DJKillaQueen

I would not exepct any changes in London as the market rents are so very high. I tend to agree with this. But then you contradict yourself. In London, social rents are more likely to be 40% of private sector rents because of the high cost of housing so are you saying that Southwark should hike up it's social housing rents (as many of them are around 50% of private sector rents)? If you are arguing for that then you are arguing for a massive increase in the level of Housing Benefit needed to help pay the rents of the low waged and unemployed living in social housing (whilst requiring them to earn higher wages if they do find work to make ends meet). This is exactly why the coalition's policies are self defeating (when it comes to the mantra of saving money) and makes no sense given the demographic make up of the vast majority of people in social housing. Stock condition report taking so very long and when finally produced showed 65% of Southwark Council homes met decent homes standard and not the 54% reproted by council officers. What report was that based on? Because no FULL servey was ever done on the entire of Southwarks housing stock. A report was published in 2003 (I think it was 2003) - I have a copy of it somewhere. It surveyed only a small cross section of properties and drew it's conclusions from that. It's because of that poor survey that the level of work needed under some decent homes contracts was under estimated. Look at the debacle of Rye Hill Estate for example. Buildings needing 100% refurb, being awarded a contract for only 38% because no proper survey was done, instead using a figure taken from that report for the contract. In the end the contract was withdrawn and no internals work was done. This was what went on under YOUR council led watch....I'm glad to see the back of it.....whilst still fighting for answers on contracts (using FYI) and working to make sure that the promises made will be honoured, and might I say with the full support of the newly elected Labour councillors. Local people never saw the previous Lib Dems ones. And seeing as you can never resist political point scoring.......here's another reason why the Lib Dems lost control of the council. They spent ?100 million on a private company to provide a call centre that only handles around 20% of local authority calls in the end. ?100 million is almost one third of Southwark's entire annual budget! So it's a bit rich James for you to go on about short comings in local government funding and spending.

So that would then mean 2.1277 less pence per unit to the supplier which would trickle down to lower wages in the factories of India whaere the goods are made?

Sadly the only way to keep them out is to have someone living there as soon as possible. Organised squatters are experts at getting into the most heavily boarded up of properties.

Personally I'd bury a dead fox, if I could find somewhere to bury it. But that's not always possible.

You guys crack me up....lol If Dannii had been an X factor contestant, would this be the audition she'd give here

That's awful Saila. Huguenot has given you exactly the right advice. I would also suggest that once the Bailiffs and Police have moved them out that you put someone in there right away - to care take the place (beause if they come back then they are breaking and entering and not squatting - for which they can be criminally prosecuted). Grills and cages can easily be removed with something as simple as an angle grinder I'm afraid.

We are talking about someone's much loved pet here. Someone who will be worried sick wondering where their cat is. Personally I would have bagged it and taken it to a local vet. They would check for a chip and then freeze the body until the owner decided what they wanted to do. If there were no chip then all vets use a general cremation service for disposal of animals respectfully.

You are lucky to have a good service Pearson. Unfotunatley though Royal Mail is not a good service because some sorting offices do exactly what tomdhu has just described. Tom when you go to the sorting office ask for the name of the delivery driver for that day. Tell them you are going to formally complain that no attmpt was made to deliver the item. Also, recommend that the sender of the item makes a claim to Royal Mail for a refund of the postage paid.

Well first of all H you forget that a third of those working need HB as well. You can not persist with this argument that market forces correct affordability. That has NOT been the case in the UK for 20 years. And you know the reasons why as well as I do. 1300% increase in house prices over two decades is ridiculous growth. Now that the FSA are making changes to mortgage lending rules we should start to see some return to what should have been in place instead of the ridiculous range of products that landed us where we are now. Some local authorities are already having problems rehousing families in the private sector because of the changes to HB rules (HB which has by the way always been capped to reflect local market values anyway - the differece now is that the cap has nothing to do with local market values). Landlords are NOT reducing rents, because they have mortgages to pay and need to recoup their mortgage. You have absolutely no understanding of what is going on, how people become trapped on low pay or benefits through no fault of their own. Worse still you have nothing to suggest that would help to change that. You are a classic case of those done good should sacrifice nothing from the housing gravy train they've ridden for so long. Worse still you attribute that successful gravy train to some myth of hard work on your part. MOST people work very hard, whatever job they do and whatever they earn. That gravy train for some has only served to incresingly lock out a growing section of the public from affordability of basic housing. That is a FACT, backed by every think tank, economics organisation, the IMF and so on. The real question is what do we do about it. The coalition however seem only intent on adding to the problem. Pandora I whole heartedly agree of with your views on legislation to protect private tenants. On the continent, private tenants do have those protections. France has rents set by the local authority and rises regulated. Tenants are given far more security of tenure and longer tenures and so on. Renting is not a stigma and many people will rent the same home for half their lives or longer. We have absolutely the wrong attitude to housing in this country.....both as a commodity and investment and home. And let me just say this.....the key to achieving anything starts with having a secure and appropriate base to start from. Having a home (rented or owned) that you feel secure in is a major part of that. You can survive without gas or electric or phone for short periods but you can not survive without a roof over your head. If we want people to get back to work, or get better jobs, or achive in life, then they need a calm place to start that journey from. For some, they will be lucky enough to have a family home they can share (with parents usually). For others they will need a place for themselves and their partners and children. They won't get anywhere in life in they are constantly worrying about eviction or living in overcroweded accomodation. This is an important thing. They only factor in how much you earn should be the size and location and luxury of the property you afford to rent....not whether you can afford to rent anything at all.

Absolutely and some local authorities are already having problems with private landlords they can no longer place families on low incomes with. And that combined with changes to capital funding of social housing and a comment made during the spending review which was that whilst extisting social housing tenants will continue to have the lower rents with regulated annual increases, new tenants will face rents that are 80% of the going local market rate. It means that instead of creating much more desperately needed affordable housing, they are giong to make social housing equally unaffordable. It's a totally ridiculous policy towards something that is an essential. We are going to see the return of homelessness and families living in one room. The poor and low waged will become trapped. What will it take to get through to those privileged brats that we have an affordable housing crisis in this country. The seem hell bent on adding to it.

Yep...Peckham Rye is a B road too. I know there's no money for speed camera's (but they would certainly help).

The rolling notice period (it's called a periodic tenancy) begins when the periodic contract starts on Nov 1st, so notice given from 1st Oct to Nov 1st would be according to the fixed term contract. He wouldn't be liable for rent as the fixed term tenancy will have come to an end at his moving out day, and providing all the notice given is correct (under the terms of the tenancy) then it is the responsibility of the other tenants to fill the room or make up the short fall in rent. At the end of the day the rent is a block amount for the entire dwelling agreed by the joint tenants that live there. If one moves out, the other tenants will still have to pay the agreed fee for the property amongst themselves.

What you all forget is that Barry Raod is a B road..and as such can not have certain traffic calming or changed priority measures. For example road humps can not be installed on B roads, so forget asking the council for that - they can't do it by law.

Addressing sight lines should be easy enough to solve though, and at not much cost.

The OP did ask for something other than a basic kit though, which is what prime lens are...basic kit. If you don't want to carry three lens then a zoom is the only answer. The short zoom is always going to give better results than a long zoom (photographic science was part of my degree) and prime lens (depending on the quality of the optics of course) will give even better results. The shorter the focal length the sharper all round a lens tends to be (for reasons of pure maths and physics). A decent 35-75mm though will still give excellent results at all focal lengths. No 200m zoom will keep it's properties, esp at 200m and esp at the edges of the lens. That's why wildlife photographers use primes...not zooms.

Tbank you for clearing that up SNT, but what kind of stupid idea was it to paint road markings before putting up signs? And how long will the wait be for the signs?

The majority of the clientele in ED would be more suited to a Waitrose/M&S and thats a fact Complete assumption based on no facts whatsoever. ED is not just a bunch of owner occupier residential streets. There are are many people on low incomes, pensioners, social housing tenants, and those seeing most of their salaries going on private rents. It's comments like that that highlight just how effing up their own asses some snobby people really are.

If I send a parcel I expect the deliverer to knock on the dorr and only leave a card if the person is not at home...that's what I pay for. With Royal Mail that is not what always happens. I can;t think of any other postal/ courier service I have used where this happens (and I've used quite a few). I also find that for larger parcels, using a courier service with an included as standard 48 hour delivery guarantee costs no more than Royal Mail's seven day parcel force service (that's why so few businesses use Royal Mail anymore). Yes the OP was mistakenly pointing to an example of this and the delivery driver has posted to explain that in this instance it wasn't what the OP thought. But the therad has prompted others who have experienced the practise alluded to by the OP and that for me is what this therad has now become about.

I didn't misread the OP but I did get mixed up with the following comments on the practise by Royal Mail of putting collection cards through letterboxes instead of delivering parcels/ recorded delivery items. This IS something Royal Mail does and it is unacceptable.

Today in the spending review there was no sign of any effort by the government to aid affordable housing. In fact Cameron said that new tenants would face rents up to 80% of private sector rents whilst those already tenants would continue to have lower rents. What kind of stupid madness is this? We are going to see a return to homelessness and it's a disgrace.

Aye, it's a sad sign of what's coming. In fact councils will be required to cut by 27% over the next four years and I don't think any amount of opposition is going to have any impact.

Technically though you drove out in front of an approaching car? Isn't that why it swerved and ended up in the railings? How far away from you was the BMW when you drove out? How do you know it was breaking the speed limit. I once had a car pull out in front of me (I was doing 27mph) and the driver claimed I was speeding to avoid insurance responsibility. He lost of course.

Still doesn't change the fact that no attempt was made by Royal Mail to deliver the item which is what the sender pays postage for. It's not your fault as an employee I know, the company you work for is shoddy, understaffed and increasingly frustrating to those that use it. Royal Mail has lost a huge amount of business to private courier and delivery companies and unreliable service is why. The longer the poor service goes on, the less sympathy postal workers will have from the public when the government eventually privatises it and the unions bring about the customary strikes.

Totally agree LB. Forum debate can only happen because of different points of view. Bullying anyone by pm is just not on, and cowardly.

I'd suggest a 35mm-75mm lens (from experience). The problem with long zooms (up to 200mm) is that unless you pay a good whack for it you'll find loss of sharpness at the edges at some focal lengths and will always need a tripod. A 35-75 is more affordable and will give pretty good results at every zoom, whilst being versatile (and light) enough for landscapes through to snapshots and semi-close ups.