DJKillaQueen

Give the reg to the police Sweetgirl. They'll tag it so any patrol car with ANPR will stop it and check details etc. If the guy is involved with ID theft and fraud then he'll get caught that way.

Jean, buy a clamp and put a sign up saying you'll clamp any car that parks in your bay. They'll soon learn.

Bonniebird, I'm in Peckham Rye ward and have recycling collected weekly in bags. As long as shredded paper is in a seperate bag it IS collected. Shredded paper can be recycled but obviuosly if it's mixed up with other recycled items it's a pain to seperate, hence the seperate bagging. So I'm wondering if the issue is mixing it with other items in the same bin. Try maybe asking for some recycle bags from the council and see if they can be taken somewhere or better still collected as ours are.

They seemingly have given themselves time to do that but of course these days, a leader has to be a personality if they are going to win an election. Having said that, I don't think that either Cameron or Clegg are interesting in themselves and part of me thinks that is the real reason we have ended up with a hung parliament.

Yeah I like Diane Abbott too but I think she has no chance of winning. Unfortunately we are going to get one of the Milliblands probably (mispelling intended).....dull dull dull.

Exactly....and the far east is far more susperstitious too, believes more in luck etc so maybe there's a connection. And you don't need a lot of money to have fun gambling. Take the Grand National for example. Millions of people put on bets of 50p and so on. You are never going to get rich with that kind of bet, so it's totally about the thrill.

I know what wrapping you mean James but not that. The 'stretchy' plastics that can be recycled such as plastic bags. Just on the point about getting an extra bag as well. I use two bags because I put shredded paper in one (as shredded paper has to be seperate for obvious reasons). Would it not be better for those delivering to carry two bags for each household (because the implication from the guy I spoke to was that he wasn't given enough bags for his round). And also it seems that only if you leave recycling out, you get a new bag which means that any household that doesn't recycle never gets a bag (not helpful in encouraging those people to start recycling). I'm in Peckham Rye ward so it might not be policy borough wide but if it is, maybe a fresh look at engaging with the households that don't recycle as yet could be considered. That could be as simple as delivering a 'we noticed you don't use the weekly recycling service' leaflet along with a bag periodically. Certainly on estates with communal bins the more people recycle the less quickly the bins fill up so it does make a difference there.

Dreadful for the Landlords. But surely the real question should be why aren't letting agencies doing a better job of keeping track of the homes they rent out. After all they get paid to oversee and take care of repairs as part of their role in managing a let. Councils have the same problems with properties being sub-let but housing officers do at least look out for that as part of their job.

They would be forced to yes but in a way that will put too many home owners and investors into negative equity - that's why new products emerge and rules keep changing to prevent the market from falling - my point is that eventually we will get to the place where new products and rules won't help anymore and a lot of investors are going to be in serious trouble. To pretend there's nothing wrong is asking for the innevitable. The free market isn't always the best option.

I agree with you both. Buy-to-let 'Investors' or otherwise naturally don't consider anything beyond their own profit. They don't see a 'home' when they look at a house, they see an income, a way to make money/ a pension etc. And as far as 'investment' goes there's nothing wrong with that. However there is something very wrong with something as necessary as housing being a source of secondary investment and the profiteers gravy train that it is. Housing should never have been allowed to become the get rich quick scheme that it was in the 80's and 90's. France for example regulates it's housing market, it sets rents locally and protects tenants rights. We need to do that here and fast otherwise like I said before, within 30 years there'll be no-one left who can afford to buy or rent.

The experience of many of those that work with problem gamblers and addicts etc says that addiction to anything is not defined by affluence. Certainly alcoholism is recognised as an illness and the same with drugs too although with drugs exposure to others using drugs is also a factor. The papers will always report of the estate where 'dealers' are rife for example but they don't tell you that the media, the city, and middle-classes are the biggest users of cocaine. In fact in respect to drugs, affluence only determines the type of drugs used predominently, not the frequency. Gambling is cultural too. The chinese for example love to gamble and people can only gamble with what they have so those with most money will gamble most. Gambling seems to be more about the thrill of winning than the win itself too for most gamblers. Sure there will be a minority that 'need' money and think gambling will get them there but usually when someone has a gambling problem it is an addiction to the risk and thrill. Most people though see it as a bit of fun and never play with more than they can afford to lose. Vegas depends on people like that. It does interest me that we still see gambling as some kind of bad thing, after all, every time you buy any investment, a house, shares, an antique you are gambling that the value will go up. Conversely, we know that some people will misuse alcohol, but wre don't ban it, we know that some drivers will drive wrecklessly but we don't ban cars - so for me, the idea of prohibiting anything because a minority (of those using it) are wreckless is always a bit much.

It's a culture of it's own though isn't it Brendan. Housing is no longer a 'home' but a whole industry of investment, like the stock market - in fact houses have become just like stocks and shares. No other market has seen the level of profit the housing market has seen in the last 30 years. The imorality of it being as you rightly say the profiteering from something that is an essential need for all people - a roof over your head. We've gone back to a time where too many familes are crammed into tiny flats, while the few enjoy more space and property than they can ever need. Also our cities are full to the seams as local people growing up in rural areas have been forced into cities because they can't afford rural prices. It's a social displacement that is detrimental to this country. The irony is that in Thatchers aim to make everyone home owners, all that has happened is that a few have made massive profits while over one million people sit on council waiting lists, thousands of families live in cramped unsuitable accomodation, the low waged need tax payers money to top up their rent payments to their buy-to-let landlords. Yes indeed tax payers money is paying the mortgage of some investors. I have no problem with anyone making money, but in no other essential area have the rules been changed so much to keep prices rising (and way above salaries). We already have the smallest new build rooms in Europe, a desperate shortage of affordable family homes - what next? Buy a room, rent out the rest? It is a political hot potato because so many people are part of the home ownership wheel but if governments or the market don't sensibly rectify things then there will be no-one left who can afford to rent or buy in the private sector and in this country the consequences of that will be far worse than the sub prime banking collapse. My suggestion would be to find a way of slowing the market down without risking the livelihoods and homes of those invested in it. It can be done but it means going back to some form of regulation (we already have fair rent committees anyway). We need to develop other investments instead of using something as essential as housing. The gravy train has to stop.

It is true that Southwark is one of the largest social landlords and density is an issue in some parts but on recycling, in my area, bags are deleivered weekly for residents in blocks of flats to fill and collected weekly too (from the doorstep), so I'd say that is a pretty easy way (and effective) of collecting recycling from blocks of flats. I did dare to ask the guys dealing out bags on one occassion for an extra bag and he reluctantly gave me one but asked that I ask the council directly for extra bags as he isn't given enough to deleiver more than one to each household (hmmm room for improvement there maybe). The other thing of course is the number of residents that don't bother to recycle at all. I did have two Conservative candidates ask what I thought of the idea of giving people vouchers in return for recycling (effectively paying people to recycle)....They cited similar schemes in America that pay for themselves....I don't really know much about that option but I'm sure all of our local councillers would be open to ideas on that front. For me though, the issue is the number of things we can recycle. After I've recycled what the council will take I'm still left with an awfully large amount of soft plastic. The council will take TVs, furniture and all manor of things but not soft plastics - so my request to the new council (as indeed it was 3 years ago at CC meetings) is to expand the types of items we can recycle.

the housing boom was a consequence of low interest rates leading to affordability of monthly interest payments being the benchmark for borrowing/lending rather than salary multiples. That's only part of the story. The rules chnaged too. It used to be that if you had a mortgage you couldn't rent out a room in your home for example. We've gone full circle from that to buy-to-let. Other rules were done away with gradually until we ended up with the ludicrous self certified mortgages. All of these gradual changes were designed to keep people buying houses as the supply of buyers began to tail off until untimately the only people left to sell houses to, were those who couldn't really afford them...enter the sub-prime market. Now we have the equally lunatic development of part buy part rent...... It's lunacy. When my father bought a modest terraced house in the early 80's, he was able to get a mortagage and afford it on a humble bus drivers salary. Now two people working full time can't afford to buy first time without parental help. The average age for first time buyers without parental help is 42!

I'm not demeaning anyone's point of view DJKQ, I'm just disagreeing. This is an opinion forum, I'm expressing an opinion. Expressing an opionion is one thing, doing so and thowing a dig in at the poster every time you disagree with someone is another and that's what you are incapable of - expressing a view without throwing in a dig. Saying James' views are misplaced hardly qualifies as an 'insult'. You're attempting to bully me by making false acccusations: you trying to smear me? Plus ca change etc. Pot calling kettle black. I consider James views misplaced because he is favouring South Camberwell to the disadvantage of East Dulwich. He explained that he thought ED advantages could be obtained irrespective of the DH issue, I consider this to be unlikely when budget is clearly tight. Fair point. If there's not enough data about London Bridge then there's also not enough data to prove me wrong - so you're heading down a blind alley with that accusation too. Since it's so easy to get the data by doing passenger interviews at DH, I suspect you don't have the data because it won't support your case. You totally miss the point of both James and myself on that one (because you look for underhand motive all the time instead of just reading what's written). The point was that Network Rail couldn't possibly declare London Bridge as the least used station without any data. Any commuter at peak time would however tell you that London Bridge is as busy as any central London station. You will struggle to get onto most trains for Charing X as they are completely full including standing room. It's a station where most commuters change platform to connect for other services as the thousands of commuters that use it know. The rest of your post about South London's raw deal demonstrates what I've suspected all along: that this protest isn't about this train service at all. You've decided to use this issue as a vehicle to fight another battle. In this case some ill-supported suggestions of a conspiracy to defraud South London!!! There you go again with your absurd nonsense. LB is a crucial part of that South London service. You are insane if you think that someone can not defend a route and also make the point that South London is poorly served by rail as part of the defense of that route. You are just looking for any excuse to debunk anyone defending that route with whatever nonsense that la la brain of yours can dream up. You don't even live in London so who cares what you think anyway. That's why the protesters are deliberately keeping the public misinformed. They don't want a better train service, they want to bring down the government etc. etc. Completely insane and untrue. How uninformed and arrogant you really are is shown right there. And yes I just lowered myself to you level, but to be honest I think you set out to wind people up.

Well I hate to say it but I find myself agreeing with Huguenot. We can't have a society where the poor and low waged are left to rot while the affluent enjoy comparative tax breaks and other top ups they don't really need (child tax credits being one). It's immoral if nothing else imo. And reading back I totally agree that the buy-to-let sector has been a disaster for the housing market. We really are going back to a time where only the few will own property. People on salaries that would very comfortably have been able to afford a house 30 years ago are now struggling. All political parties and the banks have been complicit in allowing the crazy over inflated market to get there in the first place. They've let it run out of control to the detriment of the economy and the millions of people that see more than half their salaries swallowed up on rents (going to pay someone else's mortgage). Worse still - if they can't pay it all from thier own salary, it is topped up by Housing Benefit, so that tax payers money is in effect paying the landlord's mortgage. At the same time, many have got burnt investing in 'get rich quick' buy-to-let schemes after investing life savings into private developments that were overpriced. No politician will dare tackle the issue and say what many of us are thinking - it has to stop. As for the coalition, I'm curious to see just how it will pan out. One would hope that the extremes of each party would be levelled out by the other and we'll get a more centre ground of policy, which will probably be no bad thing. But I sense the road ahead will have as many rocks as there are potholes in Rye Lane. Things are going to get very tough for a lot of people.

Hugenot, you are obsessed with demeaning the validity of any views other than your own. James is not misguided in his views on this, so give the insults a rest. He is absolutely right on the point regarding the lack of reliable data that Network Rail could have used to determine the no. of passengers using London Bridge, esp in reagrds to it being used to change for other services to for example Charing X. You are not the ultimate authority on anything - really you aren't. And sometimes you are just plain wrong. South London has always had a raw deal from the rail and tube networks (esp the SE), at the expense of other areas of London (notably the North). Plannned extensions and projects like the tram link have never come to anything - priority always being given elsewhere. South Londoners deserve better.

I agree with Jeremy. Given that many people using London Bridge do so to change then I'd find yet ANOTHER change a big deal. Sending South Londoners East to then go West again? The whole point of the LB Victoria route is that it provides a direct link for South Londoners to two fairly central good connections both West and East of the City. The new routes have everything to do with opening up the East section of London because of the olympics etc while taking away a direct link that is important to South London. In other words the ease of connectivity of South London has been sacrificed for East London.

That's true. I think Labour took four NOC boroughs in London and one from the Conservatives (don't quote me on that though - just remember a fair few going red).

However, I believe that the protest groups are also deliberately keeping their members poorly informed - and suspect they have a hidden agenda of protest for protest sake, rather than a better service for commuters. Why don't you go and find out something about the various groups involved first ......they include some very well established and respectable groups like Peckham Vision and stalwarts like Eileen Conn who has spent her life fighting for a better area, both economically and socially. You are talking nonsense. So how will rail passengers travel by rail to London Bridge from 2012? THAT's what the campaign is about...preserving South London's Rail links to the city and tube network instead losing another fast direct service. Given how poorly connected South London is, the campaign is indeed well informed and in the eyes of many fighting for something worth saving.

I wonder if anything would slow the type of driver that wants to speed? Yes full humps can slow emergency vehicles (although police cars have strengthened undercarriages) but they usually take other faster routes - no fire engine will go hurtling down a residential road - they still have to drive safely. So it seems to me that we have square humps because an emergency vehicle might use that road occasionally, when vans and other large axled vehicles use the same road every day many times over and at any speed they like! I'm not a fan of humps but at least a single hump going all the way accross the road won't damage the tracking or wear down tyres at one side. Nor will cars drive down the middle of a road and all the other slalom manoevres that cars do to get around the square ones. As a driver I find my eyes are on the humps and not on the road ahead as they should be but can't be when you've got crumbling mini pyramids dotted all over the road. On the other hand, the council recently put chicanes on a road near me. One chicane is so close to the 90 degree corner into Cheltenham Road that any driver might turn that corner and find themselves head on with a bus straddling the centre of the road as it comes out of that chicane. Even worse there is no cycle feed path at the edge so cyclists are forced into the chicanes too. Where is the common sense? One idea I like is to use barriers to make certain residential roads 'no through routes' at certain times of the day, like for example rush hour. An automated barrier could open and close at one end of a road accordingly and then stay closed at weekend when residents are most likely to be at home. They are used in other countries effectively.

In Peckham ward, four leaflets posted to council tenants by the Lib Dems said, and I quote 'Labour WILL transfer management of your home to Lambeth and the same company that has put ruents up by 17%'. There were no other details, just that glaring statement of fact. If that wasn't a blatent attempt to scare council tenants, at best an assumption reported as fact, at worst an outright lie, then what was it? It backfired anyway as all three seats went to Labour candidates. And Trump is right, if the former council was doing such a good job as you see it, then why did so many seats go over to Labour? Especially at a time when the electorate were not voting Labour for government. People obviously voted on local issues and on some of those, especially housing, the former council didn't deliver a high enough service.

Hi Scootagal, All council owned and leasehold propoerties in Southwark are subject to the decent homes standard and so a programme of imporvements has been rolled out including new windows and doors. Leaseholders are required to have the new windows but not the new doors but as I recollect that estate has already had that work done. However as a leaseholder, you would be liable to share the cost of any work be it decorative or structural to the exterior and communal parts of the buildings. And yes the costs can be prohibitive for some leaseholders. Some structural repairs are extremely expensive and can not be forseen and it's just one of those aspects of buying leasehold that you neeed to be aware of. Southwark does have a leaseholders organisation that work to make sure that leasehold fees are reasonable and fair and as a prospective leaseholder it would be worth your while getting in touch with them to see what the ongoing costs have been to that estate. They would also know of any work in the pipeline. Hope that helps.

lol let's just say I had support from others after your over-reactions to my posts. As for fairness, I've voted Lib Dem before. There are good reasons why the council swung back to Labour. Too many people were let down by broken promises and misguided priorities. Sure if you own your own home and live in a quiet street in a good area with nice schools you would never have known anything was wrong. If you were a council tenant, living in a property with poor heating, electrics, and kitchens and bathrooms more than 30 years old, told you would get new ones last year and now have no idea when and if that'll happen then you can be forgiven for not voting for more of the same. Now the Labour council have to sort out the decent homes mess, provide more council owned homes instead of selling off council owned buildings and land to private developers, improve the rate of council tax collection and expand recycling, improve roads etc amongst other things. If they fail on those things then the vote will swing back in another 8 years time. I think you strongly objected to any idea of dishonesty from the campaign material of the Lib Dems. But it WAS dishonest and that's why I didn't vote for them in the end.

TFL will send you free area cycle route guides http:// www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/roadusers/cycling/cycle-guides-request.aspx They have maps for every area with routes through many parks and cycle friendly and picturesque routes.