Council cuts: Maryon Wilson animals under threat

Maryon Wilson Park’s animal centre could face closure if it cannot find a sponsor, according to Greenwich Council’s cuts proposals.

The centre currently employs just one full-time member of staff, and costs the council £43,000 a year to run. It plans to seek sponsorship for the centre from April 2012.

“If sponsorship cannot be secured, the only alternative will be closure of the centre,” council officers warn in a document distributed to councillors.

The proposal is just one of a huge range of savings proposed by the council as it responds to the cutting of grants from central government.

Parking in Charlton – as well as Blackheath and Greenwich – is likely to become more expensive, with free parking bays across the area abolished and charges brought in. There is also a proposal to levy a £5 matchday parking charge near The Valley – although there are no details available on how this would work.

Charlton House’s tea room is set to lose its £8,000 a year subsidy – but would remain open.

Councillors will meet to discuss the proposals on Thursday evening at Woolwich Town Hall. All three Charlton ward councillors – Janet Gillman, Allan MacCarthy and Gary Parker – are on the overview and scrutiny committee charged with studying the plans, along with Peninsula ward representative Dick Quibell.

Charlton station’s dance of death

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We’ve all done it. Trains from Charlton not running or you’ve just missed it. Need to get to the Jubilee Line. Let down by the 161 bus, or can’t rely on the 486. What do we do? We stand outside The Antigallican and wait for three different buses to grab whichever one comes first.

The swift jog eastwards towards the 161 stop. The shuffle back as you see the 486 finally coming down the hill. The side step and shimmy as you negotiate five lanes of traffic as you realise that 161 is actually a 472. Before you know you it you’re jigging, you’re boogying, you’ve got more moves than Lionel Blair!

Behold – an answer to the ‘dance of death’ across a busy junction. The Charlton Rail Users’ Group met last month and has proposed a solution. The 161 and the 472 could be made to turn into Charlton Church Lane. They’ll then do an immediate U-turn (using the bus lane), bringing them back round to the 486 stop outside the southern entrance to the railway station. One bus stop will serve all three buses to North Greenwich Tube Station.

What do you think? If anyone has any other ideas or views or anything about Charlton station in general, let us know.

Snow silences Charlton’s cracker

Charlton Road

The Charlton Champion has just heard that the Charlton Christmas Cracker event planned for Saturday at Charlton House has been cancelled because of the freezing conditions.

“The snow and ice on the grounds at Charlton House have made it unsafe for a large event,” a council spokesperson said.

Greenwich Council had promised a Santa’s Grotto, live reindeer, a farmers market, fairground games and “wandering entertainers”, as well as “showers of ‘real’ falling snow”. Which proves that you should be careful what you wish for…

November snow in Charlton

Slow going around and about today, with wrecked train services and slushy roads – the 380 bus service diverted away from its usual route, despite the attention of the council’s gritters on Charlton Lane and Charlton Church Lane. But it was all still very… pretty.

Charlton Road
Charlton House
Charlton House
Charlton Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Maryon Wilson Park
Harvey Gardens
Eastcombe Avenue

It’s a bit less pretty down in the Delafield Road/ Inverine Road area, where Greenwich Council’s street sweepers rarely venture – the pavements are a mixture of snow, slush, and old leaves that haven’t been collected yet. Not nice.
Delafield Road

‘Do you know where the car pound is?’

You know the drill. You’re minding your own business, walking down the road, then a car pulls up. The window winds down, and a confused face appears.

“‘Scuse me… do you know where Bramshot Avenue is?”

Thousands of vehicles pass through the Charlton car pound each year. It sits right at the end of Bramshot Avenue, on the site of a former railway yard, where the Metropolitan Police runs its vehicle forensics service.

Yet despite it being in an obscure corner that most local people will never even have set foot in; there’s no signs at all pointing to a location that many people have to find through no fault of their own.

If someone approaches you almost anywhere between Greenwich and Woolwich asking for directions, chances are they’re looking for the pound. Over recent months, I’ve been stopped as far away as the Thames Barrier, Old Dover Road in Blackheath, and Vanburgh Hill in Greenwich. I can never work out whether the Met gives them duff directions, or if a scary proportion of London’s motorists are completely clueless with a map.

Yet it’s so tucked away, it’s pretty tough to give verbal directions for – there’s few direction signs of any kind to refer to as a reference and so you’re stuck trying to work out how many streets away Eastcombe Avenue, by which time the confused motorist is even more lost.

It’s tempting to think “sod them, they’re only idiots who can’t park properly”, but this is where many of London’s stolen cars end up – even if you find your vehicle parked up around the corner, it’ll end up detained in a forensics yard for a spell.

It’d make all our lives just a little easier if the Met Police or Greenwich Council could put a few signs up pointing to the pound – otherwise Charlton will continue to contain more lost souls than most other parts of London.