and scrutiny review. As a result himself and Councillor Ian Wingfield, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Housing Management, would look into customer service and how the call centre was working and how it could improve.

In addition Cllr Situ who is a member of the Housing and Community Safety Scrutiny Sub-Committee added that the scrutiny report had made some specific recommendations about how the housing repairs service could be improved including: penalising contactors when they fail to meet their contractual commitments and better monitoring of contractors sent to complete works. He hoped that in the next year or so residents would begin to see significant improvements in the service.

ACTIONS

Cllr Hargrove to look into stalls on Peckham Square and report back to the community council

Councillors to write to Cllr Fiona Colley, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Corporate Strategy, asking her to look into the Peckham job centre issue.