Running Southwark, Day in Brussels and Hibs in Europe!!!

It has been an exceptionally busy month settling in to live within the Cabinet and the Ruling Administration. We have already taken some big decisions on the Elephant and Castle Regeneration and Potters Field and I am progressing things within my Community Safety Portfolio on CCTV Extension, Violent Crime Strategy, Dog Control policy and dealing with Anti Social Behavious especially on Estates!
I am having regular meetings with Counterparts in Lambeth and Lewisham to share best practice and work on joint initiatives like the Purple Flag initative with Lambeth!

Lots of Briefings and Meetings in Tooley Street day and evening and of course my ward work in Brunswick part so pretty full on!

My sister was down last week and we did lots of touristy things like climb St. Pauls, see Swan Lake at the Ballet and spent a day in Brussels so good fun but long tiring days!!

Hibs venture into Europe for the first time in some years in the Europa Cup Qualifier against NK Moribor next week so would be great to see them get through to the First Round Proper and then who knows!!!

Elephant & Castle Regeneration gets the Green light, London Met win Green Award and the "Green" new Stand rises from the ashes!!!

The biggest news this week is that we as the Cabinet ageed the Regeneration Agreement for the Elephant and Castle e with Lend Lease, a £1.5Billion project to transform the area. We sought extra assurnaces on Socail Housing provision, as well as the future of the Shopping Centre and plans for a new Leisure Centre on the site of the current one and were happy that in all three of those aras things had moved along significantly over the deal that the Lib Dem/Con Coalition Administration were prepared to sign before May!! Not too surprising that the Lib Dems now oppose the deal which just really shows them up for what they are and they can take absolutely nop credit for the years fo dither and delay over this project which is now going to start moving!!!

London Met won a Silver Awards at the Mayor of London's Green 500 Awards Ceremony in June and we now have a shiny award to give to our VC!!!

Had a great boys ( and girls under 10!!) day out on the banks of the Regents Canal last Saturday on a really beautiful day with bee and curry!!!
Things looking good at Easter Road with Hibs buying new players, waiting forn the Europa Cup draw and the new East Stand taking shape for next Season with a 20,000 Ground capacity!!! Cant wait to go there!!!

World cup, Cabinet and University life, and Camberwell Arts Festival 2010!

Obviously a bit obsessed by the World Cup in South Africa watching as many games as I can and of course witnessing England's grim showing culminating in the heavy defeat to the Germans yesterday!!

Lots of stuff at the University with training and briefings all round as in process of reducing hours to time share between London Met and Southwark Council!! IOSH Training, Business Continuity and Environmental Briefings for the past few weeks!!

Getting out and about as I really dont want to "manage" from Tooley Street! Met Cllr. Lauder at the Hour Glass Pub last week to talk about asb and also met Tessa Jowell and Lambeth Councillors and Cabinet Member of problems in the Herne Hill area!! I am meeting up with my Lewisham Counterpart soon and getting out to all Ward SNT Panels to find out what people think on the ground about Community Safety!!

I attended a really good initiative at Dockhead Fire Station where young people spend a week as a Firefighter and "Pass Out" in font of family!! great idea and hope to see it develop further!

The Camberwell Arts Festival 2010 is in full swing with lots of very visible things going on which is good and work progressing on the South London Gallery and the Camberwell Leisure Centre so lots happening and all good in Camberwell!!!

The Work as a Southwark Council Cabinet Member begins in earnest, Milwall get promoted, at home with dad and London Met win Silver!!!

Exciting times for me as the new Cabinet Member for Community Safety and the Councillor for Brunswick Park Ward! Lots of Officer Briefings and Public Meetings and Events to attend so plenty to keep me busy!!New Cabinet and Councillor colleagues to get to know and work with and a really impressive bunch they are too!! We had a Tour of the key Borough sites recently and a Labour Group Away Day at the weekend so lots of opportunities to get to know each other. I am also in touch with my counterparts in Lambeth and Lewisham to share information and work more closely together!!
Had a great day at Wembley watching the Lions get promoted to the Championship next Season, great atmosphere at a virtually full Stadium. Noe the World Cup to look forward to and I pulled Honduras in the London Met Sweepstake so not spending my winnings yet!! I spent a week up in Edinburgh with dad and Mum's Bench is now installed at Lauriston Castle so we visited a couple of times! He is very please d that it is there and it is easy for him to get too and a really beautiful place!!I attended the Globe theatre's Underglobe this week as London Met University picked up a Silver Award at the Green 500 Awards 2010 with Boris Johnston the guest of Honour!!!.. as entertaining and eccentric as ever!!

Cabinet starts working, Community Safety Priorities and Millwall at Wembley!!!

It was a long hard week last week taking over control of Southwark Council and taking on my role as Cabinet Member for Community Safety with lots of Briefings on my Portfolio as well as the pressing matter of the Elephant & Castle Regeneration!! In terms of community safety my priorities are developing a coherent Violent Crime Strategy, upgrading and extending CCTV coverage around the borough where it is needed, taking action on dangerous dogs and adopting a zero tolerance approach to anti-social behaviour on the streets and on the Estates!
We will upgrade the CCTV Monitoring Centre to make it digital and then extend our network and we should have this all up and running over the next few months! There is also possiblity of linking in with other existing systems to increase the coverage further and so delivering quiickly on a key Labour Manifesto Pledge!!
We also need to focus our ever more limited resources in areas where it is needed therefore reorganising the Community Wardens to Town Centred Teams seems sensible to me!
I am keen to see significant progress on all of these fronts over the next 3 months and want to take a cross departmental approach to Youth Crime looking at Education, Youth provision as well as regeneration and the environment to tackle the causes of crime at source. I do support the use of ASBO's and ABC's to deal with offenders and think that they have been and remain a useful tool in tackling Youth Crime. I am also keen to develop better victim support in all areas of crime including domestic violence!
I do think that we need to work on closing the gap between the publics perception of crime and the reality so that people feel more safe and that may include more CCTV, more visible police presence and even better street and Estate lighting.

I went to a couple of Election Celebration Parties at the weekend, one for DAWN arranged by new Councillor Sunil Chopra of a fantastic hot day in Dulwich!!
The second was for South Camberwell at Councillor Veronica Ward's and a good time was had by all!!

Another busy week ahead including a Tour of the Borough with the Cabinet on Friday!
Saturday and off to Wembley again to see if Millwall can do it this time and beat Swindon to get a richly deserved place in the Championship!
The pic is from last year when they had it snatched away from them by Scunthorpe in virtually the last minute!! COME ON THE LIONS!!!!

Labour take over at Southwark Town Hall, Community Safety Priorities and Millwall back at Wembley!!!

Well it has been quite a week with the Labour Group taking over the reigns of Southwark Council following the Mayor making and Constitutional Council on Wednesday!!


It was fantastic to see my good friend and Labour Group Colleague Tayo Situ become Mayor of Southwark with Lorraine Lauder as his Deputy, they will both be a credit to us and Southwark!!



The new Labour Cabinet took control and I became the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, a role that I have shadowed for the past 7 years!!!
The Labour Council Manifesto can be seen through the link below:
http://www.southwarklabour.co.uk/uploads/089d69db-87f0-2284-d51c-883ead9cffae.pdf

I spent much of yesterday meeting Officers and we are already making good progress on a number of our community safety manifesto Commitments such as :

1. Improving, upgrading and extending our CCTV coverage around the borough in areas where it is most needed,

2. Developing a wide ranging Violent Crime Strategy to link up work across Departments in a coherent way,

3. Targeting drug dealing on Housing Estates and the associated Gang culture and crime that comes with it,

4. A Zero Tolerance approach to anti social behaviour in areas like dog fouling, noisy neighbours and improving the ASB Helpline

5. Continuing to support more 20mph speed limits in the borough

6. To protect Police numbers against cuts and to organise our community wardens where they are most needed.

I am getting used to working in Tooley Street on the 4th floor and meeting the staff who will help us!


My University Office is just across Tower Bridge so no more than 10 minutes apart!!

Good Southwark news article:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/news/article/36/new_leader_sets_out_his_vision

Great Result for Millwall in the week and another Wembley trip beckons a week on saturday!!
Richard, Fiona and I plan a repeat trip just hoping for a better result: COME ON YOU LIONS!!!!
Highlights of Play Off semi:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_2/8691781.stm

Labour Win Southwark Council and Hibs get 4th SPL Spot and Europa Cup Place!!

Great images of a Fantastic night as Labour took back Southwark Council with a majority of 7:

LABOUR 35, LIB DEMS 25, CONSERVATIVES 3

Details at Southwark Council link below:

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/1000/election_results/1618/council_elections_2010

Election day was spent in East Walworth on a sunny day and a brilliant group of people fighting for every vote!!
It was a great if long and tiring day and we took all three seats as well as seats in South Camberwell, Chaucer, Newington and even College Ward!

Prior to the Election Gordon Brown came to Inspire at Walworth Road at a really inspiring Rally!!
Hibs get Europa Cup Spot after a great away 2-0 win at Dundee United after a very up and down Season!!

Next Season a new Stand and European Football and hopefully some beter defenders and goalkeepers!!

Dundee Unt. Game report below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/8666200.stm

That incredible 6-6 game against Motherwell:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/8668079.stm

VOTE LABOUR ON THURSDAY MAY 6TH 2010 IN GENERAL AND SOUTHWARK COUNCIL ELECTIONS!!!

We now enter the final few days of the General and Southwark Council Elections Campaign!! After an unforeseen absence I am getting back into it Campaigning, leafleting and attending Hustings!
We have some very good material for the Campaign, our Introductory Leaflet, a fantastic Manifesto Leaflet and of course our Election Address!

The Camberwell Hustings were great and we all agreed we should do more of that in between Elections!!!

On Sunday i went to a Gordon Brown meeting at Inspire Crypt in Walworth Road. Fantastic speech and a great boost for Southwark Labour Party members!! More Pics and videos on Facebook!!

So we are now at the sharp end of the campaigns with no one really clear on the outcome of either so it is simply a case of working as hard as possible over the next few days and on Thursday to keep the Tories out of Westminster and the Lib Dems and Tories out of Southwark Town Hall!!! VOTE LABOUR ON THURSDAY MAY 6TH!!!

Election Fever builts in Westminster and Southwark Town Hall and Hibs scrap for Europa Cup spot!!!

And so we enter the final 2 weeks Campaigning to keep the Tories out of No.10 and the Lib Dem/Tory Coalition out of the Town Hall!!

Although the televised debates do appear to have had a strange effect on the Polls they are clearly the right way to go and are now part of the UK

Political scene!

It does look like this Election may have a very unique outcome with large protest voites against both Major parties bolstering the Lib Dem vote with of course Clegg's competent and confident performances on air!!

A Hung Parlaiment looks the most likely with Gordon Brown having the first go at making deals with the smaller parties to form an Administration!!

Locally we have the key wards which will dictate the outcome of the Election, with East Walworth, Chaucer, Livesey, South Camberwell , Peckham Rye and East Dulwich the Labour/Lib Dem Battlegrounds!!
Our pledge for Free School Meals is very popular on the doorstep so it will be a very tense and nervous last couple of weeks til polling Day!!
Our Manifesto can be read at the link below:
http://www.southwarklabour.co.uk/uploads/089d69db-87f0-2284-d51c-883ead9cffae.pdf

Hibs form continues to collapsing from 2nd to 5th in a matter of months and scrapping with Motherwell for 4th and the Europa Cup spot. Failling that we have to hope for the Arabs (Dundee Utd.) to beat Ross County to get the extra Europa Cup place should be end up in 5th spot!!