Lewisham Council has confirmed there WILL be an Assembly meeting on February 6th. It’s at Lochaber Hall, starting at 1900. However, as reported here last year, that may well be the last Assembly meeting in its current form.
Cllr Edison Huynh told Jim Mallory in an email last month that: “Whilst assembly council support is being removed, that doesn’t mean that ward assemblies and forms of resident engagement are being stopped. They will continue in some form depending on local contexts – current work is already underway on collating best practice in wards (both online and offline) as well as bringing together the different channels/forums that residents can already contribute to community development to ensure there is no duplication and ensure the best use of finite council resources.”
The Council is trying to make £30 million of savings to meet the increased costs of social care. He said that the data suggested the assemblies in their current state were useful but not representative of Lewisham’s diverse demographic.
” The challenge for us collectively is to find better, more representative ways of engaging residents and reaching a wider pool of residents and not just residents who already have a strong voice/presence on many forums and bodies. To be clear (as unfortunately there is no delicate way of making this point – especially as those most involved in assemblies are defacto also the most engaged residents), this is not any criticism of Lee Green specifically but as a general trend across the whole borough.”
Unfortunately, Cllr Huynh won’t be at the February 6th meeting so residents won’t be able to quiz him about the Council’s plans for replacing the Assembly system.
