What a difference a day makes!

The sun shone on our BIG tidy up day and thanks to everyone's hard work and determination we achieved our goal - we cleared all the rubbish from behind the railings on Southwark land.

A huge thank you to the local people who turned out to litter pick and a big big thank you to Lewisham Council's Environment team: Nigel Tyrell, Head of Environment, Sam Kirk and Nicky Callen, without whom we couldn't have achieved our goal. Local Councillors Jackie Addison and Jarman Parmar got stuck in too - thank you. Walking along the pavement up to One Tree Hill is now a great deal more pleasant.

Come on Southwark Council!!

COME AND JOIN US

WONDERFUL IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR AREA

DEALING WITH IRRESPONSIBLE DOG OWNERS

STOP DUMPING YOUR RUBBISH

OUR SURVEY SAYS.....

COMPLETE OUR SURVEY

http://www.surveymonkey.coms.aspx?sm=N3wdrpz0PWU2_2fwGGAy9aJQ_3d_3d

Honor Oak has great shops and restaurants too!

We were waiting for a sunny day to photograph all of Honor Oak's great shops that are serving its local people. We have an idea to feature them on a billboard poster near the station if we succeed in getting locality funding. This would promote them and help visitors know what's in the area and be a colourful attractive addition.

It could look something like this great poster outside a bakery in dorset ww.townmillbakery.com

But in case you didn't know what you had on your doorstep - here are just a few: Babur - award winning Indian restaurant, The Old Bank - Italian, Tapastry - Spanish, Neroli - beauty, Jumping Bean, great well stocked gift, The pine furniture store, Yam Hill on Brockly rise - health food, Il Querce - great Sicilian restaurant serving home cooked dishes, Attractions Hair, Mclarens cafe 'a fantastic cafe, serving really great fresh food, not your average cafe' quote from one of our members, Med deli - all sorts of health food, fresh organic veg and home cooked food

Brockley Central blog
We've been mentioned on the Brockley Central blog. Our last post featuring Brockley's great new delis and cafes has provoked lots of positive feedback on their blog about what HOPAG is doing. http://brockleycentral.blogspot.com

REGENERATION of closed shops in Honor Oak

Brockley has 3 delis, a well stocked health food shop and two cafes all within metres of Brockley station. In stark contrast, 3 of our local shops have been closed since Xmas 2007. This gives our high street a run down, neglected scruffy feel. We need more attractive, well-stocked, well-run shops like Brockley, that stock things that local people want to buy on a daily basis.

What kind of local shops would you like to have? Contact your local councillor to make your feelings known if you want things to change. http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/CouncilAndDemocracy/ElectedRepresentatives/Councillors/CroftonPark

Brockley's wonderful attractive shops

What about a cool street seat?

What do you think about getting a cool, contemporary, fun, unique street seat for HOP? It could be placed just in front of the station by our planted area. People often stand here waiting for friends or relatives to arrive by train. Wouldn't it be great to have something beautiful to sit on? Although the costs are greater than a standard wooden bench, we could have something that is totally unique, will stand the test of time and will always draw attention.

Here are just a few of Gavin Thomson's designs spotted on a London street recently. www.gavinthomsondesign.com


Our personal favourite - the Giraffe!

WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK

Latest news on our progress

COW BIN - IT'S OURS!!

We have raised £264 towards the cost of a COW bin to be placed at Honor Oak Park station. The cost of an 1100L bin is £422 inc VAT

Lewisham council have now agreed to pay the remaining £160 which is great news. It will take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

An end to fly tipping at Grierson Road?

A big thank you to Pete Pattisson, Liberal Democrat councillor for Whitefoot Ward in Lewisham. He came to our planting day at HOP station and we took him to see the fly tipping trouble spot on the corner of Grierson Road. Pete took up our complaint directly with the Head of Environment at Lewisham.

The good news is that commercial waste customers will only have their bins out the night before collection and other flats will store thir bins at the rear of the property. Regular inspections are promised so hopefully no more fly tipping, smelly overflowing commercial bins.

Living on clean attractive streets is important to all of us and is not about which political party you represent.

Outside 'The Old Bank' on Grierson Road today

These images tell the horror story of continual fly tipping, overflowing bins and foul smelling commerical waste outside the Old Bank restaurant on Grierson Road. Honor Oak Park Action Group took ACTION!

This is how lovely and clean it looked at lunchtime today 100808

It's taken us a few weeks but we have succeeded in getting this area cleared up. Over recent weeks we have invited our MP Joan Ruddock, Lewisham Town Centre Manager and the Enviroment department to come and take a look for themselves at the continual problem of shop and residential waste left outside the Old Bank.

Thank you for listening to us - we appreciate it.

Moo bin update

HOPAG has contacted the suppliers of Moo moo bins. A 500 Litre bin costs £306 and an 1100 Litre bin costs £359.

The local residents of Honor Oak Park have dug deep into their pockets to raise £249 and shown that we want recycling facilities at HOP station. We can nearly afford one bin. We want Lewisham council to provide a second one - so we can have a mother and calf!

We have also contacted the local designers of the moo moo bin 'Artmongers'. We want them to provide the accompanying poster that urges people to 'feed the cows with recyclable waste'.

We now have to gain permission from Southern to place the moo moo bin outside HOP station.

Spread the word!

Moo moo bin update

We have contacted both the producers of the large 1100Litre recycling bins and the artists 'Artmongers' who came up with the moo moo design and the accompanying billboard poster. We are really close to buying 1 bin. If we can persuade Lewisham to match what we have collected we could have a further moo moo bin outside the shops.

We will send an email update in the next few days.

Plesae keep spreading the HOPAGROUP@GMAIL.COM email and the aims of the group.

Current total money raised!

Thank you to everyone who has donated in the last 5 days. We have raised an impressive £216. I shall be approaching the local businesses soon too and have asked Lewisham to match whatever we raise.

Survey coming soon
Next steps - a survey to all our members - now 23 in total. A link to the survey results will be made available to our 3 local councillors and MP Joan Ruddock. We need to have our say on how we want to improve the local area and how we think the £10,000 Crofton Ward locality fund should be spent.

It's nearly ours!

Brockley Rise Resident's association

The chair of Brockley Rise Resident's association extends his support to us and made a very generous personal donation - thank you! He thinks Lewisham should match what we collect?

What do you think?

We now have a grand total of £127 in just 4 days.

When Brockley X Action Group told me they collected £1500 in their kick off collection I thought wow that's a huge amount but the people of Crofton Park Ward are proving just as keen for action

Donations welcome for a moo moo recycling bin

The moo moo recycling bin has a bit of style and would give a sense of identity to the station area. These however cost £300 each. We are in the process of applying for locality funding but this is a very slow process and is down to the 3 Labour Councillors who represent our Ward to decide how the £10,000 that is available each year is spent in Crofton Park Ward.

If you were at the recent Crofton Park Ward assembly meeting you will know that 'good street and waste management' was seen as a big concern for local people. People want to live on 'attractively managed streets'.

See the latest news on the local recycling issue further down the blog.

We collected £37 during the day of the planting and a few of you suggested we set up a donation button. We have had £30 donated this way already. So we have a fantastic £67 in the kitty. Excellent!

We thought it would be a really good and easy way for the local businesses to donate too.

Recycling bin discussion

We met with the Recycling manager and the West Lewisham Town Centre Manager on Thursday to discuss the lack of recycling facilities both at the station and further down in front of the shops, and the excessive fly tipping outside the Old Bank restaurant.

Recycling at the station

Once we have the permission of Honor Oak Park station manager to place a bin outside the station (we need this because of the security risk it poses apparently) we can have one newspaper bin and one very large green recycling bin that accepts 5 materials; cans, glass, plastic, paper and card.

Fly tipping

The continual problem of fly tipping outside The Old Bank restaurant in Grierson Road remains unresolved. We have several ideas on how this could be improved. The blue commercial bin outside the old bank should be kept locked to prevent overflowing but isn't - is very old and tatty and needs updating and the several black bins alongside are also very shabby. We suggested a wooden structure is built with a ' living roof' where each bin could be concealed. We suggested replacing the several black bins with one large black bin. We will continue to work on this problem area with the town centre manager and environment manager.

This is definitely a topic for our group to discuss.

Plants are in

The plants and logs are in - lots of positive feedback from the public and the people working at the station love it too. Have been watering in with a watering can (bit of an awkward trek to and from the tap on platform 2 with a smallish watering can!) but once they are established they should settle in.

Fantastic planting day at the station

The Honor Oak Park Station makeover got off to a great start yesterday. Iris and I with much needed helping hands from local residents, Alan, Deidre, Vicki , Lucy and Steven, transferred the tonne of soil and some logs. We then set about putting in the colourful plants. We also collected £40 too and a some new members for HOPAG.


John Thompson from Greenscene has promised more planters next spring and a big planter soon.

Waste management still a big problem - outside Old Bank restaurant yesterday


The area outside the Old Bank restaurant is still a foul smelling eyesore with rubbish dumped there almost daily and now dogs are joining in and adding their poo! Local residents see this as a big problem and raised it at the local Crofton Ward assembly meeting and are raising it on our HOPAG feedback forms.

The local recycling manager has promised a green recycling bin near the station so this should help with the litter. We would like a black and white moo moo bin as they make an attractive well designed impact - but these cost around £300. So we are applying for funding from the localities fund.But we have yet to find a long term solution to the above problem area. We will continue to put pressure on Lewisham to sort this foul smelling eyesore out.

THIS THURSDAY HONOR OAK PARK STATION

This area is getting a makeover

This Thursday we will be planting the lovely plants from Phoebes Garden centre and funded by Southern behind the newly painted railings. We will be providing information about the aims of the Honor Oak Park Action group. If you would like to help or tell us what you think about HOPAG or help with the planting please come and see us.

THURSDAY 31st July
HONOR OAK PARK STATION
11 AM

Jersey tiger moth

When clearing the site of rubbish at Honor Oak Park Station we spotted a Jersey Tiger moth.

Community partnership with Southern rail

HOPAG has forged an important community partnership with Southern. We asked station manager at Honor Oak Park, Chris Daley to help us kick off our campaign with clearing the rubbish from in front of the station and prepare the ground for some attractive planting. Chris Daley is a man of action and got his team onto this immediately and has already cleared the rubbish and the railings have been given a lovely pale green lick of paint. A new community notice board will arrive soon. The best news is he has given us a budget of £250 to plant a small dry garden behind the railings at the entrance to the station.

HOPAG (Honor Oak Park Action Group) invited Joan Ruddock MP to see first hand the issues that local residents desperately want to see improved. Specifially the lack of recycling for shops and visitors which results in litter and fly tipping and dog poo. We will continue to exert pressure on Lewisham council to find an ATTRACTIVE solution to our problems, and to apply for Crofton Ward Panel local assembly funding. £10,000 is available each year to spend on issues that local residents want tackled.

Please contact us Iris or Fiona if you would like to get involved. HOPAGROUP@GMAIL.COM