Your Carshalton Central councillors Alan, Jill and Hamish are fighting alongside parents to help Camden school stay in local hands as this popular school is under threat from a take-over by an outside organisation.

Update 10th July 2013: With the welcome help and support of some concerned parents, we have delivered around 1000 special Camden School FOCUS leaflets to local households about this issue as of Wednesday, 10th July 2013. We hope to deliver to more local residences in coming days…you can see the leaflet by clicking on the relevant heading on the right hand panel of this web site, or by clicking here:-

Camden School Special FOCUS July 2013   Update 13th July 2013: Nearly 1500 leaflets delivered to local residents!

Cllr. Jill Whitehead says: “Many local parents send their children to Camden School in West Street, Carshalton. The government plans to turn this school into a sponsored academy and will shortly decide if the sponsor should be locally based Greenshaw School or a national commercial group called the Harris Federation which has no links to the Borough. We believe in local schools for local people, run by locally accountable bodies.” 

Cllr. Alan Salter, a Governor of Camden school, adds: “I believe fervently that Camden Junior School should be sponsored by Greenshaw – an excellent nearby school here in Sutton. It has the experience and capacity to help Camden improve and provide the quality of education our community needs. Only Greenshaw would keep Camden as part of the local education community. I urge local residents to fill in the Keep Camden Local Petition (from Camden School or see www.KeepCamdenLocal.wordpress.com)  to let the government know how we feel.

Cllr. Hamish Pollock added: “We are aware of Camden parents’ concern over the threat of Harris being the sponsor when it has no Sutton connections or local record. Do please join the Keep Camden Local campaign, sign the petition and the letter NOW. For more information contact: camdenparentchampions@gmail.com.”  

Cllr. Hamish Pollock visited the site to view progress on Thursday, 4th July 2013.

Photos below show the progress of the houses created from the original hospital buildings built in the 1920s as the Carshalton War Memorial Hospital.

Front View

Rear View from The Park, Carshalton

Click here to view the Take Part Take Pride programme for 2013. Great events coming up over the next couple of weeks include:

Wallington Farmers’ Market on Saturday, 6th July 2013

Wallington Farmers’ Market offers everything you could want from a local food market. Free range meat, games, poultry and eggs, locally grown fruit and vegetables, artisan bread, cakes and pastries, cheese, wine, pickles and preserves and even local lavender.

When Sat 6 July, 9.30am – 1.30pm

Where Old Town Hall and Library Gardens, Wallington

Introduction to food growing, Colston Avenue, Carshalton, Sunday 7th July 2013

A one day workshop to teach you how to get started in food growing, including what to do in your garden this summer. To book please call: 020 8770 6611.

When Sun 7 July, 10am – 3.30pm

Where Carshalton Community Allotment, Colston Avenue, Carshalton

Cost £35

Worcester Park Local Produce and Craft Market

A range of local producers craft and community stalls, showcasing handmade jewellery, embroidered cards, delicious ginger products, fresh fruit and juices, honey based soaps, mouth watering cakes, sweets, pastries and puddings, chutney, pickles and free range pork and sausages.

When Sat 6 July, 10am – 4pm

Where Central Road, Worcester Park

SCOLA Annual End of Year Show

As another academic year draws to a close, this exhibition showcases the best artwork from the Sutton College of Learning for Adults.

When On until Sat 6 July, Library opening hours

Where Sutton Central Library

Sutton’s Wildflowers

An afternoon ramble through a beautiful flowering natural grassland. We’ll be looking at some of the plants and animals that call Cuddington Meadows home. Suitable for everyone. Booking is recommended. When Sat 6 July, 1.30 – 3.30pm

Where Cuddington Meadows LNR

The Phantom of the Opera

Blenheim’s performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s world famous production promises to thrill and keep you on the edge of your seat.  Suitable for older children and adults.

When Thur 4 – Sat 6 July. 4 July 12.30pm & 7.30pm, 5-6 July 7.30pm.

Where Secombe Theatre

Entry £12 / £10 concessions

An important message is in from the campaigners about the future of this local school.

The name of Camden Junior School goes back to the 1870s. The Carshalton Schools Board opened its first junior school – for girls – on the Camden Road site in December 1874, and it was known as Camden Road School from March 1875. A second school, for boys, was opened alongside it in January 1878 and an infants school in June 1883. 

But this heritage and link to the history of Carshalton is under threat. The Department for Education (DfE) has decided that Camden should become a sponsored academy and their preferred sponsor is the Harris Federation. Local school Greenshaw has put itself forward as an alternative sponsor, with the support of Camden’s governing body, many of its parents and other local stakeholders.

The Harris Federation say that if they become the sponsors of Camden Junior School they will change its name. Greenshaw have said that if they were its sponsor, Camden would keep its name. There is no good reason to change the established name of the school – and every reason to retain the name Camden that has served the school and community well for so many years.

Find out more about the issues and how you can support Greenshaw and help prevent the Harris Federation from trashing 138 years of local history:

• Greenshaw website at http://www.greenshaw.co.uk/173/camden-junior-school.
• http://KeepCamdenLocal.wordpress.com
• Facebook at ‘Go for Greenshaw’. 

Councillor Jill Whitehead pictured in The Grove Park by the bridge to Westcroft Leisure Centre

A tour of The Grove Park, Carshalton with the parks manager took place on Tuesday 2nd July 2013 and about 14 local residents turned up to see the recent improvements.

These improvements included the recently-resurfaced Carshalton War Memorial Gardens and related improvements (see previous postings), to hear about the proposed Second World War Memorial for the old Carshalton Parish (as designed by Cllr. Hamish Pollock), and the review of interesting and very colourful planting regimes in various parts of the park…

Wild flower bed near Westcroft Centre with daisies, poppies and cornflowers etc.

A letter is in from Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister…

Dear Friend,

Money, jobs and investment dominated the agenda this week. On Wednesday, the chancellor set out details of the Spending Round: the last set of savings we will have to announce in this Parliament. On Thursday, Danny Alexander followed up by announcing massive new investment in our roads, rail, housing and infrastructure.

And the moment he was finished, I rushed down the road to talk with the leaders of some of Britain’s biggest cities about the next wave of “city deals”, devolving financial and economic power to our great urban and industrial hubs.

Creating jobs. Stopping the build up of Labour’s unsustainable debts. Getting the economy back on track. That’s the central purpose of this government: it was on the day we started and it will be right through to May 2015.

And what about Labour? For three years their central purpose has been to accuse Liberal Democrats of betrayal for our determination to tackle the deficit and rebalance the economy. And now? They’ve effectively admitted we were right: they wouldn’t reverse a single one of the cuts we have made. They finally accept that the difficult work we’ve done to set Britain back on the right path has been worth it.

So if you’ve been on the receiving end of attacks from Labour supporters over the last three years, now’s the time to fight back. They’re the ones who crashed our economy and racked up unaffordable debts. They don’t have a credible economic plan and it’s no wonder people don’t trust them with their money.

Labour want us to be embarrassed about our record in government, but they couldn’t be more wrong. We can be hugely proud of what we’re achieving.

Balancing the books and rebalancing the economy isn’t easy – especially not for the millions of families still struggling to adjust after the collapse of our financial system in 2008. We haven’t relished any of the difficult decisions we have had to take, but we know they were needed. Because even though progress is frustratingly slow sometimes, it is happening.

More than a million new jobs created, and a million apprenticeships started, too.

Tax cuts for every working person, with two million freed from paying any income tax at all. Better protections for pensioners, higher standards in our schools, and help for all those struggling to find work.

We need to get out there and explain that story to everyone we meet. Labour don’t have an alternative. They should be apologising to the country for the damage they did to the economy – and apologising to us for the brutal accusations they laid at our door while we were cleaning up their mess.

Liberal Democrats have done the right thing, in the national interest: cut taxes, created jobs and invested in Britain’s future. There are just two years until the next election so let’s stand up and be proud of what we’ve done.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg

Local councillors Jill Whitehead and Hamish Pollock will be attending the walkabout around the Grove Park this evening (all being well with the weather!).

We will be meeting intially at The Leoni Bridge by the Lower Pond at 730pm with the committee of the Friends of The Grove Park and Mr. Bill Wyatt from the Council’s parks department is expected to join us.

Your local FOCUS team in The Grove Park

Local councillors Jill, Alan and Hamish have asked the council to remove the fast-growing weeds in the road gutters in:-

• Shirley Avenue especially between Milton Avenue and Browning Avenue and
• Shorts Road especially by the high school walls.

Photos of the new mews houses under construction at Cedar Close, off Salisbury Road, Carshalton. 

These were taken on 1st July 2013.