Labour Plans £26.8M in Cuts

A leaked document has revealed that the Labour Council of Greenwich are proposing at least £26.8M of cuts to services.

This story was first reported a couple of days ago by Andrew Gilligan and has been circulated in various local blogs and newspapers but deserves as much publicity as possible so that Greenwich residents are fully aware of the Labour Council's lack of openness and honesty about these cuts.

As my colleague Simon Emmett from Shooters Hill ward points out: "The fact is that the Greenwich Labour party have a history of doing this. Shortly after the 2006 local elections, millions of pounds were cut from services, although much like the spin of the national party, they were dubbed 'efficiency savings'".

These are some of the services that Labour would have hoped to cut by sneaking them through the back door: Street cleaning, the Metropolitan Police Violent & Organised Crime Unit, voluntary sector contracts and so-called "low priority" projects.

Cllr Spencer Drury, leader of the Conservative opposition, said: “Labour have a hidden programme of cuts in place and are refusing to be open about their plans. Greenwich Council’s incompetence and inefficiency is what leads them to have to make these dramatic cuts. They have already wasted £27 million because they are three years late on their new school building programme. There are lots of ways they could have saved money by running themselves differently.”

Desi Spice

Good news. One of my favourite curry houses, Desi Spice, has re-opened. It's situated on Bramshot Avenue, by the underpass.

I've always enjoyed eating at Desi Spice and find their menu to be more extensive and their flavours more subtle than other curry houses.

It has been under a few different managements in the past so I do hope that the business it does isn't too modest, forcing it into temporary - and what luckily has never been transpired to be permanent - closure.

Not only is the food great but I've always felt reassured by its presence beside the underpass as it offers illumination & presence to an otherwise dark place.

Desi Spice,
27 Bramshot Avenue
London
SE7 7HY

020 88583777

Maryon Wilson, Potentially A Great Park

A week or so ago I took a walk in Maryon Wilson Park - which, I feel, is to some degree under-utilised. By all rights, Maryon Wilson Park should - with its pens of peacocks, deer and goats - be a much-loved, family-friendly park.

Yet, over my two-decade acquaintance with Maryon Wilson, I have known the park to be - not infrequently - commandeered by joy riders. Often I've heard the coughs & splutters of motorbike engines, a mechanical menance somewhere beyond the underbrush or overturned, immolated cars by the little stream which carries flecks of charred chrome along with its current.

This, coupled with the memory of seeing yellow witness appeal boards more than once, I understand why people I know say that they will not use Maryon Wilson Park.

I had hoped that there would have been a change over the years, that, even if the joyriding-in-Maryon-Wilson-Park meme was passed onto the next generation, that the park would be sufficiently invigilated to offset these wayward expressions of youth.

But the motorbiker I encountered gliding down the ditches - at about three in the afternoon - was evidence that things haven't changed.

And it is a great shame because there are few other places in South East London where you can see the splendour of a peacock, the slender grace of a doe, or the wallowing luxury of a pig.

Being able to encounter a wealth of animals in an urbanised environment is a tacit educational treasure for young people: To be able to observe animals could spur an interest in zoology, biology, evolutionary science, veterinary surgery, conservation and so on.

As I say, Maryon Wilson should be a park which the whole family feel safe to go to. It is a lovely park, but has the potential to be so much better if it could rid itself of anti-social joyriding and the collateral damage and pollution it causes.


PS. If you have any comments or feedback about Maryon Wilson Park or any other of Greenwich's parks Greenwich Council can be contacted on parks@greenwich.gov.uk

A Blog For Peninsula

I strongly recommend Charlie's Greenwich, a blog written by Charlie Easton about his life in Greenwich and, in particular, his ward of Peninsula.

Along with Malcolm Reid and Toks Bailey, Charlie forms the Conservatives' Peninsula Action Team.

I am indeed glad that we have Charlie, Malcolm & Toks campaigning for Peninsula, as they are an extremely dedicated, hard-working team.

I hope I will be excused the iota of selfishness in my gladness; that is because Peninsula overlaps part of the SE7 post code. Therefore, Charlie & Co. will be responsible for the Charlton which lies south of the rail line and west of Anchor & Hope Lane. The place at which Charlton shifts in nature from the residential to the industrial.

Vandalism (& Litter) Update

Further to my last post about removing graffiti from Lansdowne Lane, I am pleased to report that litter has also been cleared from the street.

In response to our actions, a local blogger, 853blog, suggested that:

[I]sn’t that a tick in the box for the Labour-controlled authority, which cleaned the stuff off, and not the Conservative “action team”?

Maybe I should have clarified in my earlier post that we were responding on behalf of residents who feel that their streets are accumulating rubbish and being vandalised precisely because the Labour-controlled authority have not kept them under control.

We are listening to residents and acting on their behalf when they report that they have been unsuccessful in achieving a response from our Labour-controlled authority.

853 goes onto say:

Indeed, if the “action team” wanted to do some good, they’d give out Cleansweep’s number and maybe tell us about the service they got.

Cleansweep's contact details are:

Tel: 020 8921 4661
Textphone: 020 8921 4650
Email: cleansweep@greenwich.gov.uk
Write: Cleansweep
Crown Buildings
48 Woolwich New Road
London SE18 6HQ

This information can also be found on the
council's website, here: http://www.greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/YourEnvironment/StreetsBuildings/Cleansweep/