Wandsworth Resident Conference 15th October 2025

On 15th October 2025, Kambala RA attended the Wandsworth Residents Conference at the Civic Suite, organised by Wandsworth Council. We caught up and networked with Senia Dedic (Falcon Estate RA) and Hadas Hagos (Doddington & Rollo RA, Community Housing Champion).

Highlights:
The event was well organised, with a wide range of local service stalls. We particularly enjoyed the community garden workshop, which inspired us to create a Wandsworth Community Gardens WhatsApp group (QR code to follow). The Kambala Committee is also keen to develop garden projects, especially as one of our members has a degree in agriculture.
We also attended a workshop on developing estate clubrooms and discussed reopening the Kambala Clubroom with Tom Crawley (Head of Residents & Estate Services). We hope to see this valuable community space back in use soon.
Residents were treated to lunch from Octagreen, plus a Wandsworth T-shirt and £10 Sainsbury’s voucher.

Concerns:
Some residents felt the council’s tone was overly self-congratulatory, especially given ongoing repair delays and poor follow-up experienced by many residents we talked to. From Kambala’s side, we are still waiting for updates from our April 2025 estate walkabout with the Waste Management Team regarding trial recycling bins. Despite repeated invitations to meetings, there has been no response — this lack of follow-up is unacceptable.

In conclusion:
The conference was well organised, positive overall and a great opportunity to connect, but the council must ensure real action follows these events.

For Kambala we would like the Waste management team to attend our meeting and at least have the decency to reply to our emails.

🌟 KERA Members Featured in “Our Story” Exhibition! 🌟

We’re so proud to share that three of our KERA members — Sandra, Lisa, and Selami — were featured in the Our Story exhibition, organised by the Winstanley Neighbourhood Regeneration Team.

The exhibition showcases striking portraits of 40 incredible community champions, celebrating local pride, culture and connection – the everyday heroes who make Battersea shine and was unveiled at the Battersea Community Festival last September!

You can now see these powerful images on display at York Gardens, SW11, until 12 December 2025.

Exhibition credits: Charlotte Hayley, Sandra Munoz-Alvarez, Lucy Smith

Eastern Area Housing panel (15th October) report

Good news! The bike enclosure for Kambala was approved in today’s council meeting.

However, I was very surprised by the “data” shared by the council last night. Lots of “things have improved”, but they did not allocate real time to follow up on the items from the last minute.
It felt extremely bureaucratic, rather than a working session.

It feels like a very inefficient way of working, especially when we spent 2 hours going over the report they had sent over.

When I highlighted that the issues at Kambala regarding cleaning have not been solved, I was dismissed with a “we’ll talk about it later”, so I’m planning to send another email regarding those issues once I’ve collected all the list items. If we don’t have that resolved by this quarter, I’ll initiate the formal complaint process.

If residents have more petitions or complaints that they would like Ben or I to raise in the next meeting on Dec 17, please let us know. I’ll also prepare a survey to be sent to residents in the next few weeks

The new Bike enclosure will be similar to the one installed in Coppock Close, but slightly bigger

Victoria Urruela

Hilary’s report on The Community Crime-Fighting event

I went to The Community Crime-Fighting talks by the local police held in Arding and Hobbs, on the third floor on the 14th of October.

The organisers laid on loads of free food and drink, and had lots of information points and hand-outs. A bit later on, they gave talks by many individual police men and women.

The public was able to ask many questions, and it was a lovely, friendly atmosphere. If any of you went, don’t forget to fill in your feedback forms for the police, and tell us your thoughts about it.

Hilary Fennelly

Falcon Road Tunnel update (12/10/2025)

The work started on Monday 21 July 2025 with support from partners including Network Rail and Shopstop and should be finished in December 2025.

Please note that sometime the bus stop where 170, 344, 315, 345, C3, 295 and 49 could be closed depending on which side of the street the work is taking place.

Transforming Battersea’s Falcon Road Bridge with winning design

Kambala RA took part in the workshops to design the Bridge at St-Peter Church Battersea and Providence House

The works include:

  • New artwork cladding along the length of both walls underneath the bridge
  • Enhanced lighting
  • Pigeon-proofing
  • New paint to the bridge structures
  • Landscaping to the south side of the bridge

Access during works

To safely carry out the works we have to install temporary traffic signals under the bridge to allow work to take place on one side at a time. One pedestrian footway will remain open throughout the works, with pedestrian crossings provided at either end.

Buses

Working closely with Transport for London, we have managed to minimise the impact on bus services during the works, however some services will be impacted at times. TfL will advertise all service information at the bus stops affected and details can be found on the TfL website.

Roadworks

To ensure better traffic flows through the area, Wandsworth Council and TfL will not permit any non-emergency roadworks on the diversion routes.

KERA AGM is on the 4th of November

It is that time again and all residents are invited to join our AGM on the 4th of November at 7PM
It should last around 1h30 and there will be refreshments after.

You are also welcome to stay at our food sharing, that our volunteers from the RA deliver every Tuesday evening. Food usually arrives between 9 and 9.30 pm.

Resident conference 2025

The Wandsworth Council Annual Residents’ Conference will take place on Wednesday 15 October 2025 at the Wandsworth Civic Suite. Every Wandsworth resident is invited


The event is now sold out (Updated 06/10/25)

Screenshot

What is the Residents’ Conference?

The conference is a chance for Council tenants, leaseholders and other residents of our estates to find out about our plans for the next year, have your say on policies and proposals, explore different engagement options and share your experiences.

This year there will be talks on the following topics including the opportunity for residents to ask questions:

  • Tackling anti-social behaviour, with the Metropolitan Police
  • The outcome and response to the recent Regulator of Social Housing’s judgement
  • How we support our residents’ associations

We will also hold workshops on:

  • Community gardens
  • Community clubrooms
  • Access for All scheme
  • Housing Online

Voluntary and community groups will also have stalls to discuss their work and give advice

How to attend

This is a free event but you do require a ticket to confirm attendance.

Kambala Flamenco Group Shines at the Battersea Community Festival! 💃🎶

I didn’t share this earlier because we didn’t want to spoil the surprise—but our Kambala Flamenco Group had an incredible time performing at the Battersea Community Festival!

Battersea Community Festival 2025 Video: Question: How many member of Kambala Resident Association can you spot in this video ? (Answer is at the bottom of this post)

This year, with funding from the Royal Academy of Dance, our group had the wonderful opportunity to learn Tangos Flamencos—one of the many beautiful styles of Flamenco dance. Fifteen residents took part in the classes and later performed in front of hundreds of people from our community at the festival but our journey didn’t stop there!

In the summer, Kambala partnered with Cromwell House Hub and I taught our routine to their group as well. It is so nice to collaborate with other hubs and share my culture with them.

We were also part of a full Flamenco production created by our teacher, performed our Tango de Triana choreography for an audience of 300 people at the Brady Art Centre in Whitechapel, and showcased our routine at Casa Manolo, an authentic Spanish restaurant in Clapham Junction—where we also got to enjoy delicious Spanish food! 🇪🇸

Flamenco Fantasy: Tango de Triana (Sold-out Show)

At the festival, we were thrilled by how many people showed interest in joining our classes.

We are now applying for another round of funding through the Wandsworth Grant. If successful, our teacher Lola will continue to guide us—this time teaching us Bulerías, a lively street-style Flamenco dance, while helping us perfect different palmas (clapping) techniques and improve our rhythm and count.

The feedback from our learners has been overwhelmingly positive—many said they felt like they had become part of a new family and that is was a fun way to exercise, get fit and feel that they belong in our community. ❤️

We can’t wait to keep dancing, learning, and celebrating our shared love for Flamenco together at a Spanish Cultural evening in Kambala!

The answer to the quizz above is 4: Sandra, Lisa, Selami and Hilary.

Money Advice Roadshow on 2nd october

Great event that may be useful for our residents. I filmed two of those events in different parts of the borough, and they received great feedback. They have a cohort of council officers, charities and advisers who are ready to listen and help by telling all about the services and help that Wandsworth residents can access.

Te video below was the first Money advice Road show in Roehampton from last year. I thought it was very good event with a range of advisers ready to action and help people with a varied range of services..

Money Advice Roadshow Roehampton