Yesterday morning, James Barber, Jonathan Mitchell and I were able to show the Council’s new Chief Executive, Annie Shepperd around East Dulwich.

We started at the train station -noting that 10 years into a Labour Government we still don’t have a station with disabled access - and cycled our way through the area finishing off at the Bread of Life cafe and Fair Trade centre at Christ Church.

It was excellent to give Annie a real idea of the issues of concern to local people. For example, we were able to visit Dulwich Baths and talk of the important need to refurbish the pool bringing it up to a 21st Century Standard. We even saw the now defunct baths -which I’m told were still in use up to fifteen years ago.

The visit to East Dulwich Community Centre was particularly useful as she  was able to see the centre being used  (in this instance by an Elderly Black Group) and to discuss ways of ensuring a stable future for the centre.

She was impressed by the range of independent  shops - and the quality of the cake in Blue Mountain cafe -  and we talked about the need to make sure the area didn’t fall victm to a late night drinking culture.

We were also able to impress on her the importance local people put on opening a new secondary school for boys by 2007 and ensuring that the character of the area is not changed by allowing ‘urban’ high rise developments as the Mayor of London wants. 

Coming to an area like Southwark it would be all too easy for a new Chief Execuitve to become obsessed by the high profile areas like Bankside, the Elephant & Castle or Peckham for example. It is to her credit that she wanted to discover all of Southwark and we were delighted to show her our neighbourhood!