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@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

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

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Labour passing the National Minimum Wage Act.  It is one of our proudest achievements, having benefited millions of people - in my work as an employment lawyer I see the affect it has every working week.

Almost everyone who works in the UK is legally entitled to be paid the National Minimum Wage – that includes people employed permanently, by an agency, part-time workers, casual workers, or people on a short-term contract.

On Wednesday the national minimum wage will be increasing:

• for adults (which means people aged 22 and over), from £5.52 to £5.73 an hour;
• for workers aged 18-21 (the “development rate”), from £4.60 to £4.77 an hour;
• for young people (those older than school leaving age and younger than 18; you’re under school leaving age until the end of summer term of the school year in which you turn 16), from £3.40 to £3.53 an hour.

To find out more, click here: The National Minimum Wage

A noticeable rise in the number of prostitutes working in the Tulse Hill and Brixton Hill areas has followed the disbandment of Brixton Police’s dedicated Vice-Squad.  I am very concerned about this and residents are questioning what the Police and the Council are doing about it.

Myself and local Labour Cllrs Toren Smith, Ade Aminu and Marcia Cameron have worked with local residents to come up with some suggestions.  We are proposing the following:

• More Police resources devoted to assist the local Safer Neighbourhood Police team with an early review of the impact of the loss of the vice-squad;
• The Council should put pressure on London Mayor Boris Johnson to speed up the delivery of the new gate at the Brixton Hill end of Josephine Avenue;
• The Council should begin working up an area wide traffic management plan to stop kerb crawling, so that any displacement from the closure of Josephine Avenue can be dealt with swiftly;
• The Council should limit the 3am opening hours of the off-licences on Brixton Hill to discourage pimps and prostitutes from the area; and,
• The Council needs to address the derelict site at 85 Brixton Hill.

I have met with both Council my colleagues and the Police to let them know of residents concerns.  If you have any further comments to make, please let us know your suggestions using the Contact page here.

Chuka appeared on Richard Bacon’s show on BBC Radio 5 Live last night. Chuka was discussing Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s big speech to the Labour Conference and, amongst other things, how Labour has delivered for the people of Streatham. To listen to the show, click here: Richard Bacon - BBC Radio 5 Live.

As of last week, everyone in Streatham (a parliamentary constituency overing Streatham, parts of Clapham, Balham, Tulse Hill and Brixton) will be eligible for at least 50% off loft and cavity wall insulation, with everyone on low incomes and all pensioners able to get these for free.  Cold weather payments for the most vulnerable will be increased from £8.50 to £25 a week.

Improving the insulation in your property could save you £350 a year on energy bills. Call 0800 512 012 to find out what help is available to you.

Chuka has been concerned about rising energy costs for some time, calling for the Government to help those hit hardest by recent price rises immediately and also invest more resources in schemes to reduce energy use in the long term.

On hearing about the new measures, Chuka said: “These measures will help local people to reduce the impact their energy use has on the environment – and on their wallets.”

Gareth Williams

Streatham Hill is host to ASC studios, home to more than 40 artists and a hot bed of talent. I had the pleasure of meeting many of the artists there and enjoying what they have to offer on Friday. Never one to miss the opportunity to promote what Streatham, Balham, Brixton, Clapham and Tulse Hill have to offer, I have posted a selection of photos from the Open Studios event held there over the weekend below.

The works of Ann Pownall, the photographer - www.annpownall.com.

Chatting with Urban Art top honcho, Tim Sutton in his studio, surrounded by his paintings of the patrons and staff of the Streatham Bingo Hall - www.timothysutton.com.

Admiring the work of Shiroma Ratne - www.shiromaratne.com.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday Chuka spoke at Love Difference, a festival that took place at the Cargo music venue in East London that involved discussions, film and live music, aimed at promoting relations between, in particular, recent migrants to London from those states which joined the European Union in 2004 (including Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, and others) and the more settled populations.  The Festival also explored the political and artistic issues surrounding immigration and cultural exchange. 

The London leg of the festival is part of a one-off series of exceptional and unique all day long mini-festivals in London, Northampton and Bristol, organised with European Alternatives to mark the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

Chuka was asked to speak in part because Streatham is one of the most multicultural constituencies in the country, but also because of his own diverse background. In Streatham, 35.7% of the population is non white and 22.6% of the population is African and/or Caribbean. There are also long established Polish, Portuguese and Hispanic communities, in addition to newer, growing East African communities.  You can view photos of the London festival event here: Love Difference, Cargo.

You can  watch the accompanying video for the Festival below.