Agenda item

• Community Groups working together, Eid Festival and Oxjam event on 22 October 2011.

• Local cemeteries – the Council want to hear residents’ views on the options for the future of the burial service in the borough. It is now carrying out a full consultation with the community to explore all future possibilities for burial provision.

• Democracy Commission – officers will be present at the meeting to hand out information and give feedback on the survey and to ask residents for their input on the review of community councils.  Community engagement officers will be available at the break.

• Draft Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance - how does affordable housing relate to your community council area?  Details of the timetable and questionnaires for consultation will be available at the meeting so people can submit their views.

The chair announced that officers would be available at the break to talk about the following:

Oxjam and Eid event – an all day festival across SE5

Michael Armstrong from Oxjam Camberwell Takeover activity was present at the break to talk about a joint event in Camberwell, working in partnership with Mumtaz Banu to plan a local celebration of Eid-al-Fitr that would take place on 22 October 2011.

Flyers were available at the meeting.  The event showed how local groups worked together.  For more information contact email oxjam.camberwell2011@gmail.com Tel: 07876208039

Local cemeteries

This item was about a borough wide consultation on cemeteries.  The borough’s three main cemeteries were now full or near to capacity.  Therefore the council would need to develop a long term plan which involved looking at a range of options including acquiring land outside the borough or using the existing plot of the sites.  The council’s website listed eight options for the future of cemeteries details.  The council organised a number of sessions and workshops including a public consultation on which took place on 24 September 2011 at Honor Oak Recreation Grounds. 

Democracy Commission

Kevin Dykes, Senior Development Officer from the community engagement team was present to highlight the work of the Democracy Commission Phase 2.  This was to look at the role and function of community councils as a result of the council’s decision to make a saving of £344,000 from April 2012 and the aim to identify improvements to community councils.  As part of the work of the Commission, officers were engaged in a process to find out what residents think about community councils which had been done through focus groups, questionnaires, workshop sessions and discussions at community councils.

Affordable housing

Alison Squires from Planning Policy talked about the consultation that had taken place on affordable housing.

The guidance document followed on from one adopted in 2008 and subsequent ones like the Aylesbury Action Plan and the Core Strategy. The new document provided guidance on student accommodation, the minimum of 35% affordable housing for developments with 10 or more units, and payments in lieu of on-site affordable accommodation.

Affordable housing meets the needs of households whose incomes were not enough to allow them to buy or rent decent and appropriate housing in the borough.

The council’s consultation closed on 30 September 2011. Officer contact: Alison Squires email at planning@southwark.gov.uk