October Report

Councillors Report – October 2010

Manor House Area Action Plan

A draft area action plan for the area around the Manor House was approved at Council on 15th September. It tries to provide guidance to the public and private sectors on the type of development we would like to see. And in particular to ensure that it complements the regeneration of the Woodberry Down Estate.

A further public consultation meeting will be held from 6-8pm on 25th October at the West Reservoir Centre. Or the draft can be found here and through the link at the bottom.

Kings Crescent Estate

Work continues to develop a vision for the future of the estate. This consultation with residents began in September and aims to submit a completed masterplan early next year. It will attempt to cost any future rebuild, and provide a design code to integrate new buildings with older.

The refurbishment of all retained units is complete except for some snagging.

Alexander National House

The planning application for the site was made during August with consultation concluding on 13th September. It’s recommended for approval at the October planning committee. Look for Planning Committee report 2010/1760.

It is descibed as a “residential development of 5 blocks ranging between 4 and 6 storeys to provide 109 homes comprising 36 x 1 bed units, 37 x 2 bed units, 28 x 3 bed units and 8 x 4 bed units together with community space, associated landscaping, car parking, cycle and refuse storage.”

If granted work, could begin as early as November and would last for 18 months. 47 of the units are scheduled to be retained by the council, 20 transferred to a RSL and 42 are for private sale. A community facility is reprovided at the western side of the site.

Woodberry Down regeneration

We are meeting officers and the Deputy Mayor on Tuesday 5th October and will update after this.

We are particularly concerned to get the Parkside Youth Club opening more and offering a greater range of provision. We are meeting the Director and Lead Member about this on the 12th October.

Decanting continues from Peak and Petherton and has begun in Nichol and Needwood. A Compulsory Purchase Order for these areas was made in July.

Clearance of the vegetation on the 268 Green Lanes site is almost complete. 27 social rent units will be built there later this year. Landscaping improvements along Woodberry Down and Grove have continued.

Policing and community safety

The police and council have introduced a dispersal zone around Manor House in response to a spate of robberies in the last few months.

At the CAP meeting, the safer neighbourhoods team informed residents about a number of measures they had/were going to take over the coming months; two houses had been raided in St. Johns Court and Portland Rise in relation to drugs; the targeting of car crime in the area would continue; as would the joint action with the Arab Advice Centre to support behaviour change on Blackstock Road.

Priorities agreed for the coming two months were around prostitution, Blackstock Road and car crime. Residents also raised concerns about the number of events in Finsbury Park which were causing disturbance. A member of the council's community safety team, who was present at the meeting, agreed to explore this with Haringey.

Jill Murrain from Kings Crescent was elected the new Chair.

Manor T&RA (covering Portland Rise, Lakeside Court and Amwell Court)

Residents discussed the use of allocation for local environmental works and went for improving the stairs and flooring in Lakeside and Portland, and signage on Amwell. Residents expressed the desire for the community centre on the estate (which we now use as our meeting venue) to be used for youth activities. The Manor House Development Trust (which is looking at improving youth provision in the area) have been invited to attend the next meeting.

Labour Group awayday

The group held it’s awayday at the West Reservoir Centre in Brownswood on the 19th September. We planned how best to implement our manifesto in the circumstances we were likely to face. We also considered our campaign strategy for the period up to the London Mayoral and Assembly election in 2012, and the next borough elections.

School results

For the second year in a row, Hackney has achieved above the national average with a set of excellent GCSE results. 58% of Hackney pupils achieved 5 GCSEs or more at grades A*-C, compared to 52% last year. In 2003 the figure was only 26%. In addition, we have seen improvement at every other age phase including early years foundation stage, KS1, KS2, KS3 and post-16.

The SATs results from our local primary, Parkwood, make it the best in Hackney and again amongst the top 2% in the country.

Governors there voted unanimously to take no further action towards becoming a new Tory style academy at their meeting in June. The school is building a small extension at the rear of the site to allow for more individual and small group tuition. Brian was re-elected Chair of Governors last night. Oli is also a governor there.