Rockets

This is now the fourth time there have been shovels in the ground...how much more money can the council waste on this folly? I can't wait for the grand opening...I am sure the councillors will be grandstanding their handiwork and avoiding questions about why so much has been spent on one junction.

It's good to have a passion in life!!!! 😉 In all seriousness, you should probably be questioning why people do feel so passionately about and why people are still challenging the council over their wastage of millions of pounds of tax-payers money. Some of us are clearly not happy to turn a blind eye to such wastage.

Don't respond to Raptortruck - it's someone masquerading as petrol head from the pro-LTN side!!! 😉

If I remember rightly there used to be a similar shop in Catford - weird that we used to have arms and militaria shops dotted around South London! Was that the Junction Emporium?

Bravo to Norway - positively encouraging the transition to EVs and it's working! Free parking, use of bus lanes and no tolls for EV drivers - now that is progressive! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25ljxpygeo

* except in every local consultation the council has run on the issue

I remember that place - always looked a bit creepy inside - did anyone ever venture inside? Lordship Lane certainly used to have an eclectic mix of shops back in the day! And some eclectic bars too - Inside72 was always a great/weird night out.

Oh dear...now you really are living in fantasyland........you mean things like the objections tabled by emergency services because the measures were putting lives at risk (that the council ignored for nigh on a year)? The only ridiculous obstacle in that case were the planters blocking emergency vehicle access - I mean, who thought that was a good idea? That cost a sizeable chunk of cash to put right (once the council finally relented). You're trying, desperately and rather hopelessly, to rewrite history. As is DulvilleRes. Were you there DulvilleRes - there was a huge turnout - especially for one you think is just a small vocal minority? I am with firstmate and I love the fact the pro-LTN usual-suspects put so much time and energy trying to convince people that it is a small vocal minority and get themselves in such a lather; yet actual evidence presented to them (consultation responses, protests, their upset at posters people put in their windows, the number of people trying to attend council meetings on the matter, the vandalism of signs put in people's gardens) is so compelling that it is anything but a small minority. The obsession as to who is behind OneDulwich clearly indicates that they are still a thorn in the side for those on the Pro-LTN side - and that makes me chuckle. If it really was a small vocal minority people would have lost interest by now. But they haven't. And that clearly still really angers some people.

Do you find the boredom only washes over you when the discussion goes in a direction that you can't argue against........;-) Maybe those who are bored of it should take heed of some sage advice from 80s TV classic kids programme Why Don't You:

Here we have an acknowledgement of why some of us have challenged the council since the get-go on whether these measures actually work or whether they displace traffic via another route and actually increase pollution. The circle is now complete!

No I am not - you were talking about consultations and I have given an example of a local consultation that Southwark Council have ignored the results from. I think you will find I am very much on the right thread and that's exactly why you're trying to deflect and distract....;-)

The Dulwich Phase 3 consultation results (which are an excellent example of how the council ignores the responses) were published in February of this year. I know you would love to pigeon-hole the Dulwich scheme as a done deal but you may, or may not, have noticed that the council has been changing the designs - hence the Phase 3 tag - and remember, they had proposed an £8m set of improvements for the latest round that were soundly laughed out of the room and then they came back with the works they are now, hurriedly, trying to complete. So no, some of us haven't moved on as we are not happy to turn a blind-eye to council wastage - especially at a time when the council is claiming it has no money for anything - perhaps you are? Or maybe you're happy for them to waste tax-payers money time and time again on things you support? For anyone who spends much time around there it's becoming clear there are likely design-flaws in the works they are doing now - they seem to be creating a cycle pinch-point on the chicane part in front of Au Ciel - so I am sure they will come back and throw even more money at it in due course. That square will likely haunt the local councillors for the rest of their careers - from the way they installed it, the way they ignored the pleas of the emergency services to re-open it (I have never understood why any politician thinks that ignoring the input from emergency services is a wise move), the way they have botched consultation after consultation and the millions of tax-payer's money they have wasted on what is nothing more than an ideological vanity project.

The Lib Dems were also campaigning to have a pragmatic discussion and approach around LTNs during the council elections. One of them should have stood down to galvanise the vote - if the Tories had stood down I suspect the Dulwich Village result might have been very different. This is know as the "champagne socialist" effect! 😉

Let's just ground your comments on the weight of opposition to the Dulwich Square proposals - the council said they had 3234 comments left in the consultation and 82% of respondents identified as being from Dulwich. This is how the comments were ranked (in terms of do the changes meet the objectives). Pretty compelling and how did the council respond - "thanks for your interest we are proceeding with the plans regardless". Perhaps you can enlighten us as to how the council fulfilled it's duty of office in relation to a consultation per the below? What is consultation? Consultation is technically any activity that gives local people a voice and an opportunity to influence important decisions. It involves listening to and learning from local people before decisions are made or priorities are set.

The devil is always in the detail - and the detail was massively lacking from the Southwark Labour manifesto (it always is)!

Posting the last One Dulwich update here because they discuss the Dept of Transport data that identifies Southwark's cycling and walking data every year since 2016 to 2023 and it is very interesting (which I have attached). It would be great if they could break this down to separate walking from cycling.. Campaign Update | 10 Sep The Dulwich Village junction Work continues on the £1.5 million Dulwich Village junction re-design, despite the lack of community support (see the Phase 3 Consultation Report here). We continue to impress on council officers that their plans show unacceptably poor access for emergency vehicles, and inadequate and badly positioned parking for Blue Badge holders. Further details, and how to object, can be found under ‘Dulwich Streets for People (notice dated 5 Sept 2024)’. Southwark’s poor investment The Department for Transport’s published data (updated last month) shows that Southwark’s huge investment in active travel – including millions spent on LTNs – has resulted in no significant change in either walking or cycling. In fact, walking and cycling for travel (rather than leisure) went down in 2023 compared with pre-Covid years. Maybe they need to re-think their strategy? West Dulwich Action Group The West Dulwich Action Group are taking legal action to fight Lambeth Council over the recently imposed LTN. Read more on their Facebook page, or help them reach their £30,000 target via GoFundMe. Thank you for your support. Best wishes, The One Dulwich Team

No I am not - I am calling on the council to use a consultation in the manner which they are bound to do so which is per the below (and nothing Southwark has done adequately fulfils this). Only the most blinkered would suggest the council has come any close to the below. Not sure why you don't think running a definitive consultation to close this off once and for all would not be in everyone's best interests - unless, of course, deep down you know the results would go against you - which brings us back to exactly why the council have ignored the below and had to pull every under-hand tactic out of their playbook to try and get what they want. What is consultation? Consultation is technically any activity that gives local people a voice and an opportunity to influence important decisions. It involves listening to and learning from local people before decisions are made or priorities are set.

But Southwark has, repeatedly, deliberately and intentionally, ignored the views of constituents time and time again over this issue. They have deliberately bent the rules to try and get the result they want - even with this they failed to get the mandate they needed and then they fell back on the "consultations are not referendums" spin. You're constantly telling us that it is a small, vocal minority so why not back yourself and agree to lobby to have a definitive consultation that the council agrees to action the outcome that responds to the views of the majority residents? You know as well as we all know that they removed any reference to LTNs or CPZs in the run-up to the local elections - that was a strategic decision by the powers that be in Southwark Labour. Not one flyer that dropped through our door even acknowledged the existence of CPZs, LTNs etc....yet when they got elected suddenly it's "we have a mandate from the people to do more". Only those who are politically naïve (or politically blinkered) think that wasn't a very deliberate strategic decision on their part.

I think you are right and this is where the councillors seem to be de-prioritising the views of the constituents they pledged to represent and why so many locally are angry with them and why that anger towards them is not subsiding. They bleat on about having no money and then find millions to spend on Dulwich Square (which they are clearly rushing through to make "permanent" so it is hard to undo the changes). Political hypocrisy at it's finest.

Yup. The irony is not lost on me that you are posting this one post after March46 posted a link to an article that has these pictures in it - that "tiny number of fanatics". There are more people at that protest than have ever attended one of the Dulwich Square jamborees, in fact more people than all of the Dulwich Square events have managed to muster collectively - but, you know, by all means keep questioning the number of local residents against these measures. http://southwarknews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/image-500x242.jpg Thereby validating exactly what I was saying about your original post. I presume you will be issuing an apology to Richard Ardwinkle for the accusations you made against him in your post (I think I know the answer to this already)?

If they can find a place...primary is OK, secondary numbers are still growing and estimates suggest they won't start dropping for 5 years... BBC News - London primary school numbers to drop by 52,000 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly559jnd2zo

??? You asked a question to which i provided an answer - there's no pleasing some people.....

*in your opinion.... 2,000 local people who registered their details seems to suggest other points of view may exist!

And that's good news for the existing cohort of state school children at those schools how exactly? A sudden influx of kids from the private sector will mean class sizes will grow and the most disadvantaged will lose out - remember a private school child moving to state is a double-whammy as they won't be paying the 20% tax and costing the state more for the state school place they will be occupying. Very, very unlikely - far more likely to make them even more elitist as it is the big schools like Eton (which massively skew the perception of private school in the minds of the masses) which will survive. It is the smaller schools that will struggle and many of those are not catering to the types who frequent Eton etc.

I suspect that very much depends if you are a resident of that ward......