Minutes:
At this point, Councillor Paul Kyriacou joined the meeting.
Southwark Civic Association
Gary Magold, representing the Southwark Civic Association, explained that the Civic Association had been in existence since 1995, and that it awarded honours on three different levels: letter of commendation, freedom of the old metropolitan boroughs and life-time achievement. There were also specialised “of the year” awards. This year the association wanted to honour people who had shown acts of civic engagement or courage during or after the disturbances in August 2011. He encouraged all those in attendance to submit their nominations by 31 January 2012, either in paper form or electronically via the website.
Elephant and Castle Opportunity Area supplementary
planning document (SPD)
Barbara-Ann Overwater, from the council’s planning policy team, informed the meeting that a consultation about this document was currently ongoing. The document was aimed at providing a framework, against which future planning applications, traffic schemes and other developments would be assessed. She encouraged people to give their feedback electronically or on the questionnaires provided until 7 February 2012, or to come along to the Walworth Community Council on 21 January 2012 at 1pm, at the Walworth Academy, where this document would be discussed in workshops. Responding to questions from the floor, Barbara-Ann said that the consultation on the leisure centre was independent from this consultation, but that the SPD document would take account of the leisure centre development. The meeting heard that the separate consultation on the leisure centre would finish on 23 January 2012.
Councillors asked Barbara-Ann to note, and add to the feed back, that there was a real shortage of family-sized, affordable housing, and that this should be included in the document.
Recycling / Waste-collections
Ian McGeough, from Veolia, informed the meeting about the new processing and recycling facility off the Old Kent Road, which featured the following main components. The centre itself which sorted and recycled the waste, the recycling discovery centre for children at Key Stage 2, and a permanent exhibition/meeting space, which community groups could use to meet. He reminded the meeting that the facility at Manor Place was now closed.
LINk Southwark
Sec-Chan Hoong informed the meeting that LINk Soutwark were looking for people to join their leadership group. This group would be in charge of overseeing the transition to Health Watch which would scrutinise health and social care provision and establishments in the borough, including hospitals, care homes and GP surgeries. Health Watch would also have the power to ask for written replies from the organisations regarding problems it had raised. The leadership group would operate like a board of trustees, and support the organisation in its overarching aim to improve health and social care in the borough. She encouraged attendees to pick up one of the recruitment packs.