Burbage

fl0wer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ....When people talk about 'deep > cleaning' I think of hospitals and catering > kitchens. Whereas I think of discretion. But deep cleaners also have equipment for what are politely termed "specialist" tasks. So it depends what, exactly, you want got rid of. Here are some questions that might help the OP decide: 1) Are you particularly ashamed of your grubbiness? Although most of us can tolerate a surprising quantity of filth, landlords, naturally, tend not to. Whether this is because they wish to avoid the basilisk glower of lettings agents, who are professionally withering at the best of times, or simply because they calculate that a bout of outsourced scrubbery can be both claimed against tax and rooked back from tenants, is a moot point. 2) Have you any communicable diseases that your tenants might catch without their prior consent? 3) Is the vermin more exotic than the normal stuff (fleas, bedbugs, dust mites, weevils, silverfish, woodlice, black fungus, rats and/or mice)? 4) Have you ever smoked, kept a pet or been in contact with anyone who has done either? Although I don't think any landlords have yet been sued for inadvertent allergens or third-hand smoke, it's only a matter of time. 5) Is there anything, or anyone, you've done that might have left traces you'd prefer not to be found? There's a range of substances - DNA, fingerprints, bodily fluids and certain unfortunate solids - that, though a natural and normal feature of rented accommodation, can become problematic if you have tenants that ask questions, bear grudges or both. Unfortunately, forensic science (or the courts' willingness to fall for it) has moved on by leaps and bounds, so you can no longer reliably pretend it's a wine stain or a special sort of caulk. If the answer to any of the above is 'yes' (as this is a public forum, it's best you keep the answers to yourself) then a discreet, professional, deep-cleaning company might be what you need. I am no expert, however, so you should check with your insurance and legal advisors if you're still in any doubt. Question 5, incidentally, may not be relevant. It depends on where you're going to be living in the meantime. If it's somewhere like Holloway, then I doubt you'll need to worry. But if you're heading for the sunshine of, say, Ecuador, you'll not want anything to interfere with the natural flow of rent.

woodrot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > A hand written note was recently stuck through the > door asking if I was willing to sell the estate. > > Anyone else had this happen ? No. But I'd question your assumption. A person willing to deprive an estate agent of a livelihood is likely to be hoping to economise in other ways. It's less common now, for obvious reasons, for people to buy hovels to 'do up' with a bit of purple paint and a job lot of iffy laminate. But I've gathered, from previous threads, that Woodrot Acres is largely a collection of outhouses infested with felines; a larchlap Gormenghast from which, on a breezy night, a thin chorus of unconventional entertainment, and the pulsing sussuration of suspicious goings-on, could be heard by the neighbourhood watch if they weren't all asleep already. So, what with one thing and another, I suspect you've been favoured not because anyone thinks it's nice, but because they think it might be affordable. There are other possibilities. Perhaps a previous owner wishes to retrieve what's under the patio. Perhaps the Cats Protection League have had a whip-round. I don't know. But your conscience might.

Soul

Zombiemonkey Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > users? The ASLs are already used by cyclists and > motorcyclists. We seem to have a mutual > understanding, cyclists pile on the left, > motorbikes and scooters on the right, we drive off > out of everyone?s way and we keep ourselves safe. It's not mutual. It's in fact the same lazy and stupid assumption that gets cyclists killed at junctions. It also relies on cyclists never needing to turn right. Cyclists, wherever they're going, should never overtake on the left. To get to an ASL, they should take the relevant lane, and then, if it's safe to move ahead to the ASL, indicate, pull out to the right and overtake the static traffic. That is the only safe way to proceed. The reason ASL 'feeder lanes' are on the left is not because it's a good idea but because there needs to be a dashed line at the foot of an ASL that only cyclists can use. The DfT were in the awkward position of either having to think of a proper answer, change some rules and generally do what they're paid for, or impose an easily bureaucratic, if murderous, solution in the gutter. They naturally chose the latter. But if, as a cyclist, you plan to stay alive, you're best ignoring them. For a motorcyclist, it's different. As there is nowhere 'at the front' that motorcyclists are legally allowed to occupy, there is no justification for them overtaking on the approach to a junction, as the Highway Code makes amply clear. So, as things stand, there should be no conflict at all. However, many motorcyclists ignore this, and, whether using ASLs or just ignoring stop lines, are already bringing themselves into conflict with cyclists who are proceeding in the only safe and legal way open to them. To officially permit this thoughtless and irresponsible behaviour seems hardly in the spirit of improving safety. That's not just safety for cyclists, but for motorcyclists, too. Most of the accidents involving the latter happen because drivers don't register their approach, and pull out into their path. This is common to both cycles and motorbicycles and, contrary to popular opinion, is not obviously down to moody clothing and an equally dim view of speed limits. Apparently, motorists just don't see narrow things in the near distance, possibly because they have a lot of clutter in their way, possibly for psychological reasons. Wearing bright clothing and having headlights on does make some difference, but only sometimes. So, if motorbicyclists were really concerned about self-preservation, they'd be not trying to get ahead of the traffic and annoying cyclists, but riding in the stream of traffic, safely in the lane. There is, of course, an oft-repeated argument that motorcyclists have special needs, their machines having an instability at low speeds which they are unable to control. But that's not an excuse. That's a reason to buy a tricycle.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well I suppose at least they still have one loyal > customer... Only for the moment. As George Meredith so sweetly put it, "love dies". Even the euphoric froth of the instant, assuming it's not as unilateral is it looks, will soon be tinged with the workaday details of life's grim carnival. There are children to think of or, at least, their cost. And, as is the case in every transient fit of human happiness, lawyerly shadows will be balefully gathering to await their inevitable offerings. It's all very well to dream of skipping hand in hand from the brewerly gloom of a scented cellar to build a new life amongst nature's bounty, but past experience, if not the by-laws, suggests the attempt will swiftly sunder the stoutest of romantic bonds, whether forged by Cupid's deceitful darts or the barmaid's dispensations. I may be wrong. Perhaps this episode represents a miraculous new beginning from which all concerned will emerge into a brighter future, replete with shining prospects on near horizons. And though history, as far as I have read it, admits no precedent, history is written by cynics.

dennis Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It might be a bit slimey, if it's true. > But agents have access to databases able to give > them the info, such as the Land Registry. That's true. But they're an expensive way to trawl for victims and, besides, they're not allowed to do very much with information so harvested. Referral scams, on balance, are a cheaper and less effortful method of hunting marks, and there's a chance the referee will have been buttered up by the referrer, which never hurts. To right-thinking people, it is a bit unethical, and it does seem to go against both the spirit and the letter of the Data Protection Act. But that is only one side of the story. For what the Act says is one thing, and how it is policed is another. Thankfully, and on account of the ICO's open-minded willingness to productively engage with some of the wealthiest captains of the multinational creative industries we claim to call our own, or at least their legal minions, we now take a cheerfully relaxed approach to what, in more intolerant Germany, would be taken as an outrageous assault on individual rights. That might seem a bad thing, but in an economy that survives mostly on the skimmings from bubbles, such wheezes are the only hope we have of securing a graceful decline.

Love_London Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Could someone please let me know what the cheapest > way is to commute to London Bridge from Honor Oak > Park? Bicycle. About half an hour door to door without significant effort. It might take a bit longer than the train, depending on exactly where you want to go, and how long all the waiting and the scuttling take. But that has to be weighed against the real sense of achievement you'll get from not stuffing an annual post-tax grand into a rail franchise.

Jonathan62 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why do some cyclists think it's okay to ride on > the pavement? Because, in some places, it is okay. By which I don't mean okay, but deliberately encouraged by the council or TfL, as on stretches of the South Circular at Dulwich Common or the intriguing little puzzle at the bottom of Friern Road. There are other bits and pieces where tiny signs, sometimes facing the right way, suggest that an optimistic designer, or a deranged sign-fixer, once thought they could get away with it, but their limits are unclear, and they would be a matter of debate if anyone had ever bothered to notice them. Naturally, that doesn't mean it is okay. Pedestrians, dogs, the turds of dogs, the children of pedestrians, buggies, trees and the various holes, barriers, cabinets and bollards that ornament the built environment are indubitably hazardous, and the proliferation of entrances, concealed or otherwise, that betray the concrete aspirations of front-garden one-upmanship or back-garden speculation, each a potential death-trap in itself, don't make things easier. And that's just the officially-designated 'shared-use' pavements that form such an important part of what they chillingly call the "Safe Routes to Schools". The rest are just suicidal. Nevertheless, that didn't stop a doctor of this parish from writing with almost impressive detachment to a local paper some years ago complaining that cyclists failed to use shared pavements, risking both their necks and cluttering a very doctor's journey to work. I can only imagine that the exhortation must have had a lasting, if misplaced, effect, resulting in the "scope creep" we've been witnessing ever since. Everyone trusts a quack, after all.

2nd time mummy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yesterday I received a 3rd Stage Consultation for > Major work from the Housing office and I was > shocked as the work they now intend to carry on on > the building will cost me over ?10K! Welcome to leasehold, and be grateful it's not a lot more. It will be next time. Leasehold does have some advantages over freehold, in that you're not solely responsible for replacing roofs and other expensive stuff (the 'major works'), but the downside is that you're not solely in control of when, or how, the work gets done and, therefore, when you pay for it. Without that control, you just have to save a regular chunk of money for when it will be needed and hope it will be enough. Where the council is the freeholder, the costs have usually been higher as councils can't get away with the shoddy bodges the private sector indulges in. They used to be bound by "Decent Homes" standards, too, which were usually much higher than you'd find in the private sector, not least because a dripping tap in a council home is worth three or four pages in the Southwark News, whereas a collapsed ceiling in the private sector isn't worth mentioning. If you're mortgaged, the lender can usually be persuaded to add any shortfall to the mortgage, at least if you've been good with the payments. And payments can usually be staged so they don't all hit at once. Depending on the schedule of the work, that's not always as helpful as it looks, but councils are usually fairly gentle, and most, including Southwark, have loan schemes that you can apply for. As KidKruger points out, it will be in the lease, which you presumably agreed to. Not paying will be a breach of that lease, which will result in legal action against you. To start they'll get a court to demand you pay up, through the sale of the flat if need be, and then, if you don't comply with that, forfeit your lease (or, at least, have the lenders repossess it). It is possible to challenge the need for major works or, at least, the details of the proposals or the cost of it (that's partly what the consultation process is for). But it's rarely successful unless they've been incompetently dodgy. ?10k isn't a particularly large amount for major works - some bills have been much higher - and it's possible the council are either drawing on a reserve fund made up from the left-overs from service charges, or have capped the contribution, though that all depends on what work is being done. In other words, you can refuse to pay, but only if you've got somewhere else to live.

char1i3 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I thought I had this sorted earlier with the very > kind help of Foxtons Lordship Lane, and had > Southwark News journalist calling me for details > of the story. I'll look out for the write-up. For what still baffles me is why you don't just ring the council. They have vans for removing rubbish and, more importantly, can investigate fly-tipping without it looking creepy. Your apparent opinion that the council would be insufficiently vengeful may have some validity, but as they have the right and resources to issue fines and prosecute people and you, I'm guessing, don't, it looks a touch more disturbing than reasonable. Assuming that it is a company responsible and not, say, a landlord, agent, contractor, partner, ex-partner or acquaintance of previous good character, I still don't see how you've got any further. You might be able to spill some green ink in their direction, assuming they're an actual company at all, and not a card in a bus-shelter and a pay-as-you-go phone, but you'll still have a street full of rubbish.

No. They did try, once upon a time, to install some fancily expensive hydraulic barriers on one or two of the bus lanes. But, following the predictable results, they gave up on the idea.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Everywhere I go I seem to see new ones at the > moment. My neighbours on both sides have them :) Although some people clearly flatter themselves that they're worth looking in on, a fear of rubber-necked, prod-nosed and possibly light-fingered, neighbours is not always unreasonable. Shutters help reduce this anxiety without the implication that the inhabitants are reclusive documentary-fodder or dead. Moreover, shutters never need taking to the dry-cleaners, which means they're always ready for action. Whether your neighbours have spent good money to allay an imagined fear, to hide their squalor from the judgemental, or to mitigate a real threat, is a question only you can answer. But, whatever the motive, it doesn't seem an entirely healthy development.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So to summarise, absolutely everyone has to pull > themselves together Not exactly, there being no together to pull to, and it not being a matter of choice. But, other than that, a fair enough summary.

The trouble with psychology is that, at best, it's primitive. We don't really know who we are, and the nearest we can ever get is by training people to make theoretical painting-by-numbers portraits of us. The finished work might, at best, give a few broad hints about what might be supposed to be there, but it's never nearly as good as the picture on the box. This is bad news in many ways, especially for happy people. One of the few things that we do know is that our mood is broadly governed by the dictatorial oozings of our gelatinous brains, things which have, over the millennia, grown to a half-evolved state where they're good enough to make nearly the best of what happens to be at hand, subject to the grubbily selfish motives of molecular biology. Some brains ooze in such a way as to keep their owners stuck firmly at morose end of the perkiness spectrum, and we feed them pills and give them books to read. Others, less decisively, bounce between the two, resulting in what might still be called bipolar persons, and whom we also, allegedly, care for. It takes no great insight (except, possibly, for a trained psychologist) to realise that those stuck at the irrepressibly cheerful end are just as afflicted. But, because their misplaced altruistic urges save the rest of us a bit of bother, we've never thought it worth attempting to find a cure. In short, we're perfectly content to exploit the happy, whether they like it or not. Even those with no psychological training are aware of this, even if only at second-hand. There's a reason why the predominant motif of culture, both popular and otherwise, and arguably the most irredeemably common, is the pestilence known as love, and it's not just because psychiatrists and biochemists have long delighted in seeking out the lovestruck and putting their heads in clamps. A short poem by Housman puts it more neatly than I could, concisely illustrating the effects on others of the imbalances that occur in the euphoric phase, effects that will be familiar to anyone who's been subject to the soupy effluence of a sufferer. But even Housman tiptoes tastefully round the inevitable backlash; the crashing, and equally irritating, misery that's the result of a bubbling excess of romantic gloop suddenly and speedily meeting with the unrequited concrete of remorseless reality. This is, in some sense, a good thing. Once we can openly acknowledge that "happy, positive people" are just as screwed up as the rest of us, and even more exploited, we can hope to come to terms with our own mediocre positions on the despondency charts and stop wasting our days skimming "Think Yourself Less Glum". For most of us, it is not the pursuit of happiness that keeps us awake at night, but the fear of it getting away. Realising that happiness won't make us any happier is surely the first step in conquering that fear and getting what we really want, which is, or should be, peace.

MarkE Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Looking along > the station platform in the morning, the vast > majority would appear to be between 25-40. Where > did these middle-agers disappear to? It's the same reason as, when you look around your office in the morning, the vast majority (excluding the nepotistic minority upstairs or in the corner offices) are also in that bracket. If you've not been made redundant by the age of 40 you're probably living on borrowed time and, once you have been, your chance of employment (as opposed to ekeing out a living making greetings cards from navel fluff and selling them on ebay) is slight. If, instead of fixing your bleary gaze on the station, you wandered along Lordship Lane at a more civilized elevenses, and you'd see a vibrant, if grey and down-at-heel, community of the divorced, dispossessed and desolate, window-shopping at the pubs and conversing with reluctant shopkeepers. Every other flat has someone eagerly staring at a phone and wondering where their life went, while the park is full of elders trying to look purposeful. When I first moved here, I had dreams too. I also had friends and relatives, most of whom entered into brief engagements, more for the DIY skills than any romantic notions, then split up, bred, sold up and left in short order. Thankfully, I have never been tempting and, finding SE22 a friendly place, I managed to cling on. As a result, I'm now on first-name terms with the meter reader and the Jehovah's Witnesses, though neither visit as often as they did. I am no socialist, but I do find rapacious graspery somewhat unsettling, especially when homes are involved, so I long ago found myself resolved not to move until the council comes to decontaminate the flat. I'm fairly sure I'm not alone in that.

KidKruger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Will need to be sorted out especially if the new > business (I hear it's McDonalds) attracts lots of > pedestrians. It wasn't an issue when the site was a pub, or a Harvester or a mini-recycling centre, and I doubt they'll change the rules for the franchise of a lawyer-heavy multinationa. Admittedly, the junction was regularly and reliably disrupted by traffic to and from the Grove site, but it seems delays caused by cars count as a tolerable uses of amenities rather than selfish attacks on the very foundations of our economy.

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The complexity of this junction (and the fact that > it serves the nominal orbit route of the South > Circular) would suggest that pedestrian > crossing(s) be (1) offset from the juntion and (2) > run as e.g. a pelican style crossing (working 'on > demand' only). It's less complex than the Plough, having one less arm and a full-time filter instead of a part-time one. It's a lot less complex than the Sydenham Hill junction, which not only carries the all-important orbital nonsense, but also includes a full menu of cycle crossings, bus lanes, pedestrian islands, push-buttons and pointless paintwork, all without bringing London to the creaking standstill that TfL's hired scaremongers would have you believe. As for the existing pedestrian-controlled crossings at Overhill and the cadet containment, they're in those places for good reasons, and both involve at least a quarter-mile detour (near half a mile if you're silly enough to want to get from, say, Duke's Court to Cox's Walk). Ornithological crossings have, as far as I know, never been on the table for the junction itself. The proposals so far have just involved tweaking the lights to allow a 'pedestrian phase' (or gap in the traffic), repainting the suicide lanes and installing central pens so pedestrians aren't left clinging to lampposts when they get stuck in the middle. Nothing too complicated or revolutionary, well within the junction capacity according to TfL's own figures, already designed and funded for implementation. They just refused to do it, and have so far refused to give either a coherent reason why or an explanation of where the money went. The addition of pedestrian-controlled signals shouldn't be impossible. As you point out, there are already pedestrian signals further up on two of the arms, and if TfL's claims re: the Dunstan's/Forest Hill Road junction saga are true, there's a natty SCOOT system for synchronising signals to negate any effect on traffic flows. But funding would be a problem and while too few of us are dead enough to justify the money, I don't think TfL would go for it. Though they might pretend to if they think it'll buy them a few more indolent years.

womanofdulwich Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Maybe we should all arrange a mass exodus in the > future. That's practically the countryside. I doubt many of us will have the licence or the desire for that sort of life; stuck in the middle of nowhere, at the mercy of a travelling grocer and with nothing around but pub conversions and the bouncier sort of tourist. You'd just be taking your dreams of Waitrose and Art-Houses to somewhere else they won't be happening. I may be wrong. There may be others who dream of incomering a village, like the Day of the Triffids without the romance, surviving on crates of sardines and using whist drives on Skype to raise the sherry-money. But even at those prices, you'd have to hope your clogs would pop before the money did, and that's no different from living here. It might work for men, who serve, on average, around eight years less, but that's not a healthy way to think, all the same.

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm on a water meter - but don't consciously limit > water - not extravagant with it either. A lot of people are now, and that's fine. I have no objection to people 'wasting' water if they're paying for it, and besides, we're in the wrong part of the world for 'drought' to mean very much. I know the water companies make a big deal of it, but that's only because the alternative is fixing leaks or mending reservoirs, and they're not too fond of either, except as an excuse to hoist the charges. Excessive watering isn't entirely neutral, admittedly. It can, like a leaky water pipe, provoke the roots of street trees into committing sins of subsidence. But that's rare, tends to be very local, and street trees are usually managed well-enough for size not to be much of a problem.

womanofdulwich Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am going to try and stick it out till I retire, > and then sell up and buy something for half the > price I tried that, but I got made redundant first and then found out there's nowhere half the price of what I live in, save the Runcorn margins, and I don't know anybody there. On the upside, it does mean SE22 may be trending towards a wiser demographic. which opens up happy vistas of zimmerish tea-dances in place of street art and craft fests. On the other hand, it might suggest that, before we know it, we'll have become the Old Persons of the postcode, reduced to ranting on trees, shouting at traffic and supping white lightning in the park. Given that, to date, we've neither got world peace nor jetpacks, I'd be tempted to bet on the latter. But at least it's a plan, which is better than what most folk end up with.

Thames Water (in bottles) currently being distributed outside Norman Court (just North of Overhill Rd jn)

Sorry. I wrote too hastily. However, with the creaking circularity that afflicts such issues, the junction has recently crept back on to the political agenda, judging by a postcard the local Labour Group recently donated to my mat. I gather that there's an active, if invisible, group of local residents involved, and politicians are being positively competitive in the vigour with which they're telling people how hard they're campaigning for something to be done. And something must have happened, because an FOI request made by a close resident reaped not only a copy of the 2008 plans for the junction, but this proffered crumb of freshish hope: "....following discussions with stakeholders [unnamed, possibly councillors] this junction has been included in the programme for investigation during the current financial year. We are examining the pedestrian demand, the collision record, and looking again at pedestrian crossing options and potential improvements to the overall operation of the junction. The outcome of the work should then inform the current feasibility and justification for adding pedestrian crossings. This work is expected to be completed during the autumn and early winter and to have reached a conclusion by the end of the year." It's not quite as forthrightly positive as the last promise from TfL on the matter, which turned out sadly frangible, but it's marginally better than nothing. It is more confusing, though. Back in 2008 - just after the mayoral election - they put together a couple of models for the junction - the details of which TfL have now, thanks to the FOI request, sort-of published (though with copyright restrictions, so we can't share it). One of these options was 'acceptable' in terms of the "degree of saturation", and that option was a "walk with traffic staggered crossing across the Dulwich Common arm only", which seems to mean a cage for pedestrians in the middle of Dulwich Common, and the removal of the left-filter arrow on the Northbound London Road, presumably to rebalance the odds. Not great, but arguably better than death, and with the benefit of funding. Sadly, it wasn't 'progressed'. According to TfL's revisionists, the official reason is now: "In 2010 [i.e. at least eighteen months after they'd got a recommended option and a good year after they got the funding] we reviewed the scheme and concluded that it would have a negative impact on the performance of the road network in this area of London. It was identified that progressing the scheme to implementation would require additional measures to mitigate this impact, which could potentially add to the cost to implement the scheme. We also considered the collision savings that would be made by providing a pedestrian crossing stage, comparing the current level of collisions at the junction with the average across the London Borough of Southwark. We found that over the previous three years, there had been fewer collisions at the junction compared to the Borough average." In other words, despite what they claimed in 2009, they didn't do any safety audit at all, having predicted correctly that a fresh look in the following year would reveal that not enough people died expensively enough to make it worth their while to spend the money they'd already taken from us to implement the plans we'd already paid for. What they're considering now is thus anybody's guess (and councillors are oddly tight-lipped about what they're actually campaigning for in any detail). But from where I sit there's not a handcart in heaven's chance they're going to find a less 'negative' impact on 'performance' this time round, or that 'mitigating' measures will have plummeted in price. Unless, of course, the fits of confusion they seem to have suffered are the outfall of TfL's mendacity rather than incompetence. But, being a generous soul, I have to pretend to be struggling to think of a motive. Besides, whatever the numbers do turn out, we'll always be hoisted by the malicious argument that if a junction's too scary to cross, pedestrian demand and collision rates will remain at 'acceptable' levels, whereas making the junction safer would only attract more pedestrians, increasing the probability of casualties and making it less safe. There are two things we can do from here. The first is probably a non-starter. Despite the economic climate, I doubt there'll be enough residents sufficiently tired of life to willingly boost the collision numbers, and although councillors seem eager to lend their support to the cause in some ways, their commitment and ambition have subtly different limits. The second option is a demonstration of 'pedestrian demand'. I'm not sure how best that's done, save badgering councillors and assembly members and Tfl itself, and given the success I've had in five years of intermittently grumpy exchanges, I can't honestly endorse it as a strategy. Perhaps we need a flashgrumble. There is a third option, and that's to wait until the rumours turn out true, Tesco moves into the Grove and the junction has to be remodelled as a result. But that may take more time than the next dead soul might have. Any thoughts, or memos I might have missed?

KidKruger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't think anyone believes people cannot follow > simple instructions Sometimes that's true, but I'm told it can vary with the brand of cider. For those interested, if that's the word, Southwark's open space bylaws, and similar diversions for the suppression of nuisances, can be found here.

First thing would be to report it to the council (number at the bottom of this page). They do have a tree officer and, contrary to the impression that may have been given by recent threads on this forum, knows a lot about trees and more than most about Chalara. If you want to be sure, there's information on how to distinguish Chalara here. There's also a form/app for reporting it. They are still researching the spread of the disease, so any reports they get will be helpful. I believe movement restrictions are still in force so, if it is Chalara, the best thing after reporting it is to leave it alone. Some trees do seem to recover, and even if it doesn't, it seems that taking it to bits or moving it would increase the risk of the disease spreading.

east-of-the-Rye Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Could Health Involvement tell us roughly what time > scale they are looking at? The site (of the > demolished part of the hospital)has been empty for > ages, and may be empty for another 2 or 3 years. Health Involvement are't bothered about the specifics of the site. Not until there are accepted and finalised proposals for it, which, as yet, there aren't. Remember, this consultation, which followed up from last year's consultation on whether or not Dulwich felt the need for healthcare services (it did, oddly enough) is about whether Option A or Option B or possibly Option Alternative (to be specified by the respondent) was the best framework within those services should be provided. Option A involved GPs staying much as they are, handing out cosy chats to anyone who can book three days in advance, and chucking everything medical down the road to either A&E (as at present), or to a Community Health Hub* possibly on the site of the Dulwich hospital site. Option B is exactly the same, but allows GPs to additionally cherry-pick some of the polyclinic work, according to taste or avarice. In theory this would work if people got the appropriate illnesses for the surgery they were registered with, and chose their practice on grounds of what they were likely to suffer from rather than, say, where they lived. If this was chosen, then the polyclinic needed might be smaller. Unsurprisingly, except perhaps to Health Involvement, Option A has won by a small margin, and found favour with Dame Tessa (who sent in a page or two explaining why local services should be near where people live) and King's (who thought it would help their "admission avoidance" strategy). Other opinions were offered including two possible alternatives. The Chemists sent in a briefish note claiming that it would save a lot of time and trouble if they were given the money instead, and "a Dulwich resident" sent in a 17-page thesis calling for the wholesale reorganisation of the nation's health and care services, an extension to the 42 bus route and the conversion of the ruined hospital into a clinical utopia for the over-65s. Some other 'stakeholders' were more neutral. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists sent in six pages of spectacularly irrelevant marketing boilerplate, and the Londonwide LMCs ("the professional voice of London general practice") somewhat over-eagerly demanded a sight of a business plan, which suggests what the GPs have top of their priorities. Though given Concordia - of Melbourne Grove notoriety - has a friend on the CCG, I suspect they're whistling in the wind. But it would be invidious to single out the quacks, especially when the third sector, in the form of Healthwatch Southwark and Community Action Southwark, responded jointly with an altruistic pitch for the latter's e-marketplace software. Anyhow, for those interested in reading the survey responses in their tedious entirely, here's the bunch of links that Health Involvement failed to provide. Consultation Report Appendix 1a Appendix 1b They're all available from the CCG Meeting Papers Page Under Governing Body on the right, click on the Meeting Date : 11/07/2013, then on 'more' and they're somewhere in there. Now, you might criticise "Health Involvement" for not giving the links, or failing to give the date and location of the "feedback" event or of failing to give more than two working day's notice. You might criticise them for holding roadshows the pitched up for just 90 minutes at random weekday teatimes. You might even go so far as to point out that 215 questionnaires is pretty poor return for all documents they distributed, and that by solely targeting frequent users of existing services in their consultations, they will obviously have skewed their sample. But you can't criticise them for not knowing about plans that, even if they do exist, aren't yet refined enough to the point where they know what will be required, let alone built or when. If you're still in need of weekend reading, I found, while flailing about in the squalour of their unnavigable and acronym-bespattered little website, an impressively detailed report from BDO that's supposed to inform the wider, and entirely separate, consultation into provision in Southwark generally (though possibly not the bit of the consultation that's public), which makes interesting reading, especially in light of some of the rantier health-related threads on this forum. Admittedly, BDO have got the Dulwich options the wrong way round, which might cast a degree of suspicion on their attention to detail, but nobody's perfect, however much they get paid. Enjoy. * The key difference between a nice Community Health Hub, run by a GP-led consortium, and the hateful sort of Polyclinic, run by an NHS Trust, that GPs were up in arms against five years ago, is where the money goes.