Whittler
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Posts posted by Whittler
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As singalto says, it may be a health and safety issue to do with how many bags of donations the volunteers can take and sort in one day. If their 'sorting and pricing' area becomes clogged and overloaded with bags of donations waiting for sorting, it poses a H&S risk to volunteers. It's a balancing act for volunteers who may be deluged with donations at particular times - as someone has already pointed out, holidays are prime times for people to have a clear out - and they have to make sure there are enough people to sort and price and manage the shop floor. I doubt very much that it was a case of shunning your donation for no good reason, and perhaps next time if you have a lot of stuff it may be better to divide it and take it to a couple of charity shops that are close to each other to spread the love!
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Just for interest, it's a well researched fact that culling of urban foxes just does not work. It has been found to lead to increased numbers, if anything, as fox populations are self-regulating and the breeding rate will inevitably increase in areas where there is a smaller fox population. Mange is more of a natural threat to the urban fox population, and recent theories as to why it seems more prevalent in urban rather than rural foxes have looked at the poor diet (discarded fried chicken bones and the remains of takeaways etc) of the city dwelling fox, which means they are not getting their vitamins!
Interesting article here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23167-culling-urban-foxes-just-doesnt-work/
Hope you find a good (and humane) solution to your particular fox-related problem, katgod...a 'safe box' where the delivery can be left securely seems the best option.
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We all know (or should know!)that flytipping is illegal and anti-social, so if you do have quantities of waste to dispose of after small building jobs or garden clearances etc PLEASE use a registered and licensed carrier to remove it if you cannot take it to a recycling centre yourself.
There are no cheap shortcuts to disposing of waste which don't involve that waste being illegally dumped or it being generally not disposed of properly and responsibly. It seems that a lot of fly-tipping now does relate to short term rental and tenancy agreements, so the more civic minded folk out there that can 'do the right thing' when disposing of those few bags of rubble, odd bits of broken furniture or that big mound of garden waste, the better. Or as people have said, use the Councils collection service if you can, and yes, you will have to pay for it.
If you have a recommendation for a 'man and a van' or have found a company that you wish to use to remove waste, you can check the registration of licensed waste carriers here: https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/index
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I'm over the border in Lewisham and we don't have a food waste collection (think yourselves lucky) but i compost as much as i can by taking it to my allotment .....thinking of getting one of these beauties http://www.hotbincomposting.com/compost-bins/hotbin-composting-extra.html so that i can even include meat, bones etc which you can't put in a normal compost bin due to it attracting vermin, as someone quite rightly pointed out in an earlier post. This system is closed though, with everything sealed inside, and it produces good compost at an alarmingly quick rate - really good if you have a garden and/or allotment. It's not cheap, but if i added up all the dosh i spend a year in bagged compost and well-rotted horse sh*t for the 'lotty, this'll pay for itself pretty quickly, i reckon, and all from my own recycled food waste! Wish i'd invented it!
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It's a shame you lost some money over this, ali2007, and i'm sorry about that, but just to echo an earlier post PLEASE remember that it is essential to use only licensed waste carriers if you have large items that cannot easily be taken to the council dump/recycling centres or collected by the council themselves. It is your legal responsibility to dispose of any waste properly. I happen to live on a road where we've had a perennial problem with flytipping over the years and it is always builders waste from garden or house refurbs ie decking, rubble, wood etc
These guys are good http://www.anyrubbish.co.uk/ i've used them in the past as i don't drive and also have difficulty - on the rare occasions when i can't recycle/repurpose something - of getting rid of stuff that the council won't collect. Yes, it will cost you some money, but please, do the responsible thing and don't get ripped off by flytippers.
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Have a look at the Friends of the Earth map https://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/issues/uk_fracking_map_41274
A company (Northdown Energy) has already applied for a licence for the areas in question in SE London/Kent and there is plenty of information about this proposal elsewhere....Boris is adamant that London should be fracked if there is found to be shale gas in order to 'keep the lights on'...
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OOoh, you can't beat a nice bit of well rotted leaf mould as a soil conditioner, i'm with you there! The leaf mould bay in my compost area at the 'lotty is an essential part of my veg growing regime!
As Iain suggests, Lewisham will collect green waste if you use the special bags (see below), all good as they use it to make compost for the council parks etc...
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You will probably be ok to plant them now if they are a hardy variety as red devil suggests. This is a really good website for lavender which i've used in the past (i've just removed an old lavender hedge, but have been carefully taking cuttings from the existing plants for the last 3 yrs so that i can replace them with the same variety - i'm intending to replant in the next few weeks if possible and if the weather holds) http://www.downderry-nursery.co.uk/
There are some helpful tips on the site for care and pruning etc.
They recommend planting up until September, after that it's a bit of a risk so i agree, you should be ok now.
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Well, the proposed development is hardly massive, and it's in the conservation area so i don't think they'll be able to expand on the site.... a Morrison's 'Local' store is going in to the current M&Co clothes shop on London Rd...
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You might want to take a wander round the top of Sydenham Hill, top end of Kirkdale, Sydenham Rise - i've seen quite a few here already this year. Sydenham Woods is a good area for them.
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Yep, dovestail's right, that'll be lily beetle grubs.... they are covered in their own poo.
See here: http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=553
Pick the adult beetles off (they are bright red, easy to spot, but will fall on the ground as a defensive measure so stealth is required) and, errm, dispose of them before they can do more damage. Personally i've abandoned growing lily's as they seemed to get massacred every year, probably due to the fact that i have fritillaries in the garden and they start the season on those then move on....
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The Butchery in Forest Hill (opposite Sainsburys) make their own, most excellent, sausage rolls. Highly recommended.
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I think it's safe to assume that people are being quite organised and are stealing the potted plants to sell them on....probably at boot fairs... As Sue mentions above, it's happened in and around the area before at this time of the year, just as the weather warms up and the boot sale season begins. If you have plants in pots outside the front of your house, as others have said, chain 'em down. A trip to a garden centre will tell you just how much well established plants and nice pots are worth, so it's not a surprise that some thieves see it as easy money. I agree, it's very sad.
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Yes, Great Brownings is one. Here is an article from the Dulwich Society that covers some (but my no means all) of the post-war developments built on Dulwich Estate land....
http://www.dulwichsociety.com/newsletters/52-winter-2003/64-sixties-architecture
As you can see, it mentions that 3,000 new homes were built, and the area covered is very large stretching over to Gipsy Hill and Forest Hill (Little Brownings, Sydenham Rise, Tarleton Gardens).
Quite an ambitious programme of quality house building and as the writer of the DSoc article says, not well known even inside the area.
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I doubt very much that trees were removed/land reclaimed, or certainly not on a grand scale, in fact all the modern estates had quite specific planting schemes (with specimen trees) around them on the communal amenity areas, so it was all very sensitively designed and well thought through - one of the more visionary things that the Dulwich Estate achieved, in my opinion. I was lucky enough to go to a talk by the architect at Dulwich Picture Gallery some years ago (he was in his 90's by then) and he said the Estate had pretty much given them carte blanche and there was no incentive to overdevelop the sites, which is why they are all so well placed and with plenty of space around them.
On our road there is an elderly couple who bought their house off-plan in 1959 and they've never moved, as, in their words, they've never found another house as nice to move to. As i said, it's a matter of taste, and domestic Victorian London architecture has never really appealed to me http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/p-health/bricks.htm
Anyway, i think what is important in relation to the Harvester is to say that whatever gets built there, i doubt it will happen quickly as the Estate move at a phenomenally slow pace and don't make quick decisions, well, not in my experience!
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I like them, in fact i moved to the area SPECIFICALLY for a mid-century house that happens to be on the Dulwich Estate - here's some info on the architects that designed most of the Estate properties built by Wates from 1959 onwards http://www.themodernhouse.net/directory-of-architects-and-designers/austin-vernon/ if you're interested.
Most of the modern estates were built on the sites of existing, large properties whose leases had come to an end and most had fallen into disrepair after the war, so i don't think any existing woodland was taken to build them, in fact more land was probably given over to the woods as the gardens attached to the old properties became absorbed into them. They are lovely properties to live in. All a matter of taste, but 'crappy' they are not.
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Otta, if you're a fan of ale, and if you don't already know about Late Knights (Penge based brewery) check them out. They occasionally hold events at the lovely Alexandra Nurseries http://www.alexandranurseries.co.uk/late-knight-21st-december/ - goods things happening in your new home patch.
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I wouldn't be too sure about Honor Oak, Forest Hill, Penge, Sydenham being 'a lot' cheaper.....the areas along the Overground line are all zooming up in price. Or should i say catching up?
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The allotments in Southwark Borough are all self managed (as far as i'm aware) so it means finding the sites nearest to you and contacting the relevant committee/organisation - maybe someone else on here can help with that??
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200073/parks_and_open_spaces/532/allotments_contacts/1
Lewisham Council allotments are run slightly differently with a proportion directly managed by the council and others self managed on council land, but i know for a fact that the waiting lists are long (i live near the Horniman, so just in Lewisham, and i waited 6 years for a plot) and now plots are only given to those living in Lewisham Borough due to long waiting lists....
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As someone who owns a property on Dulwich Estate land, which means having to deal with them on a fairly regular basis, all i can say is that this: "Foresight is needed with this one. Come on Dulwich Estate put those thinking caps on please" is a wildly optimistic request.
Glacial is the word i would use with regard to the pace at which things happen with them.
Glacial.
And stifling.
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A typically measured, objective piece in the News Shopper about this very issue http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/10733408.Poisonous_ladybirds_living_in_News_Shopper_area__will_bite_humans_/?ref=ms
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"Am I missing any more potentially affordable areas which aren't too bad?"
Penge.
Decent transport links now it's on the Overground line and this area (see link) is lovely http://www.alexandracottages.co.uk/
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Was it this lot http://www.londonglider.com/about-us/ ??
Zero waste shop
in General ED Issues / Gossip
Posted
... it seems it's likely that plastic waste from Britain is ending up in the ocean...
Reduce, reuse and ummm, try to keep it to an absolute minimum for recycling.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-plastic-pollution-oceans-recycling-export-waste-malaysia-vietnam-thailand-a8400761.html
Aga and Anna (of Aga's Little Deli, Dartmouth Rd) are indeed opening a zero-waste greengrocer just a bit further along from the deli/cafe on Dartmouth Rd at the start of next year. Very exciting, as I know they are researching and sourcing a lot of great products for the shop.