Rockets

Nigello Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Where?s the pavement being widened? I think James is referring to the one section outside of Oddonos and Moxons where the council put some temporary widening measures in place a week or so ago. There doesn?t seem to be any anywhere else as far as I am aware. James, are there any plans for any other measures to assist on Lordship Lane? As I am sure you are aware there are many more choke points along the road and given traffic seems much heavier along Lordship Lane since the street closures the council has implemented across the area it will be interesting how the council plans to further aid social distancing.

One Dulwich are the catalyst for people across the area to have their voices heard. What the council has done, by repeatedly listening only to the voices they want to hear, is create a culture of distrust in everything they do. One Dulwich is the constituents? response and one that, if I was a local councillor, I would be concerned about as it really shows the numbers of people who feel like they are being ignored. The councillors love a revolution so let?s see how they manage this one....one of their own creating...;-)

But they do have money to install new pavement paving slabs in parts of the area - the latest being Overhill Road....makes you wonder if there is a Trojan horse at play here....

I think the most interesting read in that document (from the feb 4 post) is that the council actually has long-term ambitions to close Dulwich Village to all vehicular access northbound from the roundabout at College Road and Gallery Road....

I went for a run this morning at 6.30am and it was noticeable how much busier the A205 and Dulwich Village were. I think what the council have done is created an even busier thorough-fare through Dulwich Village - there used to be a natural dispersal of cars along Calton and Court Lane but now people are faced with the prospect of joining a line of traffic along the A205 (which incidentally was tailing back from the Grove Tavern to Dulwich College this morning - this may or may not be linked but it was odd for that time of the morning) and will instead take their chances through Dulwich Village and then work their way around the road blocks. By removing the turn into Calton and Court Lane Dulwich Village is now a fast main road - there are no longer cars slowing others by waiting to turn across the junction - which used to control traffic flow and speed outside the shops in the village. It's funny isn't it that road management seems hellbent on preventing dispersal - it's a bit like designing multiple exits OUT of a sports stadium and telling everyone to use a single entrance.

Fishboy, not entirely correct - it?s pretty clear what the council relayed to residents about the school?s thoughts on their suggestions... ?Following further discussions, we have decided to de-scope the proposed scheme in order to ensure access is maintained at all times to residents. We did approach the school about a potential timed closure operated at one or both of the junctions, however they felt it would not address the main issues they?d raised and that they did not have the necessary resources in order to be able to operate the barriers in the morning and afternoon.? They felt it would not address the main issues they?d raised. I read that as the school had relayed their wishes and what the council suggested in return didn?t work for them. Your point about people dropping children at school is a valid one and this doesn?t fix that, it just creates drop points elsewhere. The council sends traffic wardens and CCTV cars to sit outside many schools, have they sent any to Goodrich to police the school drop time?

Ah excellent, they finally listened! Better late than never. Anywhere else?

Did someone issue a dispersal order for some of the new posters on this site too! ;-) So glad the issue has been dealt with, such a shame that a few idiots can ruin it for a lot of people who were enjoying the views and early summer evenings.

As we know from Loughborough Junction, complaints from emergency services are often the undoing of ill-thought out and badly implemented council plans! Time will tell on this one too. And remember, it?s not about access per se but the congestion pressure these measures create elsewhere leading to delays in response times and putting lives at risk.

James, I note with interest that Rye Lane in Peckham has had significant efforts to aid social distancing for shoppers in place since May 1st - your boss proudly tweeted pictures of the new traffic light contraflow system to allow social distancing on May 1st. Any reason why you haven?t been able to implement any aids to social distancing on Lordship Lane - or could you not get wide community support for anything? Also, do you have updates on all the great ideas people suggested in response for your request for ideas? An update on progress might be timely.

I see the activists are hailing this all as a victory whilst pressuring the council for more! Ha ha, they'll never be happy! I particularly love the way CleanAirDulwich is trying to spin a complaint from This is Dulwich Village that the pollution levels have gone through the roof since the blockade was put in tries to spin it for more closures! https://twitter.com/CleanAirDulwich/status/1277895431901589507?s=09 And there's more from MumsforLungs, Dulwich Safe Routes and so the list goes on and on - who are these people and why do they wield such power with the council?!

If you take a quick look at Google Maps you can see that the council appears to have created a ring of red stationery traffic around Dulwich - A205, Lordship Lane, ED Grove, Half Moon Lane and Croxted Road. It's early days of course but traffic does seem to be a lot heavier everywhere on the basis of these closures. Even Melbourne Grove is showing red - is it as chaotic as it seems?

thebestnameshavegone Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You need to start somewhere though. > > And unfortunately, there is an air quality crisis > in London, and there are too many car journeys. > > Long consultations and hand-wringing aren't the > way forward - better infrastructure comes from > many, many small things over time with additive > effect rather than massive initiatives that happen > all at once. > > So, you close some junctions, install some lanes, > drop some kerbs, and you keep doing it. It's > deeply unsexy in terms of what you actually have > to do. And people will moan about it, as they do > all over the world. And yes, people will be > unhappy as it's the status quo being changed, and > people are averse to the status quo changing. > > What you have in this area particularly is > highly-mobilised, university educated people who > are very wedded to their cars, so not > surprisingly, they are moaning about it loudly. Is being highly-mobilised and university educated something to be ashamed of? Should we overlook the concerns of that group to favour others? I think the approach taken by the council looks to many like something being driven by political ideology to attack the people in "leafy Dulwich" and when you look at the hap-hazard nature of their plans, the lack of any support for Lordship Lane you can see why this narrative gets significant resonance.

dulwichquine Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just wondering why the council has closed the DV > junction just as the schools are closing?! If > deemed necessary to protect school children, why > not do it for when schools re-open? It's because they can fudge the figures - I guarantee you they will compare pre-Covid traffic levels to the next 3 months when they know there are no schools and some people are still working from home and claim the measures are a rip-roaring success. Cut to the late-Autumn when schools are back, the weather is dire and people are back at work and worried about public transport and it will be chaos. As we have seen before you can't believe anything the council uses to justify their current cause-celebre and I suspect we can see what they are planning already for this project...

To Slarti b's point - the issue a lot of people have is that the council is taking a shotgun approach to this - there is no area-wide thinking - they just want to throw roadblocks in at points that they think are rat-runs and are presuming that car-use plummets on the back of it - they know, and we know, that isn't the case - you might lose 10% of car-use as locals consider different ways to travel to local destinations but there will still be through-traffic - it just goes another route. At the same time the council do nothing to support Lordship lane in terms of assisting with social distancing. This is why so many people are registering their support for One Dulwich - they are fed-up with the council not listening to the people who actually live across the area as a whole. The council will only ever listen to a vocal minority in hand-picked areas and activists with a vested-interest - and they are tone-deaf to anyone with a differing opinion to their own - and actually quite disparaging to them - look at the way they handled the public meetings on the CPZ. The council are reaping what they sow - when you extend double-yellow lines to create parking pressure, when 68% of people in an area vote against a CPZ and you change the parameters so you can go ahead with it, when you lie to justify additional closures and you ignore the electorate the electorate have to take matters into their own hands.

And we need to bear in mind that traffic is still a lot lower as the majority of people are still not back at work. We also need to factor in that there has been no warning of this bar a couple of temporary road-signs put up along Calton Avenue - we walked passed them on Sunday and I was surprised there were none along Court Lane. To rahrahrah's point - yes sat navs may be alerted to the closure but that also means they will now be routing cars via backstreets to completed their journeys - it's what happened at Loughborough Junction - Waze, GoogleMaps etc just took people around the houses.

The plastic barriers Lambeth have put up around Loughborough Junction don't look like they cost much at all and seem to have been repurposed from somewhere else. Why isn't Southwark able to do the same around East Dulwich - it seems our council has been so focused on fast-tracking their road closures through that they have neglected any actual Covid assistance measures for the majority of residents. It is ludicrous they have done nothing to assist social distancing on Lordship Lane.

That escalated quickly.....;-) Admin - do your thing....

James, Well I thank you for your, one must say rather good, attempt at a back-handed compliment but as someone who has made a living from my vivid imagination and creativity it is something I am more than proud of and glad it wasn't taught out of me during my time at school. It naturally leads me to muse at how much better you, and your other council colleagues, would be at serving the community if you took a leaf out of my, and you pupils' book, and took a more imaginative approach to solving the complex issues presented to it...but I am sure you were expecting me to say that! In all seriousness, the pressure is mounting on you, your colleagues and the council to be accountable to more than just a minority of the constituents you represent and, as you can see from OneDulwich, people are mobilising because they feel the council and councillors are not listening to them. Let's hope you have the imagination, wherewithal and political flexibility to take a different approach during your next two years of office.

I am glad the pictures have been taken down (although I do subscribe to the old saying of no smoke without fire) but you have to admire the sudden mobilisation of "concerned parents" who registered on this forum today to voice their disapproval that their kids might have been "identified" - I particularly liked how some of their posts using a lot of CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis....one hopes that they are taking time to speak to their children and advising them not to cause a nuisance to residents. The Hill has become a problem area - every morning it looks like a war zone and all people want is for whomever uses it to treat it, and the local residents, with respect.

EDguy89 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Rockets Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Have they expanded the closures on Melbourne > Grove > > as they now refer to it as "a closure to all > motor > > traffic on Melbourne Grove, south of Tell Grove" > - > > which suggests no vehicles will be able to gain > > access to the whole section of Melbourne Grove > or > > is it just badly worded? > > > > Also, the fact they have left the Healthy > Streets > > map in place does this mean that they will also > be > > pressing ahead with the closure of Eynella and > the > > expansion of the CPZ to areas B and C under > this > > plan too? > > > > The communication from the council has been > > appalling - deliberately confusing and unclear > - > > and I am interested to see that Comrade McAsh > is > > keeping a very-low profile nowadays and now > > seemingly applies a controversy-filter to > anything > > he responds to and avoids any questions he > doesn't > > see fit to answer. > > > > The sooner we get a chance to vote on whether > we > > want this rabble in control locally the better > - > > it seems the Labour party haven't learnt > anything > > from the election and the sooner Keir Starmer > gets > > to grips with rooting the far-left out of the > > party at all levels the sooner they will have > the > > chance to start earning the respect of the > > electorate once again. > > https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/i > mproving-our-streets/live-projects/our-healthy-str > eets/our-healthy-streets-dulwich > > The hyperlink to the PDF file entitled "Melbourne > Grove" has a map that shows exactly where the > barrier will be placed. > > Looks like vehicles won't be able to get access to > Melbourne Grove from East Dulwich Grove. Ah ha, so it isn't a closure to traffic as the council's note suggests but a closure to traffic trying to use Melbourne Grove from East Dulwich Grove - the closure to all traffic was probably wishful thinking on behalf of the council!

Rahrahrah - it looks as if the school didn't want one - or certainly not where the council wanted to put it. Quite pointed that the council seemingly hadn't consulted the school prior to these plans being drawn up which seems ludicrous to me - and demonstrates the haphazard and knee-jerk approach to these things by our elected representatives. What do they say about the 6 Ps of planning/performance......;-)

Therein lies the issue with the public transport headbangers - I am not sure many of them have actually used it - or certainly not tried to use it in anything other than a north/south capacity. London developed on traditional linear conurbation lines as the rail and tube networks were built out - it wasn't built for mass transit for anything other than a north to south/in and out of London manner and not much has improved in the last 100 years - look at the trouble they are having with CrossRail.

Any second now we will get an update from Cllr McAsh (an update written by the Politburo! ;-)) on how they have listened to all of the concerns regarding the closure of roads around East Dulwich to through traffic but have ignored them all to pursue this folly. In two years, during the local councillor elections, we can remind Cllr McAsh of his unwavering support for the party line and how he systematically overlooked his constituents and caused untold misery for the majority of East Dulwich residents. We can also remind him that he, and his party, did nothing to manage traffic challenges as a whole instead focused their attention on the evil folks of "leafy Dulwich" (his words not mine). We can remind him that when called upon he did nothing to support those outside of his own echo chamber. He will no doubt retort with heroic tales of how he was busy single-handedly defeating the government's plans to re-open schools in June, will send us a few videos of police brutality, tell us that private schools are evil, hand us all socialist worker placards and proudly show us his Order of Karl Marx that Richard Livingstone gave him for his services to Goose Green during his time in office!

Have they expanded the closures on Melbourne Grove as they now refer to it as "a closure to all motor traffic on Melbourne Grove, south of Tell Grove" - which suggests no vehicles will be able to gain access to the whole section of Melbourne Grove or is it just badly worded? Also, the fact they have left the Healthy Streets map in place does this mean that they will also be pressing ahead with the closure of Eynella and the expansion of the CPZ to areas B and C under this plan too? The communication from the council has been appalling - deliberately confusing and unclear - and I am interested to see that Comrade McAsh is keeping a very-low profile nowadays and now seemingly applies a controversy-filter to anything he responds to and avoids any questions he doesn't see fit to answer. The sooner we get a chance to vote on whether we want this rabble in control locally the better - it seems the Labour party haven't learnt anything from the election and the sooner Keir Starmer gets to grips with rooting the far-left out of the party at all levels the sooner they will have the chance to start earning the respect of the electorate once again.