Last week, Chuka paid a visit to Renton Close on Brixton Hill, to see their new community garden.

The project, run by Simon Ghartey encourages children from Renton Close and nearby areas to build and maintain an allotment on the green spaces of the estate. We were given a tour of the garden by Simon and Debbie Etienne, Secretary of the Renton Close Tenants and Residents Association.

The children all aged under 11, work from 3.30pm to 6pm after school each Thursday. They learn to dig and prepare a plot in addition to planting and caring for vegetables like tomatoes and pumpkins. As well as teaching them new skills, the initiative has the benefit of putting the outside space in the estate to functional use, receiving a positive response from local residents.

Although the garden has only been up and running for a few months, it was named the second best community garden in the 2008 Lambeth Estates in Bloom Competition.

Chuka was really impressed by the garden:

“It is not just a question of giving our young people things to do, it is a question of finding them interesting and different things to do – this is a great way of doing that and enabling them to contribute to the environment they live in, in a fun way.”

Carys Afoko

Chuka Umunna has obtained confirmation that Streatham will lose direct train services to stations beyond Blackfriars from 2015

Network Rail have decided that the Thameslink service as we know it is to be no more. With no real consultation they have declared that Streatham and other stations on the “Wimbledon Loop” part of the Thameslink line will lose direct train services to stations beyond Blackfriars from 2015.

For Streatham and other stations on the Wimbledon Loop this will mean:
• No direct train to St Pancras and its interchange with the Eurostar and many cross-country links;
• No direct service to Farringdon, cutting Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations off from Crossrail;
• Streatham and other Wimbledon loop stations will miss out on the new connections as Thameslink expands.

Network Rail banded together with other rail industry bodies to produce an industry-wide “Route Utilisation Strategy” for South London, a 160 page document published in March 2008. The proposal to sever Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations from the rest of the Thameslink line was hidden away in two small paragraphs in that document. Given that no apparent consultation of service users has been carried out, the existence and status of the proposals has been unclear or unknown to most service users.

In order to seek clarification of the position and to enquire what consultation remains to be carried out, Chuka Umunna recently spoke with senior Network Rail executives who revealed that no further consultation is planned and that the plans will be presented for approval to the Department for Transport shortly.

Commenting on this, Chuka said:
“These proposals – hidden away in two small paragraphs in a 160 page document – will have a huge affect on thousands of local residents who hop on and off Thameslink at Streatham every working day, every year.
“The proposals are completely unacceptable. Thameslink provides the only direct route for rail users in Streatham to destinations north of the river and now this is being taken from us. We want Streatham to be better connected, not cut off from the rail map of the future.
“Network Rail have cooked up these plans without giving a single leaflet to service users or putting up a single poster to canvass our views – there has been no meaningful consultation whatsoever – and now they are seeking to quietly push these plans, as a fait accompli, through the Department for Transport.”

Network Rail cited two main reasons for this devastating change in discussion with Chuka: the allegedly huge cost of altering the platform layout at the new Blackfriars station to allow trains from the Wimbledon Loop to continue on northwards; and, the alleged prohibitive cost of upgrading Streatham and other Wimbledon Loop stations to accommodate the longer 12 car trains.

Responding to these claims, Chuka said: “It is bad enough that rail users from Streatham were not considered important enough to factor in when re-vamping the new Blackfriars station. It is nothing short of a disgrace that Streatham is being consigned to the second-league, unable to join the super-league of stations that will see 12-carriage trains as a matter of course.”

Network Rail have promised more trains to Blackfriars and London Bridge –from 5 or 6 per hour to around 10. Chuka wholeheartedly supports the expansion of these vital services. However, he thinks that the plans to terminate trains at Blackfriars pose a real threat to Streatham:

“Our links to the rest of the capital and beyond are being severed, whilst stations in Kent stand to benefit at our expense. This, added to the upheaval the present plans will inevitably bring, will anger this community.”
Chuka will be campaigning to ensure that the proposals as envisaged are not granted approval by the Department for Transport.

For more information, or to join the campaign to save Streatham’s Thameslink Services, email thameslink {at} streathamlabour.org(.)uk.

Network Rail’s South London Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) was published in March 2008 and can be found here. The proposal to sever the Wimbledon Loop from Thameslink north of Blackfriars is contained in paragraphs 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 of the document on page 111.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of accompanying Keith Hill, Labour MP for Streatham, to the 35th anniversary celebrations of Lewin Baptist Church’s Pre-School. Some 50 children between the ages of 2 and 5 years old are registered with the school, with around 25 children attending in term time between 9.15 and 11.45am in the church hall and/or at the afternoon session between 12.30 and 3pm.

The school was established by a group of mothers from the church in 1973 and is now predominantly funded through voluntary donations. It offers a range of stimulating activities from sand play, dressing up, painting and crafts, to construction toys, play doh, puzzles and cookery within a caring environment, to the children during those all important formative years in their development. The school aims to assist the children in their social, physical, emotional and intellectual development in accordance with the Pre-School curriculum and to prepare them for school with confidence – Keith and I were able to see for ourselves that that is just what the school has achieved and its tremendous contribution to the local community. Happy Anniversary Lewin Pre-School! For further information on the Pre-School, click here: Lewin Pre-School.

Chuka and local residents were joined by London Assembly Member Val Shawcross in a campaign to bring a bus route to Leigham Vale.

Leigham Vale currently has no bus service, meaning residents face a long uphill walk to transport links in Tulse Hill, or buses running through Leigham Court Road. After hearing about the inconvenience this posed not only to commuters but elderly residents needing to access to local amenities, Chuka and Streatham Wells Labour party lobbied Transport for London to bring a bus route to the Vale.

After bringing TfL representatives to the area to discuss the possibility of a bus service earlier in the year, a petition of local residents was formally presented to Val Shawcross, Labour’s London Assembly Member for Lambeth & Southwark and Chair of the London Assembly’s Transport Committee. Val delivered the petition to Boris Johnson at Mayor’s question time this week.

As part of the proposal, Chuka and Val wish to see parking arrangements improved along Leigham Vale, for example by allowing cars to park on the pavement on the rail side of the road, a proposal which has proved popular with residents.

Carys Afoko

Network Rail plan to cut off Streatham’s Thameslink service at Blackfriars from 2015, severing our direct transport links to north London. Join the campaign to Save Our Thameslink Services.

The Thameslink service as we know it is to be no more. With no real consultation, Network Rail have declared that Streatham, Tulse Hill, Wimbledon and other stations on the “Wimbledon Loop” part of the Thameslink line will lose direct train services to stations beyond Blackfriars from 2015. This will mean:

• No direct train to Kings Cross St Pancras and its interchange with the Eurostar
• No direct service to Farringdon, cutting Streatham off from Crossrail;
• Streatham and other Wimbledon loop stations will miss out on the new connections as Thameslink expands.

The proposal to sever Wimbledon Loop stations from the rest of the Thameslink line was hidden away at the back of the “Route Utilisation Strategy” for South London, published earlier this year. The information had not appeared in the draft report issued in 2006, and no apparent consultation of service users has been carried out regarding the plans.

Concerned that the proposals were unknown or unclear to most service users, Chuka spoke with senior Network Rail executives who confirmed that trains from Streatham will no longer go beyond Blackfriars after 2015. The plans are now being sent to the Department for Transport for final approval. Network Rail have yet to produce evidence of any direct consultation of local passengers. Chuka commented:

“Thameslink provides the only direct route for rail users in Streatham to destinations North of the river and now this is being taken from us. We want Streatham to be better connected, not cut off from the rail map of the future.
“Network Rail have cooked up these plans without giving a single leaflet to service users or putting up a single poster to canvass our views and now they are seeking to quietly push these plans as a fait accompli through the Department for Transport.”

Chuka is now campaigning to ensure that the proposals are not granted approval by the Department for Transport.

If you want to save Streatham’s Thameslink services sign up to our new campaign by sending your name and postcode to thameslink {at} streathamlabour.org(.)uk.

Network Rail’s ‘South London Route Utilisation Strategy’ (RUS) was published in March 2008 and can be found here. The proposal to sever the Wimbledon Loop from Thameslink north of Blackfriars is contained in paragraphs 9.6.1 and 9.6.2 of the document on page 111.

Carys Afoko

In The Guardian letter’s page today Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, and others call on the government to save our post offices.  The signatories of the letter say that the Post Office should be grown into a national banking system to underpin economic resilience, promote financial inclusion and to allow people to invest and save with confidence and security.  The text of and signatories to the letter are below.

As your excellent leader (October 2) pointed out, the government has a real opportunity in the current financial turmoil to strengthen the Post Office as a trusted national institution which can offer an established and viable home for savings, a local banking system that can provide untainted and impartial information and advice, and an environmentally sound network of community centres which can be strengthened and made ready for a digital future.

We call on the government to halt immediately the closure programme targeting 2,500 local post offices and abandon plans to break up Royal Mail. Instead, it should build it up as both financially viable and as a cohesive social and economic institution.

We believe that the Post Office must be grown into a national banking system to underpin economic resilience, promote financial inclusion and to allow people to invest and save with confidence and security. Royal Mail must be retained as a powerful national network and not cherry-picked by competitors and run down by a government and regulator which has put too much faith in the deregulated market.

Financially and economically, the post office network aids the dynamic small and medium businesses that, pound for pound, create more jobs than big business. With the impact of the financial crisis yet to play out in full, the support that post offices provide will be critical.

Environmentally it makes no sense to run down a national network at a time when energy costs are soaring and climate change is an even greater threat than financial instability.

Socially, local post offices underpin the social fabric. They are a cohesive community resource and a lifeline for the poor, the old, young families and local businesses. The government must rethink its neglect of this great national institution and make it one of the cornerstones of a more stable, trusted and solid financial framework. The moment demands that a modern high-quality postal service is built – not pulled apart.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Cllr Jon Collins, leader, City of Nottingham council
Mark Serwotka, general secretary, PCS
Stewart Wallis, executive director, New Economics Foundation
John Wright, chairman, Federation of Small Businesses
Nicky Gavron AM, London assembly member
David Martin MEP
Doug Naysmith MP
Chuka Umunna, Labour PPC, Streatham
Ann Pettifor, economist
Howard Reed, economist
Roger Levett
Professor Ruth Lister
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
Gavin Hayes, General secretary, Compass

A lot of local people have been talking to me about the uncertain economic climate and the troubles in the banking sector which have seen the nationalisations of Northern Rock and the Bradford & Bingley. 

The Labour government is taking decisive action to protect the deposits of ordinary account-holders.  The decision to raise the guarantee for bank savings from £35,000 to £50,000 will hopefully reassure depositors in Streatham, Balham, Brixton, Clapham and Tulse Hill, that the government will not allow the recent problems in the banking sector to jeopardise your savings.  Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised to do “whatever is necessary” to stabilise banking and protect ordinary account-holders in these difficult times.

This weekend, the Prime Minister is meeting with other European leaders at a summit in Paris to address the current economic problems, hoping to agree new banking rules which will tackle the underlying causes of the current problems in the financial sector.  I will keep local people up to date with further measures the government announces which will help them (I am pictured talking to a local resident outside the Lambeth Savings & Credit Union on Brixton Hill).

The Prime Minister’s Labour Party conference speech last week and what it means for Streatham.

At the Labour Party Conference in Manchester last week, Gordon Brown gave a clear message of how he wishes to take Britain forward, outlining his vision of a fairer society. In his speech, the Prime Minister identified new challenges and goals, announcing a series of policies which will make a real difference to the lives of people in Streatham.

From next year, he announced that cancer sufferers will not have to pay any prescription charges, while over the coming years prescription charges will be phased out for all patients with long-term conditions. Cancer is one of the prime causes of premature mortality in Lambeth, so this is hugely important for those people in Streatham who suffer from this terrible disease.

Gordon Brown also announced that free nursery school places will now be offered to all two year olds. When Labour came into power in 1997, nursery provision was only available for the few. Since then we have made great strides by opening Sure Start children’s centres for every community, while 250,000 children have been lifted out of child poverty. Now, the government will introduce legislation to enshrine in law Labour’s pledge to end child poverty .

Schoolchildren will be guaranteed personal catch-up tuition, ensuring that no child is left behind in the essentials of reading, writing and counting. Although the percentage of children leaving Streatham’s primary schools able to read and write to a high standard has increased by 30% since 1997, this announcement of extra tuition reiterates the government’s drive to embed high standards of literacy and numeracy (Chuka is pictured left, outside Sunnyhill Primary school is Streatham where he has been a school governor for several years and sits on the board of its Sure Start children’s centre).

Commenting on Brown’s speech, Chuka said:
“What matters to people are the tangible things a government does which affects their daily lives. Whether you are a young parent with a toddler or an older person fighting the fight against cancer, there was something for you here.”

Gabriel Huntley