DJKillaQueen

Yes I do know exactly how frustrating your situation is Gina (and I will fight for people like you all day long). I am equally frustrated by the lack of goverment movement (and Labour were as bad as Conservatives on this) to sort it out. It does impact heavily on those affected. It's an impact that no person in secure accomodation can fully understand it seems, as well. There have always been people who play the system, and we need more resources to weed those people out for sure. But the majority of people who receive help...be it benefits, housing and so on, genuinely do need that help. Ok the figure of those waiting to be homed in Southwark at the moment is around 9000 households (equating to 24,500 people). That is solely those households waiting to become council or social housing tenants. The new Elephant and Castle development will create 5300 new homes but only 17.5% will be social housing so around 1100 new homes for rent - and not a single one of those with be a council home - but housing association instead - in line with the previous councils policy of moving housing management away from the council. Accross London the lists are rising by around 8% year on year (as the biggest gaps in private/ social rents are in London)...so the problem is acute. We are effectively seeing low waged people being priced out of the capital altogether. And thank you for being the only one to take a stand on the cost to the tax payer of HB. The hypocrasy of those that bemoan the lower social housing rents whilst having nothing to say about the amount of tax payers money spent paying private investors mortgages astounds me. That alone says something is very wrong with the balance between salaries and rent in this country. And if we do nothing about it .....it will grow from a third of the workforce to what? Most of the workforce needing HB? You mention stabilty and I personally think that is extremely important....if nothing else, for people's mental health. If you have a family, it is so important to have stability in your accomodation. Other countries legislate to ensure that.....what is so wrong about us doing that. Housing is an essential part of living...we should be treating it as such instead of the 'fast buck' commodity it has become.

Yeah we all can see the Muck is trying to blame the Gooner for her misconduct......but Muck is Muck wherever it stands...... *runs onto pitch, volleys bog roll into air....chests it down....cruyff turns the last defender and scores!* Eddie, the stands are going to be invaded by EDFers over the coming season....be sure to keep reminding us of the games and the great value they are for a family day/ evening out! Oh and I can hand on heart say that the team ain't half bad either.

Sue those are the terms of the license and technically anyone has the right to insist the venue abides by them. Otherwise as said before, what is the point of licensing? Licenses don't come with a 'here are the conditions - but you can ignore the odd one' because it 'spoils the atmosphere'. The conditions are there for a reason. But yes some events will cause genuine 'nuisance' while others won't. Closed windows will be enough to control noise for some gigs. It's up to local residents to decide if they are sufficiently disturbed or not. The key breach anyway seems to be where the event/ sale of alcohol or both exceed the hours of the licence (and on that there is no leeway). I'm sure your 'Goose' gigs don't go past midnight whereas private parties clearly have done on occasion and local residents don't have to put up with that when the conditions/ hours of the license protects them. If DH want a different licence then they need to apply for it and argue their case, instead of thinking they can break the terms of their current license at will (whilst every other venue Pub/ bar and so on is expected to abide by theirs). The only reason we are having this conversation is because they have, it seems, shown no respect for the rules.

Lady who?......was no lady on da terrace dat day init......>:D

*COME ON HAM-LETS* Now imagine a relatively well spoken EDFer chanting that in a low but loud gutteral faux working class cockney accent...and you get the idea....:-$

Yes it is, and if drivers only were more patient and put safety first there'd be no problems and 'accidents' truly would be accidents. I drive, cycle and motorcycle and there are good and bad drivers/ riders in every group. Looking out for the hazards of bad driving is as much a part of being a good driver as anything else imo.

Yeah she was sat next to me and I think she should be barred for 'in the style of a northern lout' football chanting.....;-)

In the license the shutters are required to be closed at 10.30pm without exception and the windows to be closed at all times during music, events, parties etc. If they fail to do either or both they are in breach of the licence. Obviously those conditions are in place to protect local residents from noise (and there should be no noise at all after midnight). Like you I have no issue with DHFC making money from their facilities but they must adhere to the terms of their license.

Whilst you might want to be able to run for a bus LM some ladies want to be able to poke out the eye of any male that follows them home lol.....the more inches the better.....muhahahahaha... Errr can we just rename this thread 'addicted to shoes?'

I go as low cut as you can Katie666 and ask for a huge pay rise!

Wore them specially for you....they are white, with cherries on them and designed by Viv Westwood.....lol

Yeah in France there is no obligation for the driver to stop even if someone is stood on the zebra crossing. I had to tell a French friend of mine the rules when she first drove in London...I was in the car as she drove over a zebra within inches of a pedestrian.

That's true. But I still think it wouldn't be a workable process nor that it would free up more than a tiny fraction of homes - and certainly not enough to justify the added cost and workload to housing officers. Who is going to fund that at a time when local authorities are being asked to cut? And then how do you measure improvement in circumstances? Salary might seem straight forward but it isn't. It would need to be stable, secure employment and how many jobs are that? Many jobs are fixed term and/ or contract. There would also have to be a requirement that the salary has been held for a minimum length of time too. One year? Two years? It is a very dangerous policy to implement and fraught with problems, esp where children are involved. Those unlucky enough to be faced with losing their home would probably appeal, force the council to evict them through the courts and then appeal again.....and then of course it would require several significant changes in law for both tenants and landlords (not likely to get through). It's completely unworkable and Cameron has said that it would be up to councils to decide for themselves if they want to implement it (which suggests he's knows that). Given that many councils already don't have enough time or personnel to force those they can legally do so to downsize, how on earth are they going to be bothered with this as well.

I see straight jackets! *fights back with a jab followed by a right hook and then a spinning crescent kick (and all in stillettos)........and then goes for some ice :-S*

But it's the same thing. If the majority of people will never have an income to afford private rented accomodation then they DO need their council home for life. I'd much rather see HB topping up social rents than see it essentially paying the mortgages of private investors. So in my view the solution is to build as many social homes as we need and curb the right to buy scheme, whilst re-regulating mortgage lending to slow the market down long term . Also I would say that why should security of tenure be limited only to those who own homes that are fully paid for (i.e the very rich who don't need mortgages)? It amazes me how little protection private tenants have against being asked to quit (28 days notice is all that a landlord needs to provide). That is unheard of in France and Germany and many other countries. I'm not necessarily disagreeing on the secure life-long tenure point, but I just think that we need to do more in the private sector too, if we are going to tamper with tenant security within social housing. It's about fairness for ALL tenants at the end of the day.

LB, as much as I adore you dear friend...I have to say that, on this occasion, you are OFF YOUR BLOOMIN TROLLEY! Coming from Ladymuck, that really says something.....lol

Thank you James for comfirming that. Let me ask you this 'bestnames'. What is the point of liscensing, if bars and venues ignore the terms? Licenses are designed to consider both the premises and to protect local residents from nuisance. They are often a compromise between what both parties ideally want. It's not nimbyism to require that premises stick to the terms of their licenses, it's common sense. And I've never even been to Hampshire btw. In fact, you are not even close.

It's an interesting idea. Some schemes have gone further in Europe...removing lights, signs and even pavements with interesting results (i.e safer). As a general issue - I think more needs to be done to improve driving skills anyway, the test needs to be longer and I would favour retesting, say every 10 years as well.

but the majority of people living in council housing do not need this. 60% of council tenants are unemployed. Most of them will never earn much above minimum wage if they do find work. Of the other 40%, most similarly do not earn much above minimum wage and never will do. So it's not true to say that the majority of council tenants will not qualify for their homes for life, whatever system we apply. In the private sector, the difference in rent is not paid by councils though...it's paid by tax payers in the form of Housing Benefit to those who don't earn enough to pay the private rent (and I'd still like to see anyone calling for change to show an opinion on this - because by staying silent they are effectively saying that it's ok for tax payers money to be used to pay private landlords mortgages). Housing is not a single point issue....we need more affordable rentable homes, that need to come BOTH from the building or as you say the acquisition of property by local authorities and we also need a policy to reduce the rate of growth of the housing market so that long term salaries can catch up. Only with those two things combined will we ever see an improvement in the cost of housing provision, both to the state and to the individual.

It's a good question. Guess it depends on health, income, hours you work and whether you actually like your job, friends, family, relationships...... I am doing a very good job of NOT answering the question I think :)

Don't you mean what the ED Forum community is feeling lol. Would hate to think any of us speak for the thousands of ED residents that DON'T read or use the forum. ;-)

The only way to know hwat speed a car is going at for sure is to measure it with something. Visual guessing is never accurate and often overestimated. Driving instructors don't have a speed gun in their brain and are no more able to accurately judge the speed of a car (beyond a guess) than any other daily driver, you or I. I agree that yellow lines are probably the best and most sensible option, but yes there will be objections to the loss of parking. Humps are designed to reduce speed limits to 20mph (speeding drivers usually take no notice of them anyway). and are not an option as it is a B road. That is why there are only raised areas instead. I personally would like to see some accident statistics because I'm not convinced it is more dangerous than any other average B road. Visibility IS a valid issue but that should be resolved easily with reduced parking at the junctions.

Yeah but the point I'm making is that 60mph is a guess it's not based on any kind of fact - and most people are bad at judging speed (tending to exagerate what they see). I'd prefer asking for a survey and some statistics based on fact. I do agree that visibility at some of the junctions is an issue. But you just have to be extra careful. After all, hundreds of motorists negotiate those junctions every day (without any incident) and there are long periods during the day when there is hardly any traffic on Barry Road at all. I'm sure if James Barber or someone could come up with actual statistics on accidents that Barry Road is no worse than many B roads in London and indeed may be much less accident prone than many others.

Prove it! Have you stood there with a speed gun?

I'm not saying shoes......hate the things (although legalbeagle's Vivienne Westwoods are rather nice)! Sunglasses yes....have too many pairs of those.