Arson at Brunswick Quay, Greenland Dock

The Brunswick Quay Residents Association (BQRA) have sent out a message asking residents to be careful to secure their wheelie bins after another deliberate fire was set in a bin in one of the recessed entrance areas beneath a block of flats along Brunswick Quay in the early hours of Saturday 29 August.  The photographs on this post show some of the damage that was inflicted.  As you can see, the burning was extensive and the blistering of the surfaces shows how hot it became under the roof, putting the overhead apartment at serious risk.  The wooden doors hiding metres and electrical equipment were completely burned off, leaving the equipment exposed to the fire.  Matters could have been much, much worse.

This is the second time this year that a fire has been set in a bin. The previous one was very serious and could have resulted in loss of life.  The fire caused so much damage to the flats that the residents were forced to leave their homes whilst reconstruction work took place, and the scaffolding for the repairs is still standing.

The police are investigating the arson but are reminding residents to minimise the danger of a serious fire in their properties by locking bins away where possible, padlocking bins, or at least placing them so they are not located directly underneath properties.  Obviously, removing combustible items from beneath the flats is also recommended. Such examples of arson should probably serve as a warning to anyone in the area, not just Brunswick Quay, who keep their bins in recessed areas beneath flats or upper floors of houses.

Two life-belt stands have also been burned down in Russia Dock Woodland, which may suggest that the Brunswick Quay examples could be be part of a larger problem.

Today a bin full of wood has been left by the entrance under one of the apartments in Brunswick Quay, and this is being reported to the police because it looks suspiciously like a pre-made bonfire.  Should you seen anything else suspicious, feel that anyone is behaving suspiciously or are concerned by anything unusual, please contact the police immediately. 

  

 

 

Notice of Police Street Briefing on 22nd October, Downtown Road

Forwarded from the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland.

POLICE NOTICE:

We are holding a Police Street Briefing on Tuesday 22nd OCTOBER 2013 at: 1900 hours - 2000 hours at DOWNTOWN ROAD SE16 at the entrance to RUSSIA DOCK WOODLAND.  

The idea is to receive comments from residents and be available to speak to. We also want to raise awareness of burglaries, cycle thefts, ASB and bogus callers, all of which have been affecting the area and are expected to increase as we go into the darker part of the year.  Friends of Russia Dock Woodland & Russia Dock Woodland Area Residents Group (RDWARG) 13-10-13

Fox cruelty in Rotherhithe

I've just posted this story on Recent News page the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland website and thought that it might be of interest to other Rotherhithe residents who don't visit that website. It is most unpleasent reading.

I really hate to report on something so horrific, but the facts of the matter do need to be communicated to the public so that we can all keep a sharp eye out on behalf of our local wildlife. Steve Cornish (Chair of the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland) has had the Wildlife Crime Officer down in the Woodlands this week and he agrees that this should be made public information.

Steve rang me last week and told me a terrible story about the torture of a fox in the Russia Dock Woodland. This is not hearsay - it was observed and has been photographed. A fox was found shackled in the undergrowth next to Lavender Pond. Local residents could hear the chain jangling for days on end but couldn't work out where the noise was coming from. Then it must have unshackled itself and was seen by a local resident in her garden with the chain hanging from its leg (the resident took the photo). She then called the Fox Project who contacted their local volunteer. She took four hours to find the fox which was shackled to the ground unable to move and in distress. She stated to the Wildlife Crime Officer that "the other end of the chain was buried into the ground and the earth replaced so that it couldn’t move. They had to dig down deep to remove the chain. The (fox cub vixen) was taken to the Fox Project headquarters in Tonbridge where they managed to save the foxes leg and released it into a woodland in Kent. A good ending to an horrific story.

I haven’t posted the photographs on this page in case children stumble across this page. You can, however, download a photo of the fox chained, with the chain pierced through its Achilles tendon by clicking here. It is not a pretty sight, but it happened and we need to be aware so that we are alert to other situations which might arise.

The recent articles in Southwark News and Sky News have highlighted other problems about foxes being trapped for the purposes of dog fighting. Whilst the dog fighting has not been confirmed independently, the capture of foxes recently has been witnessed. If you see anything that might be a problem please call the RSPCA Cruelty Line Cruelty line: 0300 1234 999.

Youth crime in the Greenland Dock area

There have been an alarming number of youth crime incidents in the area surrounding Greenland Dock and Salter Road.

Please see the Recent News page on the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland website for more information.

If you are a victim of even a minor crime please report it to the police so that they are able to assess the volume of problems occuring in our area.

Nature Girls

I am jumping through hoops in my other life at the moment and have had very little time to go over the road and take photographs. Sadly I've either been buried in my office at home or stuck in town with the joys of the dour architectural block otherwise known as the Institute of Archaeology in London. Not one of the world's best pieces of urban design. Fortunately the place is full of fabulous books and rather good people.

In spite of the inability to make it over to the RDW or Stave Hill I am still receiving news from the outside world, thanks to the wonderful world of email. You can see the main subjects of discussion on the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland website.

One of the sadder pieces of news is that the 1996 sculpture by sculptress Laura Ford has been removed, presumably stolen for the financial value of its metal. People never cease to dissapoint. The sculpture consisted of three botanically-themed constructions made of bronze. They appear to have been designed for another location at the Cass Sculpture Foundation. They were put here by the L.D.D.C., which was committed to adding art to its new developments. Perhaps they were moved to Surrey Quays when the Surrey Water area was under development, or perhaps copies of the originals were installed. I have been unable to discover which was the case.

Here's what the Cass Sculpture Foundation website says about the artist and the sculptures:

Laura Ford has been thinking about how sculpture operates within a landscape and wanted to make something that would become part of it, but which on closer observation would be rather strange in that environment. She started with the Stump Girl, which takes the form of a regular tree stump animated by a pair of little girls' legs. The later Conifer Girl and Bush Girl which complete this unruly trilogy, add to the conundrum. When brought together they give rise to questions of identity, intent, fear and humour. Are these depictions of real trees? Are they watching? Are they malevolent? They provoke parental concern, but remain beyond our reach. The sculptures are made in a traditional material, bronze, with all its authority and associations with important monuments. It is employed here to suggest a different scenario. The artist has used the convention of perfect outdoor sculpture for a subversive subject-matter.

The Conifer and Bush are quieter than their Stump counterpart, but possibly more malevolent. Simultaneously they have the innocent joy of girls playing in the wood and the bleakness of children gone missing. In a gallery setting (they were first shown at Spacex in Exeter in an exhibition for which they were especially cast by Sculpture at Goodwood) they are hopelessly attempting to camouflage themselves, like children hiding their

heads and thinking they cannot be seen. A landscape setting such as this renders their fantasy almost a reality. Nature Girls are uneasy, but comical. Laura Ford shares with Camille Paglia a view of nature which, like sexuality, is at times romanticised but is brutal and cruel. Nature Girls evolved from a series of works devoted to the tyranny and contradictions manifest in children. All of these girls are egotistical, attention-seeking and aggressive as well as possessing the opposite qualities.

All that remains of the sculptures are the feet, stumps above the little red shoes.

Whether you love these and other local sculptures or hate them is not the point here. They are part of our local heritage and, like the rest of our heritage, should be preserved from theft and vandalism. The point is that something that belonged to the community as a whole has been stolen for the self-centred personal gain of those who took them. I can't find better words to express my own frustration that those of local resident Gary Williams who said today that "The idea that such a wonderful public work of art can simply be taken for private gain is beyond terrible".

Hopefully I'll get the chance to go up to Surrey Water in the next couple of days and get a photograph of the sad remains.

As Gary Williams also said, it would be a truly terrible shame if the defacement and theft of public art works in our area were to overshadow or even prevent plans for future works, like the Brunel statue that has been planned.

Serious mugging with violence, and gang-related issues

There is no nice way to report on this. A friend's daughter was the victim of a serious mugging on Tuesday in the Russia Dock Woodland on her way home from work, in the afternoon. I regret to say that I was in the park a bit earlier that day and I saw a whole group of kids on bicycles, one of whom yelled "cover your faces". Not being in anyway experienced with this sort of thing I assumed that they were just being melodramatic. They must have been in the 13/16 year age range. Maybe they were involved, maybe they weren't. I'll take photographs next time.

Here is what my friend had to say (keeping his name private for the sake of his daughter's privacy). I've copied his email in full because there is no way of improving on it and it needs to be said:

[Re graffiti on Stave Hill]. It beggars belief that it has taken nearly three weeks for the environmental dept to work this out. This is not rocket science. There is some graffiti at the top of stave hill which is inaccessible to the first teams equipment. If that is the case then there should be a simple procedure where the first team then automatically contact the second 'specialist team' to inform them of what type of graffiti is on the sculpture and they should act accordingly. very, very, straight forward and simple. This is the type of thing that gets Southwark Council a bad name. Can you please explain to me how it has taken all this time to come to this simple conclusion. As I have stated before, this is like the broken window effect. If you leave it too long then you will get more broken windows, the same is with graffiti. The next thing we will be talking about is can we build a wall near, or in, the woodlands, so graffiti artists can show their work. this is not a joke, it has been mentioned before at various meetings.

For your information. There was a serious assault on my 16 year old daughter in Russia Dock Woodland on Tuesday afternoon of this week. She was returning from her new place of work at 16.10 pm when she was mugged, and punched in the face, by a gang of four youths calling themselves the 'Peckham Young Guns'. She is ok but shocked. This gang went on to mug another youth 10 minutes later. The police robbery victim response team were on the spot immediately. They were efficient, professional, and meant business, and have arrested one of the four cowards who was attempting to steal bicycles from outside Surrey Quays Shopping Centre. I was told by the officers that this so called 'robbery victim support team' are going to be re-instated to another department after the 6th of october this year. From what I can make out they are not happy about this and will lose their quick response effectiveness which i have now seen first hand.

The point I am trying to make here is that there is a definite link between the graffiti, and the attack. You may not be able to see it but I can. This is territorial, and graffiti is all part of the game. They told my daughter to tell the 'downtown boys' that 'their time is over we are taking over'...This is what the graffiti statement on stave hill is saying O.TERRITORY is a tag for our territory!!!...

I have been in touch with Malcolm Tillyer chief of Southwark Police to express my grave concerns regarding the re- deployment of something that I have seen working effectively at first hand.

I have got to go. I have to escort my daughter home from work very shortly. what a country we live in...

Horrific. Absolutely horrific.