April 2001

Boaters Update

The news that the Boaters Inn was starting a Blues evening on Tuesdays was greeted with concern by some residents, worried that their views during last year’s licencing consultation were being ignored.

CARA has spoken to Kevin Lee, the manager of Boaters, who assured us that he never meant to mislead residents. During the consultation he said that he had no intention of introducing any entertainment which would need a further licence, but did not mean to give the impression that he wouldn’t introduce any other entertainment at all. The ‘Blues on Tuesday’ involves a maximum of two musicians and so doesn’t require a licence. The aim is to give added value during the winter evenings and the hope is that the clientele it attracts will deter the more troublesome element who visit Canbury Gardens. Kevin makes the point that “…. as my family and I are the only people who actually reside in Canbury Gardens, I shall be doing nothing whatsoever to attract people here who will create problems for ourselves or any other residents.”

He hopes that CARA residents will come to see for themselves what the evenings are like and welcomes any comments.

Proposals for Traffic Management & Environment in Lower Ham Road

For the past three years, CARA has been campaigning to protect and improve the environment in Lower Ham Road. The area can suffer from “rat-running” during peak periods when the A307 (Richmond Road) is congested and at weekends can become quite hazardous as pedestrians, cyclists and motorists compete for road space. Not only is the riverside area a local beauty spot but it also contains the Leander Sea Scouts and Albany Sailing Centre, both of whom need safe access to the river across Lower Ham Road.

In the near future, Lower Ham Road faces threats from increased rat-running caused by the new Sainsbury’s development on the British Gas site and the possibility of permanent Richmond Park gate closures.

CARA’s last committee meeting was attended by both a Royal Park Councillor and a Royal Park Neighbourhood Traffic Engineer. CARA and local Councillors feel the time is right to do something about preserving the future of Lower Ham Road as a calm, pleasant, safe area for all to enjoy. A key requirement is that any improvements should not add to the urbanisation of the area but rather that they should enhance the historic beauty and charm that local residents enjoy so much.

Our objective is to form a local working group to develop traffic management and environmental proposals for the area. Working proposals would be discussed with advice sought from Royal Park neighbourhood Traffic Engineers and then if adopted by the Council a full consultation document would be sent to every household in the area. Watch out for an invitation to the initial meeting.

We’ve moved our website

CARA has a policy of utilising the free resources of the internet for hosting and maintaining its website. We recently received an email from Zyworld telling us that they will be charging for this service shortly. We’ve therefore decided to move the CARA website to http://communities.msn.co.uk/caraweb where this service is still free of charge. We’ve added a newsletter archive, lots of new local links and some new photos. If anyone has any local photos suitable for the website, please email them to cara_feedback@hotmail.com.

Richmond Park Closure

I’m sure most of us support the closure of Richmond Park during this foot and mouth epidemic. However, views on the proposed regular closures of Richmond Park have not all been so positive. The consultation period for these proposals ended on 28th February. CARA representatives attended several meetings on the issues and wrote to William Weston, the Chief Executive of the Royal Parks Agency, with the views of the committee.

Our first concern was that the closures would result in increased traffic congestion that would cause delays in emergency vehicles reaching incidents, and our view was that any such delays would be unacceptable. Secondary to that was the effect that increased congestion would have on other road users and the associated increased pollution in surrounding areas. We therefore asked for a detailed traffic impact assessment on surrounding roads and the capacity of those roads to cope with the increase in traffic. We also asked for data on levels of pollution in the park and a comparison with pollution in the surrounding areas once extra traffic was diverted there.

We expressed our appreciation of the park and also our view that concern for the environment is not bounded by the park wallsSince the park has closed, a reduction of traffic has been noted in some roads immediately around the park. This is not surprising given that traffic is no longer going in and out of the gates. However, there does seem to have been a marked increase in traffic on the Richmond Road.

The Greening of Richmond Project

Many thanks to all residents who fed back to us that we should focus some effort on greening the Richmond Road shop frontage. We are presently consulting with shop owners who are enthusiastically contributing to the debate. Hopefully we will be able to provide a full update in the next newsletter. In the meantime, we welcome any ideas.

Recycling Collections

Many of you will be aware that we were finally due in January to be included in the door-to-door collection of paper to be recycled. You will, however, perhaps also be aware of the problems that have been experienced since the waste collection contract was awarded to SITA. In fact, CARA has twice had to chase up the collection of properly bagged household refuse from the Woodside Road alley.

We contacted the waste management department to see when the paper collection scheme might finally be implemented in our area. Boxes should be distributed during April and collection started by the end of April. Fingers crossed!

Also, were you aware that garden waste (the stuff we put in green bags to be collected) is composted and is available for sale from the Villiers Road waste transfer station? Apparently a large bag of compost costs £1.50.

Policing the CARA area

We now have a new home beat officer, PC Jill Fletcher, who is well aware of the problems we experience with vandalism and general disturbances. She is very keen to tackle this and has already had success in arresting graffiti ‘artists’ in the town centre. She is planning to come to a future CARA committee meeting to hear our concerns, experiences and any ideas we have to improve the situation. Please let us know your views and experiences so we can feed them back to her. It’s already been identified that 40% of crimes in the borough are being committed by under 17’s.

Even more importantly, please let the police know if you experience vandalism or disturbances. It’s very easy to think there is no point, but incidents, however minor, must be recorded to build up a picture of the problem and to support the case for funding to tackle the problem. (Note that a CARA committee member recently had a selection of plants removed from her window boxes!) The telephone number for the community police team is 8247 4908.

Membership

Thank you to everyone who has renewed their membership. We now have representation of over 40% of households. Your support and feedback is much appreciated. CARA are always looking for new and enthusiastic Committee members. Please contact Penny or Hugh for more details.