Minutes of Meeting on 2 November 1999:

CRYSTAL PALACE & NORWOOD

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Minutes of meeting held at the Phoenix Centre, Westow Street

Tuesday, 2nd November 1999

PRESENT

Doug Barnes - Chairman (Tamnag Thai)
Christopher Dobb - Temp. Secretary (Upper Norwood Joint Library)

Caroline Streek (Quality Hotel/Streek's),
David Kerr (Town Centre Manager)
Ian Ward (I W & S A Ward)
Councillor Pat Ryan (London Borough of Croydon)
James Slattery-Kavanagh (Quotes)
Andrea Aiello (Crystal Palace Views)
Chazz KaKoulli (Crystal Palace Views)
Neil Dyson (Crystal Palace Foundation)
P. Rositratna (South East Thai Restaurant)
Tony Allen (Crystal Palace Camping).

Guests
Kevin Carlton-Reeves
Neil Prowse (Visitmap)
Isabel Trist (Lambeth Council)
Brian Irving (Environmental Health, L.B. Croydon)

APOLOGIES

Allan Thompson (Hon. Secretary)
Jane Allen

1. Minutes of meeting 5th October 1999

Agreed
Proposed: Ian Ward
Seconded: James Slattery-Kavanagh

2. Stakeholder Forum

The Chamber has not as yet been invited to join Forum. The Chairman will report back when it is known what is happening with the development.

3. Christmas lights

Croydon says they will be up and on by 18th November. It is hoped to extend them down to Crystal Palace Camping. Lambeth has said they may have a problem with the weight of the lights on their lampposts.

4. Christmas party

This has been switched to Tamnag Thai (7th December). Doug will issue formal invitations when he sends out the newsletter.

5. CCTV

The proposal has got through the first stage in competition with many other proposals, which is a great achievement.

6. Crystal Palace Station

£4 million is being spent by Railtrack and Bromley to bring back the Victorian splendour, making it one of the biggest renovations of a station outside a mainline station. It will include commercial premises for let and it will be designed to make it possible for Tramlink to come. Work could start from January.

7. Speaker - Brian Irvine (Head of Pollution Section, L.B. Croydon)

He has been working on air pollution and identified traffic in this area as a problem. There is a monitoring station (all 5 boroughs together) on the Triangle. As part of Local Agenda 21, Brian has developed a Transport Strategy for Croydon and is now asking views on the proposed actions in the Strategy. There will be workshops with different community groups to come up with ideas. A questionnaire will go out with Chamber's December newsletter. There will also be a transport forum, which will bring together all parties to discuss all the issues together.

It was pointed out that Park & Ride, as part of Tramlink has not materialised.

8. Speaker - Neil Prowse (Visitmap)

This company specialises in three dimensional maps. They are going to do guides for Penge and Upper Norwood, which has been funded by Town Centre Manager and will distributed throughout SE19. The prices for listings were given (starting at £75 for boxed). It will be published in January (25,000 copies).

9. Speaker - Sgt. John Jarvest (Crime Prevention Unit, Bromley)

He also has responsibility for work with SRB as part of Safer Businesses and Safer Homes. John then talked about Business Watch, which is free and also the money which is available for improving security - letters are going out to all businesses on this. Finally he about talked about credit card fraud, skimmed cards and counterfeit currency.

10. Speaker - Isabel Trist (Norwood Town Centre Manager, L.B. Lambeth)

Isabel talked about her role as Town Centre Manager which is not specifically centred on West Norwood, but includes 4 wards one being Gipsy Hill, as part of the Norwood Forum. At present they are gathering information and have already done a SWOT analysis, on which they would like feedback.

The Forum is open to anyone and Upper Norwood must get involved, otherwise its issues will not get taken up or money be provided.