London Road LAT 10th January 2023 AGM draft minutes

Please tap on the link to see the documents

LAT Chair’s report and PPSG report

1. Welcome and apologies

Simon Banister

Sandy Crowhurst

Tony Firmin

Mike Hedgethorne (Treasurer)

Lucy Dunleavy (Vice Chair)

Ros Rayburn- level and open market

Catherine Clement

Corinne Lamb

Philip Wells (Chair)

PCSOs- Lauren Lewis and Tilley Earley – St peters and North Laine

Robert Rosenthal- Southdown rise residents association

Mohammed- open market and own a shop by the level.

Judy Lynn

Madhavi- resident of London road wants to know what’s going on

Sarah Tobias

Apologies

Sue shanks

Pete West

Andy Winter

Father Ben- St Bartholomew’s Church

Naomi Barnard-University of Sussex

  • Judy Lynn: Paving stones are loose near providence place- please be careful. There are barriers around it, but they keep being knocked over. The safety barriers are unsafe
  • Action Point: Need to get in contact with Tom Kent (council) or the council website or city clean

2. Minutes of last meeting (if available)

  • Minutes will be up on the LAT website as soon as possible

3. Date of next meeting

The following points were raised at the meeting:

  • We are now not dealing Covid as much.  How long are we going to do zoom, it is better to be in person?
  • 14th February was agreed for next meeting – discussion of format. “Zoom Owl” proposed.

4. Policing issues – to honour time allocation of PCSOs

  • Recently a guy has been spotted stealing Amazon parcels and testing front doors. There is a trend at the moment: Shaftesbury road area basement flats. The PCSO’s who attended are didn’t directly dealt with it. Similar issues have been happening in Stanley road and vegetable boxes have stolen too. Car windows have smashed which was reported.
  • Parcels are a new trend since Covid and the PCSO’s will focus on it. CCTV maybe and private cameras, might give some leads.
  • Shoplifting seems to be getting worse. The Co-op was reported last Monday, nothing from it as yet.
  • There have been 2 incidents and photos attached and has been reported to the police website and Judy has spoken to Lauren outside Providence Place. Also an incident at Sainsbury’s, which included theft of bacon etc.
  • Police have uploaded it to the portal and know about it.
  • Action Point: Lauren to get in touch with Sainsbury’s. re radios BCRP
  • Shoplifting aware of this. Particularly at WHSmiths, coop, and coop on Lewes road.

The Brighton Crime Reduction program, (BCRP), which do operations and patrols with the police. They report with the police also, every Thursday. They make analyses behind the scenes. 

  • Shops need the radios on them so the BCRP will be straight round to the business.  There are a good number of shops that have taken it up around this area.
  • Action Point: PCSO’s Can check back on this at the next meeting
  • The following question was raised; how long is the wait for online reporting? There is a back log
  • The online reporting forms have some issues as they are not always fit to purpose as mentioned by some residents at the meeting. Cannot attach pictures and some questions are not relevant. They find that emailing incidents in are far faster.
  • PCSO’s then replied to these questions raised by saying:
  • That the extra questions are there to work out if the person reporting the incident is vulnerable and are related to safeguarding.
  • Action Point: Lauren will feed back the picture issue.
  • Shoplifting can sometimes lead to drug dealing.
    • Another incident was mentioned by the PCSO’s at Sainsbury’s involving 2 boys and theft of goods.
    • There is security guards in shops but they can’t leave the shops as they are there is protect staff and customers rather than “stock”

The Level

  • At the moment it is very quiet.
  • Residents are concerned about the café and its future. The police and PCSO’s are hoping to have a meeting with the council regarding the café.
  • No decision has been made on when it will re open. There has been interest by some local schools
  • Businesses have had abuse and problems, including vandalism due to the lack of toilets on the Level.
  • The café has lots of issues including plumbing hence the closure of toilets.
  • There are ideas to make it a pop up cinema and theatre
  • The CCTV camera is up and working but has there has not been much from it recently. The camera has also got night vision
  • The new McLaren building project has looked into putting something on the exterior fence that shows what is happening and to update residents on progress. 
  • There is going to be a Neighbourhood policing week starting on 23rd January. If there are any groups that would benefit email Philip on this.
  • Simon Banister suggested that the LAT should invite Donna Chisum to the meeting to talk about the café and the level. Another suggestion would be Paul Campbell.

5. Reports:  

a. Chairs ( including Providence Place Steering – PPSG – group report)

  • Reports are on website, and shown to meeting
  • Chairs report was agreed and accepted
  • Providence place report- accepted and thanked.
    • In particular Judy Lynn for heading the providence place steering group.

b. Treasurer’s report

  • Started with £879.45
  • Spent: £81.67 in the last year supporting PPSG
  • We had a successful open day for the LAT held at St Bartholomew’s Church. Which the LAT paid for the material for. This has been are only expenditure.  
  • Balance: £797.78. St Bartholomew’s were thanked and are open to us using the church for future meetings.

Publicity

  • In the past few years we have had two major leaflet drops in 2001 this cost us £92 and we paid for distribution which came to £72.
  • The last leaflet drop in 2015, which we spent £92 on printing and the distribution was completed by local residents.
  • If we do this again in the future and it was urged that we need to, we could do this for around £200- £500 as it worked well previously. We have the funds to do this.
  • It was also suggested that the LAT should have a Facebook page for publicity. We do have a email mailing list.
  • Treasurer thanked and report accepted.

6. Election of Officers

Nominations, seconding, voting for posts:

a. Chair- Philip Wells elected back to post

b. Vice Chair- Lucy Dunlevy elected back to post

c. Treasurer- Mike Hedgethorn elected back to post

d. Any other proposals from the meeting

  • It was proposed that the Providence Place Steering Group (PPSG) be regularized as a regular sub committee.
  • Chair of sub committee- Judy Lynn and thanked for all the work done.
  • Corinne Lamb thanked for minute taking at meetings.

7. Proposals for future

Publicity drive

  • Rob  made the point that the drive has to be linked to a particular issue or event coming up as it will work better and attract a larger amount of people.
  • It also needs to cover word of mouth publicity.
  • Meeting agreed that the meetings go back to second Tuesday in the future
  • Invite Paul Campbell to the next meeting.
  • If the Community conference idea is going to work we need to think of a strategy and a event we could link this to. This is to look at where we are and what we want in terms of change. Open to everyone.
  • We need to set up a meeting over the next couple of weeks and then bring back feedback from the committee to the LAT.
  • Zoom vs in person meetings: There are pros and cons to both and it has changed participation.
  • In person meetings brings people together.
  • It was agreed that going forward we will have in person meetings and have zoom only with permission for zoom link when asked.

8. Updates and proposals for next agenda

  • Nothing raised

9. Close 19:55