Sue

No I didn't "mean" that. I was commenting on a post about the prices of goods on stalls in North Cross Road market. If you want to expand the discussion to the effects of gentrification on people who can't now afford to live here, that's certainly an important issue, but it applies to many areas other than East Dulwich, and is something for a whole other thread.

I didn't think it required an explanation, but surely it's obvious. I moved here around 1991, can't remember exactly. The area has very considerably changed since then. Surely just a walk down Lordship Lane on a Saturday would show you that? House prices have shot up, as have loft extensions and kitchen extensions. People are buying houses which are already extended, and in some cases extending into the cellar as well, if there is one. There are expensive cars the size of small buses lining the side streets, loads of "wellness" places, people wearing expensive designer clothes. Relatively expensive places to eat like Kokum have appeared. There are two cheese shops, opticians selling very expensive frames and top of the range lenses. An M&S food shop has replaced Iceland. So it's not surprising that market stallholders would want to aim their merchandise at those people who can afford to spend more, surely? It's hardly going to be worth their while to spend all day in all weathers selling cheap items for virtually no profit? As said above, there are stalls within walking distance in Peckham which sell cheaper things. For the moment, at least. Herne Hill market has also changed out of all recognition. Have you been down there lately?

£2 ? Bargain!

Hope the swifts survived the storm 😮 And other birds.

Well the rain and hail won't have helped 🤣

The thing is, their staff seem to be very thinly spread across a wide area. When our road had one of the leaks, the first TW guy on the scene (who had come to assess the situation) had come from miles away. I can't remember where now, but it was nowhere near ED, not even in Southwark. And he said the reason the leak couldn't be immediately fixed was because the people who would do it were presently dealing with other emergencies (well, not strictly emergencies).

But without knowing the cause of the repeated leaks, it's impossible to comment really. Poor repairs? Something wrong further up the system? Lack of maintenance? When one of the leaks in our road recurred shortly after it had been repaired, a TW guy said to me that the repairers must have jumped too hard on the asphalt (?) laid above the point of the repair when they were getting it to settle (?) and broken the repair. I wasn't sure if he was joking or not 🤣

Many of the stalls are aimed at the changed local demographic (not sure that's grammatical) who won't blink twice at those prices. But also, a small artisan (sorry) loaf is bound to cost more than a sliced white from Lidl. But will probably be very much nicer to eat. Plus ingredient prices have probably gone up, and other expenses such as energy to bake the loaf. And the hire charge for the stall has to be paid. If people will pay the prices, you can't blame stallholders for charging them. They aren't charities. And the people on the stall are there all day in pouring rain, freezing cold or scorching heat. Having said that, I once paid (what felt like) a lot for two different slices of cake as a special treat. They both looked absolutely beautiful, but they both tasted more or less the same, which was of nothing much apart from sugar. But the plant stall and many of the food and other stalls are excellent! We are really lucky to have the market here.

Thank you, Pugwash. That's really useful information. Do you know who was responsible for the locks and keys, or which council department? Could you PM me if you don't want to put someone's personal details on here? It may save me having to speak to Monica. Thanks.

Does anybody know why? Trees aren't cut down for no reason. There must have been something wrong with it (I hope that was the reason). A child was recently killed and another one injured when a tree fell in a park (not in this area). It isn't always obvious from the outside when a tree is diseased or whatever, and I imagine the council would give safety considerations priority when deciding what to do, if there was any doubt at all.

Different people will be involved within Thames Water. The people dealing with the leaks aren't the people encouraging less water usage. How many people have reported the Barry Road leak? By what channels? What response have they had? When we had a leak in our road which meant we had no water, several people reported it, there was good communication with TW, they explained why they couldn't come out immediately (other urgent jobs elsewhere in the area) , kept in touch with us and fixed the leak within a reasonable timescale (hours). Someone from TW also contacted me later to make sure my water was back. But does Thames Water know about it? They aren't psychic (I presume). If nobody reports it, I also presume they won't even know the leaks are there, unless they have some kind of central monitoring system which tells them when there are leaks in the system. To make it clear, I am not defending Thames Water as a company, which I think should never have been privatised. But there are some things they can't be blamed for (old and disintegrating water pipe system in London) and some they can (possibly, lack of sufficient staff to deal with leaks, maybe due to trying to save money to give their shareholders more. But this is just surmise on my part - I know nothing about Thames Water).

For one minute there I thought you were passing yourself off as an air conditioning installer, PGC 🤣

Sounds like the whole management team (assuming there is one) needs to be replaced with people who have at least the bare minimum of competence for their jobs.

I agree that someone somewhere must at one point decided on their purpose, however if anything was ever written down it is probably long lost, given the turnover of councillors and council staff . The Crofton Park noticeboards I mentioned above are solely for information about the council and various community groups and activities, plus various community related things such as the library times and services. I think they are very bright, interesting and inviting, however I am not going back there solely in order to take a photo The ones in East Dulwich don't have much on them because ... well, for the reasons on this thread 🤣 Quite apart from the fact that these are supposed to be community notice boards, there are all sorts of reasons why they should not be used for private businesses to advertise, as I and others have already said. Yes there have been huge changes in the area, but I can't see how those changes affect the purpose of community noticeboards, unless you think that the changes mean that there is no longer a "community" in East Dulwich. Which would be very sad indeed. Anyway, I am stepping away from this thread now, I have other things to do 🙄

There has already been pages of discussion about this. Please read the whole thread if you haven't already. These are community notice boards and not for the use of local commercial businesses. I need this to be quite clear before I spend time on it, because if they are to be used for commercial purposes then I am not willing to be involved at all, and shan't be speaking to Monica

Yes. I had already offered to do so some time ago if you are not able to do this yourself. Monica is not in there every day, and it is holiday season at the moment. I will try to catch up with her in the next few weeks. I assume there is no hurry as this has been dragging on for so long. I will find out whether there was more than one key holder, or whether there was one for every notice board. Also whether the same key (or copies of the same key) was used for each board. I will also find out how Monica liaised with the relevant people on the council and what their job titles were I will ask what system there was for ensuring that only neutral and non commercial information is displayed on the boards, for getting that information and for updating it. Before I speak to Monica, it would be helpful to know if jellybeanz is offering to be the key holder for all the noticeboards and keep them up to date, or alternatively if anybody else apart from jellybeanz is willing to have a key. Please private message me if you prefer. I should make it clear that I am not offering to be a key holder or to be involved in this any further than I have outlined above. And also that I am not "getting a key". I am just finding out more from Monica. I feel that it would have been helpful to have addressed these practical issues at the outset.

I find that very confusing to read, because you have not separated what I said in my previous post from your reply in a way that makes it easy to see who said what. It also makes it very hard to respond to what you have said without confusing things even further! Is there any reason why you didn't just use the quote option as usual?

Trouble is, phones are now much more than a means of communication, aren't they? You can do so much on them, and if you are short of time, I can see that it might make sense to do it while you are moving, quite apart from satnav reasons. That doesn't condone unsafe use by any road users, obviously.

Lovely friendly staff, too ❤️

If you think that is sense, I'd hate to think what you would describe as nonsense 🤣

I I can't find a second hand copy online, and I'd rather not buy it new. Does anybody have one they no longer want? It isn't (just) the novel, it's the much later version with annotations by various people

The country didn't "hate Corbyn". Labour under Corbyn got more votes than Labour under Starmer, if memory serves, and it was only due to our weird electoral system that they didn't win the previous election. Any hatred of Corbyn was whipped up by the right wing press. The Labour Party has completely lost its way. It doesn't seem to know what it stands for any more, and its members have deserted it in droves. Including me. Anyway, this is probably for the lounge, not being directly relevant to the subject of the thread.

They seem to move quite fast, so it's easy to miss them probably. Also the little ones are almost like large moths as they zoom across. I stay in my (very small) garden quite late hoping to see one. Usually I don't, maybe because I give up and go in too soon.