Transition Town Tooting

Category: Other stuff

A place to gather things that have no category!

  • Tooting Constitutional Club Development

    Last year we were all coming together to save the Wheatsheaf with some success.  Now the latest community space that could soon be turned from public space into private flats and shops is the former Tooting Constitutional Club, just down from Sainsburys at Tooting Broadway.  On Wednesday evening there was a chance to peruse some proposed plans at the site.

    This thread at Tooting Online has some details and debate as does this one on Streetlife. 

    TTC as it is now

    On first impresssion, the proposed development does seem monstrously large in comparison to the current buildings and those adjacent, and while it does include a small unspecified “community space”, it is not clear at this stage what that might be.

    You can have your say on the plans, but be quick, you need to email comments by the end of Monday 20th Oct to stefanie.mizen@eu.jll.com

    What the streetscape might look like with a huge development of flats

    Tooting History Group say the building apparently dates from the 18th Century, and though the site evidently needs work, wouldn’t it be better if it was developed sensitively with the community and history foremost in mind?  Wouldn’t it be great if a site like this could be retained wholly or in part for use by a variety of Tooting’s myriad community groups?   TTT would certainly be interested in using, running or helping to develop such a space.   There’s also a bowling green at the back which will largely disappear under concrete if these plans go ahead. What could we imagine that being: a new community garden?  A revived bowling green?  A pocket park?

    Developers will naturally always want to maximise returns from property investments, so it’s up to us as residents to speak up, put pressure on them and the Council to ensure that development is right for the community and the site. Why not send Stefanie some thoughts? stefanie.mizen@eu.jll.com

  • Furzedown Low Carbon Zone: Film Night 22nd Oct

    All welcome to a Film Night hosted by our sister project, Furzedown Low Carbon Zone.

    Date: Wednesday October 22nd
    Venue: The Furzedown Project, 93 Moyser Road, SW16 6SJ
    Timings: Doors open at 7:30pm, and the showing starts at 8:00
    Booking: Please book a ticket on our booking page here. Tickets are £5.00. Under-16s and over-60s are free (please book in all the same)

    We’ll finish by 9:30, but conversation can always move to the pub! 
    Film is better with tea, coffee and cake – and if you came to the Tooting Foodival you know we make some great cakes.

    We’re showing ‘Disruption’:
    a brand new film about climate change and community 
    organisation in the face of apparent poltical apathy 


    The film also covers the background to the New York City Climate March last month.

    As well as fundraising for our activities, we’ll be sharing the proceeds of the evening with Furzedown FACE, a group that supports the local community. 


    The ‘FLCZ’ has been active for three years now
    Furzedown Low Carbon Zone is a community association dedicated to reducing the carbon emissions of Furzedown and surrounding areas. You may have seen us at Furzedown Big Day Out, at Tooting Foodival or on the Climate March.

    Two earlier FLCZ projects were carried out with many local partners including South Thames College, Eardley School, Furzedown enterprises and Transition Town Tooting. Do watch the project videos:

    1 ‘The Greener Jobs Alliance’ – watch it here

    2 ‘Better Choices for a Better Tomorrow’ – watch it here

    We’re proud that our first project won the Green Gown Awards ‘Best Newcomer’ category  in 2012 from The Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges.


    If you’d like to find out about FLCZ activities, including our current focus on setting up a community renewable energy scheme, please contact us here.
    We look forward to seeing you.

  • A follow-up to the People’s Climate March

    A huge event worldwide – maybe the biggest of its kind, ever.

    Here’s a map from 350.org, one of the 
    campaign partners:

    The march in New York City:

    What’s happened afterwards (so far)?
    This article gives a good view from the UN:  ‘Five ways Ban Ki-moon’s summit has changed international climate politics forever’ http://gu.com/p/4xp6f

    Please join us to carry out relevant, rewarding and practical local activities together, here in Tooting.  
    Do get in contact with your ideas.

  • People’s Climate March, London Sept 21 2014

    Why take part in the Climate March?

    With strong arms, one inspired person can achieve a lot!

    By joining Transition Town Tooting, the Tooting Community Garden, and Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, and Transition Wandsworth together all under one banner – we can share the work and achieve even more.


    Why take part…?
    Young people can express themselves, we can all be inspired…
    We can get talking to others by showing off our banner (thanks loads for making it, Alice).


    Today’s march was worthwhile for the sense of connection within a common cause, the conversations, the contacts made.

    And some extra learning? Have longer bamboo poles next time..

    All welcome to join us in Transition Tooting or the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone to get involved with practical community projects on food, growing, energy, air quality, sustainable living and more.
    Together we’re all contributing creativity and some local solutions to the global challenges we all face, whatever group we belong to.

    There’s a good new film: ‘Disruption’, reminding us why climate change is so significant: watch it here online for free.
    And you can hear Naomi Klein (details here) talk about her new book ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism against the Climate’ on October 6th in central London.

     
    Please join in!

     

  • Restart Party Report

    Tonight’s Restart Party was very cool. Thank you so much to Ugo and Janet for organising this event for us at Mushkil Aasaan. Naseem I hope your intercom and kettle were fixed! So I took my TV, only two years old, and watched guitarist Ben and 11 year old schoolboy Sonny, take it apart. It took an hour or more to test every bit of it but in the end the verdict is that I can buy a £17 power supply board to fix this rather than buy a £200 replacement!  Thank you so much boys – I will try!  You can see them in this slideshow:

    The Restart idea is surely the way forward. We cannot endlessly plunder our planet for finite resources to make disposable electronic and countless others products.  Had a great chat with the Gaia Foundation about their Short Circuit report which focuses on the lifestyle of electronic gadgets and the true cost to the earth.  Thanks to everyone who volunteered and attended this evening – let’s do it again. David

  • Restart Party in Tooting Sept 9th

    We are delighted to announce that the Restart Project, a London-based social enterprise that encourages and empowers people to use their electronics longer, have agreed to run a “Restart Party” with TTT in Tooting next month. 


    The Restart Project aims to reduce electronic waste by helping people learn fundamental repair and maintenance skills, enabling them to fix all kinds of electronic devices rather than throw them away or recycle them.  Slow laptops, broken printers, smartphones, coffee grinders, you name it, Restart will attempt to assist with a fix. 

    Sound interesting? Then come along to the event, challenge the culture of built-in obsolescence and take back control of all your electronic stuff!  Do note that Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets & data, so please do not forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant !

    We look forward to seeing you at this great event at Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW, Tuesday Sep 9th from 6 to 9pm. The event is also advertised om meetup.com here.

  • TTT’s August newsletter is hot off the press

    Hello all – we have circulated the August TTT newsletter to everyone who has subscribed to our TTT email circulation list (email us here if you wish to be added to that list).
    And if you would like to read a copy online: just click here to catch up with all the August (…and beyond) activities and news.
    Enjoy!

  • Tooting Air Quality Project

    Earlier this month, Transition Town Tooting collaborated with the local trades unions to initiate an air monitoring exercise around Tooting Broadway, where several devices have been temporarily fixed to record what is in the air we breathe.  A similar exercise at Clapham Junction recently showed alarming pollution levels so the results for Tooting will be interesting to compare.  If this trial works well we hope to extend it to other nearby areas in the future.
    Air pollution
    Graham Petersen, who has been leading on the project, said: “Government and City Hall are staggeringly complacent on this issue and need to work a lot harder to combat pollution in London. Wandsworth residents are at significantly higher risk of death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), (Wandsworth Guardian 10/4/14), and nitrogen dioxide levels in the city are apparently the worst in Europe.” See this Bloomberg report.

    We think this is a serious issue and want to work to make our neighbourhood a better one to breathe in.  Perhaps you’d like to get involved?  If so do mail us via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com.

  • Meet me at the Cemetery Gates

    On Sunday 6th July, Friends of Streatham Cemetery, in partnership with Groundwork London and Lambeth Council were joined by local residents to celebrate the re-opening of an entrance into Streatham Cemetery that has been closed to the public for 20 years. This makes this phenomenal area of green space much more accessible to the hustle and bustle of Tooting High St.  Tooting residents gathered outside the gates that had been beautifully decorated in floral garlands, to hear Lucy Neal of Friends of Streatham Cemetery talk about the significance of the re-opening of the gate, making the wildlife rich green space on the other side accessible to local people. Some of the local residents shared their personal memories of the cemetery and the new gates were then unlocked for partners and local residents to explore the newly improved green space within. Streatham Cemetery has recently undergone a number of improvements in order to make the space more accessible and of greater value to the local community. The improvements include the creation of raised beds for local people to take part in planting and growing activities, the installation of a noticeboard to keep people informed about local events and opportunities, benches where people can sit and relax and an apiary with three bee hives.

    The cemetery is located in a built up area and offers a much needed oasis for residents to enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits of nature and wildlife on their doorstep.

    Lucy Neal said: Streatham Cemetery is a glorious and under-used green space in Tooting. The Friends have been working to cherish local history, wildlife and beauty and the re-opening of the pedestrian gate is a small but very significant moment in bringing this area back into use as a community space for all’.  Kate Allan (BATCA) who attended the event said: “It was a gentle and inspiring ceremony. The cemetery is a haven of expansiveness and peace. I loved the garlands! Well done’.”  More photos of the event here.

  • Travel and Transport: Carbon Conversations Meeting 4

    Jenny has posted her response below to the most recent meeting in our ‘CC’ series. During the series we have been digging into understanding our own ‘carbon footprint’ and what it means to us in real life.

    The UK average carbon footprint per person per year now is c12 tonnes of C02 emissions. There’s a challenging and more sustainable goal of four tonnes of CO2 emissions per person per year (= emissions from home energy, travel, food purchasing and general consumption, at roughly a tonne each).

    “I offered to write a post on this, because when I did my carbon footprint, I realised that travel and transport form a significant portion of my annual carbon footprint, so it’s an area I want to improve on.
    In this session, we shared what was important to us – peaceful, safe streets, short journeys to work, lower speed limits and safer cycling. 
    We imagined what it would be like if people didn’t own cars anymore and there was a cycle super highway like the one Norman Foster has proposed. We didn’t all agree on these more extreme re-imaginings of how we travel, but we all agreed that shorter local journeys on peaceful streets would be a good thing.

    While looking at the pros and cons of different types of transport, there was a lot of debate and focus on cycling. Most people in the group own cycles and had cycled to the meeting. It’s a quick and easy way to get around Tooting, but all agreed cycling in the centre of London was not such a pleasant experience.

    Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to be aggressive cycling in the city just to claim your piece of road? Would more people cycle if London was more like Amsterdam? What if the state gave you a free bike if you promised to use it more than three times a week, like in Sweden?

    We played a game, imagining we were a family of four making travel choices based on lifestyle, and on government policy.
    What soon became clear was that low carbon choices aren’t always made with the sole intention of doing good for the planet. More often, travel choices were made based on money or time saved – money and time that could then be spent as a family. Policy rarely influenced decisions in our game and sometimes, that was surprising.
    In the future, we may have to reduce to 1 tonne of CO2 per year per person for travel. Here’s my challenge: can I get to 1 tonne?

    I started my own travel diary and estimated my day trips & holidays.
    Here’s how my annual carbon footprint stacks up now in 2014:

    • Commuting and local travel around London: 6,396 miles per year = 0.9 tonnes of CO2
    • Day /weekend trips out of London, and holiday travel: 1640 miles = 0.3 tonnes of CO2
    • 2 return short-haul plane trips to Europe: 4 tonnes of CO2

    In total, that puts my travel emissions at just over 5 tonnes per year. 
    Is it time to cut the trips abroad or can I save enough by getting a job locally to afford me one flight a year?

    One tonne is certainly going to be a challenge!
    I’ll post a follow up on this, and from the other participants in the group”

    Thanks for these honest comments, Jenny!
    We’ll report back from the two remaining Carbon Conversations meetings in this series.
    If you would like to get into this fascinating and urgent topic, do join us in the future when we next offer ‘CC’ locally. All welcome: you do not need to be an expert, just interested in exploring your own choices, and in taking some action.