malumbu

A tad unfair on the neighbours - you could say that East Duwich is not as dynamic as Camden Town - a place I once longed to live. You could also say that Forest Hill is not as pretentious as East Dulwich, or that East Dulwich is not as lovely at the Village, West Dulwich or Herne Hill (and due to that some have a chip on their shoulder). Safety is also a relative term - not so long ago Lordship Lane was well dodgy on a Saturday night. Anyway rather than berate East Dulwich, it's fair to say that places change, and in recent years that can be quite fast. Honor Oak and Forest Hill, in particular since the Overground (tube network) started around 15 years which whisks you off to the trendy areas of East London and onto Highbury and Islington. Brockley, Annerley and Penge were much less desirable but are now changing too. Who would have thought Catford could have been a popular place. Deptford and New Cross similarly, but it feels that the Greenwich ripples are spreading. Rotherhithe is also worth looking at, not too much going on but close to the Thames and lots of history.

Rocks, you are now taking over this thread too. Hats off to you for your persistence.

smooch Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > they are already blaming central government - its > not their fault and they cannot take them out > anyway without being financially penalised - funny > how other boroughs have taken them out tho...... Why on earth not? They let local authorities do the dirty work without the resources. They fail to join things up. They neither intervene, nor do they encourage a culture change. Freeze fuel duty. etc etc. Don't want to lose votes. Gesture politics. I have little intimate knowledge of traffic flows on the LTN but I know shed loads on air quality,climate change and transport. Credit to those local authorities sticking to their principles whether you like it or not. And a loud raspberry to Ealing and the like for caving in. Anyway back to educating oneselves, article from George Monobot in the Guardian "Instead of focusing on ?micro consumerist bollocks? like ditching our plastic coffee cups, we must challenge the pursuit of wealth and level down, not up" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction? Sorry haven't fully digested it yet as I usually like to give my own summary.

An interesting article but not sure of the particular relevance to the discussion here. Extracting from it: "Recognising that there is value in working to influence change across various points in an ecosystem, and given the rapid boom of climate change and health organisations in recent years, there may be benefit in a mind-set shift within the climate change and health space in England: with more coordination and collaboration to reduce unnecessary work and duplication, better identify movement gaps, and lead to more cohesive outcomes." So our health professionals need to be better joined up and that may go into local authorities, public health, social care etc. I thought that the Lansley changes were supposed to address much of this, but totally lost about NHS reform at the moment. The report also considers too much emphasis on personal behaviour (individual behaviour change). Perhaps, but that takes a strong and interventionist government. Seems like lounge talk to me. Anyway pleased that we reading up and educating ourselves.

Cycled past the Rye Hotel today, now called something else, and looked in the window. They are happily advertising 'craft beer' whatever that may be at ?6.50 a pint. Obviously something the punters want. I recall going to the Rake in Borough market a few years ago and the fizzy beer exceeded that even then, but they had some more subtle stuff and not far off normal pub prices, so credit to them for that. Have an on off relationship with the Fox, sometimes beer selection is great, other times not. Similar with the clietele and service.

Shame that this thread is generally attracting those with a disdain for e-scooters. I may not like them myself, and appreciate that legalising/accommodating them on our roads is difficult, but they are here to stay, like it or not. A pity that the demographic posting on this site does not include those that like/have e-scooters. Not that I am in that I hasten to say. Anyway, a nice distraction from the LTN thread.

The bigger picture is that we were all encouraged to regularly switch to put pressure on the suppliers to reduce prices and increase their competitiveness. Recent governments have made a big point on encouraging small and medium sized enterprises in increasing innovation etc and moving away from the megaliths. I duly moved to new company, not realising it was diddy, on a price comparison website, who went bust a few weeks ago. I'm now with British Gas, who I left two years ago... I wrote to Kwasi Kwarteng asking for an apology for the earlier conservative government that privatized the gas and electricity utilities for a quick buck, leading to the mess that we are in today but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Not sure why the joy about the ULEZ failing to bring in the expected revenues. Not sure why it is so difficult to grasp that vehicles are causing the emissions and there needs to be a fast solution to this - the Tories are not going to raise Fuel Excise Duty nor are they going to rush to introduce road user charging. Not sure why so many of you want to return to the old ways of unfettered driving - the right to drive where you want, what you want, how you want, where you want etc. Not sure why the thread at times morphs to local shopping. Across the country most either order on line and/or drive to their local out of town retail park. How come we are we all suddenly expert transport modellers and cardio vascular specialists? I'm not but have had the pleasure of working with some. At the end of the day private vehicle owners and us as consumers need to change our way Otherwise this thread is blah blah blah and more blah blah blah. More useful homework for you: https://www.trueinitiative.org/media/597602/oliver-lord-london.pdf To summarise: T H E A N S W E R I S C L E A N E R V E H I C L E S B U T A L S O L E S S K I L O M E T R E S D R I V E N (cut and pasted from the above, I try not to use capitals but maybe on this occasion...) Just checked this post and the capitals above are a bit busy on the eye (looked fine when typing) but leaving them as it makes the point)

Why on earth would you cycle along the South Circular? I do it if I really have to. It's always been busy. Anyway the good news is, say for an hour or so each day, the cardio-vascular benefits outweigh the harm from pollution. Yes I got that from a real medic not plucked it out of thin air. Not so good if you are a courier or Deliveroo cyclist. But there again as we all now the air quality inside a car can often be worse than outside. An article by some sir or other, something about being the government's former Chief Scientific Advisor https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/12/children-risk-air-pollution-cars-former-uk-chief-scientist-warns There are worse places to cycle such as the A3, A10 and A13 cycle routes, ie the cycle lanes that follow these 'motorways' There's a nice cycle route through to Clapham Junction via Herne Hill and Brixton Hill, lots of quiet traffic calmed roads. I had to cycle to New Eltham a few months ago, and found a similarly tranquil route through parks and lots of roads with traffic restrictions. I am sticking true to my word and doing positive posts today.

His DB5 has died many a time, but always managed to come back to life. I think he also wrecked a number of Lotus Espirits in the Spy who Loved me, something to do with driving them in water. There is of course a special place in heaven for the Bond lead actors.

I suggest that you all read up on the subject and become better informed. Many of you have big issues with the LTN. Your prerogative. You crunch through the figures. Fine. And then talk about lack of joined up-ness. Start by looking at the top and then going down. You are looking from the wrong way round. Here's the government's plans for tackling roadside air quality (a legal requirement following action in the Supreme Court): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/633270/air-quality-plan-detail.pdf This is the role of the Mayor: The Mayor of London is responsible for air quality in the capital and has reserve powers under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995 to reflect this. Under the Act the Mayor may direct the boroughs in the Greater London area on how they should assess and prioritise action in their areas. Here is how the Mayor is working with the boroughs https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/pollution-and-air-quality/working-london-boroughs I'm offering no opinion (beyond read up on the subject). The main thrust of the London air quality plan is the ULEZ, the original commitment being the last Mayor ie the current PM. You can speculate how he is working with the current Mayor and DfT's relationship with GLA. Government does have the upper hand.

It's all getting rather ludicrous now and this thread has gone into a parallel universe. I expect that Southwark was behind the decision to scrap most of the HS2 Eastern extension. I'm being facetious, but felt like using stronger language earlier. Perhaps tomorrow, Friday, we can have more positive thoughts about the world.

PMd you, can be carried out under NHS but as those working at dental practices they can choose not to do it and refer you to the hygienist. I know quite a lot about this subject, leading some work on it maybe twenty years ago.

oimissus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- malumbu - I've seen you frequently ask people for solutions, and yet every time they do just that, you criticize them. You actually seem to want everyone to stop criticizing the council and then just shut up. Which sounds pretty much like what the council want residents to do as well. ----------------------------- You've missed my points. Firstly that the default position of many is to blame everything on Southwark. Secondly that even with the best will in the world they do not have the powers to compel either the schools or parents to reduce the school run. If anything you should be feeling sorry for local authorities who have been given the job by central government to sort out air quality without the funding or powers. A cop out, the point I have made during various central government consultations. Most of government effors is going on big ticket interventions - Clean Air Zones and the like working with the big metropolitan areas where, for example, you have greater control over public transport, such as Manchester, Birmingham, and to a lesser extent GLA/TfL (they don't like Mayor Khan). But little at the borough level. I was always disappointed in the lack of publicity at borough level. But even where this was good, such as Croydon, still had little impact. https://lovecleanair.org/what-can-i-do/projects/clean-air-4-croydon-schools/#.YZVJth3Leos I've also raised a couple of times where Southwark's interventions a few years ago led to more traffic passing a Lewisham primary. But not one of you, not one of you, showed any empathy. Which suggests a narrow perspective. I could go on about what I have done personally and collectively to support sustainable travel to school, but this is not my moral high ground thread. And I reached out in the past as in the late noughties I got very obsessed over a planning matter and a local authority, which took over my life, so have been in a similar space.

So what legal measures to Southwark have to compel parents not to drive their kids to school? May work in North Korea but not North Dulwich!

I love what you are doing but firepits are evil. I wont go into the General watson evening Telegraph, even though I understand that they don't do firepits any more. Otherwise good luck and look forward to visiting the reopened pub in due course.

Why? I seem to have managed fine for decades without recording my stats. I don't know what my PB is and I don't care. In fact I want to be anarchy. And Millwall.

As Rahrahrah has said Rockets has his/her own thread on the subject next door. I don't usually post if I have nothing new to say but there are half a dozen anti LTN thread on the ED part of this site.

You pays your money and take your choice. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/you-pays-your-money-and-you-takes-your-choice-chance But if you are going to pay a premium one should have a good experience in both ambience and the quality of the service and product. The whole Youngs' (Ram) Estate is both pricey and generally disappointing, beer awful, not a patch on the days when it was still a local brewery. As for the 'Lane' the only place I used to drink in was the EDT, in the times of the EDC, and the CPT (RIP). The EDT now as an Antic pub is relatively decent for ambience and price. The Castle is the last unreconstructed pub, and whist not a usual Guinness drinker it seems right (and reasonable value) there. A decade or two ago price marking order meant that by law pubs had to display their prices (as filling stations still have to do). This was not enforced and government revoked or amended the Statutory Instrument. PS craft ale is Emperors' New Clothes and you have been hoodwinked into paying a premium. Alcopops aka fruit 'cider' anyone? Sol and a slice of lemon????

Echoing others, I hope you recover quickly and get back on your bike in the near future. I've PMd you some personal experience and advice.

In deed, but you are being a tad critical of Southwark, whose responsibility is this: The parents for sending their kids to schools far away? The parents who could get their kids to school in other ways, or where necessary even ride share? The earlier government for introducing the policy of greater competition in the state sector The earlier government who introduced the next stage of this, a sort of grammar school by stealth ie academies, outside of local authority control Earlier governments who did not introduce measures that discouraged private education in particular maintaining the charity status of the fee paying schools The schools themselves National government for not pushing harder on this - both DfE and Defra, the latter oversee Local Air Quality Management Plans, and can compel local authorities to do more The Mayor and GLA for not doing more pan-London I've seen great examples of schools pursuing sustainable and active travel, particular mention for Bessemer Grange. And then those who seem to have zero interest, I cycled to a school in Shirley once to do some mock interviews and there was no cycle parking and a massive car park. Back to society, when many of us were young, and parents were less risk adverse, we walked to school. Friends moved to Scotland, and local parents were surprised that they felt that they needed to take their kids into primary school, as certainly in that area there was a mass walk to school in the morning. Gross generalisations of course.

I'm sure that there is a whole Lounge thread on bike parking. Secure bike parking is the biggest thing that bothers me about cycling - more so than the weather, condition of the roads and safety. I did find an American company that made stands which had an integrated lock - aimed at work places, universities and the like. DfT didn't respond to me on this suggestion - I had seen that they were handing out grants for small schemes that were encouraging cycling including secure parking at stations. We don't seem to have adopted supervised bike parking facilities like in the Netherlands and where they exist I find them rather expensive.

Wow, you must be bored to post on this thread. If you did read my OP you didn't seem to note my self-deprecation at the end.

Oh, really disappointed, I thought that was about reclaiming the streets for the masses as was gone twenty years ago, not for entitled motorists, particularly those who don't know that both Fuel Duty and Vehicle Excise Duty are general taxation. It's like a campaign for those who have paid death duty to reclaim the morgues. I wont be joining you and blocking streets will not get you general support. https://griid.org/2012/05/16/this-day-in-resistance-history-1998-reclaim-the-streets-global-day-of-action/