Rockets

Galileo, I feel for you living next to the station and agree that it must be awful but the proposals will not deal with your problem and your sister in law will likely still end-up parking streets away. I don?t know what road you live on but do look at the number of non-resident bays on your road and work out whether if one or two other visitors are in the area, or commuters phoning from wherever they work to pay for parking, whether she will get a space. Also, will the CPZ operate at weekends?

I wonder whether the Dulwich Medical Centre, or users therein, have any thoughts on the lack of non permit holder parking bays near the surgery? Surely this impacts the users of the surgery as many aren?t able to walk distances to get to see their doctor? Does anyone know whether the resident permits will be zoned - most CPZs are road by road? Also, I hope residents on roads like Silvester, Melbourne Grove, Trossachs etc don?t ever have visitors.....distinct lack of non permit bays there and if the few that are there are filled they may have some struggles to park. The whole council document reads like it was put together as part of a student planning project, with ludicrous claims presented as facts that may, or probably most likely not, be applicable to what will happen in East Dulwich. It?s like the stat that people who walk to the high street spend 40% more.....do they really? Can anyone find anything to back up the council?s claims as there seems to be nothing more than the headline on their website? When we walk to the lane we spend less as we are limited by what we can carry all the way home. I do hope common sense prevails and this doesn?t proceed.

I've heard a lot of utter rubbish about CPZ, such > as the idea its a tax - which it isn't, they are > mandated by law to spend the money raised on > parking, and if you have evidence to the contrary > then I strongly recommend you contact the Police. > The 'no space will be there' is just utterly > untrue without a shred of credible evidence to > support this assertion. Of course it is a tax. It is a well known tactic by councils to generate revenue to fund other areas of council activities by asserting charges on people who, invariably, already pay tax to fund those said services. Southwark council have been circling around East Dulwich like vultures seeing the regeneration of the area and thinking - how can we get a piece of that - and the CPZ is their vehicle and the yellow-line extension was phase one of their grand plan - completely unwarranted but designed to create parking pressure. Trust me this project started in the council with someone saying - go and work out the revenue from a CPZ in East Dulwich. As a lot of people have pointed out there seems to be a blatant disregard for how much impact this will have on the Lane but then, as someone so wonderfully stated previously, perhaps because Theodore and his muumy want to shop in M&S that that counts for nothing!!!

People are missing the point - this does nothing to alleviate parking congestion - it merely provides the council with a revenue stream - and in the process harms the fabric of what makes LL and the surrounding areas so great. Look closely at what is being suggested: - paid-for bays that you can pay for from your phone. This does nothing to alleviate commuter traffic as most commuters will probably pay the few pounds for the controlled hours via their phone. Make it a machine payment only and the problem goes away. - the paid-for bays can also be used by permit holders meaning areas such as the leisure centre could have no parking spaces for anyone looking to drive who doesn't live within that zone. And to comments such as "The irony of driving to the leisure centre!" the catchment area is much broader than just up to, say, a mile in any direction - you may live close enough to do that but many people are aren't able to, or have the time to, mobilise themselves or their flock as efficiently as you can. That shouldn't preclude them from being able to use the facilities which these proposals likely will. CPZs do nothing to reduce car ownership it merely allows local councils to tax people for it. I am sure those banging the "stop using cars" drum will be the first to start mourning the loss of shops and outlets on LL. And their protestations on why and how people should use/not use their cars are not realistic. The Lane has prospered because it provides options other than supermarkets and many people drive to the Lane to use those shops and facilities and will likely think twice about doing so with the CPZ. This creates risk for the businesses on the Lane and I, for one, don't want to lose what makes where we live so great. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

The more you look at the consultation documents the more you realise how flawed the council's approach is to this. Their recent extending of double-yellow lines in the area was designed to create parking congestion to help them justify this plan which is nothing more than an East Dulwich tax for the residents and enterprises who live here. The council is cashing in on the thriving community around Lordship Lane and I cannot see how this will do anything other than damage the uniqueness of the area. East Dulwich currently works and the council is meddling for their own purposes and have been after this pot of gold for years - I do hope everyone sees through it. I will make sure I attend the drop clinic to ask some pertinent questions as when you look at the proposals it is as ludicrous as Lambeth's Loughborough junction traffic programme which, thankfully, fell flat on its face a year or so after the council implemented it. For example, has anyone looked at the plan around the leisure centre - from what I can see from the proposals I cannot see how that will work as many people, especially those with small families, drive to the leisure centre and these restrictions will make it impossible to do so (I also chuckled as the ludicrous number of disabled bays which recently appeared in front of the leisure centre are not marked on the proposals - probably because they have served their purpose in creating parking choke points - along with the extended double yellows). I do hope people don't put their own selfish, well I want to be able to park outside my house arguments to one side and realise that if the council gets away with this Lordship Lane and the surrounding areas will be negatively impacted. Local traders are already mobilising and I suggest others do too, before it is too late.

Has anyone noticed the two huge disabled bays that just appeared in front of the Dulwich gym on Crystal Palace Road? Now I appreciate the need for disabled people to have easy access to the gym but will they be removing the bay about 25 yards further up the road that rarely has any vehicle parked in it and are we to interpret the size of the bays that Challenger tanks are now the vehicle of choice for the disabled? Yet another reduction in parking spaces and another small council-initiated step towards an unwarranted and unnecessary CPZ....

Definite No from me. There is already parking pressure around LL due to the increased length of double-yellow lines imposed by the council and this will soon begin impacting local retailers and a CPZ will only make it worse.

Big thanks to James Barber for escalating this within the council and getting some action: bin was finally cleared today.

James, Many thanks - I will email you on this.

Don't worry - we are aware of what goes in a green bin/brown bin/blue bin and do our bit! The large majority of our food waste goes down the sink - the rest in the brown bin. Rotting and generally starting to stink a bit in the bin - cat litter. Vermin can also be attracted to things that smell of food that are not able to be recycled. And I can't vouch for the contents of the bags others left next to the bin! Council told us to leave it on the pavement until it is collected - which they claimed they would be doing over the course of the last 10 days.

Our green bin has been sitting waiting to be emptied for 9 days and after much back and forth with the council (where they kept promising to empty it) I finally managed to ascertain that the bin crew decided the bin was "too heavy" to empty. The bizarre thing is they moved the bin from the front of our house, put in on the pavement for the lorry to pick it up and only then decided it was too heavy. The lovely lady at the council I spoke to laughed and said that it was a new excuse by the bin team not to collect a bin - and that she had heard many. Has anyone else had this? Meanwhile the bin sits forlornly on the pavement awaiting a collection it's contents slowly rotting and attracting various scavengers, of the vermin type, and depositors, of the fly-tipping type. And we struggle to find somewhere to put our household waste...

...the council have excelled themselves this time. Next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Alleyn Park Road will be closed for resurfacing causing huge disruption to Kingsdale and Dulwich Prep schools. Both schools were informed of the plan last Friday and despite both lobbying the council for a more common-sense approach (delay it a few days as the schools will have broken up for Christmas) they are carrying on regardless. The length of Alleyn Park will be closed from the Gypsy Hill roundabout to the Alleyns Head pub so prepare yourself for traffic chaos at both ends during drop and pick-up. The stupidity of our council amazes me sometimes....

On the subject of curries and Dishoom, Chai Naasto in Beckenham were looking at East Dulwich and had looked on both the Lane and also the Grove Tavern site but all were too expensive (Seperately I hear the Dulwich Estate don't want anyone to use the Grove for retail as have it earmarked for flats). Such a shame Chai couldn't find somewhere as it would be great to have such a fantastic Indian place on the lane and would force the plethora of mediocre curry places to buck up their acts!

So ventured to get some bulky items collected today and have to say the system is totally useless. You go onto a site and "list" your 10 items but you are only able to select pre-described items from a list so it affords you no flexibility whatsoever to list the 10 things you want collected. After my previous experience with this "service" I approached with caution and lo and behold they turned up today but left a few of the items - no explanation why, just some of the items taken some not. They left a couple of suitcases, a child's scooter and an old mop and took all the big stuff - chest of drawers etc. Have emailed them so await their response as to why they didn't finish the job I paid for......

Other than the fact the Highway Code suggests this what reason are the council giving for the implementation of this? There is so obviously a hidden agenda at play here. Drop kerbs and drop kerb enforcement very efficiently keep junctions clear and ensure safe places for people to cross. The anti-driving agenda is becoming tiresome and will ultimately backfire on those proposing it. Cars and traffic are an inevitable consequence of modern life and, in part, stimulated by public transport infrastructure that is not fit for purpose. Perhaps those who are empowered to manage these things should engage brain and look further than the "cars are bad" narrative and try and develop something that works for everyone.

Probably the same local council type who in Lambeth decided to pay for adverts across the borough informing local residents that due to govt cuts they were having to make tough decisions on what to spend money on.....(the cost of advertising excluded of course....;-))

So 10m is about 2.5 car lengths.....so each road will lose a minimum of 10 parking spaces.....here comes CPZ.... A lot of junctions are already policed by drop kerbs but this seems to be further extending the no parking area beyond this which seems draconian at best, opportunistic and motivated by some other strategic intent at the worst. 10m is a huge amount of space and I suggest there is good reason why most councils don't enforce this. Like the recent Loughborough Junction debacle initiated by Lambeth council there seems to be an undeclared war on car users being initiated by local and central government and, hopefully, like the Loughborough junction nonsense enough people will protest and defeat these hairbrain ideas.

So are they suggesting at each junction there will now be 10 metres of double-yellows in all directions....wow...there goes a load of parking...... Here's the rub: However the council has no power to enforce this without the introduction of a traffic order and subsequent implementation of waiting restrictions in other words yet more fines for local residents and more revenue for the council.....usual nonsense from local councils....

Yes it has been open since Wednesday - the huge majority of South East London drivers celebrate and flick the Vs at Lambeth council!

Or as the team who came to finally pick-up our fence panels very succinctly put it: "The young'uns in the other team don't want to get their hands dirty...." Must be the risk of carpet burns.....

I would call them - the folks on the phone are helpful and are aware of the problems with the collection teams and the rogue collection teams are supposed to log (their pitiful) excuses for why they didn't collect items. Keep persisting and if need be lodge a formal complaint - that way you get through to the company responsible for the collections. There is obviously a problem and the council needs to get on top of it.

I have just filled out the survey and will be interested to hear what comes from it: my suspicion is that Lambeth will fudge the responses to create a case to keep/modify the existing closures.

Received a call yesterday from the lady who left the message who was incredibly helpful and actually managed to get the collection arranged for today and....magically....the items were removed. When she called she said that they had been having a lot of complaints from residents about similar issues as the one I had been experiencing and she went to Deborah Collins directly and engaged with her and the supervisor of the bulk team who had said they had a policy of not collecting fence panels. She agreed that it appeared the team was changing their story each time they were supposed to collect the items. She called to say the collection would be made today my wife saw the team who came to collect who were very apologetic and cleared it without any fuss - they did, however, say that they have another team of younger council workers who "won't get their hands dirty" and that if they had come the first time the job would have been done properly. So, finally, the fence panels have gone and big thanks to Cllr Barber who really helped by contacting the council in the first instance. And if anyone else is having issues do lodge a formal complaint - the folks at Veolia are aware of the issues and will try to get it resolved for you.

Had a message left on my mobile from Veola...or whatever they are called...dealing with my complaint. The lady who left the message (she didn't leave her name...more on that shortly) said that she had dealt with my complaint and that they have a policy not to collect fence panels....which is quite obviously a lame excuse as James Barber got the response earlier in this thread from the council/Veola that said: "The service requested was for collection of 8 fence panels with attached fence posts and 4 bags. The bulky waste collection crew went to carry out this job on 29th September. They found that the fence panels could not be safely removed as they were breaking up in hand as soon as any attempt was made to lift them, and also some of the fence panels were overgrown with trailing vegetation making them more difficult to safely handle. The collection crew took such items as they were safely able to and left the remainder." So it now appears in the space of a week or two their policy towards fence panels changed.......hmmmmmmmmm! ;-) So I thought I would call the unnamed lady back. As mentioned earlier she didn't leave a message just said call me back on this number....needless to say the number she gave was a switchboard number and the kind lady on the phone said that they have 50 people in their department so she would try to find the person who "dealt" with my complaint.... It is now getting utterly ludicrous the amount of time having to be spent to try and get the council to do the job they should have done on Sept 29th......the levels of incompetence (deliberate or otherwise) are eye-opening and if this is indicative of the way this council is run.....

Yes I was being facetious...;-) ....my car isn't big enough to take them...which is why I requested the bulk collection service but they are worried about splinters/killer vegetation on the fence attacking them Triffid-like/spontaneous combustion of wood/the communicable diseases carried by wood lice and a host of other health and safety horrors associated with loading fence panels onto a van....... I bet we wish we all had jobs where you could say...nah, don't fancy doing that today...let me quote health and safety.....