Ssssh… is this Greenwich’s best place to park a bike?
I feel like I’m tempting fate horribly here, but what the heck. A change of routine here at 853 Towers has seen me get back into the commuting life once again. But now I can do something I couldn’t do last time I was regularly chugging across the capital. I can take the bike some of the way, and save myself a few quid.
Back in November 2010, I bemoaned the lack of places to park a bike at North Greenwich station. For years, one set of crappy stands full of half-nicked cycles proved an uninspiring invitation to get onto two wheels. So, while I cursed the lousy bus journey or simply took the mainline train instead, there wasn’t really much of an incentive to get a bike and do something about it.
But as I created that post, the ground was already being whipped away from beneath my feet. A slew of new racks appeared outside Ravensbourne college, while outside the TfL building at Pier Walk another set appeared. Suddenly, cycling to North Greenwich seemed, well, doable.
And so it’s proved. With a favourable wind and kind traffic, I can race down to North Greenwich in about 11/12 minutes, half the time it’d take by bus and a third of the walking time. I can gawp at the Greenwich Millennium Village residents who still wait in huge numbers for a bus to go one stop (after 10 years, I still don’t know why) before swerving around their more sensible neighbours walking down one of London’s daftest cycle lanes, the one that looks more like a pavement than a pavement.
Coming home, I can ride along the Thames, listening to the river lap against the shore. It’s the best of all worlds and a reason why this part of London is frankly amazing.
Obviously when it chucks down with rain, and the Jubilee Line implodes, I’ll have a different view. But in the meantime, it’s £20/month off a travelcard and keeps me well away from Southeastern.
As for the cycle parking – over a year on, very few people seem to have cottoned on to the extra space. The Ravensbourne racks are well-used by their students and under the watchful eye of the O2′s guards, but hardly anyone else seems to use them. As for the TfL racks, which have CCTV cameras on, a grand total of no bikes at all were parked there at 9.10am yesterday.
By accident, without any deliberate planning, the area around North Greenwich station may have become SE10′s best place to park a bike. Fairly safe, plenty of security, plenty of spaces. Better than the guarded National Maritime Museum racks, better than the post outside the Pelton Arms with a camera trained on it. All by accident.
Now, if someone actually planned some decent cycle parking up there, imagine how good it could be!
27 weeks to go: Find out more about Olympic traffic plans
Today marks 27 weeks until the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, and it’s been a busy few days for the preparations. Mind you, I mistook yesterday’s security drill on the Thames for the usual police and army din over these parts and forgot to wander down for a peek…
There’s also been one of the Games’ biggest test events so far at the Dome O2 North Greenwich Arena, with the Visa International Gymnastics tournament ending on Wednesday. If you were around North Greenwich over the past couple of weeks, you can’t have failed to have missed hordes of London Prepares volunteers and the athletes and trainers themselves milling around. It’s a taste of things to come in the summer.
Lewisham Council’s also confirmed its plans for the live site at Blackheath Village I’ve mentioned here in passing a couple of times – although naturally it’s prompted a spectacular outbreak of moaning that’s worth getting the popcorn in for.
(Here’s a true fact: in 1999, I seriously considered buying a flat above the Taste of Raj in Blackheath Village, which is right opposite the proposed live site. For the first time, I’ve had a pang of regret that I didn’t buy that place – although I imagine 12 years of several flights of stairs, the smell of Raj and the noise from weekend pissheads might be a heavy price to pay for having a big screen on my doorstep for three weeks.)
Anyway, this ramble is just to alert you that there’s some public exhibitions taking place today, tomorrow, and next week about the traffic plans for both Woolwich Barracks and “North Greenwich Arena” during the Games. Today from noon-6.30pm and tomorrow from 10am-4pm, LOCOG staff will be at General Gordon Place, Woolwich, to explain what’s happening near there; and on Friday 27th (noon-8pm) and Saturday 28th (10am-4pm) they’ll be at Ravensbourne college to explain what’s happening around the Dome.
Details should also appear at www.london2012.com/accessandparking although there’s not a lot there as I type. I’ll have more here (or at the Charlton Champion) later, hopefully.
Bookies eye up Lewisham’s old Nationwide branch
Since Nationwide Building Society shut its inner south-east London branches last May, its former premises have remained empty.
But after the building society that’s “on your side” abandoned us last year, one of its former offices could be about to find a depressingly predictable new use. Yup, another bookmakers.
Corals has applied to turn the old Lewisham Nationwide into a new betting shop – the planning application has closed, but the licensing application is still active (for details, contact Lewisham Council). It’s hardly as if Lewisham High Street needs a new bookies – a Paddy Power and William Hill sit side by side just a few yards away, with a Joe Jennings a little further up. After events in Deptford, it’ll be interesting to see what they decide.
Nationwide’s decision has meant shopping streets starting 2012 with shut-down shops – over the past few weeks I’ve seen no signs of activity at their Greenwich, Blackheath, Woolwich, Catford and Peckham branches other than “to let” signs. If you know anything different, please feel free to share it.
Footnote: While on money-related matters, some readers may have seen ads for loan sharks Wonga appear on this website, particularly on mobile phones. I hoped WordPress had better standards than that. I’ve just upgraded to an ad-free package so hopefully they should no longer appear.
Silvertown tunnel: Boris sacrifices Greenwich to win votes in Bexley
Where the tunnel will emerge - next to Boris's cable car, under construction
Well, you know there’s an election coming when the incumbent gets ready to put his hand in his pocket. (Well, it’s our pockets, but you know what I’m saying.) Finally, Boris Johnson has shown his cards about a third Blackwall Tunnel – the “Silvertown link” between the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks. He says it’ll be built by 2022 at a cost of £700 million.
That’s £700 million more than has ever been given to south-east London’s public transport system over the past decade. Readers unlucky enough to have been here for a while will know my point of view on this – I wrote something in 2009 on why trying to squeeze more traffic up and down the A102 is crazy.
So, for a moment, all I need to do is repeat myself.
Worryingly, [a TfL report] backs more work on the Silvertown Link – a proposal for either a bridge or a tunnel which would run from Edmund Halley Way (between the Dome and the David Beckham Academy). Land is already safeguarded for such a scheme.
The Silvertown Link would be a disaster for Greenwich – merely giving people more reasons to drive up the A102, creating more congestion and pollution. How could you build a third crossing on the peninsula (after the two Blackwall Tunnels) without expanding the 40-year-old dual carriageway that struggles with the two that are there already? It’s insane, and threatens to blight the lives of hundreds of people in Greenwich and Blackheath. It’s bad enough they have motorways at the bottom of their gardens – the last thing they need is the threat of that motorway expanding.
Boris Johnson has long backed the Silvertown Link – and it’s the Labour party in Greenwich borough’s dirty little secret too; Eltham MP Clive Efford is keen on the idea of sending more traffic through neighbouring Greenwich. But nobody seems to have thought about asking the people of Greenwich and Blackheath whose homes and livelihoods would be threatened.
If you live in Greenwich, Charlton or Blackheath – you should be thinking of acting now to make sure the Silvertown Link, the laziest and most damaging idea of them all, never happens.
But there’s more. East Greenwich is already one of the most polluted areas of London – emissions at the Woolwich Road Flyover and Trafalgar Road already exceed safe limits. Things aren’t too bright over in Canning Town either. A new tunnel will only make things worse.
How on earth will the tip of the Greenwich Peninsula be regenerated if it’s cut off by a road tunnel? How is traffic meant to get into and out of the O2 if its access roads are given over to a hole in the ground? The strip of parkland that stretches up the centre of the peninsula – intended to be a “car-free zone” just 12 years ago – won’t be very pleasant if there’s traffic roaring out of the end of it.
New roads will mean more traffic. So how will the A2, which is only two lanes in each direction through Eltham, cope with the extra traffic when it struggles during the rush hour as it is? This just moves a bottleneck three miles further south. The A102 was at a standstill southbound at 8pm last night because of an accident at the Sun-in-the-Sands roundabout. Can you imagine how big the queue would be if two tunnels fed into this road, instead of one?
Building a third crossing at the Blackwall Tunnel doesn’t provide anyone with an alternative route if you still have to go up the same road to get there.
There’s also going to be nothing in a tunnel for cyclists. Cycling mayor? Nah, I don’t think so.
So, I hear you cry – we need a new crossing because I can’t get my car across the Thames! Well, the more sensible place to build one – if you think we need a new river crossing at all – would be at Thamesmead. But the old Thames Gateway Bridge scheme was scrapped, partly because of political pressure in Bexley, partly because the road network leading up to Thamesmead isn’t up to much. The main route from Bexleyheath through to Abbey Wood, for example, isn’t much more than a side road.
That said, this hasn’t stopped Boris planning a ferry at the same site – possibly taking over from the Woolwich Ferry, which conveys hundreds of heavy lorries across the Thames each day.
Most of the pressure to build a new crossing comes from car drivers in areas like the borough of Bexley, and other suburbs. If Bexley wants a bridge, perhaps it should learn to live with the consequences and have it in its own back yard. A bridge at Thamesmead would at least provide the flexibility to include other modes of transport – extensions of east London’s mainlines, the Overground or even the Hammersmith & City Line from Barking to connect with Crossrail at Abbey Wood, for example. Granted, Greenwich Council harbours dreams of running the DLR through Boris’s tunnel towards Eltham – but where trains would run from hasn’t been made clear yet.
So, with Tory mayor Boris Johnson and Labour Greenwich Council backing a tunnel – along with Eltham Labour MP Clive Efford – who’s going to oppose it? Last year, Ken Livingstone – who’d planned a bridge at the site – said a tunnel would be “mad”. Will the real Labour line on this please step forward?
Long-time readers of this site will also be aware that I stood as a Green Party candidate in council elections in 2010. Frustratingly, I couldn’t persuade the local party to take the threat of a third Blackwall Tunnel up as an issue. But they were very proud of the fact that they played a part in the public inquiry which helped kill off the original Thames Gateway Bridge scheme. Several years on from that, and with Boris now threatening east Greenwich, I wonder if they shot themselves in the foot by opposing the lesser of the two evils?
Anyhow, I think this is Boris sacrificing Greenwich’s air quality and quality of life to win over votes in the suburbs, instead of investing in a proper transport network. In 2008 he ran on a policy of scrapping the Thames Gateway Bridge, targeted at residents in Bexley, and in 2012 he wants to give them that bridge, but in our back yard instead. It’s time we moved to stop him.
Whatever you think, I’d be interested in your views.
News Shopper stirs Stephen Lawrence innuendo
Thank you to everyone who’s been in touch with kind words about my piece on the Stephen Lawrence verdict. I was in two minds about whether or not to write it, because of the emotions it stirs, but it was an event that needed marking. My personal connection with Stephen was very, very limited – but I think Bob From Bromley expressed it right. “Although I can’t claim any ownership of this tragedy, I feel as if I have lived closely with Stephen’s death this past eighteen years.”
While people across this country and beyond will have welcomed the news of Gary Dobson and David Norris’s conviction, it’s here in south-east London that the sense of relief was felt the most. The case has cast a long shadow over this area, and one aspect of life under that was the number of people who simply refused to believe that a young black man could be innocent of any crime.
I remember people telling me I didn’t know “the truth” about the case, and hearing dog ends of rumours about drug dealing, rapes, anything that would somehow absolve Stephen’s killers of the racism they were filmed bragging about by a police undercover surveillance camera.
As Mr Justice Treacy told two of Stephen Lawrence’s murderers a week ago:
A totally innocent 18 year old youth on the threshold of a promising life was brutally cut down in the street in front of eye witnesses by a racist thuggish gang. You were both members of that gang… This crime was committed for no other reason than racial hatred. You did not know Stephen Lawrence or Duwayne Brooks. Neither of them had done anything to harm, threaten or offend you in any way, apart from being black and making their way peaceably to the bus-stop on their way home.
With that, 19 years of malicious lies about Stephen Lawrence and Duwayne Brooks should have been extinguished forever. Incredibly, the News Shopper has decided to perpetuate them.
Duwayne Brooks, who now serves his community as a Lewisham councillor, was interviewed on Radio 4′s Today programme yesterday. The Shopper used Press Association copy to run a story on it…
Now, you’d think a “local” newspaper would probably not bother running comments beneath the story – after all, the paper’s website is already a magnet for nutters, and moderating such a thread would be more trouble than it was worth.
Instead, the News Shopper, based out in distant Petts Wood, decided it was open season.
A black man walking through Eltham? Three layers of clothing? Asking for it, obviously. It then gets worse, with one person posting a list of the charges the police had tried to pin on Duwayne in the years following Stephen’s death, before asking…
If all this stuff isn’t racist, it’s certainly defamatory. It’s pretty much identical to the bile you’ll find on neo-Nazi websites. But it’s all fine at the News Shopper. Once local newspapers felt a duty of care to communities, and they championed those communities. In south-east London, those days are long gone, and we’re stuck with the News Shopper stirring things from the safety of far-off Orpington, where they’ll never have to live the consequences of the rubbish its website prints.
Hey, at least there’s some source material for the next lazy “Eltham still racist” piece from a national.
We’ve been here before, of course. In August 2010 the News Shopper rewarded an anti-gay rant with a “star letter” prize, while a couple of months back it tried to whip up hysteria about Staffordshire Bull Terriers. We know it likes to turn a blind eye to lunatic comments in news stories, under the belief that it makes people return to their website. (It’s the way the Daily Telegraph runs its website, with once-respected hacks reduced to the status of dancing bears for all sorts of unpleasant nutters.)
But when it comes to leaving racist and defamatory comments in a news story that’s been live all through Monday, that really can’t be an innocent slip-up. This has to have been a conscious decision to keep on stirring the innuendo, purely to boost traffic to the News Shopper website.
We have to accept that we don’t live in a perfect world. But we live in one where those who spread hate are increasingly marginalised. Sadly, though, it seems the racists still have a friend in the News Shopper.
1.30pm update The News Shopper has now deleted the comments from its website. Greenwich and Lewisham reporter Mark Chandler, however, seems to think there’s nothing wrong with his newspaper publishing racist and defamatory innuendo. (McNae’s is the media law bible.)
Whoops. Looks like Greenwich's self-appointed media expert should have asked for a copy of McNaes for Christmas.—
Mark Chandler (@Mark_Chandler) January 10, 2012
Greenwich Council’s Pravda reveals royal borough crest
So, here’s the new crest for the shiny new Royal Borough of Greenwich (coming February 3) – what do you reckon? I don’t think they’ve done a bad job, although I can’t help chuckling at the retention of the borough’s motto “we govern by serving”, when “do as you’re bloody told” would be more accurate.
A guide to what it all means is on the front of this week’s soaraway Greenwich Time, which also carries a letter about dog shit and how council leader Chris Roberts paid a “moving” tribute to Stephen Lawrence’s parents. Beautiful stuff.
There’s also more stuff from Roberts about 2012 in the centre spread, and a bit marked “what YOU think!” which is actually filled with “key stakeholders” that you’ve never heard of.
Still, you’ll be glad to know the borough’s written press is scrutinising the council as closely as ever, with a News Shopper reporter gaining a byline for cutting and pasting 14 paragraphs of quotes from the Dear Leader (see original press release) on a story you could have read here a month ago. With these bastions of truth and honesty looking after us, what is there to fear in 2012?
The Stephen Lawrence verdict: A measure of justice – at long last
Tuesday was a day of mixed emotions. Relief at the news that two of Stephen Lawrence’s murderers had finally been found guilty. But any satisfaction at the verdict is muted by how long it has taken to get here. I was 18 when Gary Dobson and David Norris were part of the gang that killed Stephen. It took another 18 years, and then a little bit more, for these two vile individuals to be taken off the streets.
It’s not just their dignity which impresses, but the sheer hard work and determination that Doreen and Neville Lawrence put in over the years to overcome a lack of interest from an insular, complacent – if not outright corrupt – police force. Along the way, they forced the government and public services to examine their own attitudes. None of this can ever bring their son back, and there is a long way to go, but we live in a better country for their efforts.
For a generation of south-east Londoners – those of us who are now in our mid- to late-thirties, the case has cast a long, long shadow. Stephen was in the year below me in our shared sixth form. Our paths only crossed briefly, although a number of my friends knew him. I never heard a bad word of him. A few of them are planning to meet up on Wednesday and have a quiet drink in his memory, taking a break from the careers and families that Stephen never lived long enough to enjoy for himself.
But events in Eltham and elsewhere of the early 1990s certainly shaped my view of the world, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Stephen Lawrence was not the only victim of a racist murder. Rolan Adams, 15, was killed in Thamesmead in February 1991. Back in Eltham, 15-year-old Asian schoolboy Rohit Duggal was murdered the following year only a few hundred yards from where Stephen would die. The Macpherson report would later record evidence that Rohit Duggal’s killer was one of the same gang responsible for Stephen’s death.
Lurking in the background of all this was the presence of the British National Party. Its “bookshop” (in reality, its headquarters) was a couple of miles away in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, and it was actively recruiting in Thamesmead and the outer suburbs. In October 1993, oafish policing ensured a demonstration against the “bookshop” would end in disarray and violence. After Bexley Council took action through its planning department, the BNP slunk off a couple of years later.
Nearly two decades later, how much has changed? It’s worth remembering that it was the community in Eltham who gave up the names of Dobson and Norris in the first place. It was the local Metropolitan Police who decided that the death of a black man wasn’t worth investigating properly, not the people of Eltham.
Yet SE9 remains a soft target for those who seek to stir and divide people. The cameo role played by racist outsiders in the aftermath of the riots was a reminder of that. A couple of months ago, a friend told me the scenes of white men attacking a bus containing black men had convinced her she wouldn’t be sending her children to school out that way.
Even a more “respectable” politician sought to play on the area’s reputation. Failed Conservative parliamentary candidate David Gold – who on Tuesday described Eltham as “a good community, overshadowed by events of 18 years ago” – tried to whip things up himself during the 2010 election.
But it would be unfair to single out Eltham – a suburb with a royal heritage, once home to Frankie Howerd, Bob Hope and Herbert Morrison. If you look within the narrow borders of the London Borough of Greenwich, it certainly sticks out – mostly ungentrified, predominantly white, full of semis rather than terraces or flats.
Eltham’s bad reputation merely reflects a wider issue in the outer suburbs, to which it really belongs rather than the inner London borough which it forms part of. In fact, the problem has probably moved further out over time. Three years ago, a Bexley Council by-election in Welling saw the BNP come within eight votes of victory. Remember the Boris Johnson event in Bexleyheath last year, when a former member started trying to whip up false rumours about a stabbing? Could they get away with that kind of thing in Eltham now? After the trauma of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, I’m not so sure.
Until politicians and others – both nationally and locally – stop whipping up tensions, suburbs like Eltham will never totally escape the spectre of racism.
It’s not the only place in London with a high street that’s seen better days, and has kids hanging around McDonald’s day and night because there’s nothing else to do. But if ever somewhere needed a bit of local pride – that doesn’t involve standing outside the Rising Sun with pints in hand waiting to fend off imaginary rioters – then here’s a candidate. Who’ll step forward and champion Eltham?
There remain at least three killers who have – so far – evaded justice. With Tuesday’s verdict, at least the area can begin to go some way towards healing a scar that’s been raw for nearly two decades. Neville and Doreen Lawrence lost more than we could ever imagine that night. We owe them a lot for their tenacity and determination, which has helped changed our society.
I can’t help thinking, though, that this won’t be over until the others are also behind bars. We’ve come a long way, but there’s some distance to go yet. In too many ways.
853′s top 10 posts of 2011
Early night or hair of the dog? While I wrestle with 2012′s first big dilemma, here’s the most read new posts on 853 from the past 12 months.
1. Riots: Woolwich sweeps up, Greenwich locks down (9 August)
(You’ll spot a bit of a theme in this year’s top 10. The riots saw huge increases in traffic for this and other local websites, and a few of those new readers have stuck around. If you’re one of them, a belated welcome.)
2. Greenwich Foot Tunnel is now officially closed (17 February)
(It’s not any more, but there’s still a huge demand for information about the Greenwich Foot Tunnel – information that, for a time last year, Greenwich Council simply wasn’t giving out.)
3. The night the looters stole from us all (9 August)
(“There’s been a lot of bullshit and rumours tonight.”)
4. Say cheese! It’s Woolwich’s Olympic shooting venue (6 April)
(For all the tantrums over Greenwich Park, it was actually the emergence of Woolwich Common’s shooting venue which brought about the biggest Olympic talking point.)
5. ‘Failing’ Blackheath Bluecoat school faces closure (13 September)
(If this was in Harlesden or Brixton, I’d expect this story would have gone London-wide now. But the sad tale of Blackheath Bluecoat has struggled to make it into the local papers, never mind anywhere else.)
6. Blackheath’s festival organisers speak out (18 February)
(Tom, Terry and Alex finally got their festival – but On Blackheath has had to wait until this September.)
7. Violent attack on cyclist in Bexley Village (8 July)
(Dartford thug John Nicholls captured on camera. He was later fined.)
8. Greenwich Peninsula Festival plans set sail (10 March)
(Like On Blackheath, a controversial event that never really got local press coverage for a time. I’ve neglected this a bit recently – I hope to find out the latest on Frank Dekker’s big scheme soon.)
9. Pulling the plug on the BBC’s internet history (25 January)
(I didn’t do much non-SE London stuff in 2011 – but this post about the BBC’s plan to delete old websites went far and wide. 11 months on, plenty of those sites remain live.)
10. All quiet on the south-eastern front (8 August)
(It didn’t last that way for long.)
Just bubbling under: Nationwide Building Society abandoning SE London, the Charlton Asda fire which never was (given a late boost by porky-spreader Fleet Street Fox pontificating on Charlie Brooker’s 2011 Wipe), and a shedload of Southeastern stuff starting with Olympic train cuts, a story one local councillor refused to believe. Hopefully this particular chap will be more up to speed in 2012.
Satisfyingly, most of the list contains stories which weren’t being covered elsewhere at the time, and I hope to do more of that in what’s going to be a fascinating 12 months ahead. Happy new year!
Farewell 2011: Confessions of a hyperlocal scribe
I don’t know about you, but I’m wading through New Year’s Eve itching to consign the last 12 months to the incinerator. It’s been a pile of crap. My most vivid memory was sitting on my front doorstep in the early hours of 9 August with a beer in hand. I should have been toasting my birthday – instead I was watching looters speed up the road from the Charlton retail park.
I never planned to spend this year spending so much time writing this stuff. Sat in the creaky public gallery at Woolwich Town Hall, backside getting numb, clock approaching nine and considering an escape to the pub; a thought often runs though my mind. How did I end up here? For a multitude of reasons, I’ve had far too much time on my hands and have spent far too much of that reading council documents, inspecting grass in Greenwich Park, talking to people, finding out lots of interesting things, and sharing them with you.
You know what, it’s been fun. I’m proud of the exclusive stuff this site has run over the past year. Working alongside Rob from Greenwich.co.uk, Matt from In the Meantime and Adam Bienkov has been rewarding as well as fun. I hope you’ve found it interesting. Someone was even kind enough to by me a crate of beer last Christmas, and others have sent nice messages, so I know some people enjoy it. More importantly, I hope it’s spurred you to do something – find out more, to spread the word, to complain or compliment somebody.
By the way, thanks to everybody who’s got in touch with tips and information. It’s much appreciated – even the stuff I haven’t used.
The hardest thing about a site like this in an area like this – where the local press is struggling for relevance – is that most of the time, it’s nearly impossible to know how well you are doing. On a foggy night, you can throw a stone into a pond and see it vanish as you throw it. You know it’s hit the water, but you’ve no idea if it’s caused any ripples.
That said, the moment that made me smile the most wasn’t getting recognition from other media, it was discovering (from two separate sources) that Greenwich councillors were getting complaints from constituents over my story about their cutting short a council meeting so they could drink wine. Finding my barber getting news from The Charlton Champion put a spring in my step, too.
Everybody thinks their local council is the barmiest. There’s a telling passage in the excellent Private Eye: the First 50 Years where Rotten Boroughs editor Tim Minogue tells how he only has space for six or seven stories each fortnight – but reckons he gets 60-70 viable stories each week, many of which are getting ignored by local media. To be fair, the News Shopper and Mercury have upped their game a bit in recent months. But the Shopper’s editorial priorities remain in cuckoo-land (or maybe chicken land) while Mercury proprietor Ray Tindle still refuses to give his free paper a proper web presence, shutting it out of the 21st century debate.
(Tindle’s eccentric policy also means you can’t see that you can’t see the South London Press following up my story from a month ago about Southeastern covering up Oyster card readers at Blackheath station and pocketing the excess fare.)
Greenwich’s problem is its insularity, together with a communications strategy based around reputation management (here’s a picture of the council leader with some kids) rather than engaging with people (unless they are “key stakeholders”) or passing on useful information (like when a foot tunnel is closed). Entering a council meeting is like walking into an alternative reality, where the incumbents can do no wrong.
The Woolwich riots – the footage of which still shocks, nearly five months on – was a case in point. Locals’ reactions to a traumatic event got brushed under the carpet by a council more keen on asserting its will than listening to to its people. Don’t just take my word for it – ask local Claire Burlington.
You’d think that after a display of societal breakdown, community feeling would be encouraged and celebrated by the powers that be. Out here it seems that Greenwich Council just want to pretend none of it happened – even the good bits. They even pulled out of attending a public meeting about how to move on after the riots, and just held a private one for local businesses.
Hey ho.
Anyway, even if the council is determined to turn a blind eye to efforts of locals to rally round and build something good, the residents of southeast London are, frankly, so used to being ignored that they’ll just get on and do what they’re going to do anyway.
The close relationship between the council and the police was also disturbing, with Greenwich police following the council’s top-down “do as you’re told” attitude. In Lewisham, shops and businesses were given open letters to display explaining what the police were doing. This side of the border, we never did get an explanation as to why Woolwich and Charlton were left undefended.
At least the Olympics haven’t been derailed. Beyond the born cynics, there’s a strange mix of excitement and apprehension in the air. LOCOG have been a lot more proactive in trying to get their message out, and Greenwich Park has bounced back to normal after July’s test events.
My most baffling moment of 2011 was getting hate mail from NOGOE spokesperson Rachel “Indigo” Mawhood accusing me of “trying to poison the atmosphere and dictate to elected councillors”. “Get a life,” she added.
The full NOGOE charm offensive can be enjoyed here.
For LOCOG, the most important task will be keeping people happy and informed as closures and disruption loom. My own suspicion is that we’ll be fine, but with a couple of last-minute changes of plan and a few surprises on the way. I’m convinced the proposed live site at Blackheath Village will be the biggest attraction of the summer, by the way, but don’t forget the Peninsula Festival or the Dutch campsite…
Speaking of Blackheath, the planned music festival unleashed a fascinating (although costly) ding-dong over the use of the heath and its self-styled “guardians”, the Blackheath Society. On Blackheath will finally take place at the end of September, and we’ll see whether south-east London can put on a show on a par with the gigs at Clapham Common or Victoria Park.
It doesn’t take much to realise that 2012 will be a big year. We’ll never get another Olympics in our lifetime, yet the party will contrast with a bleak background of a likely second recession and further austerity measures, another nervous summer of social tension, and what’s likely to be a dismal mayoral election.
Will Greenwich councillors continue to cut with one hand while toasting themselves with the other? Will Southeastern railway finally get its comeuppance? Can the Olympic Route Network last? Will the new-look Cutty Sark be alright? How many NOGOE-rs will lose limbs after supergluing themselves to the Greenwich Park gates? I’ll hopefully have a little less time to answer these questions in 2012. But I’ll try to give it my best shot. Or maybe it’ll be the year I win a Euromillions rollover and set up a decent local newspaper with the loot. Investing in local journalism? Now there’s a revolutionary idea…
Thanks for your support in 2011, and here’s to 2012.
Merry Christmas from the Royal Borough (and its minicabs)
One south-east London cab company chose Christmas Eve to let its customers know its new name – one you’ll be hearing a lot more of next year. If you’ve ever booked through Charlton-based Arena Cars (or Station Cars as it used to be known) you might have had this little message from Royal Borough Cars earlier this evening.
Smart change of name – the first to cash in on Greenwich borough’s new status (from February) – and when I’ve used them it’s been a good and reliable company. But unless its customers have explicitly agreed to get marketing texts, the law might have a thing to say in the new year…
Just think, by this time next year, you’ll be able to get your hair cut at the Royal Borough Hairdressers, get tanked up at the Royal Borough Off-Licence, soak it all up at the Royal Borough Curry House, and frown with disapproval at the Royal Borough Massage Parlour. Ah, the joys that await us.
On that note, I’m off out to get, er, Christmassy. And getting the last bus home. Have a good one.
