New Arrangements for Councillors Advice Surgeries

We've given our arrangements for Councillors' Advice Surgeries in West Hampstead a spring clean!

From the beginning of June, your Liberal Democrat Councillors for West Hampstead ward (Keith Moffitt, John Bryant and Gillian Risso-Gill) and Fortune Green ward (Flick Rea, Russell Eagling and Nancy Jirira) are holding weekly joint surgeries every Friday from 6-7pm at the Camden District Housing Office at 156 West End Lane. We'll be trying to make sure that there is one councillor for each ward at each surgery on a rota basis.

There will also be two monthly Saturday morning surgeries on the last Saturday of each month - one at 19 Wedgwood Walk on the Lymington Road Estate (11.30-12.30pm) and the other at the Sidings Community Centre on Brassey Road (11.00-12.00 noon).

Our advice surgeries provide an opportunity for councillors to meet with their constituents to discuss any problems they may have with Council services, and we can often help with other problems too.

Alternatively, you can contact individual councillors during the week through Camden Council on 020 7974 1986 or you can e-mail us as follows:

West Hampstead
john.bryant@camden.gov.uk
keith.moffitt@camden.gov.uk

gillian.risso-gill@camden.gov.uk

Fortune Green
flick.rea@camden.gov.uk
russell.eagling@camden.gov.uk
nancy.jirira@camden.gov.uk

West Hampstead Transition launch event Monday 6 June

Alexis Rowell

I’m very much looking forward to the launch event for Transition West Hampstead this coming Monday 6 June, from 7pm to 9pm at St James' Church Hall on Sheriff Road, NW6 2AR.

Our neighbours in Transition Town Kensal to Kilburn are helping with the launch and are providing their very own Nettle Pesto and Elderflower Cordial for people to sample... then a showing of the great BBC documentary 'A Farm for the Future'. Following that there will be some talks and discussion on how to set up Transition West Hampstead.

One of the presentations will be by Alexis Rowell, who was our Camden Sustainability Champion 2006-2010. I asked Alexis for a few paragraphs on what the transition movement is all about and here’s what he said:

“The Transition movement is about creating and enhancing vibrant, resilient communities who are actively addressing the twin problems of climate change and the end of cheap oil.

Transitioners believe that in many ways life will be better after oil – more local, less polluted, more neighbourly, less stressed – and that we will be better prepared to deal with the challenges if we start working together now.

The aim is to come up with a greener, more resilient vision for an area like West Hampstead, and then to get on with creating a community where we know more of our neighbours and can rely on them to help if we have a problem. We want to enable residents to learn or relearn essential skills, such as sewing, mending, making new things from old possessions and food growing.

There are hundreds of Transition Initiatives all over the world. In Camden there are active Transition groups in Belsize, Hampstead, Kentish Town, Kensal/Kilburn, Primrose Hill and Tufnell Park. See www.transitiontowns.org for more on the movement.”

Looking forward to seeing lots of you there!

West Hampstead and Fortune Green Area Forum Monday 20 June

The next West Hampstead/Fortune Green Area Forum (Area Action Group) is scheduled for Monday, 20 June, at the Synagogue Community Hall on Dennington Park Road. Regular attenders have been notified by e-mail or letter.

Here’s the agenda for the meeting, which Cllr Keith Moffitt will be chairing:

7 - 7.30 pm: an opportunity to meet ward councillors informally over tea/coffee

7.30 on:

Blackburn Road development – Community investment programme
This will include an update on Camden's plans for making the best use of Council buildings in our area

Retail Business - West End Lane and beyond
Cllr Gillian-Risso Gill will report the latest developments affecting shops and restaurants in West Hampstead, including both West End Lane and Mill Lane.

Future of Camden Libraries
Cllr Flick Rea will report on the outcome of Camden's Libraries Consultation and what Camden's cabinet decided at its meeting on 8 June

Fortune Green
A quick update on how the work has gone

‘We are Camden’ online engagement
An introduction to Camden's new way of allowing local residents to connect with their area via the Camden website

We'll aim to finish by 9.30 at the latest.

We look forward to seeing lots of West Hampstead residents on 20 June.

ANOTHER LOSS OF AN INDEPENDENT SHOP TO A NATIONAL CHAIN

On 11th March, the day that Sainsburys Local opened on West End Lane, Atlanta Food & Wine on West End Lane announced that it was closing. Our enquiries have confirmed that Cafe Nero, the national coffee chain, is to take over the property and are not likely to require planning permission for Change of Use since national case law allows it. I have asked Council Officers to identify the relevant case law and to advise where Camden's Food and Drink policy stands in relation to this, which prohibited further food and drink establishments being opened on West End Lane. A frequent complaint from residents is the lack of variety in shopping in West Hampstead with too many coffee shops already. The last thing needed is another national chain that will threaten the businesses of the local independents.

Getting the lowdown on all those West End Lane roadworks

Flick Rea and I did a walkabout with Camden council officers this morning to get an update on the progress of the various roadworks in Camden.

Before getting into the detail, quite a few people have asked us how Camden can afford to be doing this work when we’re hearing so much about cuts. The answer is that this work is being funded from this year’s budget, which is relatively speaking unaffected by the cuts, which really begin to bite in the next financial year, which starts in April.

We kicked off with a quick look at the West End Lane/Iverson Road corner. You can now see all the extra space that’s been freed up by demolishing the two corner shops, which is going to make that corner a lot safer for pedestrians. And if you stand on tip-toe and look over the fence you can see how incredibly wide the new Iverson Road pavement is going to be between West End Lane and the new Thameslink station due to open towards the end of the year. I don’t think any of the “artist’s impressions” we’ve seen so far make it clear just what a wide and open space this will be and just how different this part of our area will look. It should open up all sorts of interesting possibilities.

We also looked at the new surface on the Thameslink bridge, which mimics paving stones using an “imprint” technique. This is being used because bridges – and we have three along that stretch of West End Lane, including in front of West Hampstead tube station – are unsuitable for paving stones because there just isn’t room to accommodate paving stones and the sandbed they sit in together with all the utilities that have to be fitted in as well. But the “imprint” finish is pretty impressive and will also be used in front of the tube station.

Don’t be fooled by the rather messy finish at West Hampstead tube station entrance at the moment, it’s just work in progress and should look a lot better when it’s finished. The area in front of the station also feels a lot more spacious now the railings have been removed.

Various other work is going on, and one aspect that will be very welcome is a slight widening of the pavement in front of the “Paramount building”, where the narrow pavement has been a bone of contention ever since the building was erected. It’ll only be slightly wider, but as our supermarket friends up the road say “every little helps”. The same applies to a slight widening of the pavement on the Thameslink bridge on the other side of the road.

The other main point we discussed was the removal of the traffic lights at the junction of Mill Lane and West End Lane, which are being replaced by two zebra crossings – in fact going back to the way things were before the lights were installed six or seven years ago. When Camden consulted on this proposed removal, opinions were divided, but a key factor in the decision to remove the lights was that they were put into improve safety for Emmanuel School, who feel they made things worse rather than better.

It's frustrating that in some places the new pavements won't be as good as we'd like because they adjoin forecourt owned by the adjacent shops, but we've encouraged Camden to do the best they can in those circumstances. It's good they're managing to relocated some of the irritatingly located black boxes, particularly the one just in front of Costa Coffee.

So there’s a lot going on at the moment between the tube station and Mill Lane, but we hope that when it’s all finished it will feel worthwhile.

Jubilee Line closures update

Tube users (that's most of us!) will be unsurprised to hear that the Jubilee line will continue to suffer from weekend closures up until Easter, although it looks like services southbound from  West Hampstead will only be affected on one weekend.

 
Councillors have just been sent the following table from TfL (via the Council).

A cross means the section is closed - grey means that part of the line is open.

	West Hampstead - Stanmore (Jubilee)	Waterloo - West Hampstead (Jubilee)	Harrow-on-the-Hill - Aldgate (Metropolitan)
12/13 Feb	x		x
19/20 Feb	x
26/27 Feb	NO CLOSURE
05/06 Mar	x	x	x
12/13 Mar	x		x
19/20 Mar	x		x
26/27 Mar	NO CLOSURE
02/03 Apr	NO CLOSURE
09/10 Apr	x		x
16/17 Apr	NO CLOSURE
Fri 22 Apr (Good Friday)	x		x
Sat 23 Apr	x
Sun 24 Apr	x
Mon 25 Apr (Easter Monday)	NO CLOSURE

TfL have assured us that works on the Jubilee Line will be complete by the end of Spring 2011.

We certainly hope so!

West Hampstead and Fortune Green Area Forum Monday 7 February

The latest West Hampstead/Fortune Green Area Forum (Area Action Group) is taking place tomorrow night, Monday 7 February, at the Synagogue Community Hall on Dennington Park Road. Regular attenders have been notified by e-mail or letter.

Here’s the agenda for the meeting, which Cllr Keith Moffitt will be chairing:

7 - 7.30 pm: an opportunity to meet ward councillors informally over tea/coffee

Meeting the financial challenge (7.35 pm – 8.05 pm)
Presentation by Councillor Theo Blackwell, Camden’s Cabinet member for Finance - looking at the implications of the council’s spending plans over the next three years and what this means for our local services and community groups?

The West Hampstead Jigsaw (8.05 pm – 8.25 pm)
An overview on a number of schemes and proposed developments which forms part of Camden’s Community Investment Programme for the Fortune Green and West Hampstead area  - (Fiona McKeith - Senior Area Review Surveyor)

Blackburn Road development (new student accommodation) (8.25 pm – 8.45 pm)
Explanation of the planning permission granted for the land formerly occupied by Mercedes Benz  - (Adrian Malcolm - Principal Planning Officer)

Libraries Consultation (8.45 pm – 9.00 pm)                  
Find out about Camden’s Libraries Consultation – (Cllr Flick Rea)
                       
Plans for Fortune Green  (9.00pm - 9.15pm)
-    Update on plans for Fortune Green (Mark Stonebanks, Chair Friends of Fortune Green)

We look forward to seeing lots of West Hampatead residents there tomorrow night.