Monday 15 June 2009

Lunch and Solstice

Big Lunch - 19 July

"Imagine a summer's day on which millions of us, throughout the UK, sit down to have lunch together, with our neighbours in the middle of our streets, around our tower blocks and on every patch of common ground. The food, entertainment and decorations we will have either grown, cooked, or created ourselves. This will be a day to break bread with our neighbours, to put a smile on Britain's face."

Kings Cross Nearest Big Lunch seems to be Chapel Market or Chenies Street..

Summer Solstice is the 21 of June - next Sunday evening

I propose that our group walk from Kings Cross Station about 11.15pm for midnight in Soho Square or nearby Frith Street. An option would be to walk up Regents Place to Primrose Hill for dawn. rsvp: livingstreetskx@gmail.com


View Solstice Walk - Living Streets KX in a larger map

Monday 8 June 2009

Dangerous intersection - Marchmont St / Tavistock Pl

Marchmont Association wrote to members, supporters & friends, including Living Streets;
You will be aware of our campaign to get Camden Council to take urgent action to improve pedestrian safety at the Marchmont Street/Tavistock Place road junction.

We have so far:
1. Led a deputation to the Culture & Environment Scrutiny Panel, where Councillors were sympathetic to our cause but accepted the lead Officer's claim that there could be no action due to the lack of funds.
2. Held a public meeting, which was attended by around 50 people (not the 30 reported in CNJ), but not attended by the invited Officials from Camden.
3. Staged a demonstration at the junction directly after the public meeting, bringing traffic to a halt, with a photo eventually appearing in CNJ.
4. Organised a petition.
5. Held a site meeting with the Chair of the GLA Transport Committee, Cllr Caroline Pidgeon, who said she would speak to the Mayor (Boris) and raise the matter with TfL.
6. Held a meeting with the Council's Executive Member for Culture & Environment, Cllr Chris Knight, who was sympathetic to our cause and promised to look into ways of bringing the necessary traffic feasibility studies forward in the Council's work plan.
7. Requested a deputation to the Full Council on 15th June, where our petition will be presented to the Mayor of Camden.

It is important that we have a good show of support for our campaign at the Full Camden Council meeting. - MA Members, Supporters & Friends (including Living Streets supporters) should arrive at the Town Hall on Monday 15th June at around 6.50 pm, where you will be guided to the public galleries overlooking the Council Chamber.
The Full Council meeting begins at 7pm and we expect to make our presentation shortly after.
There will then be questions from Council Members, followed by a statement from the Executive Member for Culture & Environment, following which we will leave the building.

If the above campaign has had any effect the Executive Member should announce an urgent programme of measures to address this serious issue, which has caused one loss of life and 4 serious injuries to pedestrians in the last 5 months. I hope you can join us on 15th June.
Please pass this information on to other concerned individuals who might want to show support for our deputation to the Full Council meeting.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Meeting and Walk Thursday 4 June

We met Thursday 4 June at Nido 200 Pentonville Road at 6pm. After the meeting we led a short walk for local students and residents, via the canal, Kings Place, Regents Quarter, and ending in St Chad's Place.

Our ongoing campaigns were discussed;

1. Access through Kings Cross Station (aka Battlebridge) in the medium to long term via Camden Council and Islington Council (Herman T suggests a note is being produced at Islington) Clarifying London Borough and National constituency boundaries ie Kings Cross Station not being in Frank Dobson's constituency (Susanne G) Agreed to raise awareness of the ongoing Battlebridge campaign.

2. Twenty's Plenty, the campaign to introduce a general 20mph speed limit on borough roads, provisionally adopted in Islington, we will ask Camden to follow at a Bloomsbury area forum on 1 July (Greg C) and Hantilowes (Suzanne G).

3. Other activities : Marchmont Street Fair (September) and this weekend's (Sunday afternoon 7 June ) Active Travel Sunday at Regent's Park Broadwalk, for which Alasdair has had flyers printed.

Alasdair also suggested our group might like to make use of open source mapping software to document our walks.

4. Based on the successful work with Nido's Eco-Fair (22 Apr) with Anup P and Sara G, who arranged to hosting the LS meeting at 200 Pentonville Road -Nido, we followed the meeting at 6.30pm with a guided walk and walking audit for local people and students. Living Streets people guided the walk (to Thornhill Bridge and the Regents Canal, via Kings Place, Crinan Street, Railway Street, via Regent Quarter to St Chads Place for a drink) and established a local walk also suitable for future summer school students.

5. Gregory C acted as chair, Lisa T as treasurer - and nominations are sought for a secretary/ administrator - we propose to continue to meet monthly. Funding available from Britannia was discussed. Dan agreed to present his design work from London Metropolitan University (MA architecture of rapid change annd scarce resources) on Living Streets at a future meeting, and Herman T would investigate meeting venues.




ps RUDI has offered members and readers heavily discounted conference fees for "People, Places and Movement" on 10 June, from £50 by contacting Nadia Saeed.