Month: May 2015

With over 30 million+ yearly passers by, workers and residents in Vauxhall the Street Food Garden has become a much needed addition to eating and socialising in the local community.

With it’s unique offering, the street food garden is the first of it’s kind in the area and offers up the finest multi cultural street food cuisines and street food vendors from across the capital, all hosted in a brand new self contained area tucked just behind Fire and Lightbox nightclub, a stone’s throw from Vauxhall’s epicentre and situated just 1 min walk from it’s well served train station, bus depot and transport links.

The Street Food Garden space has been designed especially for the new market and sits away from outside traffic in a self contained area and features Wi-Fi, decking, covered eating areas, dedicated inside and outside bars, comfortable seating areas and greenery, an oasis in the heart of the capital.

The daily market serves up the freshest and tastiest street food to Vauxhall’s hungry punters, showcasing over 8 daily street food stalls. From wood fired pizza, bespoke crepes, spicy Indian and Indonesian food, healthy and tasty Vegan food, exotic meats and burgers, jerk chicken, French food and salads all alongside refreshing smoothies, craft beers and fully equipped bars to quench any thirst. An in-depth range of food and drink choice, even the streets Soho would be envious of.

Vauxhall Street Food Garden is exceptional in that it is the only weekday food market to serve fresh food with it’s own dedicated bars five days a week.

The venue also offers a multi-functional free hire events space for all sorts of varied entertainment, creative classes, workshops and after work social activities, swing by for a happy hour cocktail from 5pm-7pm and get involved…. anything goes!

The full consultation report is available to download here.

You can read the statement by George Foster, Chair of Vauxhall One, below.

TfL consulted stakeholders including the London boroughs of Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark and the City of Westminster. They also consulted the MET traffic police, London TravelWatch, Members of Parliament, Assembly Members and local interest, transport and business groups including developers and landowners.

The questions were structured to provide TfL with an understanding of the level of support for proposals, to help identify any specific local issues and to understand how respondents used the gyratory. This consultation covered only the general principles of the scheme and as a result didn’t include detailed plans or journey time impacts.

The responses have been positive with broad support demonstrated. For example:

• 77 per cent of respondents indicated that they either support or strongly support the overall aim of creating a thriving centre in Vauxhall
• 65 per cent supported the conversion of the gyratory to two-way
• 63 per cent supported TfL’s proposals around the bus station

The next stage of consultation on the more detailed aspects of the design will be carried out later this year.

George Foster, Chair of Vauxhall One, said:

‘Our conversations with businesses often focus on the Vauxhall gyratory system, and its lamentable effect on the character of the area and the physical health of their employees. We applaud the efforts of Lambeth Council and Transport for London to remove the gyratory and replace it with something that creates a far better environment for pedestrians and cyclists, inviting people in rather than pushing them out.

We believe that there is now an opportunity to deliver a proper town centre for Vauxhall – a place that offers new retail, leisure and amenities for the whole community, together with new office accommodation for our member businesses as they grow. ‘We are pleased to see the first consultation on the principles of the scheme has indicated broad support.

However we urge Lambeth Council and Transport for London to give serious consideration to more far-reaching options for the scheme, including that generated by local residents. This seeks to remove traffic from the South Lambeth Road section of the gyratory and to ‘green’ it as part of the green trail that includes our own ‘Missing Link’ public realm improvements.

We look forward to working with Lambeth and Transport for London in this next phase of consultation to ensure the best outcome. Specifically we intend to survey our member businesses and their employees to ascertain in detail what they want from the new scheme.’

We are pleased to add textile collections to the list of services available, with immediate effect. Two sacks per business per year will be collected, completely free, with compliments of Vauxhall One. If more textile sacks are required, First Mile may charge a small fee. Currently in the UK, over 350,000 tonnes of clothing a year are sent to landfill. All of this could have been re-used, recycled, or sent for energy recovery.

Let’s make Vauxhall an even greener place!

What textiles can be recycled?

Clean clothes, bedding, curtains, mats, rugs and towels.

What happens to the textiles?

First Mile delivers the sacks to Traid for sale in their charity shops. All profits from resale or recycling go directly to Traid which will fund their international projects which targets issues such as exploitation and inequality in the global textile supply chain. What re-use/recycling is already on offer?

Currently available to Vauxhall One members (unless Landlords have their own arrangements in place) free of charge, glass, all plastic, cardboard, cans and paper is currently collected, on a daily basis (Monday to Friday), free of charge. WEEE, batteries, fluorescent tubes, residual waste and food can also be collected by our contractors, First Mile.

How do I arrange this?

Facilities Managers should speak firstly to First Mile’s Customer Services on 0800 612 9894.

Office furniture

Vauxhall One gets regular requests for office furniture to be collected. The best organisation we have found to do this in London re-use by London Re-Use, who will collect items from businesses and then sell them for charity at their centre in Acton. London Re-Use charge businesses for this service to cover the costs of collection and storage.

Arrange your collection with London Re-Use.

Through Vauxhall One, Spiral Group offer a free and comprehensive review of overhead expenditure and suppliers, without obligation or reducing quality.

They aim to cut the costs of products and services, improve the quality and consistency of your suppliers, reducing the time your staff spend on managing your supplier base and identify outsourcing opportunities where appropriate.

How does it work?

Spirals’ approach has been designed to take up a minimal amount of staff time. From initial discussions they will gain a greater understanding of your business and its structure; how suppliers and their services are currently managed and your plans for the future. Spiral will then remotely analyse your supplier data (by copying invoices, analysing activity reports and reviewing contracts).

A report will be prepared for you to summarise their findings, benchmark current prices and service quality, outline potential savings where appropriate and recommend a way forward; be that undertaking a full tender exercise, taking advantage of some immediate cost savings or revising some operational processes – all for the benefit of your business.

Why not speak to Spiral to find out more?

They would be pleased to meet with you on a no obligation basis to explain more fully exactly how this service works, and then you can decide whether to proceed or not. Please contact

Mike Crawshaw
T 0845 330 8384
M 07450 574 299
m.crawshaw@spiral-group.co.uk

quoting ‘Vauxhall One’

RedR is an international disaster relief charity which has launched an emergency appeal in response to the devastation. With the funds raised, RedR will provide vital technical training and mentoring to Nepalese aid workers and community members, ensuring local people have the appropriate skills to help their country recover from this catastrophe – be that in learning how to repair water systems, managing people or shelter expertise.

By imparting vital skills RedR’s response will not only help Nepal recover from this devastating disaster, but will also build the country’s capacity to mitigate against and respond to disasters for the long-term future.

To support the appeal, please visit www.redr.org.uk/nepal or call 020 7840 6014 to make a donation over the phone.

RedR is also looking for potential office space and connections in the Nepal region.

If you or your company are able to help, please contact Alice Hardy on alice.hardy@redr.org.uk or on 020 7840 6014.

Vauxhall Together is Vauxhall One’s social responsibility theme group which supports local communities by providing volunteering and engagement opportunities for Vauxhall One members and their staff. When businesses know more about the local people and charities on their doorstep they are more likely to support them, creating a healthy, sustainable community. Vauxhall Together is about building mutually beneficial, long-term partnerships.

We have key opportunities in mentoring and supporting young people this May, June and July.

Wednesday 20 May from 11.00 to 14.00

Vauxhall One’s booth at Lambeth College Annual Careers Fair will give advice to students on jobs and the skills that they can gain to help them break into their chosen fields. Volunteers are needed to provide 15-minute mock interviews and feedback on how students can improve their techniques, ask the right questions and convey their skills effectively in an interview session

Contact Secorro Green Secorro.Green@vauxhallone.co.uk

Wednesday 17 June at 17.30

Lilian Baylis Technology School will host an information session for their mentoring scheme. The Adopt a Student programme stands out from most other mentoring projects because it works to build a one-to-one relationship between mentor and mentee, and helps you to provide a life-changing experience for a local student. The information session will end with a meet and greet so that you can talk to students and mentors about their experiences.

To learn more, or to RSVP, please contact Ruth Deniran at ruth.deniran@lilianbaylis.com

Monday 13 July from 9.30 to 14.30

Lastly, we have another opportunity to provide careers advice to local students with Archbishop Tenison’s School on Monday 13 July from 9.30 to 14.30. The Year 10 Careers Day aims to raise awareness around various career options and prep students for college/university interviews. Generally volunteers interview students 1:1 and this gets excellent feedback from students. Professionals are also welcome to give presentations on an aspect of careers and this is equally welcome.

If you would like to participate please contact Edward Elstub, Deputy Headteacher, at elstub.e@ats.lambeth.sch.uk

The proposals are to reconstruct the northern staircase to provide greater height clearance on entrance to the pedestrian tunnel.

The reconstructed staircase will be similar to the existing staircase but will extend approximately 3m further north on Albert Embankment to provide greater height clearance

A drawing above shows the proposed structure and the attached photo shows the future alignment of the cycle route and the existing height clearance issues.

Timings:

• The reconstructed staircase is due to be installed overnight on 24 May.
• Following surveys and testing it is estimated the footbridge will open on 28 May.

As well as giving a general history of the area it includes interviews with Amy Lame, the Vauxhall One Street wardens, Graham House, Vauxhall City Farm, the Big Issue and Vauxhall One’s Executive Director: Giles Semper, plus much more.

Copies are £9.99 and available from: anselm.nlp@btconnect.com (0207 735 3403)