Photos from the Cottington Community Garden

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago in the Cottington Community Garden, which is going from strength to strength. They will be having further open days over the summer so keep an eye out and get involved if you can!

Beaufoy Institute up for sale

Because of cuts to Lambeth Council's funding made by the Government the Council has been forced to dispose of various sites in order to protect our frontline services. Over the past few years various options for educational use for the Beaufoy Institute site have been explored, and none have come to fruition. The council will begin the process of selling the Beaufoy site on Saturday. Lambert Smith Hampton are managing the bidding process.

Cllr Paul McGlone said:

“These plans should be good news for everyone – local residents should see the building brought back into use, while the sale of the building will raise funds for the Beaufoy Trust to help disadvantaged young people in Lambeth, and also vital funds for the council to invest in local schools, roads and housing at a time of such major cuts in Lambeth’s government funding.”

· The receipts raised from the buildings sale would be spilt between the council, to invest in services for local residents, and the Beaufoy Trust, a charity which seeks to support disadvantaged young people through education and training.

· The building is listed so could not be torn down. Instead it would be redeveloped, bringing back into use a building that is a local landmark and of historical significance.

· The building has been empty for around a decade.

· The decision to dispose of the building was made by cabinet in February 2011. The council’s disposal programme aims to raise £100 million over four years to invest in vital services, such as schools, roads and housing, at a time when the council’s budget has been slashed by cuts in capital grants from central government of 60%.

· There is no covenant in place that says the building must be used for education use, but the building’s sale will raise vital funds that will help the Beaufoy Trust continue its work of helping young, disadvantaged residents.


Background : The Beaufoy Trust

The Council is the Corporate Trustee of the Beaufoy Trust, but the issues around the dilapidated Institute building which has been ‘mothballed’ for a decade and the actual Trust have become muddled over the years. The Council has been seeking a solution to resolve this confusion, separate the building from the Trust and re-establish the Trust to focus on what it was originally set up for.

The modernised charitable objects of the 100 year old Beaufoy Trust are set out in the Trust Scheme, and state: “The object of the charity is the promotion of the education for the public benefit of persons under the age of 25 who are in need of financial assistance and resident in the area of benefit, with a preference for the promotion of vocational training”. ‘Vocational training’ is defined specifically, but covers education, training or instruction capable of improving prospects for employment. The area of benefit is also defined, but is broadly North Lambeth. Importantly, once the Beaufoy Institute building has been sold, the money can be used for the purposes of the Trust, which has delivered nothing for over a decade. Importantly, The Capital Community Foundation (CCF) has confirmed that it is interested in the trusteeship of the Beaufoy Trust being transferred to CCF once the sale of the property has been completed by the Council. This will make the Beaufoy Trust completely independent from the Council, with a capital sum of money to invest and be used for local vocational training in the future.

Queen Anne becomes Tea House Theatre

The Queen Anne (orange pub in the far left of this picture) has been closed since last summer's tragic murder of its landlady Denise D'Courtenay in the Dominican Republic.

Now new owners are relaunching the venue as the Tea House Theatre, due to open in a few weeks' time. In advance of the opening the people behind the Tea House Theatre are organising a Royal Wedding Street Party for all residents of the Vauxhall Gardens area. It promises to be a memorable afternoon with animals from the Farm, cricket, bingo, tea, cake, jelly and ice cream. Local groups and businesses such as VGERTA, Vauxhall City Farm, the Friends of Vauxhall Spring Gardens, and Franklands Butcher are getting involved.

In preparation for opening the owners have submitted a planning and licensing application for their new venture.

The Planning application is here.

The Licensing application is below:

A New application for a Premises Licence under the Licensing Act 2003 in respect of the below-mentioned premises was received by the licensing authority on 4th April 2011

Applicants Name: Tea House Theatre Ltd

Premises Address: Tea House Theatre - The Queen Anne Public House 139 Vauxhall Walk London

Activities/times requested:

Plays

Saturday 12:00 - 23:00

Tuesday - Friday 19:00 - 23:00

Films

Monday 19:00 - 23:00

Live Music

Friday & Saturday 19:00 - 02:00

Sunday 12:00 - 21:00

Provision of Facilities for Making Music

Monday - Sunday 08:00 - 18:00

Provision of Facilities for Dancing

Monday - Sunday 08:00 - 18:00

Provision of Facilities for Similar Ente

Monday - Sunday 08:00 - 00:00

Supply of Alcohol

Monday - Sunday 18:00 - 00:00

Prior to determining this application, the licensing authority may accept written representations from Responsible Authorities and Interested Parties on the likely effect of the grant of this application in relation to the licensing objectives, which are:

· Preventing crime and disorder;

· Public safety;

· Preventing public nuisance;

and · Protecting children from harm.

Representations will be disregarded if they are deemed to be vexatious, frivolous, or irrelevant, or if they are received later than the 2nd May 2011

Councillors respond to schools protest

Today a group of parents are protesting outside the Shelley site, asking that Lambeth Council expands Archbishop Sumner School onto the site. This is councillors' response:

Lambeth councillors understand the frustration of parents who missed out on securing a place for their child in their first choice primary school today. Unfortunately, the system always results in disappointment for some, as the most oversubscribed schools will never have enough places for everybody who wants one.

Lambeth’s priorities are to ensure we have enough places in our schools to ensure every child is offered a place, and to ensure every school is reaching the highest possible standard.

Archbishop Sumner, like many other schools in Lambeth, is oversubscribed because of its outstanding Ofsted results. However, other good primary schools in North Lambeth are not oversubscribed and have places to offer.

This is in stark contrast to the south of the borough, where an explosion in pupil numbers in Norwood and Streatham has put huge pressure on primary school places. To meet this demand Lambeth is building a new school, expanding existing schools, and providing temporary ‘bulge’ classes where necessary – adding an extra eight forms of entry this September alone (240 places). Even despite this investment, there are many children who will be forced to travel a great distance to attend primary school. By contrast, overall demand for places in North Lambeth is again lower than supply, as it has been for several years.

Lambeth obviously has to prioritise its scarce resources to ensure that every child in Lambeth is offered a place at primary school. Whilst we are sympathetic to the wishes of parents in Kennington who would like to expand Archbishop Sumner, the council cannot justify diverting our very limited resources on creating new primary places in an area where there is spare capacity. We are struggling to fund the expansion of places in the south of the borough as it is, and it would be wrong to divert funding away from this priority.

In order to fund the expansion of schools in the south of the borough, we have to sell assets which are surplus to immediate requirements. The Department of Education asked Lambeth to sell the site in 2006, as part of the agreement to provide funding towards the new Michael Tippett school, but it has since been used for the Olive School until July 2010. As there is no projected demand for an educational use for the Shelley site, it is right that we sell the site to raise vital funds to ensure every child in Lambeth can have a primary school place.

Our priority in Kennington is to work to ensure every school reaches the outstanding level that Archbishop Sumner has. Lambeth Council does not tolerate underachievement in our schools, and works hard to drive up standards. Recent Ofsted inspections of schools in North Lambeth show that all the schools in the area are at least satisfactory with good or outstanding prospects for improvement. Today all children in Kennington have been allocated a place in a successful local school within walking distance of their home.

Cllr Pete Robbins

Cabinet Member for Children & Young People

Cllr Lorna Campbell, Cllr Mark Harrison, Cllr Steve Morgan

Councillors for Prince’s ward