Dear Neighbours

Many thanks everyone for coming to the first meeting of the Holmewood NHW. 

Sorry for the slight delay in following the meeting with communication on my side, its been a busy week.

Great to meet you all and really encouraging that there was so much support for this - there were 16 of us there plus Okofo! 

Thanks to Max for sending me a copy of his notes from the meeting, I have summarized below.

1. Okofu, who is now working for the Ferndale area SNT, described various measures that can be taken to increase home security and personal safety. Various items such as stickers, door alarms, and smartwater kits were explained and free for us to take.   Emphasis on contacting the police non emergency number 101 with general concerns,  999 is still however the number to be used in urgent situations and emergencies.   Our contact going forward will be Phil Rostant and Donna on the Safer Neighbourhood number Brixton Hill Team number:

 0208 721 2892

SNT@met.police.uk

2. Signage - The NHW signs given to us ( 5 of them) have been put up on lamp posts in Holmewood Road, Holmewood Gardens, Cotherstone and Maplestead Roads.  The one at the Roupell Park end of Holmewood Gardens is actually the wrong signage, I am trying to get a replacement

3. Contact amongst members - we all agreed that email was the best way to do this.  Everyone at the meeting was happy to share their emails addresses with other members, I have therefore placed these for those that were at the meeting in the headers of this communication for easy reference.   I am contacting other neighbours to see if they want to be included in this list.

4. The scheme is registered with the Lambeth Safer team - there is currently no appointed coordinator here due to someone changing jobs - this post should be back filled soon.  I have registered the scheme with the UK National Neighbourhood Watch - please take a look here

http://www.ourwatch.org.uk/your_local_area/?postcode=sw2+3na&reset=true 

You can browse this site for ideas on activities, safety advice and examples of achievements of NHW schemes like ours.

5. Broader Scope -

A discussion took place concerning broader problems in the area. Three issues were agreed upon as priorities deserving attention:

a) Flytipping, particularly at the Upper Tulse Hill end of Maplestead Road; but also other points in the area seem to be attracting people dumping items and general rubbish.

b) Antisocial behaviour connected with some owners when excercising their dog(s) in the dog exercise area.

c) General cleanliness of the area is not as good as we would like it to be.

To tackle these issues more effectively it was agreed that as a group we should make contact with the Council and our ward councillors and ask some questions as to what can be done. If required demonstrate the strength of feeling to the Council through petitions.  I have not done this yet but will do so soon and update you when I do.  First I will discuss the fly tipping .

I will also send out an email inviting you to a 'clean up ' event - in Holmewood Gardens sometime between now and the next time we meet.  I will do this again after to speaking with the council, perhaps they can sponsor this by agreeing to give us a skip or at least bags that maybe they will agree to take away.  Again will update on any progress I make on that front.

6.  Future meet ups.  All agreed that once a quarter would be a decent frequency, to allow us time for things to develop and progress to be felt, we can of course engage in activities in between meetings. The next meet-up will be around end of May - beginning June - will send an invite our in due course and will plan on avoiding the half term break.

7. Encouraging others to join in - we all agreed to knock on a neighbour and encourage more to get involved in the Holmewood NHW.  To that end I have made copies of the original note about the scheme that was distributed, I also have additional window stickers and safety leaflets that you might want take with you when knocking on a neighbours door

.

8. One final thanks to Jeff Thomas who updates the Holmewood Neighbourhood Association web pages, and who kindly agreed to allocate a page for our NHW to keep a record of local activities. 

Kind regards

Mark Dennis