10.50am – Greenwich borough war memorial at Maze Hill, at the south-eastern corner of Greenwich Park facing Blackheath
approximately 11:15am – St. John’s Church, Stratheden Road, Blackheath
approximately 11:30am – Charlton Village war memorial
approximately 11:50am – Charlton Cemetery memorial, Cemetery Lane
For Remembrance Sunday, there will be a parade of war veterans in Eltham High Street at 10.45am, while the mayor of Greenwich will hold a two-minute silence to mark the armistice at 11am on Monday 11 November.
Demolition work will start soon on the Morris Walk Estate
Greenwich Council and the developer behind the redevelopment of the Morris Walk Estate are two hold two drop-in sessions for neighbours to discuss their plans for the area.
The two sessions, at St Thomas Church on Woodland Terrace, will feature representatives from the council and Lovell, the company which is rebuilding the Connaught Estate in Woolwich as Trinity Walk.
The sessions will be held on Tuesday 29 October from 4pm-7pm, and Thursday 31 October from 10am-1pm.
Earlier this month, Chris Kirby, the housing cabinet member, told a scrutiny panel of councillors that he hoped that demolition would be in “the coming months”, with six leaseholders remaining on the estate.
He told the meeting that the behaviour of Lovell and the housing association PA Housing, which is now managing Morris Walk along with the Maryon Road estate, “left a lot to be desired”, including PA not having an office on the estate, which he called “unacceptable”.
“My frustration is that I cannot force a partner organisation to do something they should be doing. I can only tell them as vociferously as I can what I should be doing and use every forum that I can,” he said.
Kirby also said the condition of Morris Walk Estate was now too poor for it to be used to house homeless families. Video of the session is below, with questions on Morris Walk beginning at 16:58.
St Luke with Holy Trinity church needs help with restoration
St Luke’s Church in Charlton a much-loved local landmark – but it needs funds to help restore it, and volunteers who can help keep it open so more people can discover what’s inside. Church warden RICK NEWMAN invites you to become a Friend of St Luke’s…
Largely unchanged for almost four hundred years after being rebuilt in 1630, what was once a village church in Kent, St Luke with Holy Trinity is the church in The Village in Charlton. Not only the final resting place of Spencer Perceval, the answer to that well worn pub quiz question “name the only British prime minister to date to have been assassinated,” St Luke’s is a Grade 2* building of “exceptional historical importance”. There are frequent enquiries about St Luke’s from near and far, with many keen to visit and to know more about its history.
There also those with memories to share, recalling the place where they grew up or where their parents and grandparents were baptised or married. While the days of up to four weddings on any given Saturday might be a distant but happy memory, St Luke’s remains a thriving and active Anglican parish church at the heart of Charlton.
Inevitably, the upkeep and maintenance of the building remains a challenge. In response to these needs, the Friends of St Luke’s is being launched to increase awareness of this remarkable building in our local community and far beyond. The aim is to raise funds towards restoration, repair and development to make the building a community hub and fit for mission in the 21st century.
It is also an opportunity to develop a group of volunteers who can ensure the building is open more often as part of our mission for even more engagement with visitors and locals alike. The church is always open on Sunday and Wednesday mornings for Holy Communion / Parish Eucharist, as well as open for Morning Prayer at 8.30am from Monday through to Thursday. Whenever the door is open at other times there are always visitors, whether by arrangement with local schools or walking tours, or simply those who were “just passing”.
We would love to be able to be open more often and to do so we need to develop a group of volunteers.
Annual membership for The Friends of Luke’s is £15 for individuals, £20 for a couple. Life membership is £50 for individuals and £90 for a couple. Further information about the Friends of St Luke’s and how to become one is set out in a leaflet available in St Luke’s or on the church website.
To coincide with the launch of the Friends of St Luke’s, a beautifully illustrated 36-page guide and history has been produced for sale at £7.00; couples or individuals signing up for life membership will receive a complementary copy.
St Luke’s welcomes people into a place where prayer has been offered for 1000 years; with care and support it will stand for many centuries to come.
Neighbours have disputed Rockwell’s images of what the scheme would look like
Next month, there will be a public inquiry into plans for 771 new homes off Anchor & Hope Lane. The developer, Rockwell, is appealing against the Mayor of London’s rejection of the scheme; that followed an earlier decision by Greenwich Council to throw out the proposals. Community groups fear the scheme will get the Charlton Riverside redevelopment off to a bad start and want you to sign their petition. ANDREW DONKIN of Charlton Together, which represents groups including the Charlton Society and Charlton Central Residents’ Association, explains why.
If you care about the future of Charlton, I’d like to ask you to sign this petition calling on the Planning Inspectorate to dismiss an appeal by property developer Rockwell for its overcrowded and poorly-designed scheme on Charlton Riverside. The appeal is next month and Charlton Together urgently needs your help and signature now.
Regular readers of The Charlton Champion will recall how Rockwell’s application has already been refused by both the Mayor of London and Greenwich Council. It was refused because the plans submitted would result in the over development of the site and would fail to adhere to the vision and objectives for the redevelopment of the area set out in the Charlton Riverside Masterplan, adopted by the Council in 2017 as planning guidance for the area.
The well-received Charlton Riverside masterplan was developed over a period of five years, with the full involvement of the local community, at a cost of £854,000 using the council’s (eg, the public’s) money. The Rockwell development appeal currently before the Planning Inspectorate drives a coach and horses through the carefully created Masterplan in terms of building heights, levels of density/massing, and affordable housing.
Roden Richardson, the vice-chair of the Charlton Society, said: “If the Rockwell development appeal is allowed by the Planning Inspectorate it will set a precedent for all future developers to ignore the masterplan in respect of further planning applications for the wider site. This will have a huge impact on the whole of Charlton and beyond it across southeast London.”
Helen Jakeways, from Charlton Together, added: “It would set a dangerous precedent if this appeal is allowed at this density. There are many other developers waiting in the background to see what happens. All of their proposals for new housing are well over the density required for their plots in the Masterplan and the London Plan. There are no agreements currently in place for local infrastructure, which includes, roads, school places, doctor surgery places and public transport. This will affect everyone living and working in the SE7 area and all the areas around it.”
If you’re reading this and you care about Charlton, please sign the new petition. Numbers really will count when it is presented to the Planning Inspectorate in mid-November.
You can meet local councillors at Charlton House on Monday
A bit short notice, this, but Greenwich Council’s programme of public meetings, Better Together, comes to Charlton House on Monday evening from 7pm.
Hello residents of Charlton, Kidbrooke and Woolwich!
This coming Monday 21 October, it’s the Better Together resident event! This is your chance to talk about what really matters to you in your area and to get your voice heard.
We want to hear your views, ideas and issues about where you live, to help us improve our services. There’ll be a Q&A with your local councillors, plus there’ll be a range of stalls where you can find out more about our services and other organisations.
There’s also a free offer! Anyone attending will get a Free Swim at the The Greenwich Centre from 21 – 28 October!
Better Together events have come in for a bit of stick from residents’ groups – they don’t have any power and they cover large areas, unlike in neighbouring Lewisham where ward assemblies can choose where to spend money in small areas. They’re also rather patchily promoted – we didn’t get a press release about this one; we only found out because someone kindly emailed us. Otherwise, we’d have told you earlier.
But the council uses them as a way of gauging opinion on issues and priorities, so if you’ve got a question or a gripe, head to Charlton House on Monday – and there’s a free swim in it, too.
We’ve made a couple of changes to The Charlton Champion behind the scenes over the past few weeks – and we’re delighted to announce that we’ve relaunched our membership system, so you don’t have to risk foreign exchange charges or turbulent exchange rates to support us.
The Charlton Champion has been running for nine years, and in that time we’ve become a trusted source of news and information for SE7. We tell you about community events, what the council’s doing, and about what developers are planning down by the riverside. We’ve also started to run Kevin Nolan’s brilliant Charlton Athletic match reports. We live here, we know the area, and we want to see it thrive.
But we can’t do it without help from readers. We’re honoured that a number of people choose to give us a monthly donation to help pay the bills and to help us develop the site. But we know that many people found our old system, Patreon, difficult to use.
So we’ve opened up a new system in association with PressPatron, a crowdfunding platform that makes it easy to support blogs and journalism websites. It charges in sterling and doesn’t add a VAT surcharge on top – so no more worrying about dollars or surcharges on card bills. You don’t even have to leave this website. Simply hit the button below, fill in the form, and PressPatron will take care of the rest. Or you can do it on the PressPatron website.
Your money goes to pay the bills and to give something back to site contributors. Anything left over is kept by us to further develop the site and what we do. We’re keeping Patreon as an alternative way to pay, as we know some readers fund other sites through it. But if you like what we do and you’d like us to continue, please help us and donate to us through PressPatron.
If you’re a local business, please consider advertising with us – costs start at just £9.80/week, and you can advertise with us in the knowledge that your money is staying locally – it’s not disappearing into vast coffers overseas. We strongly believe local businesses should help each other – if you agree, please place an advertisement with us.
We’re also experimenting with Google Ads to bring in new income to support the site – if we can earn enough in reader donations and local advertising, we’ll be able to drop them. And have you checked out our postcards and prints?
Finally, if you’ve got a local event or know of something that’s happening, please tell us about it. We reach the parts that Facebook groups and email lists don’t reach – and you’ll be helping local media survive. Just drop us a line.
Thanks for your support – we hope we can carry on with the site for years to come.
A couple of months ago, we got excited because we saw Charlton station had gained a new water fountain. It was all part of a London-wide plan to provide more drinking water taps, and reduce the need for people to buy plastic bottles of water. There was a heatwave on, it sounded fantastic.
Then a few weeks after it opened, it was covered up again. And moved. It’s still covered up today. Our refillable bottles have remained unfilled.
We asked Thames Water what was going on. A spokesperson got back to us very quickly and told us: “At the moment the water coming from the fountain isn’t of the standard we’d expect so we can’t let anyone use it until it passes all the right tests.”
Thames Water emphasises there is no issue with water in the wider area – it’s just an issue that affects the fountain.
Hopefully the fountain will be back in service soon.
The Charlton Champion 