I had the most bizarre and, somewhat revealing conversation, on the bus yesterday with two local Councillors. The two in question were Mary Atkins (our local Tulse Hill Ward councillor) and Jackie Meldrum (Deputy Leader to the Council). The conversation concerned our Urban Art event which takes place here in Josephine Avenue every July.
Councillor Atkins had earlier in the week come to the Josephine Avenue Group AGM where she had heard:
• Testament from the local Jubilee Primary School thanking Urban Art for the fund raising opportunity and the workshops we helped run during the weekend.
• Testament from the local Holy Trinity School thanking Urban Art for help with costs for their new playground surface.
• Thanks were also received from Southside Rehabilitation, a local community mental health rehabilitation project based in West Norwood.
• Thanks were also received from Makerhood, a Brixton based arts project which is also supported by the council.
• Josephine Avenue Group accepted a donation of £1,024.79 for their help during the Urban Art event.
• More than half of the residents attending the meeting volunteer at Urban Art (this includes Councillor Atkins).
• Explanation from the Urban Art Organisers that they were a non profit social enterprise operating as a company limited by guarantee (same as Oxfam and thousands of other non profit organisations in the UK) and was formed following requests from the then cabinet member for Arts, Sport and Culture, Councillor Heywood.
The incredible thing is that when we spoke on the bus three days later Councillor Atkins tried to claim that Urban Art was not a community event !
I find this so hypocritical, especially when you consider that this very same Councillor is getting £2,000 of public money to run her own “community” choir. For some reason she considers this “totally different” when it clearly is not. In fact her choir only benefits its members, where our event does so much more.
When I mentioned that Urban Art also has to pay for our own road closure Councillor Meldrum showed surprise, despite the fact that we email all councillors every year complaining of this ridiculous charge. Ironically we received a bill of £1,104.16 from Lambeth Council the next morning. We should have received this earlier in the year and now we do not have the money. I have asked Councillor Meldrum directly for this bill to be cancelled. Let’s see if she ignores this as she has done all our other requests.
As I have said to both councillors, it is about time Lambeth starts supporting their community events rather than criticise them for their success. At the moment their claims of being the ‘cooperative’ council are running very thin.
If you agree, perhaps you might like to share your thoughts by emailing Mary Atkins <matkins1056@yahoo.co.uk> and Jackie Cllr Meldrum <JMeldrum@lambeth.gov.uk>