Minutes 14th March 2000

Present: committee members: Rod Brown, Jane Pickard, Helen O'Brien, Jeremy Galloway, James Slattery-Kavanagh, Romano Barca, Bernie Bullbrook, Bill Clifford, Anne Orange, Grahame Wilson. Other members: Simon Berlyn, Pat Fisher (Royal Circus Neighbourhood Watch), Gabrielle Garton-Grimwood, Ronald Holder, Richard Moore, Paul Tobin, Ann Ridley.
Non-voting: Couns Robert McConnell, John Whelan. From St Martin's Estate: Jack Connor, Thomas Lewsey and William Gains.
Apologies: James Slattery-Kavanagh, Isabel Trist,Linda White, Coun Claire Whelan.
Chaired by: Anne Orange.

A) Committee meeting
1. Newsletter: Jane Pickard asked for further ideas. She suggested a story on the Abbey National questioning the reasons for its closure. She felt press reports on robberies at the branch had made West Norwood look like a no-go area. Bill Clifford said the town centre manager should have been involved at an earlier stage.
There was a brief disagreement between John MacDonald and Bill over the latest Towncrier newsletter which had expressed doubts over whether NAG had the right to nominate someone to the town centre board and had accused Jane of being put up as chair of the board by the Labour Party. Romano said he had written the article.
Graham Wilson volunteered to write up three more shops, which was accepted.
A discussion on the way we could make more use of the internet for the newsletter and whether to print letters and items from the public ended with an agreement to invite contributions on the internet.
Bill asked for future newsletters to be discussed with the committee before publication. But several people pointed out that the production process was too fast for that. He also asked that people quoted should be named.
Bernie Bullbrook offered an article on the theatre. This was accepted.
2. Finance: Jane said that she had finally got round to phoning the business manager at Barclays that morning and asking her to send Bill all statements dating back to January 1999 and a duplicate set to Anne. She had agreed to do this although she might need the addresses.
Bill complained at having a finance item at every committee meeting and asked to be consulted about putting it on the agenda. He said he still didn't have the information he needed and declined to sign the form activating the newsletter grant. Agreed: Grahame to meet him at the bank and go over the books with him.

B Main meeting
Minutes and matters arising
1. Bill Clifford said too much was still being left out of the minutes.
2. JP said a speaker from Railtrack had agreed to attend the April meeting to talk about the Thameslink 2000 plans. Railtrack was running the planning and construction project although it would be up to the regulator and franchisee how many trains to run from Tulse Hill, within the limits set by the infrastructure. So, ultimately, we needed to hear from all these bodies.
3. Richard asked JP if she would be reporting back from the Norwood Board meetings as NAG's nominee. JP said she would.
4. Bill said the 315 bus was frequently late. This had led to one violent incident when a driver had hit a pregnant woman.
4. JP said she had also written to Pat Kent, emailed and telephoned him to invite him to speak about parking restrictions and road humps. But there was no reply.

Committee Report
Anne Orange reported on the discussion on the newsletter. The discussion on finance was also reported.
Gardens Competition
Gabrielle Garton-Grimwood presented her proposal for a gardens competition in West Norwood, with several categories, such as small gardens, or schools. She said this would be a good opportunity for NAG to do something to brighten up the area and improve the quality of the environment. It should be about making a positive contribution, not who had spent thousands on landscaping. Isabel had been fairly positive about the prospects of getting some funding from Lambeth and Gabrielle was intending to contact Britain in Bloom.
She suggested sponsorship for promotion, prizes and judging from local garden centres. Also, we should set up a steering group to organise it and co-opt someone from Lambeth Horticultural Society. We needed posters and press coverage.
Agreed: to back Gabrielle's proposal for a gardens competition. JP to raise at board meeting. Also to put prominent item in newsletter and press release to local press. Sponsorship and support to be sought from local garden centres, Lambeth Horticultural Society, Lambeth Parks Department. Local schools to be involved. Ron Holder, Romano Barca and John MacDonald said they would be interested in joining a steering group.
Abbey National closure
This had closed on the night we met. Bernie Bullbrook said he had the impression that the complaint that burglaries were forcing closure, which had received wide media coverage, had been a good excuse for closing the West Norwood branch. He understood the managers had wanted to close a number of branches for business reasons.
Gabrielle asked whether the robbery rate at the Nationwide had been different. Romano said the Nationwide had experienced problems a few years ago and had put in a security entrance.
John Whelan said he and John MacDonald had met the Abbey National manager who had blamed the closure on crime and maintained the branch was profitable. He had also apparently experimented with different lay-outs.
Agreed To write and ask Barclays what their intentions are. Vote of thanks to John MacDonald and John Whelan for their work on the Abbey National campaign.
A more general discussion ensued about business closures in the area.
Agreed: We write to town centre manager and ask her what her strategy is for replacing and retaining shops and other business in West Norwood. We suggest she carries out a survey of current shops and businesses to find out how they are doing and their intentions for the future. If there is no satisfactory strategy, this should be raised at a Norwood Board meeting. Proposed by Anne, seconded by Jeremy. Carried unanimously.
Councillors' reports
Robert McConnell said the public inquiry into the college site had been delayed after the inspector had declared an interest. It would now be on 13 April.
John Whelan announced that Claire Whelan had been made Mayor. He proposed we invite her to the June meeting.
Coun Whelan then outlined the problems of tenants on the St Martin's Estate where the new housing consortium, which took over in October, had taken high-handed action over benefit arrears, threatening people with eviction.
Three estate residents who were present said that the Metropolitan Housing Association had threatened around one in four tenants with eviction. But, since the association took over, a number of residents had their housing benefit paid short by Capita.
Romano said there had not been a majority decision to transfer from council ownership anyway: it had been a majority of the few people who voted.
Similar transfers were predicted on other estates. JP asked the two councillors present what their parties' policies were on transfers. John said the Conservatives were in favour of tenants' choice to opt out of council ownership but there must be "no funny ballots and he did not support forcing transfers through at speed. Robert said he would fight for estates to remain under their present management.
Agreed: We write to deplore the treatment of tenants on the St Martin's estate and the actions of both the housing trust and Capita, demanding assurance that eviction notices will not be put into effect. These letters to go to the residents, the housing director, finance director, housing trust director, Capita, Keith Hill, local papers and Jim Dickson.
Libraries
JP read out a short report forwarded by Isabel on the reasons for ending the mobile library service to parts of the area. There was a short discussion
Agreed: We contact Save Lambeth Libraries campaign group to see if they can help us with the problem of our mobile library service being cut.
Report from Board
JP reported from the first meeting of the Norwood Board. She said that it had been decided that crime should be the focus of the second Forum meeting. There had also been a discussion on Thameslink. The issue of whether the board met in secret had been put on hold, as had the vote for a chair.
She said she had been nominated by John MacDonald and Jeremy Galloway to stand as chair of the board. Romano said she should not have stood as chair without NAG's approval, since NAG nominated her. There was a short discussion about the role of the NAG nominee and the degree of her obligation to carry out NAG policy. Several people stressed that board members were supposed to carry out forum policy, not NAG policy.
JP said that she had been forced to accept the nomination before the NAG meeting because of the deadline but would otherwise have told NAG about it. She did see her role as primarily carrying out forum policy. The difficulty would arise if this was in direct contradiction to NAG's, but she did not expect this to happen. If the forum had no policy where NAG did have a policy, she would generally expect to be guided by the NAG view.
St Luke's Gateway Scheme
Anne Orange said that plans for a better entry to West Norwood were proceeding and would be put out for consultation.
Safety and Crime
Bernie Bullbrook said the police were mounting Operation Crystal focusing on Crystal Palace triangle and Gipsy Hill.
They were also trying to get a pager scheme going for West Norwood traders to alert each other to shoplifters and other criminals, and a pub watch, like Neighbourhood Watch for pubs. Finally, they were keen to extend an experimental scheme tried in Casewick Road where a mini-survey was carried out on the road and properties from a vulnerability point of view.
He was also looking for volunteers for Victim support.
Anne proposed we write to the police to comment on the woefully inadequate level of policing in the area.
Richard proposed we look at ways of funding the reproduction of crime reports to give them a wider circulation. Agreed to take to next committee meeting.