Mail picks up Lewisham 'No Fry Zone' story

Lewisham council has the dubious honour of being mentioned in the Daily Mail today. The Mail says that Green councillor Ute Michel, pictured, is proposing a 'No fry zone' (good pun) around schools to ensure that kids can't get their greasy hands on burgers and chips during the school day.

Some of the comments at the site ask why councillors don't know that primary schools don't let their kids out at lunchtime and other such 'political correctness gone mad' comments. Sadly not many of the comments question whether the story itself is accurate, which is surprising as it appears in the Daily Mail.

If you want an accurate version of the story you can always go direct to Lewisham Green Party's press release here which explains that far from being on the brink of some sort draconian measure shutting down local businesses we are rather more modestly *talking* to the Mayor about whether it would be inappropriate to allow *new* junk food outlets to set up shop next door to schools as a measure against childhood obesity.

I know a 'no fry zone' sounds really exciting, kudos to the person who thought of it, as "writing a special town planning policy" is a bit less funky but when you have commentators screaming that the council wants to 'ban frying' or 'Don't ban food. Ban the nanny state instead.' I wonder how helpful this Mail article has been.

Councils make zoning decisions all the time about what kind of premises is appropriate where, and schools are an important factor in that. It might be nice to have some kind of local diversity rather than a host of new chicken places to cater for the school break rush, however, I'm not quite sure it's the equivalent of banning food though.

Introducing your Crofton Park team

Introducing your Crofton Park team;
Roger Sedley, Hatice Gunes and Jim Jepps.

A former member of the Labour Party, Roger (left) joined the Greens four years ago. Concerned initially with climate change, he soon realised that the Greens offered the policies he wanted to see in a number of areas. These include creating a new industrial base and providing work through investment in renewable energy technology, giving people a fair wage, a living wage and ending child poverty.

He is also passionate about keeping the NHS in the public realm and finding non-violent solutions to conflict situations. Roger has worked as an architect for 30 years and has built buildings he is very proud of. He now wants to spend the next stage of his life putting something back into society, which is why he is putting himself forward as a councillor. He understand the planning system, has good knowledge of the housing situation and the NHS locally.

Hatice (centre) has campaigned strongly to raise awareness on Violence Against Women. She has campaigned for equal rights for Kurdish people all her life. As a Kurdish woman from Turkey, who has lived most of her life and been educated in Britain she is passionate about the environment, women’s issues and social justice.

She has lived in Lewisham for some time now and made the borough her home. She loves its finds it a very dynamic borough with huge potential. For Lewisham to build on its achievements, she believes local government needs to be very careful in establishing and maintaining the balance between development and conservation, as well as maintaining the balance between striving for equality and promoting respect for difference between its residents.

As a councillor she is keen to promote cultural diversity, tolerance and creativity, and to further ensure that Lewisham continues to be a green place where everyone would like to live.

Jim (right) has been an active political campaigner for fifteen years, and was a UNISON shop steward in the NHS for eight years. Jim has campaigned to defend council housing, protect public services, organised against New Labour's wars and the arms trade as well as being heavily involved in opposing the BNP and racism.

Jim joined the Green Party four years ago having been inspired by the example of many Green Party councillors up and down the country who have been able to make a real difference even when in a minority. He hopes to put his wealth of community campaigning to good use inside the council chamber giving a voice to the people of Crofton Park."

The St Pancras to Crofton Park Ghost Train

When I discovered there was a train straight from Crofton Park to St. Pancras (and back) I cannot express how happy it made me. It seems to be some sort of semi-secret that plenty of people just don't seem to know anything about, probably because it's too useful.

Of course nothing is so simple.

So whilst it is theoretically so, so useful the fact is that it never seems to be running when I actually need it. First it was the weekends. Nothing. Then it was the snow, delay, cancellation and just plain disappearing act. Third, on a snow free weekday, gone again.

I'm not sure whether it's actually worse to have a phantom train or just get it simply removed from the timetable. Certainly transport for London does not seem to be a 100% reliable guide as to whether it's running or not.

A few days ago I was waiting on the platform at St Pancras and the announcement came that the train had been cancelled. I'm now so convinced of the company's incompetence I actually decided to stay where I was. What happens? Yes, it actually turned up, after everyone on the platform had been told to find an alternative route about five minutes before.

This cannot go on. If the train companies cannot run a reliable service where do they get off increasing the fares at a time when inflation is below zero? Time to stop messing about and renationalise the lot. Well, that's my view anyway.

Good odds on Darren

The bookies are taking bets on the various parties chances at the General Election and the News Shopper reports that the Greens are doing well in the Lewisham Deptford constituency.

They state that;

Labour are also the favourites in the Lewisham Deptford constituency with odds of 1/66 followed by the Green Party with 12/1.

Odds of a Lib Dem victory are 33/1 while Conservatives fall behind at 100/1, which is the same odds as Crystal Palace winning the FA cup this year.

That might even be worth a flutter. It's good to see the bookmakers think that Lewisham Greens will come a strong second but I'd like us to do one better if we can.

In politics timing is everything

Not a reference to the bizarre coup attempt against the Prime Minister this week but Crofton Park Green Party's decision to deliver our January leaflets in the middle of a blizzard.

However, we're hardy folk and although I was concerned we might end the day with broken limbs or bruised bottoms we managed to deliver thousands of newsletters, and drop off bundles for those doing their own streets, without injury.

Natalie here demonstrates the latest Green Party winter fashion where only the minimum of skin is exposed to the elements and her backpack is stuffed with newsletters providing much needed ballast.

The rest of the team were equally well wrapped up. Here I'm modeling a very stylish hood/cap combo (far left) that I fully expect to be taken up the length and breadth of Lewisham by the end of winter.

Jim, Hati, Roger, and Anne: well protected against the elements (pic taken between the worst squalls)

We certainly weren't the only ones outside. It was great to see parents and kids pitching in to sweep up the snow outside their primary school on Brockley Rise. I was also impressed by the number of snow sculptures I saw out and about, although most people were far too sensible to go out in the worst of the weather.

Kudos also has to go to the woman I saw teetering along in her stiletto heels on the very icy pavements - I hope she got home alright!

A few new residents of Crofton Park

Out and about this weekend I spotted a few new residents in the area.



There was also this wonderful sculpture on Riseldine Road, complete with note saying "Please do not touch. It is a university project. Thank you." I wonder what degree they are doing (cue jokes about 'below zero' degrees, etc.)

Using your vote in Crofton Park

Some Parties, mentioning no names, like having a bit of fun with bar charts. Often plonking a load of numbers in front of people that have very little to do with how their vote might count at the coming election.

The worst example I can think of recently was the Lewisham Lib Dem leaflet that insisted during the European elections that "Only the Lib Dems can win here" despite the fact that the elections are conducted under proportional representation. Of course when the result came out they had won one seat out of eight, just like the Greens - and the claim that only they could win was quietly forgotten. (In case you think I'm picking on the Lib Dems check out this recent Tory bar chart from Manchester that will make your mind boggle!)

So in the interests of full disclosure I thought I'd let people know how electors actually voted in Crofton Park, which is where it will count for the local elections. We don't have a Crofton Park break down for the most recent elections, the Europeans earlier this year, although if you're interested you can see how Lewisham as a whole voted here where you'll see that the Greens came second behind Labour with the Tories third and Lib Dems fourth.

This first graph is how people voted in Crofton Park ward at the election prior to that, the London Assembly elections of 2008 that saw Boris Johnson elected as Mayor, a sad day I'm sure all but 17.9% of us can agree.


Labour's really given up the ghost in the area so it's unlikely they'll be benefiting from Ken's electoral boost this time round at the council elections. That puts the Greens in a good position as the party with the second highest number of votes last time round and the Lib Dems look in pretty bad shape trailing in a very weak fourth place.

However, the election results that are most relevant for the locals is the local elections last time round, in 2006. Here we've averaged the vote of each of the three candidates of the four main parties, but if you want to check there's been no jiggery pokery you can read the full breakdown for yourselves here.


This result was a real surprise for us as we hadn't realised we had this much support in the area. Our top placed candidate Jeremy Hicks, who is now our election agent, would have needed just 137 more votes to have gained a council seat. Since then Crofton Park residents will know we've really stepped up our campaigning in the area and we're getting a great response on the doorstep.

Anyway, I hope these figures are useful and feel free to pull me up on them if you think I've played fast and loose with the facts. I certainly recommend that whenever you see a political leaflet with a bar chart on it pay careful attention to what poll they come from and whether they are in any way relevant to the election you are voting in.