Rockets

Yes this is a big u-turn by the council and organisers and very late in the day for an event of this size later this year so maybe, just maybe, the council is starting to listen to residents.

Cllr Browning will, of course, also need to be careful to not be accused of "man-splaining" as she makes her case to Cllr Rose.....

Two weekends in a row is a bit much, got to feel for anyone who lives nearby - clearly Southwark putting money before residents. And I don't buy for one minute the line of "inviting local traders etc". Has the size of the event got bigger as well in these proposals - does their licence allow them to sell more tickets this year - is that the 1,750 tickets Cllr Rose refers to? Interesting that GALA and the council claim benefits for the park but FoPRP don't seem convinced the park sees much, if any, of it. Cllr Rose doesn't seem sure what the benefits are either (not sure how a broader range of free and subsidised tickets can be claimed to be a benefit to the park): But Southwark Council has said the event’s profits would be used to improve the park and support FoPRP. The council’s parks and leisure chief, Cllr Catherine Rose, said: “A number of benefits are proposed, including a broader range of free and subsidised tickets, as well as 1,750 more tickets for local people. “They [GALA] are also suggesting: opportunities for local businesses to provide services, for local traders to trade, local artists and creatives to showcase and local people to be employed, at the event, subject to planning and licensing approvals.”

There was one of their bikes chained up on Woodwarde Road for months as well - are their cargo bikes breeding?

If there is a petition I bet it was started by Poundland's PR team!

Yes they look like eco-warriors yet don't act like them! ;-)

A politician's worst nightmare....when your invited guest speaker throws you under the bus over your ULEZ plans.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64499710

It was certainly giving off confusing messages..... It must have been a slow news day but the fact you're annoyed that they have written about it probably shows their decision was justified such is the quest for news to generate attention and clicks nowadays (throughout all forms of media - local, regional, national - and not just Southwark News).

Southwark Council says it's 'fairly sure that what you describe isn’t possible' but then: on Tuesday evening clarified that Transport for London (TfL) had fixed the problem. Ha ha.......

I think they have gone now.

I do wonder if there is a direct correlation between position of counters and reporting of increases in traffic on the dashboard. A lot of Southwark's counters are close to junctions (I suspect deliberately so to influence the reporting numbers) and many were moved closer to junctions after they were first installed. Other councils have been caught moving strips closer to junctions recently (to ensure the strips sit under slow moving traffic) so this seems to be a fairly standard tactic to manipulate the output. Am I right in thinking there is a map somewhere of the locations of the counters around Dulwich - wasn't it shared here and discussed during the East Dulwich Grove "reduction/disappearing traffic" debate? Does anyone remember/have it/have a link to it?

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Dulwich Park at the weekend

Spot on! And the council even admits that Dulwich has higher car ownership, in part, because of the poor transport links in the area (when compared to areas in the north of the borough). Correct me if I am wrong but has any part of our public transport network locally actually got better or been improved since these measures were put in?

It's clear they want to massively reduce the number of private vehicles on the road and that is something we can all embrace but a bit like Hackney and their recent goals of banning through traffic on 75% of their roads (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64408468) - it's far easier said than done and often leads to problems for neighbouring areas. What the pro-closure lobby fail to acknowledge is that private vehicle ownership and usage has been declining in London yet congestion is getting worse - perhaps they should try to work out why. If they ban through traffic on 75% of roads in their borough I wouldn't want to live on the 25% that do allow it - sounds terribly socially unjust for anyone who happens to live on or near the 25%. Hackney's grand plan was being discussed on Radio 5 and the same issues seen in Southwark were being discussed - what happens in areas of the borough that aren't well served by public transport? The problem is these ideological grand schemes don't often work well in practice and I do really worry about the long-term harm these measures that are supposed to do long-term good are actually doing. Remember London is the only city in the top 10 cities in the UK to see an increase in congestion since Covid yet vehicle numbers are down - go figure what might be happening here....the biggest challenge post- Covid is that London is fast ceasing to function properly.

We need somewhere that has a properly functioning cash machine (and one that doesn't charge £2 a withdrawl) - neither Co-op or Post Office were dispensing money at times on Saturday.

So I had a look at Aldred's latest report and a number of things stand out: [list=]The data analysed seems to have been for the period between July 20th and Feb 22 - so the full period of lockdown measures The report acknowledges that Enfield council admitted that the poor recording of vehicles travelling under 10km/h by monitoring strips but they left the data in there - the question is does Enfield use the same strips as every other council and if so, what does that mean for the accuracy of reports from other councils too Linked to the above point the report does state that "parked or very slow moving vehicles may affect the results.....but that.....in most cases count sites are placed away from junctions - now this is interesting as many of the Dulwich count sites are close to junctions - in fact the one on Lordship lane south was moved closer to the junction of Melford Road - it would be very interesting if someone did an FOI to see where monitoring strips were located initially, where they are now and if any were moved. And there is a lot of debate about how the report has been reported on and spun by both UoW and Possible (clever use of avergae, median & mean to create favourable headlines with regard to boundary roads) and there was an unholy argument going on between Peter Walker and another journalist because he took offence to someone suggesting he wasn't totally impartial and was suggesting legal issues as a result:

Ouch!!! ;-) Edited to add - most people can cycle if they chose to. Go back 70 years and many did out of economic necessity. But 70 years ago the distances people travelled for work and play were much, much lower - London was a lot, lot smaller and it had grown north and south along railway lines. And anyway it seems that if the mayor cannot cycle, for a variety of reasons (per the councillors on the meeting), then there is a pretty good chance your assumption that "most" can may be a little off!

Thanks Legal, I want to take a look for myself as there is a lot of analysis going on that suggests the authors have cleverly used mean and medians to create some of the more pro-LTN headlines and actually the detailed in the report paints not such a rosy picture (especially on boundary roads). Interesting that their data has been taken from councils themselves and that Enfield, where the whole " we can't count anything under 10kmh" debate has thrown the validity of their monitoring numbers into account has been included (I have seen that someone suggests the report acknowledges this and I want to take a look myself. And Malumbu, if you can't work out why your "anyone drive my furniture to France for me" was flagged for it's hypocritical position then I am afraid you are very much part of the problem not the solution! ;-)

Has anyone got a link to the latest Aldred report (full report not press release), I can't seem to find it on either the Possible or UoW website?

Did a wartime bomb land anywhere nearby (are there a couple of more modern houses in the terrace nearby or check one of the websites that tracked where bombs hit the area)? There are lots of houses in the area that moved a bit following raids during the war but haven't moved much since. On your ability to sell the fact it has come up on your report will mean it will come up on the next report so I would try to determine why. Most houses around here have moved at some point, you just need to understand why.

I think there is a problem up towards Dulwich College - I went for a lunchtime stroll through the park and it was nose to tail then heading in the direction from the Grove Tavern to the College.

The council should be monitoring and publishing the numbers on Underhill. A significant increase, as Cllr Browning says, may skew their overall numbers for the "success" of their area-wide LTN programme and everyone should be asking them why Underhill is not considered as part of the LTN monitoring. I suspect they have omitted it very deliberately as they attempt to manipulate the results.

Zerkalo - we all hear what you are saying - most of us posting here are Dulwich residents and embrace the travel choices you do (Dulwich had something like 70% of all local journeys done by active travel before the measures went) and I agree the council has been shockingly absent from providing proper cycle infrastructure - it seems like the LTNs were the only idea and tactic they had to encourage active travel and they have installed them and very little else. I do note, with interest, you cite CPR and Underhill Road, two of the roads worst affected from LTN displacement traffic. Have you noticed that those roads have become worse since the LTNs went in - it makes total sense why it has got busier as cars try to find a way around the congestion caused by the LTNs on Lordship Lane (Underhill was always busy but seems a lot worse now)? One of the local residents approached the councillors after the measures went in and said the traffic had got worse and was told the solution would be "to ask for your own LTN". The council steadfastly refuses to monitor Underhill Road - I am not sure it qualifies in their books as a boundary road as it runs away from the LTN which is why they refuse to monitor (although monitoring strips were in place for a long time but the results were never properly published bar one slide in a very early monitoring report that said something vague). But clearly it is soaking up a lot of the traffic looking for ways around the congestion caused by the LTNs - this is one of the reasons why many of us question the council's monitoring dashboard as the picture is not complete as Underhill (and other roads that are impacted by displacement) are not monitored.

Legal - I think it just makes it easier for people to digest but I agree citing a 47% increase within an LTN and comparing it to (as all the media have done) to a 1% increase on boundary roads means nothing - but it does help generate sympathetic headlines and coverage (especially when you seed it to friendly media first who don't scrutinise and will write a positive headline which then helps skew the overall narrative of the story). For example the BBC and Guardian headlines are actually very misleading: London LTNs: Motor traffic reduced by 47%, study finds - BBC LTNs appear not to push traffic on to boundary roads, London study finds - Guardian If the BBC headline was: London LTNs: Motor traffic reduced by 47% inside LTNs, study finds - that creates very different story. And the Guardian headline gives the impression they don't push traffic onto boundary roads when even Aldred's report shows it does. This is why Aldred et al pull the oldest PR trick in the book and always give research (often as exclusives) to those media who are onside and will write the story as they would write it themselves without question.

DuncanW - Malumbu doesn't have an argument and, repeatedly, goes out of their way to avoid debating the key points and is more than happy to challenge others on their lifestyles and how they use vehicles. When I see them post things such as this: Please accept that less motoring, and where cars are kept smarter motoring, is a necessity .. just days after they have asked if someone can drive a piece of furniture to their French holiday home for them makes me question whether they truly practice what they preach - they happily criticise everyone else but when it suits them they default to doing exactly what they want others to stop doing. And that is not Hyprocrisy Fallacy - it's called doing a Gary Neville!