Sorry I have not had time to update this website before now but that is because we have been very very busy.

Our Bid
Our bid , made last year, for One Norbiton to become Commissioned to do some of the tasks of the Resident Participation Team, was, after a three month wait, turned down by RBK. Although our offer was the most economic and did involve giving important work to our chronically disabled members, RBK saw fit to award the Contract to a company called Pinnacle owned by a Chinese Billionaire. We have just heard that Pinnacle has since been taken over by another (? larger) commercial concern. Even though it is now July, we have yet to meet any of its staff.

Our Hub
Our full plans to create a Community Hub at the foot of Madingley tower were also turned down by RBK but we are going ahead with a very much more limited scheme simply to enlarge our meeting room and create a Disabled toilet. We are at present awaiting a peppercorn lease from RBK.

Regeneration of the Cambridge Estate
This topic continues to dominate our plans. We have been working closely with CREst and CRERA to get fair treatment for all our members. Very recently we completed a survey/petition on the Estate which suggested that over 95% of the residents are not happy with RBK’s plans and want our three community groups to work together and negotiate the best outcome possible for them. We hope the present administration will respect their wishes. Download this PETITION POWERPOINT
to see all the latest results.

The Homeless

For over a year now, every Thursday afternoon in Queen Mary’s Hall from 1.00 pm to 3.00pm and every Tuesday from 12.00 to 2.00pm in Piper Hall, CREst and One Norbiton have been jointly helping run a service for the local homeless. For six months, we allocated most of our free hours to the group when RBK began requesting £450 rent for Queen Mary’s Hall.
The group was originally set by Angel Levick and the MOT (Moving on Together) recovery group and has been financially supported £30 a week by Kingston Wellbeing via the WDP (Westminster Drug Project). Recently Sainsbury’s (Sury Basin branch) has started donating food which is shared between the two days.

We are providing all-comers convivial encouragement with meals, music, hair dressing, First Aid and helpful advice – particularly for those with addictive disease, and well over 160 people have attended so far (About 50 a week). Attendees have been helping research to update our i-bet-me App based on earning credit for helping themselves and others. We are measuring Quality of Life with our simple faces scale that we also used in our Survey on Regeneration.

In all together with a local support group on Thursdays Jill Preston (CREst) on Tuesdays have served over 1,178 meals. I will shortly be writing up a full report for publication.