by FitzWest admin | Jul 4, 2024 | AGM, CIL, Consultations, Environment, Greening, Our Neighbourhood
Thank you to everyone who attended our very successful AGM last Wednesday 26th June at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre on Howland Street – we appreciated you choosing to spend a gloriously hot evening with us rather than in the park! You can
read the full minutes of the meeting here.
As well as all the usual business of the AGM, we had several interesting presentations. These included an update from Jordan Scammell from the Soho Poly Theatre about their development plans and how the CIL funding has been spent.
You can have a look at the presentation here.
Lee Lyons from The Fitzrovia Partnership and Lucy Mitchell from the New West End Company discussed how they are dealing with issues of crime and anti-social behaviour in Fitzrovia. Councillor Patrick Lilley also shared some of the complex challenges the police are facing and how they are working to deal with it. Greening and outdoor space is always a very popular issue for our members and Mark Gazaleh told us about tree planting and plans for future greening in the area. You can look at this presentation here.
Consultation – chance to have your say
The Fitzrovia Partnership is co-designing a sustainability strategy and action plan for the area and has been engaging the community on its environmental, social and economic priorities to make Fitzrovia a better place to live, work and visit for all.
There was an exhibition and consultation about this at the AGM and residents and businesses gave their opinions. Join The Fitzrovia Partnership for its final sustainability strategy co-creation session on 10th July ay 12.30.
This session will include a wrap-up of insights gained during the recent sustainability drop-in sessions and survey, including feedback from local residents and businesses on how they would like to see better social and environmental value delivered in the area. The session will also provide an opportunity to provide final feedback on our Sustainability Strategy and Action Plan.
by FitzWest admin | Oct 31, 2023 | CIL, Environment, Greening, Our Neighbourhood, Public Space, Rubbish
We are delighted to announce that the long talked about and frequently delayed planters have finally been installed on Hanson street, Great Titchfield Street, and Gosfield Street at the junctions with New Cavendish Street.
These planters are funded by Neighbourhood CIL and the Tesco Bags of Help scheme.
Rebecca Heard of Fine Line Garden Design has done a wonderful job of sourcing hardy and attractive British plants and creating a very appealing planting design. It is designed to look great now, but also to grow and fill in as the months go by.
Lots of volunteers worked hard to get the planting done – including planting lots of bulbs which will come up in the spring.
We are very conscious that maintenance of these planters is incredibly important to keep them looking as good as they do now and we have a whole roster of volunteers who are watering , clearing rubbish that might appear and doing any other maintenance.
Children from All Souls School will be helping as well and it’s great to see all ages keen to be involved.
If you would like to help out and volunteer, then please do email us: info@fitzwest.org
The various locations for the planters were chosen after a public consultation. They needed to be in places where there was space away from utilities and that didn’t get in the way of passersby. It was also hoped they will serve an additional purpose of discouraging on-street dumping. We are aware this may take a little while to settle in but hope that residents and businesses will help by only putting their rubbish out at the time and in the place stipulated by WCC. The times are available here.
Hanson Street Planter
Thanks again to the many people who have helped and supported this project.
by FitzWest admin | Oct 26, 2022 | Consultations, Environment, Rubbish, Uncategorized, Waste
Rubbish dumping and problems with waste are big problems for us all in Fitzrovia – and are certainly issues that come up with regularity at all of our meetings.
So we are pleased to share with you some of the steps that are being taken by Westminster Council to deal with this issue.
Here is a communication from Rob McCrae, the Senior City Inspector at Westminster Council about what is happening this week:
I would like to update you on the upcoming plans for a Waste Action Squad to tackle the challenge of dumped waste and littering. The Waste Action Squad will be a multi-agency team working with the community to identify effective solutions to address dumping hotspots through a trial programme, across Westminster.
This will start on Monday 24th October 2022 with a week of action focused on hotspots within the Fitzrovia ward area.
The key objectives for the team are:
· To provide a highly visible operation that shows this is an area of focus and that we are acting against persistent problems.
· To engage residents in a meaningful conversation about waste problems in their neighbourhood. To gather insight into how these could be tackled together and educate on the best ways of disposing of their waste to keep their streets clean and tidy.
· To create an action plan following the engagement to tackle these issues.
Below is a timeline for the week of engagement, the Waste Action Squad will be available at various different times on different days throughout the week, from 11am through to 9pm around the area providing education and enforcement on street and engaging with our residents and businesses.
|
Day & Time
|
Area
|
|
Monday
PM:
14:00 – 16:00
Nightime:
19:00 – 21:00
|
AM: James Street j/w Oxford Street
Gazebo
PM: Bird Street/Barratt Street
|
|
Tuesday
PM:
11:00 – 13:00
Nightime:
15:30 – 17:30
|
AM: Great Portland Street Gazebo
PM: Great Titchfield Street
|
|
Wednesday
AM:
10:00 – 12:00
PM:
15:00- 17:00
|
AM: Wells Street
PM: Market Place (South) Gazebo
|
|
Thursday
AM:
12:00 – 14:00
PM:
16:00 – 18:00
|
AM: Langham Street
PM: Foley Street
|
|
Friday
AM:
12:00 – 14:00
PM:
16:00 – 18:00
|
AM: Hanson Street
PM: New Cavendish Street
|
by FitzWest admin | Oct 19, 2022 | AGM, CIL, Consultations, Environment, Greening, The Plan
The Fitzwest Forum AGM last week was a great chance to hear about ongoing and future projects funded by the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and to hear Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg speaking about the Fitzrovia environment and how the Council are dealing with environmental issues.
You can read the minutes here.
We were treated to interesting presentations on the following CIL projects:
- All Souls School Playground Renewal
- Carburton St Greening
- Soho Poly Theatre
- Market Place Greening and Development
- New Cavendish Street Planters
More details are available on our website: CIL Projects
For those who couldn’t attend or didn’t get a chance to leave their ideas, we would very much like to hear from you. These further ideas will be added to the suggestions from the AGM and the public meeting earlier in the year.
Ideas for funding should align to the Fitzwest Neighbourhood Plan and the recently amended priorities of Westminster Council which are:
- Affordable housing (enabling)
- Green transition
- Sustainable and active travel
- Community facilities
- Accessible and inclusive public spaces
Please email us with your ideas on info@fitzwest.org
by FitzWest admin | Feb 23, 2022 | CIL, Consultations, Environment, Greening, Our Neighbourhood, Public Space
Thanks to everyone who attended the public meeting on 15th February 2022 at the Fitzrovia Community Centre.
The purpose of the meeting was to hear ideas and to inform residents and local organisations about the Community Infrastructure Levy and how it works.
We were delighted to see lots of people there and to hear many ideas of how to improve the infrastructure of Fitzrovia West using the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).
Amit Mistry, Principal Policy Officer from Westminster Council addressed the meeting and took questions about CIL, the kind of projects it funds and how it works.
There were lots of suggestions for projects from people at the meeting and via email beforehand. A summary of the subjects is here:
- Cycle racks modelled on Banja Luka
- Planters with cycle racks attached
- Planting around the tree on Carburton Street
- Replacing the planters near Holcroft court.
- Upgrading the cycle racks near the Almost Saturday cafe.
- A children’s playground (if a location could be found)
- Green walls
- Benches with green walls built into them (solar powered)
- Small on-street waste bins
- Rain gardens
- Trees on build outs
- Cultivation of tree pits
- Opening up the school for the benefit of the community
- A corridor through the Fitzrovia Centre to the garden behind
- Refurbish the old swimming pool behind the Fitzrovia Centre (expensive)
- Notices on bollards giving the times of collection of rubbish
- A study for a low traffic neighbourhood
- An air quality survey
- Refurbishing local benches
- Road bollards.
- Pop ups of various kinds
The full minutes of the meeting are available here – CIL Public Meeting 15.2.22
The time scale to come up with a project and apply for CIL funding is ongoing. The Westminster Council CIL committee meets every 3 months to assess the applications, so there are plenty of opportunities for people to create an application. All details are here:
https://www.westminster.gov.uk/planning-building-and-environmental-regulations/neighbourhood-community-infrastructure-fund/applying-neighbourhood-cil
Any comments or suggestions then please email us on info@fitzwest.org or leave a comment here.
by FitzWest admin | Nov 3, 2021 | Consultations, Environment, Greening, Public Space
After consulting previously with residents and businesses, we identified various locations which either have a lot of pavement space or are prone to rubbish dumping – or both! The idea is to position planters in these locations to brighten up and green our streets – but also we hope to deter dumping. We have funding that we successfully applied for from Tesco. The disruption of Covid has meant all plans were put on hold, but now we are keen to use the money to improve the area. Please let us know your thoughts.
Westminster Council have agreed in principle to the locations, so this is about making sure that residents and businesses know what is going on and have had a chance to have their say. Can you help? We are also looking for anyone who would be able to help maintain the planters, e.g. by watering, particularly in the summer.
We are very much hoping that this will lead to further greening projects as there have been many locations suggested by residents and businesses.
Click on this link here to fill out the survey: Fitzwest Greening Project 2021 Survey
