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Greenwich news and information

Five local schools to get cash for rebuilds

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FIVE schools in the borough have been chosen to receive cash from the government to help rebuild them.

261 schools, from 587 that applied, have been selected to receive funds from the Priority School Building Programme. All five from the Royal Borough of Greenwich that applied have been successful.

The schools that will receive funding are:

  • Eltham C of E Primary School (SE9)
  • Invicta Primary School (SE3)
  • Our Lady of Grace Catholic Primary School (SE7)
  • The Eltham Foundation School (SE9)
  • Wingfield Primary School (SE3)

The scheme will see £2billion spent on upgrading schools using a reformed PFI model. The Eltham Foundation School is one of 42 schools that have been designated as requiring urgent assistance and will receive money directly from the Department for Education’s capital budget.

The announcement of funding for the schools was made by Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, in a written ministerial statement published yesterday.

Cllr Jackie Smith, Royal Borough of Greenwich Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, said, “We are pleased that the Government has recognised the need for investment in these school buildings, and look forward to receiving more details soon as to the exact level of funding that’s been approved for each school.”

The coalition scrapped the previous government’s Building School for the Future programme, which financed the newly rebuilt Thomas Tallis School, after taking office in 2010.

Alex Wilson selected as local Conservative London Assembly candidate

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A Blackheath Westcombe ward councillor has been selected as the Greenwich and Lewisham Conservative candidate for the London Assembly.

Alex Wilson, aged 28, won a ballot of members of local Conservative associations at a selection meeting on Wednesday night. Elections to the London Assembly will take place next year on the same day as the London Mayoral election.

Cllr Wilson commented

I am delighted to be selected as the Conservative party candidate for the GLA elections next May. As someone who has grown up in Greenwich and Lewisham I am proud to have the opportunity to stand here. I attended local schools and know both boroughs well.

Since May 2008 I have seen the improvements that Boris Johnson has made as Mayor of London to Greenwich and Lewisham, from “Oysterising” the overland rail to freezing City Hall’s precept of Council tax. As well as more local improvements such as spending £400,000 to improve Avery Hill park, and planting over 350 trees in Brockley and Deptford as well as putting more Police and PCSO’s on the beat.

I look forward to the campaign and working with people from across the area to win this GLA seat and return Boris as Mayor of London.

The current member of the London Assembly representing Greenwich and Lewisham is Len Duvall OBE, who has held the seat since the creation of the London Assembly in 2000.

Doctors elected to Greenwich GP Consortium Shadow Board

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Seven local GPs have been elected by their peers to serve on the new Greenwich GP Consortium Shadow Board.

Under NHS reform plans put forward by the government, local GPs will gain control of NHS budgets and be able to commission healthcare services directly for their patients.

Doctors will form groups to manage this process and the line up of the Greenwich GP Consortium Shadow Board has been settled after 109 local doctors participated in an election.

The elected members are: Ram Aggarwal, Hany Wahba, Robert Hughes, Rebecca Rosen, Niraj Patel, Eugenia Lee and Nayan Patel.

The election count was managed by Greenwich Council’s Returning Officer and the single transferable vote system was used. Electoral Reform Services administered the count.

If the changes are introduced as planned, the consortium will take responsibility for commissioning services by April 2013 at which point the existing Primary Care Trust will have been phased out.

More information available here: http://www.greenwich.nhs.uk/gp_consortia

Council tax in Greenwich frozen

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There will be no rise in council tax after a freeze was agreed by councillors for the year 2011 – 2012 at a full meeting of the Council last Wednesday at Woolwich Town Hall.

Band D homes will continue to have an annual council tax of £1,290.73.

At the same meeting, councillors agreed an average rent increase of £5.16 per week for council tenants.

It was also revealed that the council is to consult its tenants on implementing a new service charge to help close a gap in the housing budget.

Council officers report that a £2.00 weekly service charge would meet the shortfall but a range of figures will be included in the consultation – the results of which are expected to be introduced from October 2011.

Changes agreed to Planning committee system

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More objections will be required for future planning applications before they are referred to council planning committees following a decision taken at last night’s full council meeting.

Currently a planning application that receives two or more objections will be referred to the local Planning Board by council officers, but this threshold is being increased to eight.

The cost saving measure is estimated to cut the number of applications considered by committees from 179 to 75 in a year and result in a saving of £27,000 in 2011/2012.

Council officers say that at least ten London borough have a higher threshold than that which is being introduced in Greenwich, or they leave referral at the discretion of officers and members.

Conservative councillors voted against the plans, with Cllr Alex Wilson suggesting the plans wait til the Government’s Localism Bill has been published – expected to make many changes to local planning rules – and Cllr Geoff Brighty questioning whether applications could be dealt with in a timely manner if the number of meetings were being reduced.

Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Peter Brooks, backed the plan and said that the proposals could be reviewed at the council’s AGM in May.

Greenwich Council’s Draft Core Strategy

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While most Greenwich Council watchers are poring over the forthcoming cuts, other work goes on.  The Planning Department has started the process of modifying the Council’s planning strategy.   This is important because planning applications are unlikely to get approval if they involve a conflict with the land uses specified in the strategy.

Accordingly the Council has published a Draft Core Strategy (DCS) and has invited comments on it.

The DCS assumes that the Borough’s population will increase from 235,000 now to 288,000 in 2027 and that this will create “a significant challenge” (Para 1.6.1).  However the Council believes this level of growth to be in the public interest as it “will attract more skilled workers to live in the Borough and to work in local businesses” (Para 3.5.8)

To fit in some of these new people the Council has identified two areas of industrial land which are “under-used and of poor environmental quality” (para 4.2.4).   These are Greenwich Peninsula West and Charlton Riverside. which are proposed for development as new “urban quarters” (ie lots and lots of high density housing)

Greenwich Peninsula West is bounded by the River, Mauritius Road, Blackwall Lane and Tunnel Avenue.   It includes the proposed liner terminal at Enderby Wharf.  The area to the north from Morden Wharf to the Victoria Deep Water Terminal is designated to remain in industrial use.

Charlton Riverside is quite a large area, bordered on the south by Woolwich Rd, on the east by Warspite Rd and on the west by the Angerstein railway line, although Angerstein’s Wharf itself and Christie’s Wharf next to it are still designated for industrial use.   The Council wants to reduce the amount of retail space in this area, preferring to see this relocated to town centres.   Why somebody has dreamt up the name Charlton Riverside for North Charlton is a mystery.

The DCS claims that “employment land which is retained will be intensified so there will be no net loss of employment across the waterfront area” (Para 4.2.4).

Other things of interest in the DCS include:

* A bizarre claim that Greenwich is one of the largest London Boroughs (Para 1.5.2).  In fact at 5,044 hectares it is the 12th largest.

*   A  proposal designed to stem the flow of pub closures by forcing applicants for a change of use to demonstrate that the site has been actively marketed as a pub for at least a year.

*  A policy to reduce car ownership by stopping residents of some new developments from getting on-street parking permits.

The closing date for comments on the DCS is 5th February.  The document is on the Council’s website and there are several public exhibitions arranged.

The DCS is the first step in quite a long process before any new policies are set in stone.  An amended document will be produced, followed by a second consultation and finally a Public Inquiry by a planning inspector.

Paul Webbewood is a former Liberal Democrat councillor for the Middle Park and Sutcliffe Ward.

Cost of parking set to rise in 2011

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Greenwich residents face a 150% increase in the cost of car parking permits next year and visitors to the town centre could pay almost twice as much to park.

The large increases in the cost of car parking are part of a package of cost saving and revenue raising measures put together by council officers in response to budget cuts imposed by the Government.

The proposals would see the cost of a yearly resident car parking permit rise from £27.70 to £70 – a rise of over 152%. A further rise would come into effect in 2013 taking the cost to £84 per year.

Business parking permits face a 358% increase, leaping from £24.00 to £110 and then rising again to £132 in 2013.

Town centre parking is set to rise by 92% with the price per hour at Burney Street, Greenwich Park Row and Cutty Sark Gardens car parks going from £1.30 an hour to £2.50, and then rising again to £2.70 per hour by 2013.

The cost of parking in metered pays in road adjacent to Greenwich Park, such as Maze Hill, Park Row and Park Vista, will also rise to £2.50 and then again to £2.90 per hour in 2014.

The cost of parking in the park itself increased this year to bring it into line with local authority charging but a spokesperson for Royal Parks has told Greenwich.co.uk that “Royal Parks currently has no plans to increase parking charges in Greenwich Park.”

New charging areas would be established in East Greenwich and Westcombe, as well as elsewhere in the borough, although council officers say that “detailed consultation will be required” and that a review would take place after six months.

The new charges are expected to come into force on April 1st, 2011. Taken as a whole, the council believes that the changes will bring in almost £2million in additional revenue a year by 2013 which would be used to “contribute additional revenue towards the cost of the parking service and enforcement operations and other transport related activities.”

Government announces council budget cuts

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Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles, has announced details of cuts to council budgets.

Greenwich Council is in line for a cut of 7.72% in its “revenue spending power” in 2011-2012 and by 4.4% the year after.

Revenue spending power is determined by adding  the formula grants and specific grants  from central government to income from Council Tax. From 2011-2012, councils will also be allocated money from NHS budgets to spend on local social care.

Formula grants come from a central allocation which is the same for all local authorities delivering the same services and specific grants are ring-fenced for certain priorities and projects.

Eric Pickles told the House of Commons yesterday that he had “sought achieve a fair and sustainable settlement for local government” but that “every part of the public sector needs to do its bit to help to reduce the highest deficit in the UK’s peacetime history and the rapidly rising national debt that this Government have inherited.”

He added that he had “set aside £650 million so every council can freeze council tax next year without hitting local services.”

Caroline Flint, Labour’s Shadow Local Government Secretary, said “these cuts will hit front-line services and cause massive job losses in the public and private sectors. For all Ministers’ traipsing around the TV studios pretending that savings of this magnitude can be made by efficiency drives and sharing back-room functions alone, the reality is very different-and everybody knows it.”

Whilst the headline figures have been announced by the Government, Greenwich.co.uk understands that council officers are still examining the details of specific grant allocations to full understand their impact.

The first details of cuts being put forward by Greenwich Council emerged last week in a report considered by the Budget and Scrutiny committee. The package of measures – covered in greater detail by Darryl at 853 – includes job losses, such as lift attendants in the foot tunnels, cuts to grants to local voluntary groups and raising more revenue through parking costs.