malumbu

Disagree on this occasion, Beckenham is away from the high street and has parking. There is already enough hassle on Perry Vale behind the station with drivers parking on the double yellows when there is a big event on making the road dangerous for all. There is a reasonably large car park not far away but many don't or wont use it. Ideally of course families would arrive using the wonderful public transport in the area..... Anyway what will be will be.

Would expect that Lewisham would want to keep it for the arts and entertainment. Not sure if a kiddy playground would fit and whether it would need a change of use.

There is a fair number of council houses and flat going up, obviously not everyone is happy as some green space may be lost, but in the scheme of things......

To correct my earlier post reporting that the Labour government was leaving it to decide to local authorities what was best, government can and should do more to encourage and enable councils to take action. Funding will be available under sustainable transport programmes, until the last decade governments were talking the talk if not walking the walk, Earl's example above being a pretty good one, but a combination of Covid and the impact on government coffers, and Suank, reversed much of the previous commitments. Sadly I can't give links as whatever ministers said pre 2020 is wiped off the web, there may be references in the media and you can get some stuff in the national archives. Heaven knows what happened with regards to meeting statutory air quality roadside concentrations of pollutants. Government was ordered to sort this out by the Supreme Court in 2015, but it has long since gone quiet from the centre.

Pleased to hear RCH. But why not just say if "we", or "society", want to reduce car journeys, not "if the council" as this is painted out by many as unreasonable Southwark vs victimised car drivers. Also you play into the common view by many, oh we have to drive because the trains and buses aren't good enough, the pavement has too many cracks, crossing the road is not safe, and there are too many puddles. OF course everything can be improved, but we do have pavements, trains and buses, and 20mph speed limits. Some areas and the country may have none of these and crossing the road in a village with no controlled crossing with traffic at 60mph isn't fun.

Spoke to a copper today, the other boroughs offer a little support but not a lot, much of the police numbers are overtime which is as he said double bubble. But a fine bit of casual racism from said copper, he didn't want to volunteer as he didn't want to be stabbed. Hopefully most of these stereotypical views have now been kicked out of the Met. Totally irreverent to the thread of course. Worked on and off with the Met for a long time and generally seen things improve addressing institutional racism. A general request to cut the personal comments, bemused to have the T word used against me but a version of the C word is getting a bit silly. I'll leave that there.

Don't YOU think we should reduce car use?

As does the way many generally use their vehicles, the only time some are concerned about pollution is when they are inconvenienced. Good news, for me at least, is the new government not getting involved in Sunak's silly culture wars, car drivers vs humanity. Worth reading beyond the second paragraph: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v8d4lvjryo

One reason not to live in the village then. I was in Devon recently and apauling signal there too. So not planning to move there either

Looks like many other streets in London. Perhaps you are unaware that local authorities are strapped for cash, as costs increase, in particular as the population ages. Unnecessary austerity under the coalition government exacerbated the situation. Look at the big picture and perhaps you may cut local authorities some slack

You will have to help me on this one as I usually give up after the first paragraph of a link if it appears irrelevant. But happy to be tarred with a moral high ground brush.

Heavens, views like this make it less likely that it will be reversed. Have a walk sometime. Buy a bicycle, we could go on a nice ride into town or Greenwich. Get a train or bus. I went through the transformation and thoroughly recommend it.

I'm not fond of entitled motorists that couldn't give a cuss about other road users and the safety of people as a whole. Do you tick that box? I could spend my whole life dobbing people in but I have a life, although with some comments here it would be useful to have a helmet/body/dash cam. I've no sympathy for those who I do class as entitled and I speak from experience of someone who has penalty notices in the past, usually for not checking rather than taking the p.

Wow that's a pessimistic view of a massive festival which most people have a great time. Borderline casual racism? Ironic on a thread about racist behaviour. edited: Thought I'd better add some context. Firstly I have made an assumption that you are not from Caribbean or African heritage. I could be wrong of course. Secondly, your comment had little relevance to the thread, which questions why you needed to make it, beyond a conscious or unconscious bias.

To correct you IT IS a good thing, noticed builders in our street doing it as well. I haven't thought of surveying them to see whether they would have walked in the past. This radomised control trial https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920920308336 reported that about half of ebike journeys were previously carried out by car - but this may not necessarily apply to hire ebikes (surprisingly I didn't find anything on line). There is plenty from both motoring and cycling groups on line to suggest that some will replace their car with an e-bike. Not sure how robust this data is.

it's a fair bet that the police talk to Southwark, and Southwark, the police. Uncle Glen would have a view, probably different to most of us (in his words the forum is a bandwagon for George Monbiot's brainwashed minions), but has not posted since before Covid. I think he and Rendel who has also disappeared (shame) had some right ding dongs. Uncle was last heard of posting in support of Katie Hopkins, then some aliens took him away on a traction beam. Perhaps.

Yes, I had a look at this link https://www.southwark.gov.uk/street-care/graffiti explains Southwark's responsibilities well, including graffiti on private property where it faces the public, and others eg Network Rail. They can fine perpetrators up to £5000, so there could be civil action as well as criminal in this case - the latter being the purpose of the thread. Haven't a clue how long it takes for them to clean up graffiti, that could be a subject of another thread, but saddens me that some take every opportunity to knock the council. The Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003 gives local authorities in England powers to compel owners of 'surfaces' to remove graffiti and can charge then costs but I haven't looked to see whether this could be making you remove graffiti that someone else has produced. I expect that this Act is little used and I'm not bothered in finding out further.

Hate crime is a police matter, why knock the council.

Cycle and e cycle hire is fundamentally a good thing. Why are there so many people angry about it. A shame there is so much negativity. Now illegal e scooters and fully electric bikes, that is another thing I challenge everyone to think of a positive story, about anything, to start a thread on

Shame to pour cold water on this anouncement. Does it matter that she doesn't cycle in London beyond it makes her look a bit silly? Fortunately my good friends in DfT, whether they cycle or not, are no the ball, and often on their bike. Their personal views do not affect the job in hand - but it will be a relief that there was a change in government.

Expect it is Dulwich Estates, they don't allow cashpoints and no doubt don't like mobile phone masts, there is one camouflaged in Belair Park

I liked the person on the radio news earlier, can't even buy a coffee for 7 Euros (well you can but that's not the point) so move on. He also said I voted to leave, but think we should rejoin. And the second one, oh the expense, the expense. Not necessarily representative of UK society but not far off Edited - Oh dear I looked at the comments, usually there are some lefty trolls that make this fun, but oh my word, straight into anti immigration and casual racism. The Daily Mail really is the Daily Hate.

Weddings, parties anything. Dexys Come on Eileen, bit of the Kaiser Chiefs and Killers, and Gloria Gaynor. I could do that. Not that I'd want to.

I never thought that I'd be taking a more 'Reform' view on this but with 1.4 million unemployed why do we not have the workforce? Didn't Brexit promise us prosperity for all and high skilled jobs? To return to my centre left politics rather than increase the pay and upskill the jobs (I am sure with some creativity the latter can be done) we just drive costs and pay down. Yes of course many of the unemployed who can work don't live in the right area, certainly couldn't afford to live in London (the office cleaners I used to chat with all lived outer boroughs and had two jobs), and it is not a job that can be done remotely.

Interesting, if I expect selective, article from the Guardian about the abuse of cleaners working for the outsourcing firms. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/03/the-cleaner-sacked-for-eating-a-tuna-sandwich I wonder why the anti immigrant parties don't campaign against bringing in labour from South America to keep our offices clean at the lowest cost. Hmm is that because their members and those with similar views don't want to do low paid manual work?