Daily Photo: 30/03/2011 – NMM’s new wing

Thanks to Gordon for sending me this today –  workers were removing some of the boards as he walked past which allowed him to get this photo of the National Maritime Musuem’s new Sammy Ofer Wing. The new wing is expected to open this Summer.

Cost of playing tennis in Greenwich set to rise

The cost of playing tennis at council-run courts in the borough of Greenwich is set to go up.

The prices, which are already high in comparison to neighbouring boroughs, will rise in line with inflation meaning that the cost for adults will be up to £7.30 per hour for the use of a court.

Players at Plumstead Common, where charging hasn’t been in operation, have been shocked to discover that they too will now be paying the charge.

Forum users on the popular tennis website, London Tennis, have expressed their outrage at the decision to charge at Plumstead.

One contributor commented, “Really poor decision. They should be encouraging participation in sports rather than creating barriers. £7.30 and yet there are no facilities whatsoever.”

Another added, “the courts are so poor[.]  not even level they must be joking”

A Greenwich Council Spokesperson said:

“Up until this year, fees for parks and leisure facilities had been frozen for the previous two years.  However, all fees for parks and leisure facilities are reviewed annually by the council and it has been decided that tennis court fees will rise this year by inflation.  This will apply from 1^st April to all tennis courts across the borough, not just at Plumstead Common.”

Discounted rates will remain for junior players and Greenwich Card holders.

The tennis courts in Greenwich Park, which are not operated by the Council, are also increasing to an eye-watering £9.00 per hour for adults at peak times.

Whilst Olympic host borough Greenwich, which also plays host to the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2, is pushing up its prices, tennis remains free of charge at courts run by Lewisham Council and its contractor, Glendale.

Players can also enjoy tennis for free at courts in the borough of Bexley such as at Danson Park.

New Greenwich Council Prices

Adults per hour- £7.30
Adults per hour (Greenwich card holder) – £6.60
Juniors per hour – £4.70
Juniors per hour (Greenwich card holder) – £4.20

Charity abseiler injured in fall at The O2

A woman was airlifted to hospital yesterday after falling during a fund-raising abseiling event at The O2 in North Greenwich.

The woman is believed to have injured her arm after falling during the event which took place inside the arena itself. The charity 80ft abseil was aiming to to raise funds for The Stroke Association.

Joe Korner, Director of Communications at the Stroke Association says:

“Everyone at the Stroke Association is deeply shocked and distressed by this accident. At this time, all of our thoughts and best wishes are with the lady involved and her family. As with all of our fundraising events, strict health and safety procedures are put in place therefore we will be working alongside the relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate what went wrong yesterday.”

The Stroke Association is the only UK wide charity solely concerned with combating stroke in people of all ages.

Nick Raynsford: Why I’m supporting AV

My personal opinion on the ‘first past the post’ FPTP electoral system, which has traditionally determined British Parliamentary elections, is that it has two principal advantages. Firstly, it has generally delivered a clear winner, and so ensured a decisive outcome to elections. Secondly, it ensures there is always a direct link between Members of Parliament and a constituency.

By contrast, more proportional elective systems can create uncertain outcomes and they do bring the risk that small and often unrepresentative parties can gain disproportionate influence.

Another disadvantage of more proportional electoral systems is that they depend on large, multi-member constituencies, which makes it difficult for elected politicians to relate closely to a local area. For example, MEPs who are elected on a proportional system to represent us in the European Parliament have to represent the whole of London between them, so are inevitably less well-known to electors in a single area such as Greenwich and Woolwich.

Having said that, there are serious downsides to the FPTP system, notably that governments are usually elected with less than 50 per cent of the votes cast. For that reason, I am personally supportive of the Alternative Vote (AV) system for Parliamentary elections, which allows voters to place candidates in order of preference (1, 2, 3 etc.) rather than simply putting a cross besides one name.

Under the AV system, only candidates who secure more than 50 percent of the first preference votes are automatically elected. In other instances, the second preference votes of electors whose first preferences went to candidates who secured the least support are redistributed until one candidate reaches the 50 per cent threshold, or until all other candidates are eliminated. This gives greater weight to the views of those who voted for losing candidates, whilst retaining the link between MP and constituency. I will therefore be supporting the introduction of AV for British Parliamentary elections.

I have in the past helped introduce a similar system of voting. As Minister responsible for the Greater London Authority, I put in place the supplementary vote system for the election of the Mayor of London. This is very similar to AV but limits voters to just two preferences to guard against the risk of a candidate being elected as Mayor without having secured a substantial number of first preference votes. I believe that these arrangements have generally worked well.

The Alternative Vote Referendum will take place on May 5th 2011. Greenwich.co.uk will soon have an article putting the case for the No campaign.

Exclusive: Town centre pedestrianisation proposals scrapped

Plans to partially pedestrianise Greenwich town centre will not be going ahead, Greenwich.co.uk can reveal.

The proposal, which included pedestrianising College Approach and King William Walk while creating a new gyratory system around Norman Road, Creek Road, Greenwich Church Street, Greenwich High Road, has been put on hold indefinitely.

News of the decision to halt the project, which was put forward by the council after consultations held in 2009 and 2010, was revealed through an exchange of letters between Council Leader, Chris Roberts, and local ward councillors Matthew Pennycook, Maureen O’Mara and David Grant.

The Greenwich West trio, who have undertaken their own consultation, say that the scheme should be “suspended for the foreseeable future”.

“We feel that our focus at the present time should be on introducing measures to address the existing traffic/rat running problems in residential streets in West Greenwich and … any temporary traffic management that may be required to facilitate pedestrian access through the town centre during the Olympic Games”, their letter adds.

In his reply, Chris Roberts agrees “that we should suspend work on our own proposals and focus at this time on what traffic management measures might reasonably be implemented to address concerns about rat running, as well as facilitating the operational needs up to and during the Olympic Games.”

He also says in his letter that TFL have raised with him a desire to “engage in public consultation later in the year” on traffic proposals that will “directly affect areas of the borough to the east of the Town Centre.”

Click here to read the full letter from Greenwich West councillors to the Council Leader, Chris Roberts and his reply.

The decision to suspend the scheme, which the council still describes on its website as one that would “address the needs of local residents and visitors whether on foot, on bicycle, or on public transport”, is a victory for residents concerned that the gyratory would increase rat running in the area – concerns which led to separate traffic calming measures in West Greenwich being proposed.

Greenwich Council appointed highways and traffic consultants, Hyder Consulting, to work on the project in May 2009 but declined to answer a Freedom of Information request last year from local journalist, Darryl Chamberlain, asking how much the company had been paid for their work on the scheme.

Daily Photo: 25/03/2011 – Garden Bird

Thanks to Frank for sending me this photo of a pheasant that was in his West Greenwich garden recently.

Cabinet agrees 103% allotment price hike

Greenwich Council’s Cabinet unanimously agreed price rises for its allotments at a meeting last night at Woolwich Town Hall.

The allotment price hike has been watered down since originally being proposed but the concessions were not enough to win over allotment holders who left the meeting angry, disappointed and with the air turned blue.

It was originally intended that the full rate for residents rise to £20 per rod this year, but the increase will now be phased in over two years following consultations.

The full cost of renting an allotment will go from £6.50 per rod to £13.20 per rod this year – an increase of 103% – and then rise to £20 the following year.

An average 5 rod size allotment will cost £66 in 2011/12 under the new proposals, and £100 next year.  Rods are a system to measure allotments – one square rod is the equivalent of about 25 square metres.

49% of current allotment holders qualify for a concessionary rate which sees them pay about the half the standard price.

Local growers at the meeting criticised the council’s consultation, claiming it hadn’t been properly publicised. Allotment holder, Irene Woods, said she only found out about the consultation once it was too late to be involved.

She had already invested both expense and effort into preparing her plot, she said, and was left “demotivated” and unsure as to whether she could afford to carry it on. The rise would “set a precedent for massive increases” in the future, she said.

Another allotment holder called the proposals “rubbish”, adding “It’s not fair, it’s not right and it’s not justice.”

The Cabinet agreed to defer this years rise from April until July and will allow allotments to be paid for quarterly, although the holders claim the council was legally obliged to offer this anyway.

A report by council officers says allotments currently get a 73% subsidy and the new pricing will take this to 45% this year and approximately 25% the year after, which matches the current subsidy to leisure centres.

Cabinet Member of Culture and the Olympics, Cllr John Fahy, said the “funding to local government has been significantly reduced by central government” and the allotment price increases were “probably the most difficult decision we’ve had to take as part of this budget process”.

Daily Photo: 21/03/2011 – More HMS Bulwark

HMS Bulwark leaves Greenwich today but here’s a final look at her before she goes with some of the pictures I’ve taken and have been sent.

Thanks to Alan who took this one from aboard City Cruises’ M.V. Millennium Time

Thanks to Greenwich West councillor, Matthew Pennycook, for this lovely picture he took on Saturday afternoon

And thanks to Dazza for this photo taken round by the Trafalgar Tavern…

UPDATE

Thanks again to Dazza for more great pics of HMS Bulwark as she made her way back out to sea this afternoon. Check out more of his photos on Flickr.

Raynsford slams Nationwide closures in Commons debate

Greenwich and Woolwich MP, Nick Raynsford, has again criticised the decision by Nationwide to close seven branches in south east London.

Raynsford secured an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on Friday afternoon where he, and other MPs from the area, highlighted the branch closures.

He called it “a crude and discriminatory exercise in which the leafy suburbs are favoured while inner London is punished”, pointing out that all the south east London branches inside the South Circular would close whilst those outside it would remain open.

He closing remarks in the debate were:

Unless Nationwide accepts that it is making a serious mistake and agrees to consult its customers further on options to maintain access to some branches in the area, it will stand accused of walking away from the inner city, from its history, and from social and economic responsibility. It will be a sad epitaph to the long, proud history of mutuality in the financial sector.

The full text of the debate can be found on Hansard.

Hovercraft crashes during Bulwark demonstration

A military hovercraft crashed into Blackfriars Bridge during yesterday’s military display on the Thames.

As spectators watched the impressive helicopter displays over the recently refitted HMS Bulwark at Greenwich Reach, Royal Marines were travelling up and down the river in fast boats and a LCAC hovercraft.

Local worker, Mike Paternott, witnessed the incident as the amphibious vehicle collided with Blackfriars Bridge shortly after 2.30pm. An MOD spokesperson confirmed the collision and said nobody was injured.

Read more at TheCity.co.uk or check out Mike Paternott’s set of photos on Flickr.

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