Lower Streatham Neighbourhood Watch and Residents Association

Minutes of Committee Meeting held on March 27th 2002.


1. In attendance: Roger Legate (Chair and Ellison Road), Ian Dennison (Tankerville), Tony Booth 
(Buckleigh and Membership Secretary), Val Bartlett (Penistone), David Mead (Guildersfield), Colin Walker 
(Ellison), Rebecca Barnham (Kempshott – and minutes).  Also attending Jim Bowie from Ellison Road.

2. Apologies:  Cllr Tim Sergeant, Jenny White, Richard Gardener, and Susan James.

3. Minutes of meeting held on February 13th and matters arising.
Susan was complimented on the accuracy of the minutes.

          Jim Madden to be contacted for more details on membership packs and 
          insurance broker details. 						Rebecca
 
          Richard, Tony and Rebecca to meet re subscriptions and bank account.

4. Crime statistics.
PC Chris Johnson did not attend and did not provide any crime statistics –although he was invited to the 
meeting and the minutes and agenda were forwarded to him. There is some uncertainty about whether or not 
he is still the local community policeman – Rebecca to check. There has been a large increase in the 
amount of breaking into cars and tagging locally – with no help/assistance from the police.

There was also a lot of debate about the commitment of the police to the long term running of 
neighbourhood watches.  Whilst there was a lot of initial support, recent support/information has been 
severely lacking. It no longer felt like a partnership and members thought that the NW was being ‘kept at 
arms length’.  It was agreed that a letter should be written to Inspector Mark Thomas to request more 
support for the neighbourhood watch, and also to ask how many extra police were to be drafted into South 
Lambeth, and if there were a role for more ‘specials’ to be used. 					
Rebecca/Roger

5. Petitions and progress/issues arising.
Over 200 signatures for traffic calming have been received and presented to council – including 100 from 
the school.  Please continue to obtain as many signatures as possible and pass on the petitions to 
Rebecca.  Rebecca to chase progress with Cllr Sargeant.  

6. Next Public Meeting.
It was decided that there was not sufficient time to produce a newsletter and print and distribute it for 
April 23rd, and also confirmation had not been received from Councillors as to if they could attend.  So, 
next public meeting will be in mid May – Rebecca to sort out a date.  It was decided to invite the new 
councillors and/or Keith Hill (depending on availability) and also provide a property marking service. 
Leah Levane (town Centre Manager) to be asked to provide an update on community regeneration update. 

7. Newsletter.
Jon will be producing a newsletter for printing in lat April, for distribution shortly afterwards, in 
time for meeting in mid May. 
	     Possible items are listed below:
? nw signs on lampposts 
? new litter bins on Streatham High Road 
? membership form 
? new police contact number 
? delays on East London Line 
? petitions - been presented to Council 
? local elections 
? next public meeting 
? street cleaning rota 
? results from questionnaires - Roger was compiling this 
? streetscene details 
? list of street co-ordinators and tel nos 
? victim support info 
? crime figures 
? adverts - including Cocoa's (free), plus them opening up new cafe on the station 
? school fete 
? church renovations - at Immanuel and St Bartholomew's 
? ice rink up date 
? Roger Legate - review of the year 
? web site details
? reports on Guildersfield and Penistone
? membership nos
Jon to sort out details of adverts; David, Jon and Val to discuss possible adverts with shops on the High 
Road and in Greyhound Lane.	

Roger to print 1000 copies as before. 	

8. External funds.
A brief discussion on applying for external funds – Rebecca to investigate further.  Could obtain funding 
for newsletter, publicity, events, room hire, purchase of stationary, leaflets, fridge magnets  etc.  
Many sources are available. 

9. Ellison Road Extension.
There was a great deal of sympathy and support for Jim Bowie who wanted to know what the NW could do for 
him – and the rest of Ellison Road which is currently not in the NW area.  There are problems with bikes 
and youths late at night with no police support. Jim is away for the next few months but on his return 
the meeting decided it should look at extending the NW area to include the whole of Ellison Road because 
of its problems.  At the moment there are not enough potential street co-ordinators to extend it without 
over stretching everyone – but this could change if more people were interested.

10. AOB.
Constitution:  this was provisionally agreed – everyone to double-check and forward comments onto Val.  
Document is now on the web site.   We need to agree street co-ordinators, and methods of collection of 
subscriptions/donations etc.  Val, Rebecca, Tony and Richard to meet up and discuss.

UDP:  Jon has put in 11 objections to the UDP and waiting to hear a response.

Lambeth In bloom:  David wondered if it could be promoted in the area.  David to check on the Lambeth 
website and also e mail Gideon Taylor – the Landscape manager. 

MOD building – Kempshott Road – Tony to draft a letter in response to the planning application.  Rebecca 
to ask Jenny to find out about the mobile phone mast application.

Tony to provide list of members in each Road.  

Jon suggested we should be producing a list of long term aims and objectives for the group so we can 
measure progress.  To be discussed at a future meeting in more detail.  

David has a cheque to give to Richard for subs – David to contact Richard. 

          Newsletter extension – we have been asked to consider combining the newsletter with that of 
South Streatham Commonside NW.  After much discussion we agreed it was not practical t this stage, as we 
had enough to do already. 

Date of next meeting:  Wednesday April 23rd at 7.30pm at Cocoa’s.