Happy Christmas to Stand up for Stockwell readers

Happy Christmas all and wishing you all the best for the New Year.

With mountains of Christmas shopping and a busy time at work it's been a while since I updated the Stand up for Stockwell blog, so apologies, but it's one of my (many) new year's resolutions to keep the blog more up to date.

Quite a few stories will be put up - but one in particular to look at: the ward purse. Your chance to spend up to £12,000 in Stockwell on a community project, so do send us your ideas in the comments or via one of the 3 Labour councillors.

thanks,
Alex B

Stockwell on TV, film and radio

Stockwell has been on the big and small screen a far bit recently. It was a little while ago, but Channel 4's Rich Kid, Poor Kid featured two teenagers from Stockwell - Alice who was rich and somewhat snobbish, who lived I think on Larkhall Rise, and Natalie who lived on the Studley Estate.

It was fairly straightforward TV - rich kid seems stupid and prejudiced against everyone but people from private schools, while poor kid is smart but struggling with a single parent who's out of work. Not a particularly original story there, but what was inspiring was the way both teenagers developed over the programme - Alice's prejudices started to disappear the more time she spent with Natalie, while Natalie managed to find her young brother a school place, and decorate his bedroom, so he no longer slept on the floor. It was quite moving in the end to see how her pleased her brother was with his new bunk bed. You can make up your own mind if you haven't seen it via the Channel 4 website or download the 4OD service.

In other TV news, ITV have announced that they will tread where the BBC daren't in making a documentary about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Entitled Stockwell, the hour long docu-drama is based on evidence given in the recently concluded inquiry, and will be aired early next year.

The ever eagle-eyed Bathsheba over at Stockwell News also notes that Radio 4's Taking a Stand talked about Lana Vandenberghe's decision to leak evidence she had access to at the Independent Police Complaints Commission about the de Menezes case.

As Sir Trev would say, and finally...the alternative comedy film Bigga than Ben which features two Russian chancers trying to make a quick fortune in London also featured a few fleating scenes in Stockwell, including filming outside the Nat West Bank opposite the station (blink and you'll miss it.)

facelift for the South Lambeth Estate

The Onion bag blog has some nice pictures of the refurbishment of the South Lambeth estate:
http://onionbagblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/facelift.html
It has been two years coming, but the estate has now been spruced up with double glazing.

No support from Boris Johnson for Stockwell Parks

There are many great things about living in Stockwell, but one of the things lacking in the ward is green spaces - the only public green space in the whole of Stockwell ward is the memorial gardens, and that is hardly a place to take your kids to play (i'm not including green areas such as on estates like the Studley).

There are 3 parks just on the boundary of Stockwell ward though - Larkhall Park, Vauxhall Park and the Slade Gardens. So I was interested to hear about the Mayor's competition to renovate London parks with a makeover of up to £400,000.

But Boris doesn't seem interested in our local parks - you can't vote for any of these to benefit from the Mayoral fund! In fact, the only ones you can vote for in the whole of Lambeth are Kennington Park or Spring Gardens.

No disrepect to them - they may well need the extra cash, but it does beg the question - what are the Tories or their Mayor doing for Stockwell?

Free money for Stockwell...

Well, with a few catches admittedly.

Lambeth have introduced a pot of money known as a ward purse. This means that up to £12,000 can be allocated to spend on between one and three local community projects in Stockwell.

We have some ideas on how to spend the money - but we want to hear from you what you think needs funding in Stockwell. You can leave a comment below, contact me on bgabigham@hotmail.com or contact one of your 3 Labour councillors.

We want to hear your ideas: the money could be spent on new play equipment for a playground, refurbishing a community hall, helping set up a residents group, organising an event for local residents, putting in new bike racks....or lots of other things. If you want to look at the Council guidelines about what the money can be used for you can read them here.

The money can be spent on a wide variety of projects, but it has to be a 'one-off' cost, rather than a running cost for a scheme - e.g. refurbishing a playground rather than paying a part time community warden.

Whatever your idea is - we want to hear about it! Please send us your ideas as soon as possible.

thanks
Alex Bigham