The 2023 ATA Street Party is on Saturday

A reminder that this year's ATA Street Party is in the Ashburnham Retreat on Saturday, September 23rd and the fun starts at 1pm. The weather forecast is good!

75 Ashburnham Grove update

IMPORTANT MEETING: Tuesday, 12 September 12th 6.30 pm Town Hall, Wellington Street, Woolwich

A decision will be made on the retrospective Planning Application for the conversion of 75 Ashburnham Grove (formerly a hostel for 11 residents) into 26 self-contained flats to be let as “supported accommodation” for 26 vulnerable adults and up to 17 infants. 

If you are concerned, please attend the meeting. To read the report and agenda go to http://committees.royalgreenwich.gov.uk

ATA Street Party 2023 is on Saturday, September 23rd

 

New Chair and Secretary required

The Ashburnham Triangle Association is looking for a new chair and secretary to lead the ATA's local events and provide support in organising the annual ATA Street Party.

Would you be interested in getting involved?

Our Annual general meeting will be in October (TBD) if you would like to find out more.  Please email our current Chair if you'd like to attend or put your name forward for one of the vacant positions.

Greenwich Open Studios 2023

Greenwich Open Studios was founded in 1978. For two weekends every year the individual studios of artists who live and work in Greenwich are open to the public. With exception of the lockdown year of 2020, it has been an annual event which profiles the very best of visual art in Greenwich.

​This year's Greenwich Open Studios will take place on Sat/Sun 9/10th September and Sat/Sun 16/17th September. 

29 artists will be taking part this year and leaflets with details will be coming through your door at the end of August. You can find the leaflet here.

Local Ashburnham Triangle residents Jenny Bailey & Caroline Nuttall-Smith will be showing their ceramics with four other members at Greenwich Park Centre, Main Hall, King George Street SE10 8QB. 

ATA History talk

The next ATA history group talk will be on Thursday 17 August at 7.30 in West Greenwich Library. Please come along and find out about Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who in 1931 exposed the famine in Ukraine and was murdered in 1935 aged 29. Our speaker is Triangle resident Matt Ginn.   

There are two connections with Greenwich. Jones’s aunt and biographer Margaret Siriol Colley worked at the Greenwich Seamen’s hospital during her career as a doctor and as a child our speaker, Matt Ginn, met the very elderly sister of Gareth Jones. She spoke to him about her mother’s time in the Ukrainian town of Hugheskova.  

Planning Matters

The ATA has been advised that a planning application is being heard at the next Planning Board Meeting on Tuesday, 18th July 2023 at 6.30pm regarding the former Greenwich Magistrates Court (including rear car park), 7-9 Blackheath Road & 2 Greenwich High Road. The meeting is open to the public and is being streamed live on the Council’s website https://royalgreenwich.public-i.tv/core/portal/home. The agenda and the reports for the meeting, and the relevant procedural information, can be found at http://committees.royalgreenwich.gov.uk

We've also been notified that a retrospective planning application has been made for a change of use from a former hostel at 75 Ashburnham Grove to supported accommodation for vulnerable individuals. More details at https://planning.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/online-applications/files/010702428A50691C164F9D8D251AD007/pdf/23_2275_F-PLANNING_AND_HERITAGE_STATEMENT-945894.pdf or the full documentation can be sourced here.

Swifts in the Triangle

It’s Midsummer – and the Greenwich swifts are back in town. In good numbers this year.  These extraordinary birds nest in tight colonies under the eaves of suitable buildings. Extraordinary because, apart from nesting, they literally live the rest of their lives in the air, eating, drinking, mating, even sleeping, all on the wing,  and all at great speed.   And you can see all this happening in and over the nesting colony up in the eaves of Davy’s Wine Shop,  on the corner of Greenwich High Road and Kay Way  (by the red telephone booth).  The swifts come back from Africa every year for 3 months, to breed here.   Their numbers in the UK have fallen heavily over the last ten to fifteen years.   So this year’s relative abundance of occupied nests in the Davy’s colony,  and the size of the immature parties of non-breeders,  the “Screamers”, is good news.  

 

From now till the end of June and through July, the parent swifts will be incubating eggs,  and feeding the hatched fledglings on the insects they catch on the wing. When they have a full load, individual parent birds shoot back up into their nests  at speed.  Then, after feeding their young, they drop down into the air,  and power off again.  They are so quick, you have to focus hard to catch them.  But this year there are enough occupied nests at Davy’s to mean there’s movement into or out of a nest every few minutes.  

 

Meanwhile, at various times of the day – late mornings seem good – the non breeders gather in small groups, or sometimes larger parties,  and screech and scream close past  the nests,  without entering them, barrelling and twisting just overhead.  These “screamers” were born here last year or the year before,  and aren’t yet ready to mate .  They have already made at least one journey down to Southern Africa,  and one back.  But some will have done this two or even three times. Amazingly, they won’t have touched ground the whole time.  Watch out for the screaming parties above Davy’s in July, as they test out the nests, and the Greenwich skies,  ahead of becoming parents themselves back in Greenwich next year or the year after.  When they will finally, briefly, fall out of the sky.  And if you do manage to see the action, wish both parents and screamers well in the first half of August, as they leave Greenwich, and head off back to Africa. 

Local Security Update

The SNT ward panel met on Tuesday 23 May.

The ward are currently looking for new members from all areas of Greenwich Park and Greenwich Creekside wards. 

 

Local crime statistic are available at https://www.met.police.uk/area/your-area/met/greenwich/greenwich-west/about-us/top-reported-crimes-in-this-area

 

See below for a brief lowdown on the main issues recently in each ward:

 

Creekside- Street robberies and phone snatches along Creek Road. The robberies happen throughout the day and cover Creek Road, Millennium Quay, New Capital Quay, Town Centre and areas around Greenwich Park and High Road. Ongoing operations in the area to tackle this

 

Park ward- robbery issue (phones snatches), violent crime (drugs related near town centre), distraction burglaries 

Re. Distraction burglaries, please try to raise awareness of this issues elderly/vulnerable residents (friends, neighbours, family). Individuals may approach addresses with high vis and attempt to gain access by saying they have noticed an issue. 

- Bike thefts continue

- Graffiti in the colonnades and in the cycle route at ORNC

- Recent car thefts in area reported, particularly of VW and Alfa Romeo cars

Ashburnham Triangle- There was a recent robbery in broad daylight in the area. Male was followed home from the DLR during the day and was robbed at knife point on his doorstep. SNT officers have looked into the investigation and are going to visit the victim.

 

Our local SNT officer is PC Jaime Welch who is supported by PCSO AK.

Buy a second-hand bike and get cycling!

You can buy a bike for just £40 if you live in Royal Greenwich and are in receipt of benefits such as Universal Credit, Housing Benefit or Child Tax Credit. Please bring official proof along with photo ID. You can buy a quality, serviced second-hand bike on Saturday 20 May between 10am and 4pm at Morrisons in Thamesmead.