Rockets

Snowy, I think it is a bit harsh accusing Earl of sea-lioning...;-)

Ah so it is not a physical school street closure - just camera/camera car enforced? It just always seems like there is a constant flow of buses using the street so was wondering what the pans was when the school pulled the school street barricades across it but clearly not an issue!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce7x901l8pko

And it is definitely on the increase, here are the numbers from the last three years for Dulwich Village ward (Robbery is Theft with the use of force or a threat of force but does not include snatch thefts. Snatch theft get classed as other theft). 2021 (data from Jan 21 missing due to 3 year cut-off): Robbery: 17 Theft from person: 4 Other theft: 45 2022 Robbery: 28 Theft from person: 23 Other theft: 96 2023 Robbery: 49 Theft from person: 35 Other theft: 77 January 2024 Robbery: 5 Theft from person: 7 Other theft: 6

Hardly romanticising the past, just highlighting the very real change in threat over the years - I bet when you were robbed at knifepoint there weren't weekly reports of stabbing deaths in London as there are today? The Chelsea Smilers were the thing of playground urban legend; zombie knives and kids being pointlessly murdered today are very much not. And in Dulwich right now everyone knows someone who has been robbed and the problem is getting worse.

But the graph from the report I shared shows exactly that...that in 2022 cycling modal share declined due to increases in other forms of transport. Whether I want it to be true or not is irrelevant...you called me out for suggesting cycling modal share was declining and then you shared a TFL report that shows exactly that (but I also acknowledged it validated your position as well in another chart) - you could have accepted that and we could have agreed to disagree but you have decided to double down and deny that the graph I drew your attention to validates my position.

You know the graph I posted is from the very same TFL report you posted the table from....how come there are two conflicting items in the same TFL report......?

How will that work with the buses that use Etherow?

I am not misrepresenting the figures (they are figures from a report you shared by you after all) - I was merely pointing out that you were selectively plucking graphs from the TFL report that validate your viewpoint and I selectively plucked some from the very same report that validated my viewpoint as well. I am not against cycle lanes I am a frequent user of them - what I am against is groups spending millions and millions of taxpayers money on measures that clearly are not delivering against the stated objectives (Will Norman's 10x increase) and then their advocates selectively plucking and presenting stats to try and convince people that they are working. Like the City of London stats - according to the report detail all the investment in cycle infrastructure in and around the City delivered just a 2% increase in cycling compared to pre-pandemic levels - so how can anyone really claim it has been money well spent? This is why the pro-cycle lobby deflect and detract by saying "more bikes than cars in the City - hurrah success!" and why people like me look beyond the headlines to determine what is really happening. You might not like it, agree with it or are ever going to accept it some of the stats tell a different story to the one you are trying to tell! I never get the chance to hear the echo as there are so many people on the pro-lobby who are more than willing to pile-on and scream at me to try to accuse me of misrepresenting this, that and the other and how I must be a fascist, Tory petrolhead because I dare to challenge their view!

Earl, please, please, please take time to read what I have posted. Yes, according to the very report you linked to from TFL it shows (Page 16 Figure 7) that in 2022 cycling modal share decreased for trip-based mode shares - look at the 2022 element of the chart.....as an overall percentage of all trips made cycling is decreasing due to the increase in bus, tube and overground trips. This is not a desperate attempt to obfuscate but a desperate attempt to educate.....

It seems the council has identified a number of areas to increase revenue (according to Southwark news): https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/southwark/budget-summary-key-points-from-southwark-councils-budget/ Southwark Council has found several ways of increasing income, including raising fees and charges and renting out council offices. Fee rises include the garden waste charge going from £60 to £80 per annum, raising planning fees, increasing the price of leisure services and commercial property rents. Southwark Council aims to raise over £1million by renting out its Tooley Street offices by 2026. The total budget proposals include additional income generation worth £7.6million. I can't find the details of where that extra income generation of £7.6m is coming from...but you can probably bet it's from you and I and the residents of Southwark!

Seemingly the Dulwich Village re-design of the re-design is burning through a lot of our cash!

Bottom-line is an increasing number of people are being targeted in the Dulwich area for their phones and personal belongings and each of those is a victim of a crime that can often have a long-lasting impact. My son's friend had his phone stolen near Dulwich Library as he got off the bus to visit us and now we have to meet him as he won't walk anywhere on his own. When I was a kid in South London there was always the threat of violence but the worst that ever happened was some bruising and a fat lip - today the threat of being stabbed is very real and that can have a very traumatising impact on people. And the street robbers use this to their advantage - according to my son the fact the person I saw in a balaclava had a blue surgical glove on Dovercourt was to indicate that they are carrying a knife and willing to use it (to be fair the little squirt probably could not have mugged anyone without the threat of a knife such was his tiny build - without it most people would have laughed at him) and the worrying thing is the brazenness of the people doing it - that they are happy to do it in broad daylight and often target multiple people in quick succession because they know no-one will ever stop them and they will get away with it. When my wife had her phone snatched the police told her they knew the group of kids that we doing it in the Dulwich area but were pretty much powerless to stop them - unless they happened to catch them in the act.

Earl, I was merely addressing your claims that what I had said was disingenuous - which it, quite clearly, was not. I always find it fascinating what happens when you look behind the headline stats touted by various lobby groups as the headline often tries to tell a different story - clearly there has been no massive increase in cycling in the City of London but there are more cyclists than motorists now. In the meantime there is another argument when you look at the data about modal share too...see the attached. In fact, if you look at Figure 7 on page 16 of the TFL report you linked to it very much suggests modal share is shifting as tube, bus and overground see more passenger usage (look at 2022) - it seems that TFL is presenting data that backs up both sides of the arguments - you win when looking at stage-based analysis, I win on trip-based analysis - so clearly not nonsense after all....;-)

Earl, the devil is always in the detail and the detail very much suggests it is not disingenuous nonsense - what is disingenuous are some of the headlines concocted by the pro-cycle lobby to present a good news story. More often than not a lot of the pro-cycle headlines have been "selectively plucked" to create a story and you highlight a very real example of that. We have discussed previously the claim that there are now more cyclists in the City/Square Mile than motorists (which was always a correct but slightly misleading headline as cars never really returned to the City after the bomb checkpoints were put in decades ago) - it is also important to note that walking is still the main mode of transport within the Square Mile by a country mile (although at the time of the report at 80% of pre-pandemic levels). And the claim of a "massive jump" in cycling - look at the figures - even in the City (which has become the poster-child for the pro-cycle lobby on the basis of that more cycles than cars headline) the very report that gave that selectively plucked headline showed a very different story that cycling was at 102% of pre-pandemic figures. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2023/03/01/cyclists-now-outnumber-motorists-in-city-of-london/ Attached are the actual numbers from the report presented to the City of London Corporation which tells a very different story from the headlines. You can find it here: https://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s182959/Appendix 6 Transport Trends Graphs and Charts.pdf But yes, cyclists do now outnumber motorists in the City of London that is correct but for all of the investment in cycling infrastructure and sacrifices made to bus lanes etc would one have not expected a bigger jump in cycling in the City? Often the headlines are written by the pro-cycle lobby to distract people from the fact that the boom in cycling (as a proportion of all journeys) is just not materialising despite the huge amount of investment to make the cycling revolution happen.

Earl have you noticed how many bus lanes have been turned into cycle lanes….take a walk across any one of London’s bridges over the Thames and see how the bus lanes have been turned into cycle lanes and buses now sit in traffic with all of the other vehicles and TFL has said that bus journey times have slowed across London, although they have blamed roadworks for the delays. Angelina, the National Travel Survey showed that London modal share is declining for cycles due to people returning to buses and tubes (I believe bus use had increased by 59% and was heading back to pre-Covid levels) there was a thread on it in October (National Travel Survey and cycling policy in London)

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It was interesting watching the coverage on it today and the talk that consultations HAD been held for many of the LTNs but, of course, the Achilles heal for many of them is whether those consultations pass the legal tide-mark for whether they allowed residents to have a voice. Southwark could well become a poster-child for how some councils have used consultations as a means to force their ideological plans on residents (and it was maybe no surprise that Southwark refused to respond to the governments request for information). This made me laugh as it presumes local communities actually had a say in the first place - a bit of a leap of faith when it comes to Southwark to say the least: Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: “The Conservatives’ latest attempt to dictate to local communities how to run their streets is a blatant and desperate attempt to distract people from a Government that has run out of road." It is, of course, no coincidence that since the government shone a light on the dodgy consultation practices of some that Southwark have actually started to run consultations with a yes/no response mechanism rather than a consultation that be even responding to you are forced to validate the council's plans. An admission if you ever needed one that the previous Southwark consultations may not survive a legal/judicial review. But with a new Labour government it will probably all be forgotten and a blind-eye turned to it and Southwark will be able to return to their devious consultation ways and forge ahead with whatever takes their fancy!

Alice, It's the data behind that map that tells the true story - it's worth an explore to understand what is going on: https://www.police.uk/pu/your-area/metropolitan-police-service/dulwich-village/?yourlocalpolicingteam=about-us In the Dulwich Village ward overall reported crime is up over the last year and over the last 3 years. Now, it's a bit of challenge trying to understand where the type of crime that is becoming such a problem locally is logged but there are three categories where it would reside when reported: robbery (where theft, a weapon or violence is used), theft from a person or other theft (phone snatches are filed as other). Now over the last three years all three categories have been growing considerably in the Dulwich Village ward: 2021 (data from Jan 21 missing due to 3 year cut-off): Robbery: 17 Theft from person: 4 Other theft: 45 2022 Robbery: 28 Theft from person: 23 Other theft: 96 2023 Robbery: 49 Theft from person: 35 Other theft: 77 January 2024 Robbery: 5 Theft from person: 7 Other theft: 6 And you can see from the attached policing priorities document from the same police report that the police acknowledge the problems with robberies (from school children) and phone snatches in the area. So crime is rising being driven by violent or threatening robbery, theft from persons and phone snatches - and car crime is increasing in the area too. It makes for grim reading and most definitely not a perceived increase in crime (per Cllr Leeming's comments) but a very much actual increase in crime and crime that massively impacts those who are on the receiving end of it. I wonder if it is time for the council to acknowledge there is a crime problem in the ward and try to proactively address it.

Alice, what data are you looking at as the data published by the police for the area tells a very different story - and one Cllr Leeming may want to take a look at if he really thinks the increase in crime is just perceived....?

It is becoming a big problem, especially around Townley, Beauval, Dovercourt, Woodwarde and Calton and the criminals are becoming more and more brazen because they know no-one can do anything and they will never be caught. They are there on an almost daily basis looking for, and more often than not finding, victims.

Ha ha...Starmer is trying to make Labour electable (he is winning me back) and you can't do that from the far-left and this is why Labour HQ may have an issue with McAsh taking the helm of Southwark - a throw back to the dark, dark days of Corbyn! To be honest I thought McAsh's bigger political aspirations died after his call to action to get people to block the police doing an immigration raid in Peckham was plastered all over the Mail - that stuff can come back to haunt you when you progress to the big leagues and causes problems with party HQs who want to present a more acceptable face to the masses!

Yes on 101. This may have been the same group robbing people at knifepoint in Dulwich Park earlier- a friend's street What's App group had been warning people about activity in the park. After the two we saw went down Dovercourt (one of them gave me a lovely one finger salute as i must have stared at him in the wrong way), a couple of minutes later we heard a woman's scream and men shouting at whomever was making her scream from down Dovercourt towards Townley.

Two kids in balaclavas wearing one blue surgical glove each acting very suspiciously around Dovercourt Road at the moment. Looks like they are waiting to try and rob people.

The problem for Cllr McAsh is that he is just the type of far-left politician that Labour HQ is trying to clean the party of - which might explain his timing for his mutiny and power play!