Southwark Cyclists

Minutes of November 2004 Meeting

10-11-04 19:00

Attendees:

Barry Mason, Andy Braben, Julian Thorne (Met Police - Southwark), Colin

Waters (Tower Hamlets Wheelers), Adam Maddison, Roger Stocker, Gary Jones,

Hugh Bolton, Ten, Kit Reynolds, Rebecca Lack, Sue Richards, Paul Waters,

Eleanor Purser, Andrew Rodgers.

Apologies - Jacqueline Saunders.

Introductions were made and the minutes of the AGM and October meeting were

approved.

Presentation by the City of London Police on Bicycle Security

Two members of the City of London Police, PC Mark Surgett from Snow Hill

Police Station and Ron Parker from the Crime & Disorder Reduction

Partnership, made a presentation to Southwark Cyclists regarding the issue

of bicycle security. Foremost in this presentation was the need for an

effective and comprehensive means of bicycle registration and crime

reporting. As such the City of London Police has set up a registration

system that would be maintained by them for use by their officers. Copies of

the registration form were distributed.

At present the registration scheme is for use by cyclists who use The City

of London but there are plans, should it be successful, to roll it out to

the rest of London and potentially the whole of the UK.

The form used for registration has been designed by the force to capture

exactly the information required for crime reports. Furthermore the

information will be entered onto a database that could be interrogated live

by officers on the beat. This is particularly helpful in improving response

and investigation times in the event that officers identify a rider who may

be on a stolen bike.

The officers also gave advice regarding good practice for cycle parking and

locking, alarms and some of the methods used in tackling cycle crime.

Questions were answered on a range of matters including attended parking

(hopefully to be added to London cycle maps), the Brick Lane situation and

locks. Notably they advised against the use of barrel key locks (common to

D-Locks but also on cable type as well) as a number of cheap methods are

available to break these including biros and master keys available via the

internet from Europe.

Andy Braben has agreed to take the registration form and convert it into a

.PDF file for downloading.

Turner Prize Feedback

Andrew Rodgers and Adam Maddison gave feedback on Saturday 06th November at

the Turner Prize for artist Jeremy Deller. As a group we were able to speak

to a large number of interested people about cycling in the city and

distributed a lot of maps to the public. We had little negative response and

it was certainly time well spent. We will have two further dates at the

exhibition: 28-11-04 & 05-12-04. Volunteers will be welcome and should

contact Barry Mason.

The Planning Group

Eleanor Purser gave a report on the first meeting of the planning group and

reiterated the main points as outlined in the minutes of that meeting. The

planning group has determined its aim to try to improve and preserve cycling

facilities in Southwark where planning and development is taking place.

Through this we have derived seven areas of intervention that the group

intends to work on as resources allow. The group will be meeting on the

fourth Wednesday of every month at Blackfriars Settlement, Pocock Street and

the next meeting will take place on 24-11-04. This is a public meeting and

all are welcome to attend and get involved.

As an addendum we discussed the CRISP reports for LCN routes 22 and 23 ahead

of their respective CRIM meetings: 18-11-04 and 25-11-04. Due to the lack of

time between receiving the reports and the CRIMs taking place we are unable

to arrange an in depth response and comprehensive response to the CRISP

reports. Those wishing to comment on any section can either attend the

meetings or send responses to Barry Mason. If you do send responses to Barry

please be mindful that he will not be able to present vast quantities of

material to the meeting and he will concentrate on the major points.

Taking this as a learning experience Southwark Cyclists will take measures

to pre-empt and better prepare for future CRISPs in order that we can make

the recommendations and requests that we would like to see. The next CRISPS

will be taking place in January.

Kit Reynolds will be putting the CRISP reports onto the Southwark Cyclists

website in sections for people to download.

Financial Report

Hugh Bolton reported that little had taken place on the accounts since last

month and we still have in excess of £3000 in unrestricted funds.

Newsletter

Call for submissions. Please could you have any submissions for the

Newsletter to Sue Richards by Tuesday 16-11-04 so that the newsletter can be

created in time to be included with the London Cyclist magazine mailing from

LCC.

Any Other Business

Rebecca Lack reported on developments on the Waterloo Roundabout and advised

that TfL are going to be doing a cycle safety audit, a measure that

hopefully will become standard for any major developments or changes. Also

TfL are looking for cyclists to report on their top five cycling safety

issues with regards to buses and will be emailing this request to the

e-group.

Barry Mason advised that TimeBank will be arranging for residents of the

Aylesbury Estate to have a basic bicycle maintenance class and that LCC

members are welcome to attend. The class will be taking place on 04-12-04,

please contact Barry for details.

Andrew Rodgers raised the issue of Bike Week. LCC have already begun

planning for this and we should follow their lead at the next meeting.

Please come up with ideas of what you would like to see happen/do at Bike

Week, which will take place 11th - 19th June 2005, and bring them to the

next meeting.

Kit Reynolds advised that the join us section of the website is now up and

running and he is working one resolving problems with starting a donations

feature.