Happy New Year

A Happy New Year to you all.

I hope you are all taking care during this cold snap. All our residents can access a range of help from warm spaces to a winter warmth home service.

Find out more here:
Tips for reducing your cost of living – Wandsworth Borough Council
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/cost-of-living-hub/tips-for-reducing-your-cost-of-living/

You can also find out more about gritting and free tree disposal here:

If your road needs gritting, you can request a visit or find out more here: Road gritting – how we prepare for winter – Wandsworth Borough Council

Wandsworth offers a free recycling service for real / living Christmas trees Free real Christmas tree recycling returns – Wandsworth Borough Council

Food Sharing:
Kambala RA will continue to do food sharing in partnership with Waste Not Want Not Battersea every Tuesday Night inside the Kambala Clubroom. If you have not joined the Kambala Food Sharing WhatsApp Group:

Health & Well-being:
Selami Simsek from Kambala RA is organising a free low impact fitness class for beginner every Wednesday morning at 10AM outside York Gardens Library.

Free Gym and Swimming at the LAtchmere Leisure Centre with Access for all

If you are receiving certain benefits, you may be able to sign up for Access for all, which will allow you to get free off peak access to lachmere gym and swimming pool as well as other reductions.

More info about Access for All here:
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/access-for-all/

Celebration of the Falcon Road Bridge renewal

A huge congratulations to everyone involved in the launch of the renewed Falcon Road Bridge — a truly inspiring milestone and a fantastic achievement for Wandsworth.

Well done to the entire team behind the project, from the designers and artists to the community contributors and local young people. Their collaboration, creativity, and care have transformed the bridge into a space the whole community can be proud of.

Having attended the bridge design community workshops, it has been especially meaningful to see the journey from those early ideas through to this wonderful finished transformation. It was also lovely to see so many familiar faces from the community and Kambala residents coming together to celebrate the renewal of the bridge with us. For those who weren’t able to attend, I’m happy to share the video I captured so you can experience this special moment too.

Kambala Christmas Workshops and Party

Join us this festive season for two fun, all-ages Christmas decoration workshops on 28th November and 12th December, where you can get creative, make beautiful crafts, and help decorate the Kambala Clubroom for our big celebration. Then don’t miss our Christmas Grotto & Karaoke Party on Sunday 14th December, featuring Santa’s grotto, refreshments, face painting, arts & crafts, karaoke, and a festive photowall—perfect for families and neighbours to enjoy together!

Brighter Living Fair

Join us at Battersea Arts Centre on 13 November 2025 for the Brighter Living Fair – a free, all-day event for Wandsworth’s older residents and unpaid carers.

To book:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wandsworth-council-brighter-living-fair-2025-tickets-1715132279819?aff=ebdssbdestsearch&keep_tld=1

🗣 KERA at the Clapham Junction Community Meeting 🏙

As a KERA representative, I attended the Clapham Junction Community Meeting on Wednesday, 29 October, at St. Peter’s Church, Battersea, hosted by Wandsworth Council.

The event brought residents together to discuss ideas and share feedback on shaping the future of Clapham Junction station and the surrounding areas. It was a great opportunity to ensure the voices of Kambala residents are heard in decisions that affect our wider community during the Q&A session that followed their presentation

We’re proud to be part of these important conversations — building connections and helping to shape a brighter, more inclusive future for Battersea! 💬💛

If you want to read a more detailed report of the event: https://www.cjag.org/2025/11/02/clapham-junction-masterplan-secret-panel-ignored-expertise-and-recycled-ideas/

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