On Saturday March 12th, from 10-12am, your local Councillors are holding their regular surgery at Tudor Hall (beside the library in Tudor Drive).

Our local Police team, headed by Sergeant Martin Humphreys, will be attending this surgery to hear your concerns about vandalism, graffiti and any other anti-social behaviour you may be aware of.

CARA urges as many of our residents as possible to go along to this surgery. It is unrealistic to expect the Police to be everywhere all the time and the only way to reduce crime is for the community to work together.

Graffitti continues to be a major problem in the area and we would urge you to report any instances to the police. However, recently three arrests were made and charges brought – all three alleged offenders come from Tudor Ward and at least one from the CARA area.

At the recent CARA committee meeting Councillor David Cunningham outlined plans to carry out a number of minor improvement works in Canbury Gardens. Plans include:

Any other ideas or comments from CARA members would be welcome. Contact Penny D’Souza on 8549 5331 or pennydsouza@blueyonder.co.uk

You may have noticed that the verge along Lower Ham Road that borders Canbury Gardens has recently had some attention – the long grass has been cut and cleared and the litter and debris removed. At the time of writing, further work is imminent to remove the basal growth from the trees and the hard edging of the verge to improve access along the pavement.

Not only that, but the council will be meeting with CARA representatives in March to discuss sowing wild flower seeds along the verge, and we are also in contact with council officers to improve the nearby composting area known as Canbury Yard, which has recently become more of a rubbish dump. We are still hoping to see weekly cleaning and litterpicking along this stretch of Lower Ham Road

Many thanks to the council officers who have responded to our concerns, and especially to Pat Mackay of CARA who has long campaigned for these improvements.

From time to time residents ask CARA if we can ask the council to change parking arrangements in a particular road – for example, to introduce residents’ parking, or change the hours of operation. The approach we take in the Committee is that we won’t do anything just on the request of one household, but if there is evidence such as a petition that shows that the majority of households in the road wants the change, we will be happy to support it and take the request forward with the Council. This is exactly how the current parking controls were first initiated – a group of residents put together a petition which then was supported by CARA.

Several CARA residents have expressed a wish for cycle racks to be placed on Richmond road by the parade of shops.

We would welcome more views from traders, particularly with regard positioning and usage.

Whether a member of CARA or not, everyone in the CARA area receives our newsletters and invitations to our events, can attend our public committee meetings and of course is very welcome to give us comments and feedback. However, the more members we have, the greater is our voice, and your support is greatly appreciated. If you are not already a member and would like to join, please complete the form below. Membership runs annually from 1^st November each.

To: Huw Rees Membership Secretary CARA, 12 Woodside Road

I enclose my CARA membership subscription of £5 per household valid to 1^st November 2005.

I do/do not require a receipt.

Name:

Signed and dated:

Address, phone and email: