News Articles Archive - Page 68 of 152 - Cross River Partnership

I have been working as a Project Officer at CRP since March 2020, supporting the team to deliver the Clean Air Villages 3 programme and leading solutions in Northbank BID area.

The CRP team is very supportive and friendly. Even though we have been working remotely for the last ten months, everyone is always finding a way to stay together, promoting tea time and wellbeing sessions to support each other to keep a positive attitude during this time.

Are you an operator running vessels on the Tidal Thames within Greater London? A second round of funding is available to help retrofit vessels operating on the inland Thames, in order to reduce emissions and improve air quality. CRP will be accepting applications until 12th February 2021.

Clean Air Thames is a three year project funded by the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund and is being delivered by CRP in partnership with the Greater London Authority (GLA), the Port of London Authority and the City of London Corporation. The project aims to assist commercial freight and passenger boat operators to reduce their hazardous emissions by up to 90% by providing funding to support retrofitting their vessels with post-exhaust treatments.

Please see here for more information on the project, and to apply please see here. For further information, please contact CRP Project Manager Sefinat Otaru.

On 11th February at 10am, the GLA are hosting the London BIDs Summit 2021. This will be an opportunity for BIDs to hear and engage with the Mayor’s recovery missions for London and identify ways for BIDs to contribute to an equitable recovery for London.

The Recovery Mission aims to restore confidence in the city, minimise the impact on London’s most vulnerable community and rebuild the city’s economy and society. This includes High Streets, Strong Communities, Digital Access for all and A Green New Deal. The missions based approach was inspired by UCL’s Professor Mariana Mazzucato. This will bring together the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Two active travel webinars are being delivered by the Clean Air Villages 3 project, targeting the Angel BID and South Bank BID areas. CRP is delighted to be partnering with Groundwork for their
delivery.

The first webinar, Wednesday 24th February, 2pm – 3pm, is about air pollution and how to incorporate active travel into your daily life.
The second webinar, Monday 1st March, 2pm – 3pm, covers cycling, including safety, maintenance, costs and inclusivity.

Two more similar webinars will follow, which will be aimed at a wider audience. Watch this space!

For further information, please contact CRP Project Manager Kate Fenton.

As part of Lewisham’s selected site for Clean Air Villages 3, CRP, London Borough of Lewisham and ecofleet have been working with businesses and community groups in Deptford to offer organisations the chance to trial electrically assisted cargo bikes for their deliveries and pickups within 5 miles.

Since November 2020, we have supported a local pharmacy to deliver to vulnerable, shielding or isolating residents around Deptford and New Cross on a weekly basis. In December 2020, a Lewisham foodbank began to use the scheme to deliver to their local hubs in New Cross, Deptford and Honor Oak, as well as residential addresses in the week leading up to Christmas.

The cargo bike has been an immense resource for organisations delivering community or charitable functions. For more information, please contact CRP Project Officer Ross Phillips.

This week, we are showcasing the work of CRP BID partner Team London Bridge and their new five year plan for the area.

Team London Bridge launched their five-year business plan for 2021-26 last week. The organisation has been managing the Business Improvement District (BID) for the London Bridge area since 2006 and will be asking their BID members to vote between 25 January and 25 February as to whether they will continue funding the additional services outlined, in the ‘Our London Bridge’ proposal. The signs are positive, even in this extraordinary time, as Team London Bridge has strong local support and a track record of delivering projects that make a tangible different to the business community.

The vision for the area over the coming five years is to make London Bridge one of the most sustainable, culturally innovative and compelling places for business and tourism in the world. No small task, but to achieve this Team London Bridge is giving the community six commitments:

Provide added resilience to future social and economic shocks
Make London Bridge part of a Carbon Zero Southwark by 2030
Make London Bridge a ‘front stage’ for London culture
Make London Bridge the most enjoyable, safe, and convenient place to work in London
Make a green and healthy street environment that puts walking and cycling first, providing an exemplar for London
Make London Bridge the premier location for responsible businesses and ethically conscious employees

Of course, we still have a long way to go to emerge from the chaos caused by the pandemic, but many are seeing BIDs as a key mechanism for local areas to respond and build robust plans to adjust to the continually changing economic environment. With the help of members and partners, Team London Bridge is confident that their sustainable, socially responsible project delivery will galvanise the area over coming months and provide a catalyst for businesses to return to central London with enthusiasm and confidence.

Along with all our partner organisations, the CRP team is starting off 2021 virtually, with the aim of getting back to our wonderful Westminster City Council offices as soon as it is safer for everyone. A huge thank you for Councillor Rachael Robathan’s amazing Leadership and support to all Westminster’s staff, businesses, residents and services at this time.

CRP has big plans for 2021 and has already begun work on its 2021-22 Business Plan, more information in due course. We hope you like CRP’s brand new look and feel E-Newsletter style for 2021 – thank you very much to CRP’s Rachael Aldridge for the design work!

CRP’s Clean Air Villages 3 project continues to deliver at pace, including supporting various local community organisations with emergency food deliveries via cargo bikes to vulnerable people.

CRP has planned out a series of virtual monthly Lunchtime Launches to share its latest knowledge, resources, reports and best practice as widely as possible. The first of these is at 13.15-14.00 on Thursday 28th January, on the hot topic of Freight and the potential provision of new distribution hubs in central London. Please see here to register.

CRP is eagerly awaiting the outcome of its most recent collaborative funding bid to Defra – please keep your finger’s crossed for us! We are also in active discussions with extra potential CRP partners, as well as delivering a bespoke consultancy-style contract.

The CRP team is continuing to put its best foot forward on behalf of all of our partners and funders, including accessing, analysing and presenting new data sources; using additional desktop publishing packages; on-line media interview training; new Walk and Talk sessions, to name but a few.

Looking to the future, CRP has commissioned Centre for London to work with the CRP Board partners and Transport for London’s CLSRTP group to explore radical new Town Centre Futures across London.

We don’t under-estimate the scale of the challenges still ahead for us, but building on the resilience that all of us in London and further afield have shown already, we are supremely positive about ever-increasing collaborations to deliver fulfilling futures for as many people as possible.

If you would like to find out anything further to do with CRP, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Director Susannah Wilks.

CRP is very excited to announce a new series of monthly Lunchtime Launch events! These will be interactive, online discussions showcasing the innovative projects that CRP is delivering to drive positive change for London’s residents, businesses and visitors.

Our first Lunchtime Launch is Developing the Future of Freight Logistics in London, which will be taking place on Thursday 28th January, 1:15pm – 2pm.

Sign up here.

For this event, CRP will be launching its new research report, The Potential for Urban Logistics Hubs in Central London, which was commissioned on behalf of the Central London Sub Regional Transport Partnership (CLSRTP), funded by Transport for London. This report identifies the market demand and locations for sustainable last mile freight delivery hubs, in collaboration with Local Authorities, landowners, Business Improvement Districts and freight operators.

We’ll be joined by expert speakers:

Barry Smith – Head of Policy and Strategy (West End Partnership) at Westminster City Council, who will be discussing the importance of this study for future logistics in Central London, and specifically the initiatives currently taking place in the City of Westminster.
Julie Bowerman – Director at Steer, who will be presenting on the findings of the Potential for Urban Logistics Hubs in Central London study.
Laura Jacklin – Senior Project Officer at Cross River Partnership, who will be speaking about how urban logistics hubs have an important role to play in promoting clean and efficient freight activity across the capital.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

CRP’s Staff Spotlight On: Anusha Rajamani

I am a Project Officer at CRP, where the majority of my work is dedicated to the Clean Air Villages 3 project. I help support the delivery of CAV3 across five diverse villages: Westminster, Camden, Haringey, Islington and Angel BID.

Though I have been working remotely since joining and haven’t met any of the team face-to-face, I was welcomed with open arms by everyone and have been enjoying our regular well-being events such as CRP’s Step Challenge and other fun team activities!

As is traditional for the last CRP Newsletter of the year, we would like to wish all of CRP’s partner organisations, Board, funders, buddies and support agencies a very Merry Christmas!

As with everything this year, Christmas will also be different.

We hope that all of you will have a chance to pause and reflect on everything that we have achieved together.

We have all helped out, and that has made us happy. From cargo bike deliveries of food bank parcels and emergency medical supplies, to transforming our streets and our transport choices, to digitising our advice services including via fortnightly LiveShare webinars, to publishing guidance toolkits, to supporting our colleagues via health and wellbeing activities (CRP team walking challenge, group yoga and cocktail-making).

Thank you to all of CRP’s partners and funders – we really appreciate the flexibility you have allowed us in rising to the challenges of 2020.

When you get to your Christmas break, celebrate safely!

And we look forward to working on exciting projects with you all early in 2021!

Susannah Wilks, CRP Director.

Archives: News Articles

CRP’s Staff Spotlight On: Carina Mesquita

Clean Air Thames: Round 2 Vessel Retrofit Funding Available

London BIDs Summit 2021 and GLA Recovery Mission

Best Foot Forward!

Clean Air Deliveries for Deptford’s Charities

CRP’s Spotlight On: Team London Bridge

CRP’s Positive Outlook for 2021

New Lunchtime Launch Events for 2021!

CRP’s Staff Spotlight On: Anusha

Merry Christmas!