milk76

I am happy for you Bobby, either you have been very fortunate or you have a high threshold for your definition of a parking problem. My friend Tina, on Melbourne, has to park on neighbouring streets often when she returns during daylight hours. She has on occasion had to park by my place which is a hell of a long walk with bags and a buggy. It is these daytime driving locals, often women with children, who suffer the most from weekday commuter parking strains. As a full time working man, who uses the train to comute, I am less often affected as I drive mostly on call at night or at weekends. For at home partners it is a very real problem. Also for the elderly and those with some physical limitations.

Well I am delighted that the new 2hr CPZ is coming in. Our streets near the station voted in favour at the last consultation. It was the streets more than 300M from the station that swung the vote heavily against a CPZ previously. There are 19 commuter cars right now on Abbotswood/Talbot! In addition six that I recognise on St Francis, admittedly there are probably more there but It is not my street so I can't be sure. I regularly ride the train back out of town with people who park here. Some drive in from miles away for the free parking near the station. Personally I would rather take two trains and pay the larger fare but each to his own I guess. I just feel sorry for Derwent Grove, Melbourne et al who were not offered the chance this time. Hopefully you guys will get the option soon. I guess this new portal will at least track interest in your streets.

Well, I voted in favour as It will remove the 25-39 commuters I sample every day now on Abbotswood and Talbot roads. Same cars every weekday morning arrive between 6.30 and 8.30 and use the station. Will transform the lives for the poor guys on St Francis too. Just a shame it will not yet help the poor sods on Melbourne and Derwent. Nice touch that the football fans that drive in will still be able to park in the evening and on a Saturday. If this kind of measure is the only way to force people to take a bus to the station rather than driving so be it.

That is never going to happen Siduhe. Southwark have had the money set aside for the Greendale renovation for over a year now and are rightly set on not losing that facility. It will be overhauled quite rapidly now. Meadow?s only chance would be to build, or keep, the statium and any housing on the land that they actually own. A previous developer submitted plans for sixty flats on the carpark out front. But of course sixty if far fewer and less profitable than five hundred so I suspect that they will just try to sell it on. They will have to take a haircut but a big health and fitness chain might be interested.

Excellent news. Perhaps the future of the site can now gravitate away from property developers and back towards a long term sporting facility as was always intended. I am not a fan of this Labour run Southwark administration or many of it's decisions over the last few years. On this issue though I have to admit that they have been consistent and strong. Congratulations to them.

It does mean that the astroturf will be rebuilt to a standard that means schools like the charter will be able to book it and use it again too now.

Never lose sight of one fact. It is in the original deeds (you can find them online), from when the land was sold off by King's College that, if the sports ground ceases to be a going concern then it defacto reverts to council ownership. The property developers over the years have deliberately run it down financially to try and leverage local support for their self interested view of the best layout. They will not shut it down however as the council would have every right to repossess it from them. This might be the best solution! Personally I would rather see them cut their losses, forget the housing and run the site long term for some profit. Get in a David Lloyd who will pay them a handsome rent and remove most of their overhead, let them extend the facilities out over the carpark if they want. Replace the grass with 4G and rent out the pitch 30-40 hours a week rather than just 3. Let the council refurb and run the astroturf so all the local teams and youth groups can use it again plus the new school if they want to rent it.

The astroturf is owned by Southwark. It is leased to the owners of the club on the basis that they maintain it and can rent it out to local groups. It used to be a great facility about fifteen years agoand was very widely used. Sadly the club have failed to maintain it to a safe standard. As a result for years now it has been deemed unsafe for schools and youth groups. It is a disgrace. The council have the funds allocated to take it back and renovate it so that it can be used, all week, by every group that wants to. The property developers trying to appropriate and buldose it seems to have halted the council's efforts for some reason. The new school being built and this ground is accessable from it without crossing a road. I would have thought that this would strengthen the case for bringing it back under public control.

Now having had some time to reflect on yesterday's totally unacceptable events i have come to a couple of conclusions. Number one. The stadium must be responsible for the events that are held on their grounds and secure them. They have not been over recent weeks and certainly were not on Sunday. I would bet you a pound to a penny that "Chris the boss" felt just as intimidated as I did going to try to reason with that mob. If in fact he ever did. Number two. The alcohol license for inside the stadium should not be extended outside it to third party events like this again. They have come within a hair of losing it before when they abused it, late nights with loud music and open windows, a few years ago. Outside with no effective security they were way out of bounds on this one. Three, the police have now been clear, call 101 if this happens again. It won't take officers from an emergency situation but they will respond.

They have now moved onto Sainsburys carpark. Surely the noise team need to involve the police

Everyone email the noise team too. They can't/won't log unanswered calls.

So not stopping at seven then

I have just been over. They are actually battling to create the loudest multi thousand watt sound systems. This is beyond antisocial. Please contact southwark noise if you are affected too. http://www.southwark.gov.uk/noise-and-antisocial-behaviour Or by phone.

No they are not different. We as a society designate certain areas as non development spaces. We may do this for differing reasons in each case but the principle is the same. There will be some who will want to erode this protection in certain spaces and for their own reasons. It might be a property developer for profit, a charity to maximise it's donations or even taper who has decided that he wants to back moving his football club. The principle remains the same, as James Barber says. Erode the protection to one space and erode the protection for others. Set the precedent and you have opened the floodgates. Dulwich Estates should not be able to destroy the School field and Hadley should not be able to turn two pitches and a green space into one pitch and profit.

Parking on junctions is just crazy. It increases risk for drivers, forcing them to creep out into traffic because line of sight is blocked. worse though is danger for pedestrians trying to cross roads at junctions. It has always baffled me that the highway code was never enforced in London in this regard. If yellow lines are the only way to enforce the code and reduce these risks then so be it. One would think that five meters would be long enough down most side roads but I guess there is evidence on this. Oh and Fox ?125 is the annual cost of a residents parking permit across all the southwark zones.