Yes, Peckham wards have been Labour for a while. But the Core Strategy drafted by LibDems, and the previous Executive approach, was to focus on moving amenities away from Camberwell to Peckham, or to the north of the Borough. Of course, local councillors have always retained significant powers to veto many of these changes in any case.

So one test of the new Labour Executive is whether we see a commitment to restore the levels of employment based in SE5 prior to the Council’s move to Tooley Street, plus the 27 jobs lost with Gala Bingo.

Labour now has the opportunity to reverse the bias towards Peckham which the previous LibDem administration demonstrated, and commit to protecting and expanding SE5 amenities at least as much as those in SE15.

Labour are to be commended for producing its Labour Party Vision for Camberwell, which no other party has yet done, which shows awareness of the harmful symptoms of previous approaches to Camberwell.

Given the effort and consultation which has gone into that document and its relevance to the area, we should do them the common courtesy of promoting, reading and debating it as fully as we can.

the good thing is that the organisers actually brought tons of purple ribbons & things on saturday so people can purple themselves up
x

If Camberwell’s councillors were elected under a system of proportional representation for the whole community council area, and we make the unjustified assumption that the same number of people will vote in the same way, the political make up of the Community Council would be:

Labour Party 5 Councillors
Liberal Democrats 2 Councillors
Green Party 1 Councillor
Conservative Party 1 Councillor

The Community Council would still be under the control of Labour, but there would be a broad range of views expressed with three other parties represented. As all Southark’s major parties are represented, it would be harder for any of these parties to ignore Camberwell at Southwark Council level. There would no longer be a sense that Camberwell belongs to the Labour Party, while the North of the borough is Lib Dem territory.

Each councillor would cover a larger geographical area which might make them less knowledgable about your particular part of Camberwell. On the other hand, you could choose to approach a councillor from a party you are more sympathetic with and you could choose which councillors you approached from all nine rather than just three.

Which system would you prefer?

Purple is a colour which already features prominently in my wardrobe…

My good scorpio intuition ahead of the game as ever…

Start wearing purple
http://bit.ly/bvDRAL

@Monkeycat — Delighted with the results for The Camberwell Party…A great achievement considering the timescale…it’s a positive marker for the future!

@Regenuguru — Thanks for the Labour Party Manifesto for Camberwell!

Regarding the Gala Bingo — I hope we can convince the council to consider buying the building — The aforementioned Labour Party manifesto for Camberwell suggests
something like this could/would be a very positive conduit for Camberwell)

It is the very last opportunity we have…there are no more simular buildings left — a new build would not have the attractive shopfront and central location that we need — A flagship venue to put Camberwell on the map and encourage others to visit here and not just pass through…

Hopefully they can offer the church another site — plenty of council owned properties and brownfield sites around Old Kent Road — with the money they could build a brand new purpose-built building and have some change left behind to perhaps build another!