A Little Bit of Art - Gallery in Iliffe Yard open Saturdays from 10am - 3pm

There are a number of artists studios in Iliffe Yard, just off Crampton Street in SE17.  One of them, A Little Bit of Art, is opening (alongside GAS Art Agency) on Saturday mornings, beginning tomorrow, Saturday 8th October 2011, from 10am - 3pm.  I presume they'll continue to open on Saturdays as long as there is interest.

A Little Bit of Art specialises in affordable printed artworks and you can go and visit them at 20A Iliffe Yard, SE17 3QA.

Kennington and Vauxhall are stuffed full of galleries and artists, and you can't beat visiting the places in which beautiful things are created.  Do drop in to the Electric Elephant Cafe, a tiny alternativey-feel venue that serves great coffee.  We visited ages ago, and chatted happily with the staff.  Iliffe and Crampton Streets both have a strong community spirit.  And whilst you're there, and if it's open (2pm-6pm on Saturdays), consider dropping in to 56a Crampton Street, where there's an anarchist cafe and library.

Update on schools (and their websites) in Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall

Ever since I attended the Angry Parent meeting at St Anselm's church a few months ago, and compiled the list of schools and their recent Ofsted reports, I've been getting a lot more hits from people searching for local primary schools.  It made me wonder whether the subject matter of my area coverage was unbalanced.  I write a considerable amount on planning, but very little on the arts (community meetings seem to squeeze out theatre trips, but I've tried to address arts via the new calendar), and a lot on community groups, but very little on education...  I thought it might be worth redressing the balance every so often...

One particularly impressive part of the Angry Parents meeting was the fact that two members of staff from Henry Fawcett Primary School showed up and spoke about the measures that they'd put in place to bring their school out of Special Measures.  I thought it was a particularly brave move, at a meeting set up for parents who were concerned about their being enough places at "good" local schools to meet the needs of their children.  Consequently, it seems timely to note a document on the Henry Fawcett home page that demonstrates the steps they took to bring the school out of those measures in a very short time.  From that document, we learn that there's been a complete restructuring of staff, a new curriculum, the implementation of a database to monitor students' progress, report cards for misbehaving children, new sports coaches at lunch time, improved lesson planning etc. etc.  Wow.  Fantastic work!

Also, I wondered whether it was possible for parents and neighbours to learn what was happening at their children's schools locally.  St Mark's C of E school do have a rather slow website, but that doesn't look as though it has been updated since 2005!  Crampton Primary School have a website whose "recent" newsletter hasn't been updated since 2006.  [Edit 11/2/2011: Vauxhall Primary School have a new website.]  Walnut Tree Walk have a promising website with little content.  Charlotte Sharman share the same website host as St Mark's which is slow to load and hasn't been updated since 2007/8.  St Anne's Roman Catholic Primary appear to have no website.  Lilian Baylis Technology School have a site, but it's down (I'll check again in the morning).  Henry Fawcett have a bright website, which is only a few months out of date, and last updated approx. July 2010.  Archbishop Tenisons School have a website updated this month and Archbishop Sumner Primary School have a website that was last updated in October.  I wanted to make this post one about the positive news of local schools, but it will seem too biased if I do so without including a full range of schools.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Archbishop Sumner also have outstanding Ofsted results.  It's not true to say that the website makes the school, but it might be true to say that if you have within the school the resources (be that staff, parents or friends) to create and update a website, then you have the voluntary capacity required to run an outstanding school.  The problem is (and this is my uninformed guess), that many (not all, but many) parents with money and resources wish to send their children to Archbishop Sumner.  I'm not making this up, because this fact became clear at the meeting earlier on this year.  The parents at that meeting (95% middle class, professional, and, incidentally, white) wished to see that school expanded.  However, unless parents choose to run their own free schools (can't see Lambeth Council being excited by that idea), the likelihood of the school structure changing in its entirety is low.  The difficulty is trying to figure out how to share and spread levels of high attainment.

School staff (at least, according to the news) have to work longer hours, teach children with English as a second language in schools where multiple languages are spoken, provide discipline where parents fail, subject children to continual SATs testing, satisfy the demands of the National Curriculum and stay sane.  Maybe it's not their job to create and maintain websites.  There's a possibility that website are unnecessary when parents speak to teachers at the school gates, and newsletters always make it home in children's bags.  Should schools be producing websites and keeping the wider public informed of local education?  I don't know.  Is this the task of the Local Education Authority?  Maybe, but how will they know exactly what's happening in a school?  Is it their task, in an era of "shrink the state" governance?  It seems to me that maybe it's the task of school governors, but they have to ensure children are safeguarded, enable a school to support children with Special Educational Needs, decide on policies of exclusion and manage the staff in a school, all in an unpaid capacity.  It doesn't leave much time for managing a website.  It seems that perhaps it's the task of the parents, but when one IT-savvy parent's child leaves a school, the website could be abandoned.

School websites are a small and insignificant matter that simply demonstrate commitment.  Updating people with news is one of the ways that schools can appeal to the wider community and share their joys and concerns.  Sharing news and enabling local "ownership" of services is part of creating the Big Society, right?  The absence of up to date news from schools feeds into fears that I have concerning our impending Big Society.  The volunteer culture needed to update school websites is precisely the volunteer culture required to visit the elderly when the State is forced out through spending cuts.  Some people will argue that it should never have been the State's job in the first place.  I'm agnostic on that matter.  But even if it isn't the State's job, a sudden removal of  front line carers and visitors is not going to create a situation where volunteers are immediately able to fill the breach.  If that were the case, all of our schools would have up-to-date websites.

Brand new Tesco due to arrive at 38 - 40 Kennington Park Road

Further to my speculative posts, here and here, I can definitely announce the arrival of a brand new Tesco at 38-40 Kennington Park Road.  Tesco have taken a 15 year lease on the building from 19th April 2010 so I imagine that they'll open it as soon as the refurbishment is finished.  Tesco do not own the freehold.  I'm afraid I don't know whether Shakra services will remain (maybe someone else has more info.), but I suspect not.  Considering that we're now nearly 5 months into a relatively short lease, I imagine Tesco will be trying to open it ASAP.  Oddly, (but this is probably what attracted Tesco), it looks as though the land also has a right of way (including vehicles) over Opal Street.  That means (I suspect) that delivery to the building will take place at the back (which may well disturb residents of Opal Street) and it's close to a children's ball court.  What I'm not clear is whether the Opal Street residents will be able to enter the supermarket from their street or whether they'll just face the inconvenience of extra traffic without being able to gain easy access.

If Tesco manaage to open the proposed 216 Kennington Road branch, that will make 3 Tescos in SE11, which must be something of a monopoly, considering that we're a tiny postcode.  Still, Tesco is one of those shops that everybody likes to complain about and then inevitably ends up purchasing from.  It should benefit local residents at the north end of the road, and there's a dearth of shops in SE17 near Penrose Street, so I'm sure they'll receive plenty of custom.  Perhaps it will increase business at the Old Red Lion too, and I'm hopeful that Mansion House pub might be either re-opened or used by another business.

There's a huge amount of local news and goings on at the moment.  Expect further updates soon.

Update (1/10/2010) - as well as the signage application (see comments below), there's now an application (10/03220/FUL) for installation of air conditioning and fridges etc. so it's moving forward slowly.

Good news in the pipeline for Crampton Primary School

Crampton Primary School in Iliffe Street, SE17 (behind Kennington tube) have submitted a planning application for an extension to build:

* A new entrance and reception for the school
* A new classroom
* Additional accommodation for multi-use teaching room and space for breakfast club
* Additional accommodation for an enlarged library
* A pedestrian entrance on Iliffe Street and new staffroom

I've still not yet typed up the notes (the meeting was very long) from the angry Kennington parents meeting a few weeks ago, but Crampton Primary was named as a popular school that has not previously been an option for Kennington parents who live in Lambeth, on account of the borough boundaries.  Crampton Primary falls under Southwark Council's control, meaning applications from Lambeth parents would usually be unsuccessful.  This (I imagine) poses a particular problem for parents that live on or near the Kennington Park Road boundary. 

I'd certainly welcome a little fuzzy-boundary thinking from both councils and LEAs so that one is not deprived of services or education on account of arbitrarily living on one side of the road or other.  Lambeth Council of course intend to collapse these lines somewhat (at least between Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham), but that's in order to make job and service cuts, rather than specifically in order to benefit residents.  The Kennington Park Road borough boundary and the postcode boundary follow the same line, which I think probably form a social boundary. Buying a house in SE17 is considerably cheaper than buying one in SE11 (not sure about the differences in costs of social housing), so these geographic lines (be they borough, postcode or parish) are invisible boundaries that are used (whether by design or accident) to separate Londoners from one another. 

When the school entrance system is changed in time for entrants in 2011, I understand that parents will be able to apply for any London primary school, continuing to make Crampton Primary an option for local Lambeth parents.  It looks as though Crampton Prumary school are taking advantage of their popularity and have obtained the means to expand.  [But, actually, if you take a look at the comment from the Head of Governors below, you'll notice that they're not expanding so much as building extra classroom space to accommodate a population bulge.]  Hopefully their planning application will be successful.  (Of course, this opening of the boundaries might just have the effect of making North Lambeth primary schools further over-subscribed due to an influx of applications from Southwark parents, but we won't know until it happens).

Shooting in Kennington, SE17 of Daniel Duke

There was a shooting on November 2nd in Kennington in Alberta Street / Ambergate Street

London-SE1 has little more info, and names the man as Daniel Duke.

Just returned home from sunny trip away to discover the sad news :(

---
Edit 7/11/2009: Stockwell News links to a BBC report that says a man has been arrested re. the above murder.

Ezekiel Adeboyego Ojo murder in Penrose Street

In the early hours of Friday 23rd August, Ezekiel Adeboyego Ojo was found with head injuries on Penrose Street (just off the Walworth Road, SE17) from several gun shot wounds. He died soon after. He was only 24 years old. Operation Trident are investigating the incident.

Penrose Street is not unknown to police. Unbelievably, the main police station for the area is on Manor Place, which is only two streets away. I sometimes wonder whether police turn a blind eye to crime that occurs immediately upon their patch. I don't think I blogged about it, but earlier this year on June 21st, two young boys were stabbed in Penrose Street (both are ok). Indeed, in the same article, it is noted that "The boys were attacked in a London borough being targeted by the Met as a knife crime hotspot with dozens of extra patrols and "stop-and-searches" of anyone suspected of carrying a weapon."

It appears that we don't need a Metropolitan Police Crime Map to tell us anything at all.

I know I'm probably last on the news front with this one as I haven't been near a computer since late last Thursday, but still, another shooting... In how many weeks?

Crime in SE11, Lambeth, Southwark and surrounds

On some of my previous posts, I've been scathing about people who consider South London to be dangerous, full of crime and not worthy of their attention. I've been interested for some time about how much crime is really committed in the different parts of London, and what type of crime etc. I'm most interested in SE11, but being so close to SE1, SE17, SW8 and SW9, it seems that a wider view ought to be taken. We can hardly stop people postcode hopping to commit crime!

Crime statistics are massively flawed for (at least) the three following reasons:

1. Crime stats. depend upon people reporting crime. I know lots of people who are the victims of petty theft who wouldn't report their crime if they didn't think that there was anything the police could do.

2. The police, periodically, change the definition of of what constitutes a crime "bracket" for a particular crime. So if one bracket goes up too much eg. "violent crime", they'll remove car crime from the bunch and place it in a different bracket. This makes long term study of crime very difficult because it's hard to tell where the boundaries have moved from and to.

3. Periodically, the area boundaries for measurement of crime are changed. I'm not sure whether this is so much of a problem as changing definitions, but it no doubt factors.

Anyhow, having said that, I found that the Metropolitan police (with some cleverish google mapping) have plotted a crime map of London (excluding the City). The "crimes" it counts are burglary, robbery and vehicle crime. The map uses colour to display highest crime areas in orange and red, and average in yellow. One can then break the areas down furthur and see the crime in particular wards.

Overall, Lambeth has a yellow shading (average crime), but Southwark has a red shading (high crime) for June 2008. I checked the figures, which state 850 crimes in June 2008 in Southwark, and 739 in Lambeth. It seemed to me then that the margin of difference between the brackets was small. However, I've played around a little more and it seems that the average numbers are calculated on the size of the borough in question. Westminster had fewer crimes committed than Lambeth, but since it's smaller, it records "above average" crime for London. The site is only in "Beta/testing" mode at the moment and I've asked for feedback as to more detail on the crime for future versions....

Anyhow, looking at Lambeth overall, there are (as is predictable) pockets of parts of Lambeth with more crime than others for June 08, but the good news first:

Average Crime compared with the rest of London: Bishops Ward, Princes Ward, Vassall Ward, Stockwell Ward, Larkhall Ward, Clapham Town Ward, Clapham Common Ward, Brixton Hill, Herne Hill, Thornton Ward, Tulse Hill Ward, Streatham Hill Ward, Streatham South, Streatham Wells, Gipsy Hill, Knight's Hill,

The bad news (but note that Lambeth has no wards with "high" crime:
Above Average Crime compared with the rest of London: Oval Ward, Ferndale Ward, Cold Harbour Ward, Thurlow Park Ward and St Leonards Ward.

Lambeth is statistically safer (but remember that this is an odd figure because of the different ward sizes) than both Southwark and Westminster.

SE11 has average crime levels for June 2008 (much of the area is in Princes Ward so that seems correct), the small Oval Ward subsection of SE11 also has average crime levels. The west of SE11 (a small subsection of Princes ward) has above average crime, but it's not clear how much of that might stem from the Albert Embankment.

However, the borders of SE11 are not so good. At the south and east side, SE11 is surrounded by 3 pockets of "above average" crime and 1 pocket of "high" crime (I suspect that that is due to Vauxhall Station and its unpleasant surrounds). Directly north of SE11 near Elephant, there is a pocket of "above average" crime as well.

As I said above, I'm hoping that the Metropolitan Police Crime Map will be developed over the next few months so that it will be possible to compare different periods of time and break down the type of crime in any area. I'll report back as soon as they release the figures for July 2008, so we can just see whether it was a quiet month, of whether Lambeth might really be declared to be a place of only "average" crime.

Ashley Bucknor remanded for Walworth Road shooting

The Press Association reported on Sunday that a 19 year old man named Ashley Bucknor was remanded in custody for Ryan Bravo's murder on Walworth Road in SE17, which I reported previously here.

Walworth Road Shooting in Costcutter

I've just seen the BBC news and Sky News of a shooting yesterday just outside the SE11 area in the Walworth Road (SE17).

From the brief details available, the killing took place in Costcutter. The victim was aged 18 and male. He is the 22nd victim to die in London this year from shooting or stabbing.

The Daily Mail (not a preferred source) states:

Onlookers said the shooting at 9.45pm yesterday was gang related and part of a vicious "postcode warfare".

I'm posting this because I want everybody to keep noticing that our young people are killing each other. It can't be written off as just "gang related" killing as though that either explains sufficiently or justifies in any way. A death should not become just another statistic.

I'll post more news as it becomes available.

My thoughts and prayers are with the family of this young man.

The inspiration for the SE11 blog; 56a infoshop

I've been meaning, for a while, to make a post about (part of) the reason for starting this blog.

I used to work in the SE11 area in a job where I was required to spend a considerable amount of time trudging around Kennington, Elephant, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Brixton, all over really. Whilst working, I chose to walk a great deal, and I took a lot of short cuts through random areas. Such trudging lead to lurking, and the lurking lead to a great deal of knowledge about some really groovy hangouts.

The one that really inspired the blog though was the discovery of the 56a Infoshop on Crampton Street. It was the first place that made me say, "I wonder why more people don't know about this... it's a really good local place to lurk about". I know that Crampton Street is in SE17, but it's one of the places I really wanted to add to the map, even though it's outside the mapped area (and it's also one of the reasons that SE17 is a place that I'm qite interested in blogging).

The 56a Infoshop on Crampton Street is a kind of information resource and food distribution centre and social space, based loosely around a theme of "radical" politics. It appears to be held together by volunteers who work fairly limited shifts. This sounds like a bad thing, but actually the limited opening times almost always guarantee that it's open when it says it will be. At certain times, the Fair Shares food place (I hesitate to say "shop" since I think it would be better characterised as a "way of life") is open, and it sells (not for profit) vegetarian and vegan goods. At other times, they run free bike workshops for teaching people how to fix bikes. My favourite part though, is the kind of archive of books, zines, pamphlets and odd bits of paper based loosely around the theme of alternative politics. It include anarchy, encapsulates feminist info (really hard to find this these days), socialist literature, queer history, alternative histories of London, squatting info, and a whole lot of things that don't quite fit into the categories outlined. Also, they have a fair amount of non-UK related material.

When you first wander into 56a, it's quite odd as it doesn't appear to be "staffed" by anybody. There is no hierarchy, and anybody can come and affiliate (or just lurk there) themselves, if they feel that the space might be useful for them to read, study or hang about in.

There is a website for the 56a Infoshop here.

Edit: There's a great video by some friendly looking ladies about their work too.

More mapping trouble and a few new markers

The longest part of establishing the Google map above was drawing the SE11 boundary. I did my best to copy it from various other online maps that also marked the boundaries between SE1, SW8, SE17 and SW9. (It took absolutely ages). However, I cannot find a way of copying the boundary from one section of the current map to the next. I can move it from one page to the next, but not actually copy it so that it exists on both pages. If anybody reading has any idea of how I can copy the marker from one section to the next via copy/paste, I'd be really grateful.

In addition, I forgot (contrary to the previous post) that the markers only move to the second page once there are 200 on the first page. That means that I can't just move all of the green markers on to the second map, without first adding lots more non-green markers to the first map.

I've added a brief review on the map for El Dorado, a Tapas bar in Vauxhall, and I've also added the Monkton Street Lambeth Comunity Care Centre in Kennington / North Lambeth. Despite Googling, I've no idea exactly what sort of community care it provides, so if discerning readers happen to know its specialism, please drop me a comment.