Author: Darryl Chamberlain

Charlton Athletic fans to be charged for using club’s own ticket office

Darryl Chamberlain1 Comment

Ransom Walk

Update: The club has removed the £2.50 charge following “fan feedback”, but the £3 surcharge for buying in the two hours before kick-off remains.

Football fans who buy their match tickets from Charlton Athletic’s ticket office at The Valley face having to pay an extra £2.50, it has emerged.

The club – run by unpopular Belgian electronics magnate Roland Duchâtelet – has slapped the extra sum onto the cost of each transaction to encourage fans to buy their tickets online instead.

Duchâtelet’s management, led by chief executive Katrien Meire, is also levying a £3 charge on each ticket bought in the two hours before kick-off.

They say supporters can escape the charges by buying in advance and printing their tickets at home, or using a smartphone. Fans can order online and have tickets posted to them for £1, while telephone orders now also cost £2.50.

But fans, who invaded the Valley pitch at the end of last season to protest at the way Duchâtelet and Meire run the Addicks, have complained that the club’s ticketing website is unreliable and does not offer a full range of ticketing options.

The charge also affects casual supporters, such as people who live close to the club who may decide at the last minute to watch a match, or opt to buy in person because it is more convenient than using online methods.

Arrangements for away matches – which are supplied by the host club and cannot be printed at home – are also unclear. The club’s ticket office implied on Twitter this afternoon that the charge would apply for away tickets, but fans could escape the charge by ordering online and then collecting from The Valley. When asked to confirm this, the club did not respond.

It has long been believed that Duchâtelet and Meire are running down the club’s ticket office to persuade fans to switch to online ticketing, saving money and creating a potentially lucrative marketing database. It is already only open to personal callers on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.

The club could be in breach of consumer law if it does not offer a way of buying tickets that does not result in an additional booking fee.

Fans uncovered the fiasco today as tickets for the first away match of the club’s League One season, against Bury, went on sale. Many may now just simply bypass Charlton and buy their tickets directly from the Greater Manchester club on 6 August, the day of the match, if they are available there.

Following the club’s relegation to League One, life at The Valley had appeared to be more stable since the appointment of new manager Russell Slade, a reversal of Duchâtelet’s past policy of employing “head coaches” who he was already familiar with.

But season ticket sales are widely believed to be well down on last season as fans boycott the club. Duchâtelet and Meire’s decision to levy extra charges on individual match tickets is expected to further hit attendances at The Valley, which were already set to drop to their smallest level for two decades.

The Coalition Against Roland Duchâtelet campaign group – whose eye-catching stunts included a funeral cortege down Charlton Church Lane to The Valley – is promising more protests in the new season. It is holding a fundraising party at the White Swan in Charlton Village on 23 July, featuring the launch of a specially-brewed ale, Roland’s Ruin.

53 to be fixed: Whitehall bus link restored from 23 July

Darryl Chamberlain

A 53 to Lambeth North

Good news for bus passengers in Charlton, as well as Plumstead, Woolwich, Blackheath and Greenwich – route 53 will finally run to Whitehall again from 23 July.

The daytime service was suddenly cut back to Lambeth North in January 2015 because of major roadworks on Westminster Bridge and, later, at Elephant & Castle.

Now Transport for London has confirmed the full service will be finally restored, 18 months after the original change was made.

The cutback was the subject of a petition from the Charlton Society in May 2015.

A motion was later passed by Greenwich Council on the subject, although it removed credit to the amenity group and inserted criticism of former mayor Boris Johnson.

Grow Well, Feel Well Open Day in Maryon Park on Saturday

Darryl Chamberlain

Maryon Park Community Garden

Tim Anderson from Maryon Park Community Garden would like a word…

Maryon Park Community Garden has been chosen to take part in the Capital Growth Grow Well, Feel Well Open Day on Saturday 9th July, from 1pm to 4pm.

The attractions will include: 

• Drop-in Tours and Talks on the health benefits of organic gardening and growing your own food.

• Outdoor Art Taster Workshops at 1.00, 2.00 and 3.00 run by COATS, the Community Outdoor Art Therapy Service. (Early arrival recommended as the maximum number is 8 participants in each session.)

• Refreshments including herb teas.

To find the garden, which is behind the park fencing, enter Maryon Park via the main entrance on Maryon Road, SE7 8DH and walk past the Park Lodge or walk south through the park from the Woolwich Road entrances.

All change by the river as Second Floor Arts becomes Thames-Side Studios

Darryl Chamberlain5 Comments

Second Floor Arts open studios

Second Floor Studios & Arts, the thriving art community on the Charlton/Woolwich border, is now operating under a new identity, with its two directors moving onto a new project in Deptford.

Since opening in 2010, Second Floor has grown to become London’s largest affordable studio space project for artists and makers, with 450 members. Its twice-yearly Open Studios weekends are a highlight of the local calendar.

Now the Warspite Road outfit has been renamed Thames-Side Studios after directors Matthew Wood and Nichole Herbert Wood took out a lease on 75 new studios in the under-construction Deptford Foundry development in Arklow Road, close to the railway junction between Deptford and New Cross stations. The Second Floor name is moving with them, along with the No Format gallery name.

Thames-Side Studios is now in the hands of the building’s freeholder, which says on its website it is “committed to the continuing provision” of spaces for artists. With work on extending the Thames Path past the studios’ front door due to be completed by spring 2017, there’s potential for the site to get even more popular- particularly if the Open Studios weekends continue.

While the whole riverside area is scheduled for redevelopment in the coming years, Greenwich Council has signalled that it wants to see the buildings kept and used by creative industries.

While they’ll still be based reasonably locally, the Second Floor team will be a hard act to follow. With grandiose plans under way for a “creative quarter” in the Royal Arsenal development, their departure across the Lewisham border is a big loss to Greenwich borough as a whole.

Cuts U-turn: Maryon Wilson Animal Park finally set to stay in council hands

Darryl Chamberlain16 Comments

Maryon Wilson Park

Greenwich Council is set to keep control of Maryon Wilson Animal Park, finally abandoning plans to spin the centre off into a charitable trust and ending five years of uncertainty about its future.

The council first announced plans to scrap the park’s budget in December 2010, with a view to looking for sponsorship.

After widespread protests, the council agreed to hand over management to a trust, Maryon Wilson Animal Park Ltd (MWAP) which would raise funds and operate the park.

But the trust has struggled to raise the funds needed to take on the park – believed to be about £100,000 per year. Last year, the Friends of Maryon and Maryon Wilson Parks published published an open letter to council leader Denise Hyland asking for her to reconsider the decision to spin the centre off, made by her predecessor Chris Roberts.

While the council has deleted £42,350 – the cost of a stockman, vet fees and animal feed – from its parks budget, it has continued to run the park in the meantime, with last year’s running costs put at £70,000.

Now, if the council’s cabinet agrees on Wednesday, it will keep control of the park, and MWAP will become a Friends group, raising money and supplying volunteers – just as it proposed in last year’s open letter.

The council says it will hold a “complete review of revenue and capital expenditure” on the site and look to “reduce costs incrementally”.

What lies beneath? Authorities look into Great Hole of Charlton

Darryl Chamberlain7 Comments
Woodland Terrace sinkhole
The scene as captured by local police early this morning

As you’ve probably gathered from elsewhere, a sinkhole appeared in Woodland Terrace overnight, almost swallowing a car whole.

The hole appeared following a second night of heavy rain. Authorities are investigating, while the 380 bus is diverted away from the area.

https://twitter.com/ed_neon/status/730649771678048256

It’s not known how the hole appeared, but it follows an incident last week where a sinkhole appeared near housing in Plumstead. If you’ve got a long memory, you’ll also remember the huge hole in Blackheath Hill, west Greenwich, that opened up at Easter 2002, caused by old chalk mining.

Charlton has its own share of underground mysteries – a few years back, it was claimed a cave posed a threat to the rail tunnels underneath Maryon Park, close to where this morning’s incident took place.

For now, though, it’s simply a relief that nobody was injured. If you’re near the scene and can tell us more about what’s happening, please let us know.

PS. Somebody passing by in a minicab reported the hole to the council via fault-reporting service FixMyStreet at 3.09am: “Road has collapsed. Car is on edge and ready to drop inside. It is not safe. My uber taxi could not see the collapsed road in dark. Avoided falling inside but he has two flat tyres now.” A moment when 999 might have been a better choice…

9.55am update: Thanks to Emma for this Facebook update: “I’ve just been past, the water and gas guys are there (plus TV cameras, police etc). They were talking about moving the car today but the vehicle needed to do it is 7.5 tons and they’re (understandably) concerned. It looks hollow underneath. Road closed to traffic between Heathwood Gardens and Maryon Road but pedestrian access is now open.”

6.55pm update: The car is now out of the hole, but the road will be closed for some time to come.

https://twitter.com/ed_neon/status/730776753254375424

Charlton’s best kept secret? Hornfair Park pet cemetery gets council grant

Darryl Chamberlain3 Comments

Headstone in the pet cemetery, Hornfair Park

Volunteers who have helped restore a pet cemetery next to Hornfair Park have been given a small grant from Greenwich Council to help them erect a noticeboard and seating area in the rediscovered space.

The Friends of Charlton Pet Cemetery are being given £469 for “a notice board to display information about activities and the history of the cemetery and to create a seating area with a stone seat within an arch surrounded by trellis”.

Few people knew about the existence of the cemetery until the group was set up in 2012 with a mission to restore the space as a place to visit.

The cemetery predates the opening of Hornfair Park, having formed formed part of kennels on Shooters Hill Road bought by the Blue Cross charity after World War I.

But after World War II the cemetery was flattened, with the headstones set into the ground. It was largely forgotten about for many years until the Friends group got to work. With donations from Greenwich Council, local businesses and grants, it has cleaned up the space and put in new flower beds and seating. A memorial wall, where people can commemorate cherished pets, has also been installed.

If you want to find out more about the cemetery, you can access it from Shooters Hill Road, close to the footbridge at the Fox under the Hill pub. There’s also more information on the e-shootershill website.

The grant comes from Greenwich Council’s Ward Budgets scheme, after being endorsed by Kidbrooke with Hornfair councillors Norman Adams, Christine Grice and David Stanley. Each ward has access to £30,000 for community projects and other initiatives.

15 different grants have been given out since December 2015, from money to establish a junior Parkrun in Eltham to electric bikes for fire officers in Plumstead and Abbey Wood.

Details of how the scheme will work in Charlton ward have yet to be announced by councillors Allan MacCarthy, Gary Parker and Miranda Williams, who are responsible for selecting bids and putting them forward to council leader Denise Hyland for approval.

Photo of Charlton Pet Cemetery © e-shootershill.