kiera

Notices on Peckham Rye Park gates from Gala festival applying for a 3 year licence to hold the event again. This time it's for an additional day and for an increased number of attendees. They are proposing to extend the footprint but have not included details or a plan of the extent of the site. The notice is dated 26th November and is followed by a consultation period of 28 days. An accompanying poster invites the public to a meeting tonight from 19:00-20:30 at The Auditorium, Level 5, Peckham Town Centre Carpark, 95A Rye Lane, London, SE15 4ST.

The Royal Mail representative was the person who actually made the decision to close Silvester Rd. He only took up his post around June or July and seems to have made the decision almost immediately because he said (repeatedly) that the East Dulwich office could never cope at Christmas - every Christmas there was a call out to other offices to help out with their post. Someone sensibly asked why he couldn't have simply transferred part of Silvester Rd's area to Peckham to reduce their load to a size they could manage. That hadn't occured to him as an option, as it's Royal Mail's policy to close and merge offices. He closed it when he did, so that, at Christmas, they won't have to help them out with staff from other offices or temporary postmen!! He was asked if he considered it had been successful and he did think it was. He was told in no uncertain terms, by the public, councillors and Helen Hayes that the whole thing had been handled disastrously. However, SE21's woes were heard next, and our problems were nothing to theirs, which were absolutely shocking - people's credit cards and bank statements stolen, duplicate PINs applied for and huge amounts of cash taken from their accounts with banks initially refusing to reimburse because they were accused of not keeping PIN numbers secure. Each case was treated as an isolated incident by Royal Mail, so they didn't pick up that it was all coming from the same delivery office. It took the residents to realise they were not alone in their loss, coordinate all the cases and present the evidence to their councillor and Helen Hayes before Royal Mail got the message. A worker has since been sacked, but now another staff member, the manager I believe, has been suspended after sacks of old mail were found in locked cupboard. Residents wanted reassurance there wasn't a ring of crooks operating there. What the residents had to say was far more telling than anything the rep had to offer. He said our post will be back to normal in s couple of weeks - if anyone was still listening.

We have been told that the service is back to normal, but we know that they don't have enough staff to run the service in the normal way, without resorting to additional measures. Last week I saw and spoke to the postman who had been my regular one before the change. He was delivering letters elsewhere in East Dulwich, so I asked if that was his new area - it wasn't. Although it was early afternoon, he said he was doing it on overtime.

I too have received a reply today to my complaint to Royal Mail (by first class letter dated 5th Oct.) It's very bland and concludes "The Delivery Office manager has sent his apologies and will do all that is required to ensure you receive the quality of service you should expect in future. The issues that have been effecting (sic) your local office have been resolved"

Does anyone know whether outgoing post is being kept up to date or whether that's delayed as well? I posted something first class last Thursday, which should have been collected from the post box by 9am on Friday morning, but it's not yet been delivered. As things are, I didn't expect next day delivery, but I did think it might arrive the day after.

I quite agree, but from the Financial Times' article, it seems it was part of a deal agreed with the union - so therefore agreed to by the postmen?

That makes some sense, but it's a short journey and it seems that the post is not necessarily being sorted in the security of the van. Goblinqueen reported regularly seeing "mail all over the ground being sorted into boxes" and I saw something similar myself this week, where two postmen were crouching down apparently sorting mail on the pavement before I received my postal delivery.

I didn't think it could be right for post to be sorted en route, but apparently it's an official "productivity initiative" according to a Financial Times article on the web entitled "Royal Mail struggles to deliver new dawn" "Royal Mail pledged to bring down weekly working time from 39 hours to 35 by 2022 with no pay cut, subject to successful trials of productivity initiatives. One involves reducing indoor preparation time of mail bundles, so that postal staff do more sorting en route."

The TFL journey planner defaults to the quickest route by all transport options, but you can change the options to the ones you prefer, such as no tube, buses only, fewest changes etc.

I was becoming accustomed to one weekly delivery, but things have perked up this week and I've had several deliveries. The first delivery was a letter which had been posted to me by a friend only the previous day. However,this did not mean that they were now up to date, as two days later, I received a letter my friend had sent me before the one I'd already received, so was presumably from their backlog, so post is not being delivered in date order. All the delayed post I'm receiving are items posted to me since Peckham took over. I emailed Harriet Harman a while ago, as she's the MP for Peckham, but I've received no reply or acknowledgement.

I agree with Froglander that dogs should be under control. It is irresponsible to leave a dog running around for hours.The park is a family friendly and wildlife friendly place, not a place for hunting wildlife. It would be distressing to families/other park users to see a squirrel killed.

I agree with previous comments, that we do not want the proposed changes to the no.40 bus route. Given that we are an area of London which is particularly dependent on buses, it is wrong to truncate our only bus route to London Bridge.

I think you dealt with the situation very well, including dismantling the device and warning others by posting on here. Another time you could consider popping into Sainsburys for up to ?50 cashback.

I very much like the mural - it's friendly and welcoming to East Dulwich. I had been sceptical before it was done, because the outdoor gallery ones are of subjects unrelated to East Dulwich and some of them are quite unpleasant - in my subjective opinion of course! The station mural is a positive and relevant addition to East Dulwich in my opinion, so thank you from me eastDAG

At that meeting I got the impression from the union rep that the postmen weren't sorry at the prospect of no longer working at Silvester Rd - that the only thing they would miss was the easy parking. The union rep was anticipating that conditions would be better for the postmen at Peckham and this is similar to what he told Southwark News. Southwark News reported in July last year:- "The decision to close the Silvester Road branch, and the building to be sold, came after months of campaigning from locals, Labour Party members and the Communication Workers Union (CWU). The company has sought to assure residents that their door-to-door postal services will not be affected, and no jobs will be lost. But Steve Beadle, CWU rep for south east London, told the News it was a ?complicated? scenario. ?The conditions of the Silvester Road branch really aren?t fit for purpose, the building is very antiquated,? he said. ?The move would be good for my members. But the one massive issue we?ve got is that this area would lose its enquiry office. What we say as a union and to the local community is they still need to provide an independent enquiry office within SE22...." https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/royal-mail-confirms-east-dulwich-sorting-office-will-move-peckham-january/

There's a photo of a queue outside the Highshore Rd sorting office in this week's Southwark News, plus a piece written by Helen Hayes, from which I gather that she has not yet received a reply from Royal Mail's CEO. On reading more on the subject, I've learned that CEO Moya Greene retired this month - so that's probably why she's not replied. The new CEO lives in Switzerland and Royal Mail paid almost ?6 million to get him. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/19/majority-of-investors-reject-pay-deal-for-royal-mails-chief-executive

Routes 363 and P13 are on diversion from Melford Road at the junction with Wood Vale/ Lordship Lane between 0800 and 1700 on Thursday 27 September 2018 due to works on the carriageway. Route 363 towards Elephant and Castle will not serve the bus stops named Underhill Road / Melford Road to Friern Road. Please use the bus stop named Lordship Lane / Wood Lane or Peckham Rye / Barry Road. The diversion uses Lordship Lane and Barry Road. London Buses on diversion also serve bus stops along the diverted route.

I too have been on a tour of the waste management centre. When Sue says people are employed specifically to remove non-recyclables, that's right - as the recycling goes along on a conveyor belt, employees have to remove by hand the carrier bags and anything else which shouldn't be in with the recycling. That's what they're employed to do, and they have to pay attention and be quick, as the conveyor belts keep running. The council have proudly promoted this as a recycling centre, so I had unrealistic expectations of it being more sophisticated. I must say I was underwhelmed, but I agree it's worth going on a tour. It's an incredibly noisy environment and must use a huge amount of electricity to separate the different recyclables. Magnets remove the steel cans and air is blown onto the conveyor belts to try to separate the paper, but some of the sorting is done by hand e.g. drinks cartons. It's quite difficult to find out exactly where it all goes after. All we were told on my tour was that the cardboard went to China to be re used for packaging. I don't know what they're doing with it now that China no longer wants to take rubbish from other countries.

It's the only waste which is actually recycled at the "recycling" centre - it's turned into compost which can be purchased from them.

Saw the postman still delivering letters at 7pm last night.

The staff at Lambeth Archives would probably be interested in your documents, particularly in relation to Brixton roller rink. The archives are in the Minet Library, Knatchbull Rd SE5 and are open to the public.

Not at the same time as the funfair and not to that part of the common, so near to residents, no. Note - I'm not personally affected, but I've seen the set-up on the Rye, so can appreciate what DanMaitland is saying and why he's rather taken aback by Southwark's new enthusiasm for renting out the park and common with, it seems, scant consideration for residents/park users.