Open afternoon at St Luke's Wincott Street - 24 July

Open Afternoon at St Luke’s: 24 July, 4pm – 6pm

West London Mission invites you to an Open Afternoon @ St Luke’s in Wincott Street, to learn about their plans for the building and to ask questions.

A scoping project is underway to determine the use of the St Luke’s site over the next few years. Initial thoughts are that the building will be used to combine an Emmaus Community along with a community hub offering support to local people.

The Community will house about 27 people who have been homeless, but who want to turn their lives around and have come to Emmaus to do so. Residents are called Companions, and one member of the Lambeth Community (based in West Norwood) will be present to talk about his experiences of living in an Emmaus community.

The Hub has been proposed by Lambeth Local Authority, to run a range of activities which can help support local people and prevent homelessness, especially in the current context of benefit changes and financial pressure. Ideas they are working on are as follows:
* a childcare co-operative that will enable young mothers to get back into work gradually;
* a digital inclusion suite where people can learn how to use a computer, and how to access benefits and other services online;
* a debt advice service, where residents can come to seek advice on money management, budgeting and debt reduction.
* A counselling centre, drawing on West London Mission’s expertise in their Highbury Counselling Service

There will be an opportunity to meet staff from both West London Mission and Emmaus, to ask questions and put forward ideas.

They look forward to seeing you there. If you cannot make it feel free to get in touch via my email or phone below.

Pictured: Lorna, Steve and Mark outside St Luke's, when its previous use was causing residents concern

Update from this week's KOV neighbourhood forum

Community groups and residents from across Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall were represented at Tuesday's KOV Forum meeting.

There was good news for residents of the Wincott Street area from the West London Mission charity, who own the St Luke's hostel at the corner with Gilbert Road.

Over the past six months the building has been the temporary home to a hostel from Waterloo, and West London Mission acknowledged and apologised for the fact that some of the very challenging residents have caused problems and behaved in an antisocial way. That hostel will be returning to Waterloo in two weeks' time. Over the next few months the West London Mission will be consulting on a future use for the building, which promises to be far less disruptive to residents. Their favoured option is a convalescence centre for homeless people recovering from operations - which should allow them to recover from hospital treatment properly and prevent readmissions to hospitals.

The majority of the meeting was devoted to a presentation on the Vauxhall Supplementary Planning Document - the key planning policy for the future of Vauxhall. The Council is currently consulting on the policy document - the deadline for representations is 26 November. The plan is that the policy should be in place by January, so it can guide planning applications for new developments which are racing forward as part of the VNEB regeneration. The latest version of the SPD received a pretty positive response from people at the meeting - in particular most residents are pleased that the Council has an ambitious plan to transform Vauxhall Cross from a inhospitable gyratory system into a thriving town centre which is pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists.