Joint secretaries's report for 2006/7

Sara. Mark and Milica

Our double act

By Sara Bragg and Mark Erickson, NLCA joint secretaries

Some thanks

We'd first like to thank everyone who has helped the NLCA keep going this year.  This includes those who have come to the meetings!  If you haven't already signed up to receive minutes by email, please do so if you'd like and are able to. Officially people stop receiving paper copies of the minutes if they haven't attended four meetings in a row (probably longer in practice), but anybody can ask to receive email minutes and go on doing so as long as they like. The email list is also occasionally a good forum for debates, as it was this past year, for example, in relation to parking regulations, the car club, etc

Attendance at meetings has averaged around 20-25 people each month. We are always grateful to those who give up their time to give talks at our meetings. This year we have drawn on our internal talents, such as our chair, Peter Crowhurst, (on local history) and Mathew Birch with Kate Harrison on their work at the HIV/AIDS Alliance.  Speakers from other local organisations covered a range of topics: thanks to Lingning Zeng who spoke on the Chinese Centre, Mareike Engels from Brighton Peace & Environment Centre on fair trade, and Roger French on bus transport.

Our winter social benefited from raffle gifts from local traders and much work by Jackie, Margaret, Sandy and Henry. Finally thanks to Geoff Mead who helped our anniversary celebrations with a talk on the North Laine over the last 30 years.  The Lord Nelson pub continues to host our post-meeting drinks.

As ever, support from our network of Street Reps has been much appreciated. We are also grateful to our local Councillors, Sue Paskins, Simon Williams and Keith Taylor, who have all attended meetings over the past year. Thanks also to the Brighthelm Centre, the venue for our meetings.

Following a chance conversation at the official opening of Pelham Square, the Pensions Regulator in Trafalgar Place now sponsors the photocopying of our minutes, which has transformed our workload as secretaries. Newman & Stringer, the funeral directors in Trafalgar St, continue to provide an NLCA noticeboard.  Thanks to everyone who displays our posters about meetings in their shop or house windows, which helps keep the NLCA profile high.

Last year we endeavoured to leave our posts as joint secretaries on the grounds that we would not be able to attend meetings after our baby was born.  However, we failed to resign successfully and are still here! We should therefore particularly like to thank Kevin Daly, who stepped in to take the minutes while we were on our parental leave in the autumn.

Parents' network

As mentioned above, we were rather distracted from our secretarial duties by the arrival of baby Milica in September. However, we have tried to turn this to good account through our informal Parents' Network and have been in contact with some of the many parents in the North Laine (at least eight families with young babies in Tidy St alone).  Currently the network's activities focus on occasional coffee mornings, and we are looking forward to making use of Pelham Square when the weather improves. We keep in contact by email, and this could be a good place to raise issues, ask for advice or request things you need (quite a lot of us have clothes we can pass on, for example....).  Contact us for more details (sarabragg@yahoo.com). In the future we may want to think about collective discussion or action on issues such as childcare, schooling, dealing with child-unfriendly traffic etc.

North Laine postcards

Mark spent many hours organising the postcard project to celebrate our 30th anniversary, resulting in the delivery of a set of six lovely cards to every household in the North Laine.  We couldn't have achieved this without the help of Southern Water (our sponsors) and Nigel Swallow from North Laine Photography.

Legibility

Sara attended some meetings about 'legibility' in the city, which relates to the new public space layout in New Road - we look forward with interest to seeing how that is used.

Summary of NLCA achievements over the past year

The 'we' below refers to NLCA as a whole and there is more detail about some of these activities in other reports in this section of the website.

(i) We have met 11 times (every month except August). Our meetings are open to all and allow any resident to bring concerns and have their say. We have invited appropriate representatives from local groups and others to talk at these meetings and we held our usual annual social in December.

(ii) We have produced six issues of the North Laine Runner, distributed free to every household and shop in the North Laine.

(iii) We have responded to all relevant planning applications with a view to preserving the character of the North Laine as a conservation area.

(iv) We have been particularly active on local issues such as:

• new licensing regulations (including representing residents' concerns at licensing hearings
• applications for change of use (especially resisting loss of retail and workspace to cafés or restaurants, which we see as undermining the 'mix' of the North Laine, and protesting about the loss of community space in the Ray Tindle Centre)
• new parking regulations (we have complained about the way the Council ignored the results of their own consultation on this)
• the Public Inquiry into the proposed 42-storey Beetham's Tower on Brighton Station Site.

(v) We have held several events to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Association, including a picnic in Pelham Square, a party in the Pavilion Gardens, and a ceilidh. In addition we produced a set of North Laine postcards and some new banners for the NLCA.

(vi) We have maintained good relations with the North Laine Traders Association. We are also members of Living Streets, the Brighton Society, the Community & Voluntary Sector Forum, and the Friends of Pelham Square.

(vii) We have represented North Laine residents on various committees and at many events such as CAG (Conservation Advisory Group), the 'Legibility' group, the opening of the enlarged space at the Komedia, etc.

(viii) We have produced a revised 'new members pack' for people who move into the North Laine.

(ix) We have dealt with residents' particular concerns whenever possible.

[Previously published in the North Laine Runner, no 185, March/April 2007]