Today, I went deep inside the Camberwell Submarine!

[CH1]

I've been looking this up to try and answer my own question. Why CHP ,which should be greener heating and electricity, is causing problems.

Does SELCHP have good or bad vibes?

They have an open day next Sunday by the way - part of Open House London.
I went last year and was impressed - but I like hard hats, yellow jackets and roaring furnaces. As far as I can see the plant is managed by Veolia.

Note: they take grass, garden cutting etc. The sort of thin that Lambeth has kittens about and wants to charge £20 per collection.

 

[ricbake]

BBC News article on Communal Heating Systems and contracts creating fuel poverty here and link to a podcast from a radio5 program covering the issue and referring to Myatts Field among others.

 

[Gramsci]

BBC News article on Communal Heating Systems and contracts creating fuel poverty here and link to a podcast from a radio5 program covering the issue and referring to Myatts Field among others.

BBC article links into Fuel Poverty Action and Stuart Hodkinson report. Looking at it and all the partners in the Consortium Pas the buck amongst each other over who is responsible for what faults. That Lambeth have made no attempt, as ultimately responsible for this PFI, to respond to residents problems and make sure contractors provide good service. Now Lambeth have outsourced the maintenance and infrastructure to private companies the report says in reality it's the unpaid work of residents in the TRAs ( themselves voluntary unfunded groups) who have done there best to do the job that Lambeth officers should be doing.

 

[ricbake]

That's what Lib Peck means by cooperative council - residents have to cooperate with each other to get things done because the Council is ceasing to work at all!

 

[Gramsci]

By

That's what Lib Peck means by cooperative council - residents have to cooperate with each other to get things done because the Council is ceasing to work at all!

I think it's worse than that.

Lambeth is still run by Nu Labour ideologues. I was at a community meeting recently when a senior Labour Cllr gave us a pep talk on the joys of community activism. He said the the Council wanted to become an "enabler" rather than a "provider". They still think this kind of Blairite stuff.

Lambeth Nu Labour under Steve Reed were falling over themselves to do ALMOs , PFI schemes. It still goes on with the gym / library scheme.

It's not about empowering local people. Despite the language used.

It's about helping capitalism gain inroads into areas that before it had been excluded from. Like social housing. Or Library service.

The worst thing about all this is that it entangles community involvement in with this. So if you are critical or sceptical of it you are branded out of touch.

Or as I have by officers. Not being "sensible" , being someone who "prefers to working on the outside". This by officers with well paid secure employment. Reading the report on fuel poverty I linked above it doesn't surprise me that unpaid volunteers have to stick up for residents. Council officers imo are over paid desk jockeys. The regen dept behave like property developers.

And Im someone who tries to engage with the Council.

 

[ricbake]

Exactly - they are abrogating responsibility for community but insisting on creating policy for local groups who pick up responsibility for any commitments that can't be offered out to corporate bodies. They have no ability whatsoever to negotiate appropriate deals with those corporations.
Capitulate to business, dictate to residents and celebrate their own perception of their beneficence.

Unless local groups can organise an umbrella group to perform on a scale equivalent to a corporation we will all just keep getting branded as oddballs, agitators and out of touch....

I'm not hopeful

 

[editor]

Update

Return to the Camberwell Submarine, south London – in photos, Dec 2018

 

[jimbarkanoodle]

walked past this for the first time recently and wondered what the fuck it was...

 

[editor]

More pics of the Camberwell submarine. I do love it!

The Camberwell Submarine in the autumn sunshine, Nov 2020

We’ve always been fascinated by this curious structure located on a traffic island on a short strip of dual carriageway in Akerman Road, SW9. Looking like a stranded Cold War submarine &#8211…

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