Shame, shame, shame
On Wednesday 20th October 2004, Lewisham Council met to discuss the fate of the Ladywell Leisure Centre.
This meeting should have been dedicated to discuss the sites
alternative to the LLC for the building of a new secondary school in
the borough.
Unfortunately,
this meeting resulted in a farce. A meaningless debate on a decision
already taken by the Mayor and his "expert advisers". Only that
they would have
declared themselves incompetent had they approved any of the sites
alternative to theirs after they had repeated for so long that there
aren't any other options. And they know it, they are the experts.
A hopeless situation for Lewisham since the beginning.
Add to this a council whose members have mostly been selected for
docility, and a cabinet that uses the tool of insult towards the
residents to cover up its incompetence and there you have it.
It's the darkest of times for democracy in Lewisham.
Do you think we're making it up or exaggerating?
Read on please and decide for yourself.
Before proceeding, let's quickly recap the story.
In the north of the borough (Area1, which includes New Cross, Evelyn,
Telegraph Hill and Brockley) there is an urgent need of a secondary school, they are
short of about 350 places.
The council officials come up with 3 options.
They are: the Ladywell Playtower site, the Ladywell Leisure Centre, a
building currently occupied by the Lewisham College. Geographically
only the Lewisham College site is a good solution, but the council
justify this with a linguistic trick. Now the school doesn't have to be
anymore "north of the borough", now the target is wider, it's "north of
the south circular". How clever!
On
26th February 2003 they decide for the Ladywell Playtower site. An
assembly of rather attractive victorian buildings mostly of Council
ownership. Not in Council ownership is the former police station and a
block of 4 flats. They will have to be acquired. The estimate for the
police station is £2M.
After
15 months the Mayor announces that it won't be that the site
anymore. He explains that the Metropolitan Police has put their old
police station, which is part of the Playtower site, on the open market
instead of selling directly to the council, thus making it
unaffordable. The preferred site is now the Ladywell Leisure Centre that has just re-opened after 20 months closure and a £1.8M
refurbishment. This announcement follows another announcement that a
new leisure centre will be built by 2010 as part of the Lewisham
Gateway development.
Immediately a popular reaction gets organised. The campaign is supported by every political group except Labour.
Also against the council's plan is the Campaign for the New School
and
the LEAP (local education action by parents), the party that at last
elections had a councillor elected on the issue of the lack of
secondary school places
in the north of Lewisham borough.
Nobody in Labour is available to comment openly, but there is dissent.
At the meeting of the 15th September, the opposition puts in a motion
to be voted that would link the dismissal of the LLC to the effective
opening of the new leisure facility promised for 2010.
That meeting saw a good number of dissenting Labour councillors deciding to stay home.
They didn't want to be seen associated with this Mayor's decision and
didn't want to be openly disloyal to the party line voting for the
opposition motion.
The Mayor at that Council Meeting challenges everybody to find a new
site for the school. He says that he searched long and hard but
couldn't find any. Therefore, given the challenge of the Mayor the
opposition motion is not voted but adjourned to the next meeting, so to
give time to the Council to examine the alternative places presented by
the opposition. The Mayor gives a deadline for submissions on the 4th
October.
Immediately the New School Campaign submits 6 sites that they have
researched already. They were already doing this independently as,
after years of rejection from the Council, they had given up on the
Council providing a comprehensive secondary and were in the process of
identifying sites to establish a City academy.
The Council decides that the submissions will be discussed at the Council meeting on the 20th October.
The council analysis of the sites is published on 14th October. (read this here and/or this here)
It took just 10 days to the "expert advisers" of the council to dismiss
as unsuitable the 6 sites submitted by the New School Campaign plus the
other 14 submissions.
This is not surprising. Had they approved one site not submitted by
them, after all the Mayor saying how hard they had tried to spare our
pool, they would have declared themselves and the Mayor incompetent to
say the least.
The considerations that the council officials advised the Mayor are very difficult to share.
The thought that they don't think that they should add a school on a
site where 3500 new homes are about to be built is chilling.
This is their answer to the submission about Convoy Wharf. An area now
derelict, bordering with the Pepys estate, in the heat of the need for
a new secondary school.
They are about to make the problem worst. And to achieve this disaster in
a spectacular way, they do it by demolishing the best swimming facility
in Lewisham.
Insanity with the taxpayers money.
For many of those that attended the council meeting from the public
gallery, the experience has been a milestone in their lives, an eye
opener. It has been for me and it has been for those I spoke to.
Arrogance and contempt were the items that the Labour side of the Council displayed.
The highlight was probably the moment when the Mayor, lifting up his eyes
towards the public gallery and trying to look suave and understanding
said that yes, there will still be a crisis of secondary school places
in the north of the borough, even after this school will be built in
Ladywell. But if the New School campaign, had the grace to not protest
and distance themselves from the Save Ladywell Pool campaign, maybe,
after, after he's demolished the Ladywell Leisure Centre, they can
speak and collaborate to search for a solution together.
A rather awkward attempt to divide the people of Lewisham's opposition
which achieved only that it is now clear that he also knows very well
that this is the wrong solution for the problems of Lewisham's children
and parents.
Then it was the time of the questions from the public, we had one submitted.
It reads like this:
"With regard to your answer given to Councillor Darren Johnson's question:
"What public consultation was carried
out before making the decision to close Ladywell Leisure Centre and
what studies were carried out on the impact of such closure on the
health and well-being of the people of Lewisham?"
Your answer is an implicit admission
of not having performed any of the above. The
consultation mentioned refers to the site for a school and not
about the loss of leisure facilities. The part of the question about
the assessment of the impact of the closure of the Ladywell
Leisure Centre has also not been answered. Does the Council
have a duty to perform such studies? If so which council
offices should have produced these studies? If so is there any
disciplinary action that you intend to pursue towards the officials
that omitted to do so?"
and the answer given was this:
The decision to relocate Ladywell
Leisure Centre to the Sundermead estate was taken following a
public consultation in late 1999. The consultation meeting
was well attended, with strong support for relocation and
modernisation of the facilities. The choice of Sundermead
recognised the importance of having a flagship centre close to
the transport interchange and as an integral part of the town
centre development.
In December 2002 & January 2003
the Council undertook a detailed consultation exercise on proposals for
a new secondary school including the options for the preferred
location. Three sites were identified, the Ladywell Playtower
site, the Lewisham College Breakspear site and Ladywell Leisure
Centre.
Discussion of the preferred location
was an important part of the consultation exercise. In February
2003 Mayor & Cabinet considered the outcome of the
consultation process and concluded that the preferred location for
the school would be the Ladywell Playtower site.
In the event the Council was not able
to acquire the police station and in June 2004 the Mayor &
Cabinet reconsidered the position, including the consultation
previously undertaken and concluded that the preferred location
should be the Ladywell Leisure Centre from 2007. By then the new
Downham Lifestyles Centre will be open providing alternative high
quality leisure facilities to Ladywell.
The health and wellbeing
of the people of Lewisham will still be well provided for with a
better facility available in Downham before Ladywell closes and
plans will be well advanced for the replacement centre in the Town
Centre.
We therefore had the right to a supplementary question.
We argued the question paragraph by paragraph.
With regard to the first paragraph, we said that if the council points
to a consultation it would be nice if they also quoted some official
document for consultation. We also added that in this case it wasn't
necessary as the paragraph is not relevant to the question.
On the second paragraph. The consultation there mentioned was about a school and not a leisure facility.
By our reading of the report of that consultation (Mayor and Cabinet,
26th February 2003)
what emerges is that there were no questions about the
loss of a leisure facility in the questionnaire that the Council
submitted to the consulted public. Nevertheless 4 people added a note
about it
at the bottom of the page. This was translated in the report with a
line saying that the 3% of the people consulted showed concern for the
loss a leisure facility. Does this mean that the 97% doesn't care? No,
as there wasn't a question about it. it is remarkable that the 3% found
appropriate to add a line at the bottom of the questionnaire.
Again, this paragraph, as it doesn't point ot consultation regarding sport and leisure, is not relevant for the question posed.
On the third paragraph and the first part of the fourth. The
same document (Mayor and Cabinet,
26th February 2003) is the document that advises the Playtower site as
the preferred option. At paragraph 8.3.12 the consideration on the
police station is "this police station will close at the end of this
year when the new police station in the Town Centre opens. The
Metropolitan Police's current plan is to then sell it on the open
market."
Which means that at the time of the choosing of this site as the
preferred it was thought as to be bought on the open market. This means
that nothing has changed since then. So the declaration of the Mayor
that they had to change the plan because the Metropolitan Police
doesn't want to sell them as a preferred bidder anymore in not
substantiated by facts.
On the second part of the fourth paragraph and the fifth. Downham is a
far away place for most of the users of the Ladywell Leisure Centre. It
is tucked away in the middle of an estate. The people that used Downham
didn't make the switch to use the LLC. It is presumable that the
opposite won't happen.
If the people from an estate don't travel to a place near Lewisham
Centre, what makes them think that the people from around Lewisham
Centre will travel all the way to an estate far away. And the
pensioners that feel safe to go to a place on the main road, how will
they feel about going in the middle of an estate?
But these are our considerations, the council doesn't think in this way
Anyway, this part of the answer too was not relevant to the question answered.
We so told the chamber that we feel we hadn't been answered,
therefore our additional question was the following: why did you choose
not to answer?
We were replied by Councillor Mc Garrigle which denied
that we hadn't been answered and as member of the cabinet
for culture (which responsibility includes sport and leisure) started a
dissertation on the benefit that the Council brings to Lewisham
residents' sport facilities.
So she listed a number of things that you can do in Lewisham to
keep fit. Rather funny when she said of how proud she was that some
gymnastic classes for
children are always oversubscribed. Is an oversubscribed class an
achievement? She thinks so. And she's free to think so. The only
problem for us is that she is the person in charge of sport and leisure.
If a class is oversubscribed it is a class to be expanded.
Same for a pool. If a pool is in constant use (as the Ladywell Leisure Centre is), the swimming provision has to be expanded.
The other pools in and around the borough are always working at full
capacity. Closing here will have a knock on effect on everybody else around.
The
20 months closure of the LLC have already been hard to bear for the
users of the Sydenham small pools at the Bridge and Forest Hill as for
the facilities of the neighbouring boroughs.
She also described the LLC like some sort of rottening old shoe that
was always thought as too far gone and in need to be replaced. Well, those that
use it think differently.
Fortunately it was built at a time when no frill public buildings where
built. It is therefore a very straightforward cube of concrete and glass
covered in tiles.
Very little can go wrong there.
If the council thinks to upgrade it, we welcome this, but an act of planned vandalism, only moves us to reaction.
Then the debate on the motion came, and after a round of speeches, some
very good, some intellectual dishonest and arrogant, some verging on
the lunatic, the motion went on to be voted.
The result: 12 in favour, 29 against. The motion is dismissed.
But it doesn't end here.
Now we will move on a legal battleground, and we have the numbers to win.
But we also need to make sure that similar plans aren't put forward in the future.
There will be a local election in between now and the planned destruction of the Ladywell Leisure Centre.
We'll do our civic duty to wake up Lewisham from sleepvoting.
We need a political class of another calibre.
We pay enough taxes to deserve it.
