Frisco

"Oh my, I do beg your pardon. Tell you what, send them to Camberwell. We'll take them. You can have one of any number of our small indepedent fried chicken shops or nail salons. Deal?" You could always move Maurice, it's not as though Camberwell hasn't been like that for eons. Welcome to ED

Anyone else seeing a potential gap in the market opportunity in ED/LL? I think previously this may have been filled by 'Kings on the Rye', before it became a den of gun-totting iniquity and later flats.

"I saw it about 1973 it seemed to be doing well so I was supprised to see it has gone" I think it only went within the last 10 years ago.

I can't see the point in closing it down really. I don't want to LL to become infested with chain coffee shops but we're unlikely to be able to avoid any, and of all of them I quite like cafe nero.

Does anyone remember the locksmith (the old guy who people used to travel miles for) in the tiny shop opposite the Co-op chemist?

Sorry, that was mostly in the wrong thread. I didn't sleep very well! *yawn*

"People forget that there used to be a Tesco" Where was the Tesco? The Co-op was next door to 7/11 (or Budgens, as it now is) when I came to live here. 7/11 opened no long after I moved here, but I can't recall what was there before. I understood that Woolworths used to be where Foxtons now is. Does anyone remember the locksmith (the old guy who people used to travel miles for) in the tiny shop opposite the Co-op chemist?

A new community hospital is to be built on the site, together with other local health facilities.

"Anyone remember the dodgy jeans shop on the corner of Whately Rd and Fellbrigg?" YES! I remember that shop (now a house) and the guy, who was African-Caribbean and very camp. The cheapest Levi 501s in London at the time, apart from the Tricky Dickies (?) jeans place that used to be in the former cinema at the junction of Denmark hill and Coldharbour Lane (where the Forum now is), and which closed in the mid-eighties when TD went bankrupt. The owner of the ED jeans shop was very very weird, but I never had any problems and just ignored him and his porn. I wondered if he was ever successful in finding what he was obviously looking for, and how his tactics would be received in today's very protective society. He did good alterations at a very reasonable price though.

Marcus wrote: "In Fulham, the CPZ is broken up into smaller local zones that span 2/3 roads. This would avoid the problem of people at the outside of the zone still driving to the station." Yes, that's right they do. It seems to me that discussing the issue allows people from within communities to make suggestions and to come up with imaginative solutions for problems where they live, and that gives communities the power to challenge monolithic councils bureaucracies, and particularly to prevent them from manipulating a benefit to a community in order to turn it into a cash-cow and covert taxation. monica wrote: "Frisco where were you when they wanted to introduce the cpz near the station,i went to so many meetings and the initial consultation.Most of the residents of melbourne grove derwent grove,matham grove and east dulwich grove were sent letters,this was about 5 years ago" I've no idea, but it could have been around the time when I was seriously ill, and perhaps thinking I wouldn't need to bother about such issues in the future, or just missed it due to that other more pressing priority. It could also be that I didn't receive anything through my letter box regarding this. I would certainly have had a view, although it may not have been the one I hold now. However, having said that, ED (and the roads you mention) has changed a lot in five years, and other CPZs have had the effect, I believe of displacing commuter parking to this area. So, what may have been right five years ago, or for the majority of residents at that time, may well be different now. Five years also doesn't seem to short a time to review the issue, and lots of other things have happened in that time, such as the re-routing of the 37 bus. Things don't stand still, even in sleepy old ED.

What's the retrospective planning permission for?

Unlikely, and Foxtons seems to have taken one of the only suitable shops. I think the original story centred around Iceland having sold off some of their premises to M&S, but they are still firmly in place here in ED.

Carrie said: "Frisco, you probably live on the SE15 side of Grove Vale" I'm afraid you're wrong, I don't. I live firmly in SE22 and have done for 20+ years, and I paid the premium required even then to do so. I also indicated that I was in favour of restricted parking to prevent all day commuter parking, which could be as simple as having putting residents parking only in place between 11am and 1pm, or another combination of times. I've also suggested restrictions within a specified radius, and not by postcode, which as you indicate will only encourage displacement of the problem. kford said: "And don't be silly, frisco." Sorry kford, I'll leave that to you with your very good Jim Trott at the Dibley parochial church council meeting impression.

"No no no no no no no." I see we've got the role models for stroppy teenagers in. I've seen no coherent arguments presented to make me change my view, and it's been changed already from being anti any parking controls in ED a few years ago. In my view, at the very least they should be in place within a 500m radius of the station.

"At the same time they wanted to introduce the cpz because residents near the station were understandably fed up with parking commuters." Really? I've lived reasonably close to the station on road that's regularly used by commuter for parking for 20+ years and I have never been aware of a proposal for a CPZ in this area. As I think I've indicated, I don't necessarily want to standard CPZ to be put in place, but I would like a way to be found of stopping the commuter parking. "Our lovely streets (by most London borough standards) will become cluttered with warning signs and (potentially) ticket machines. May seem trivial, but it is a pleasure to walk around East Dulwich and look down a street and see nothing more than lamp posts, trees and the occasional dog turd. Next time you are in Central London, or the wonderful borough of Lambeth take a look at a residential street. Cluttered, messy and not very "homely." That's funny, I take a measure of the positive effect the CPZ put in place by Wandsworth Council around Balham Station, and in my view the measures put in place there have done nothing to distract from the Victorian/Edwardian streets, and I consider myself to be as much aware of these issues as anyone else. Again, whatever might be put in place can be influenced by the community, but as far as I'm concerned, maintaining the status quo around the station is not the answer. However, neither is a bog-standard council imposed CPZ.

"Also think its unlikely that any commuters from outside the area would drive to East Dulwich station to catch the train given that the service really isn't that great - surely you'd pick a better station, so then you're back in the situation that its people who just live a bit further away, but still in East Dulwich, and who are therefore likely to be eligible for their own permits unless the scheme was very small." They don't because all of the 'better' station have parking restrictions that make them unattractive or impossible for use by commuters. I've lived in the same house now for 20 years, and I'm not too far from the station, and I've been seeing commuters parking in this street for most of that time. How do I know they're commuters? Their regularity tends to give them away. Plus there's a lot of 'area' between the stations in the Dulwich area, so they don't necessarily need to be from outside of it. jan t wrote: "i am in favour of the continued 20 - 30 mins on LL but maybe the selected "pay" times as in herne hill. I am very averse to any system that gives the local council a chance to start charging premium rate for half an hours shopping, so completely support resistence to controlled parking (it is just another revenue earner = nothing to do with resident's convenience)" These are my thoughts too, and community involvement is the key, rather than just letting Southwark Council and its money grubbing privatised parking service take control.

"My suggestion would be that our dear friends at Southwark council would not be as lenient as Ruislip and give an hour for free. In fact, I have never seen a first hour for free parking zone south of the river." Well that's because they are a relatively new idea. As far as Southwark Council is concerned, I am no lover of its parking service, but I have attended a local meeting in ED in the last six months where such a suggestion was made and listened to with interest by one of the three ED councillors. Also, without wishing to misrepresent his views here, I seem to recall that he welcomed suggestions of alternatives to what seem to be unimaginative standard Southwark CPZ rules, and ones that didn't lead to local residents being adversely affected or inconvenienced. Local pressure and influence can work, and that's already been demonstrated in ED by changes that were made to the original TfL plans for bus lanes, which allowed for no parking at all on LL.

"According to an old dear who'd been investigating and couldn't wait to inform my mum and I as we walked past" That was probably me, after I'd finally managed to get across LL. ;-P

"Have any of you who are advocating a CPZ actually lived with one?" More than that, I've been involved in the development of one for a local authority. I don't necessarily advocate having one, just that the alternatives to the current problems should be considered, and that discussion of potential solutions on these discussion boards shouldn't be jumped on and ridiculed by those who are for the status quo. Also, ED is probably now the only station in Zone 2 without some kind of controlled parking around it, almost certainly making it a magnet for commuters and a nightmare for most people living in the roads within the vicinity of the station.

"Cos the council will see the good shoppers on the lane as a nice cash cow and charge about 2.50 an hour for parking and that will encourage a lot of folks to park in Sainsbury's and shop there instead, thus killing off a thriving local shopping community on the lane." I'm not sure I agree with this analysis of the effect, Sainsburys sucked out the shoppers from LL over 15 years ago when it first opened, and quite a few shops closed as a result. The type of shops now on LL don't necessarily supply what Sainsburys supplies, added to the fact that there are already apparently working parking restrictions on LL at present. However, the other roads in ED without restrictions are clogged up with cars, with many of the roads towards the station probably clogged up with commuter parking, which brings no benefit to LL or the area at all. In fact it probably prevents people wanting to shop on LL from parking for short periods to do that. "I used to live on Chesterfield Grove and the parking was bad there but only really at lunchtimes and Saturdays, which suggests the issues are those folks popping to the shops during lunch hours etc. 2.50 an hour would deter them." I often travel to LL down Chesterfield Grove, and I think that parking has always been a problem in that road, with or without Bushells and its predecessor on that site, Winkworths. Of course it the Harrow model referred to in the first posting on this thread were to be adopted, the short-term shoppers wouldn't affected in the way you state.

"Any form of controlled parking would kill the lane as we know it - unfortunately we all have to live with the inconvenience and that is a small price to pay for the good stuff happening along it." How and why would it kill the lane as we know it?

"Ban everything. Just in case." No need to ban everything, just to make sure that part of the fees received are used to ensure that people (council tax and police precept payers) aren't inconvenienced and put at increased risk by profit making film companies using public property. It would cost the police and/or the council around ?100 to have that crossing staffed during the filming, or maybe one of the 'few Cops floating about' could have done it - then it wouldn't have cost anything additional at all.

"Bloody hell - ban the fish van on Saturday then. It's surely a hazard, especially with his noisy generator masking the sounds on oncoming traffic." Neither the fish or butchers van, or their generators, cause the pedestrian crossing to be closed. However, if they operated in such a way that they did, you can bet that both the council and the police would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

"Very irresponsible action: filming at a road junction and shutting the pedestrian crossing. Who gave permission for this dangerous activity?" Actually, I thought this too, and there was a woman police officer leaning against the wall of Budgens in North Cross Road (although she may have been an actor or an film extra). And for those who can't see the problem of closing a pedestrian crossing, or ask how dangerous can it be to walk a few yards to cross there, there wouldn't be a crossing at all if it wasn't considered dangerous. I had to cross there yesterday and, as someone who is disabled (not a wheelchair user), I didn't find it very easy and none of the traffic was giving way at the crossing. I'm certainly not saying that the filming shouldn't take place, but both the council and the police receive money from the film companies to be allowed to film, and some of that money should be used to ensure that existing safety features are maintained, probably by having the police person or a traffic warden at the out of order crossing.

"What business-speak twaddle." My thoughts entirely. In my view Southwark's recycling service has aways been a shambles compared to some other boroughs like Wandsworth. They can't seem to grasp that they have to make the process as simple and convenient as possible for people to follow and participate in, and that it's everyday people and not just the avid recyclers that they have to convince and get in to the habit. I always wince when I see or hear the huge, presumably diesel, truck they collect recycling in, and wonder if they either consider or know the net effect of recycling in the borough.