Charlton Champion reader Brenda got in touch this morning to let us know that part of Charlton Park is closed for filming at the moment. It looks like it could be for ‘The Royals’, produced by Privileged Productions, but there’s not much info on the website mentioned on the sign. If anyone knows what it’s all about, we’d be intrigued to know more!
Sponsor’s name has appeared on the Animal Park signs. Anyone seen an announcement or know how much for? #SE7pic.twitter.com/Jm49eh1fis
— MaryonWilsonParkSE7 (@MaryonWilsonSE7) June 3, 2014
There’s nothing on the official website about Durkan’s involvement yet, but there is an announcement about quarterly open meetings, starting July 5th:
Due to a high amount of interest, the Board at Maryon Wilson Animal Park will now be running quarterly open meetings on a Saturday morning. These meetings will be open to all members of the public to keep up to speed with the activities of the Board and the animal park.
The first of these meetings will be held on Saturday 5th July from 10:30am – 12pm at Charlton Park RDA. There will be an introduction to the current Board members, a catch-up on the past three months at the park and a Q&A session. Light refreshments will also be available.
If you are interested in the park, if it holds a special place in your heart, or if you would like to know more about how you can help, then we would love to meet you!
Date: Saturday 5th July Time: 10:30am – 12pm Location: Charlton Park RDA Hut, Charlton Park
If you’re able to attend the meeting, some interesting questions to ask the Board might include:
Who is on the Board now? What are their positions and experience? Will there be public announcements for future appointments to the Board?
What are the terms of the sponsorship deal with Durkan?
Will future events be better promoted than the Easter Egg Hunt (which appeared on the ‘official’ Twitter feed the day before the event).
There’s not much confirmed online yet, but it looks like Charlton could be enjoying two Horn Fairs this year.
A ‘Horn Fayre’ in Charlton Park on Sunday July 27th:
And a ‘Horn Fair’ in Hornfair Park on Sunday August 3rd:
Neither are listed on the council’s events page yet, though the latter event is included on the Parksfest 2014 website (and seems to be supported by GLL, suggesting that there’s a link with the various leisure activities that they run in Hornfair Park). We’ve asked the council to clarify the situation via Twitter, and they’ve promised to get back to us:
@CharltonCSE7 We’ll look into this and get back in touch asap. Sorry for the confusion.
If both are going ahead, it seems a little strange to be running similar events in adjacent parks on consecutive weekends, but perhaps this finally resolves the issue of how you spell ‘Horn Fair’: a different spelling for each park…We look forward to finding out more as information becomes available (on which subject, the organisers could learn a lot from the – volunteer – team behind this coming weekend’s Plumstead’s Make Merry). If you’ve got more information about either event, please get in touch!
UPDATE: After some confusion, the council Twitter feed has confirmed that both events are going ahead:
@CharltonCSE7 Hi again – sorry for mix up – GT IS correct – Parksfest Family Fun is 3 Aug in Hornfair Park & Horn Fayre is on 27 July
The panel listens to a question from the audience at the Woolwich Riverside hustings.
The hustings for Charlton and Woolwich Riverside wards have come and gone, and there wasn’t one fist fight to report – barely even a cross word. A good amount of people turned out for both evenings, and those that stayed around to chat at the end seemed on both nights to think that the Charlton Society’s experiment in access to local democracy had been worthwhile. Discussions were civil – audience members had a chance to put to the candidates the local issues that were really bothering them, and candidates responded thoughtfully.
Questions put to the panels ranged widely across local topics: how to tackle youth crime, road safety, air quality, the council’s responsibility for public health and even the future of the Woolwich Ferry were all mentioned. Perhaps you couldn’t make it and you’d like to catch up? If you’re in Woolwich Riverside, and you’d like to find out:
why Labour’s Jackie Smith thought maybe one day Woolwich could be like Berlin,
which of the candidates had to admit to not having heard of Windrush School or
which of the candidates agree with rent control and landlord registration
there’s much much more detail to be found in this collection of recordings and tweets: Woolwich Riverside Hustings.
Or you’re in Charlton ward, and you’d like to know:
whose reaction to being shown around cycling infrastructure in the borough was ‘Christ, are these the good bits?’
who thinks that the treatment of Charlton House shows Charlton to be ‘an unwanted child’
or what the panel as a whole thought that councils should do with their new public health responsibilities
then, likewise, there’s much more for you to take in here: Charlton Hustings.
In both meetings, one party’s candidates declined the invitation to appear: in Charlton, no Conservative candidates joined the meeting while in Woolwich Riverside none of the Liberal Democrat candidates appeared. In both cases, the Greenwich borough parties offered to send a substitute speaker, but the Charlton Society felt that the meetings would only keep their integrity as local hustings if only the candidates from that ward were on the panel.
It’s probably fair to say that many of the attendees were not entirely new to local politics, and in both meetings the hosts didn’t make a point of asking those submitting questions to declare interests or introduce themselves. It’s probably worth thinking about this for the next time we do something similar in Charlton. At both meetings, questions were asked by people active in party politics and the process might be more transparent if everybody knew who was asking what.
Did you go to one of the meetings? Were you happy with the way the candidates answered? Did you get out of the meeting what you hoped for? If you had anything to suggest to the organisers, what would it be? Let us know in the comments below.
UPDATE – 14th May
The organisers of the hustings meetings have been in touch to offer a correction:
To say “the Charlton Society felt that the meetings would only keep their integrity as local hustings if only the candidates from that ward were on the panel.” isn’t accurate.
After it became clear that the three Riverside Lib Dems were unable to attend, the organisers went to some considerable effort to include Lib Dem candidates from the next door and nearby wards in the interests of providing as wide a range of views as possible on the night. However, this was not considered acceptable by other attending candidates, and the organisers agreed that this was not an unreasonable position for them to take. Consequently, it became impossible to reach a compromise with out-of-ward candidates from the Conservative party for the next night. The organisers were disappointed that in each case major parties were not represented during the discussions but hope that now a precedent has been set for running fair, well moderated and unbiased hustings events, all those seeking election for the future will be keen to attend and make their case in front of the voters.
Apologies to the Charlton Society for the initial error.
It means if the building is sold for development, the local community will be asked if it wishes to put together a bid. If it does, then the sale will be put on hold for six months to allow a bid to be put together.
The pub’s currently on the market, but the designation will encourage owner Punch Taverns to sell it as a going concern, rather than as a site for development.
Now the Charlton Society’s looking to repeat the process for the village’s other pub, the Bugle Horn.
“We’re delighted to see the ACV application be granted,” the society’s Andy Donkin told this website. “It’s vital that Charlton keeps two thriving pubs at the centre of the village.”
The pub’s recently reopened, although things still aren’t ideal – when a Charlton Champion drinking party popped in last Thursday, it was told that only Fosters was on offer.
But with a Facebook group dedicated to its future topping 200 members, hopefully better days lie ahead for the White Swan – so long as it can find a sympathetic buyer. Who will step forward?
Two pubs in Plumstead, the Star and the Plume of Feathers, were given ACV status by Greenwich last month, while another Punch pub, the Dutch House, near Horn Park, has also joined the Swan on the list.
An interesting museum has opened in Catford – the Prefab Museum, which is open until May on the Excalibur Estate and recreates the atmosphere of these temporary homes erected in the 1940s. See the Prefabs – Palaces For The People website for more.
But while the Catford prefabs survived for decades, those in Charlton are long gone. Carol Kenna of the Charlton Parks Reminiscence Project has a question:
“The CPRP project was told about the prefabs that were along Canberra Road backing into Charlton Park this was up to the end of the 1950’s. During the project we could never trace any photos of this. I have now been contacted by a gentleman who lived in one of the prefabs asking if we had any photographs.
“Could you ask your other readers if they have any, whether they would accept them – if they do – being passed on and also added to the Parks website.”
The Charlton Champion 