first mate

In the Park yesterday, other bits of the park sectioned off with metal barriers making them inaccessible (also ugly). An elderly lady using sticks was advised by someone with her to turn back; it was apparent she had wanted to visit the garden run by FOPR, but it was closed off. It seems clear the additional random barriers are there to protect areas of the park from vandalism while Gala is on, but it is yet another unwelcome aspect of this event that affects park users who just want to visit their local green space on a bank holiday weekend.

If it stays at only three days then we may have to grin and bear it (personally I am not overly bothered but it is a well known fact that unwanted noise is incredibly stressful. As you may know, the council have granted a premises licence for next year for a 6 day event, which pretty much doubles the time that very large section of the park will be taken out of public use and be boarded off. If it goes through, I can guarantee it will just be the beginning and before long, as is happening in Brockwell Park, the Rye will simply become a summer events base for hire. I and many others do not want to see that happen. Quite aside from the noise, events like this seriously affect the park ecosystem. The council cannot be trusted to be accurate and honest about those effects because they are desperate for money.

I hope those closer to the Rye don't have too hard a time this weekend. I live much further away but could certainly hear it. If you love the music then good for you but if you don't it must be pretty grim to have it pumping out for three days solid.

Watch from about 44:24 Cllr Rose explains the rationale and then refers to when there is controlled parking throughout the borough. she also talks about how when every car owner must hold a permit the council can collect much more detailed data on what sort of vehicle is owned, size, weight, engine size etc.. and this will allow a more nuanced approach to charging. She and Margy Newens refer to research on pollution from tyres and so while ownership of electric vehicles is being, as Rose says, "incentivised" she also notes that they are heavier, so this may change how they are charged down the line. In terms of benefits to the public...fewer cars so the spaces occupied by cars can be freed up for other things..think many more bike hangars, now to also house some of the hire e-bikes and scooters and more places to park/store more two wheeled vehicles on the street. Southwark aim to be the first borough to take provision of bike hangars in house. They are also mulling over woodburners and gas hobs.

Abe, If you listen through the most recent council scrutiny session on environment and community engagement commission, chaired by Cllr Margy Newens ( it is on youtube) Cllr Rose states it is her ambition and intention to see the whole of Southwark made CPZ.

It may be worth remembering that in their 2022 manifesto, Southwark Labour made a pledge to "Equal Pavements", ensuring accessibility to all pavement users.

Given, Cllr Rose' personal commitment to ensuring the whole borough is CPZ, before long this will apply to everyone, and not just those who own a car.

Does this mean James McAsh will take over the rollout of CPZ? Cllr Rose is on the record this month saying she is personally determined to make the whole Borough CPZ. Will he follow this hard line? It does rather make a nonsense of consultation. Cllr Rose rather gave the impression that the purpose of consultation, in her mind anyway, is to sell the council agenda, not so much to listen. Others may correct me but I do not recall any mention in the Southwark Labour 2022 manifesto of a pledge to make the whole borough CPZ, this seems to have crept in after?

Given cars ( for the most part) and bicycles don't drive themselves I think that everyone on here was really referring to human behaviour while acknowledging that the larger and heavier the vehicle the greater the potential for damage if travelling at the same speed. As an aside, forced 'positivity' can actually be quite oppressive. Fine if being deliberately positive works for you, go for it, but maybe let others decide what they can and cannot post.

I know, it looks pretty shoddy on Southwark's part.

Humdinger said: "If you are in a wheelchair (a tiny, tiny fraction of the population) then you already know you have hard luck, a few extra bicycles on the street is hardly going to push you over the edge." Quite honestly words fail. FWIW, for anyone already dealing with the "hard luck" ( an unbelievably unempathetic choice of words ) of some sort of physical disability (not just wheelchair users) and the daily inequalities they already contend with, having your access blocked by an e-bike lying in the pavement is exactly the sort of thing that can push you over the edge.

I think this article makes some of the points I have tried to touch on. Obviously we are not in USA and speed limits, including for official e-bikes, are different but I still think there is food for thought. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88q54x/america-has-an-e-bike-problem-that-cant-be-solved-with-more-e-bikes

I don't think bicycles are as inherently dangerous as cars, for reasons of weight, as you say, but I have had more near misses with other cyclists when cycling and it has made me wary. That is of course just my experience. You also have to think about the potential impact of e-bikes, scooters and souped-up e-bikes (or illegal motorbikes as you prefer to call them). It is no good trying to separate off the powered variety of two wheeled transport because they are 'not really bicycles'. They are a central part of the council's stated aim to transition to micro mobility and active travel. Having witnessed some recent behaviour of those using e-bikes, as well as the carelessness with which the bikes are left lying around after use, I am not convinced this category of users will be more law abiding than car users.

Yes, I think most people know what that result was about and that it was important to send a message to central Govt at the time. What it was not was a resounding mandate in support of LTNs. Interesting even Sadiq Khan can see there are problems with the way some have been implemented.

In the last Environment scrutiny session Cllr Rose used a word salad around all this and kept talking about carefully curated dockless use and careful management of provision, but you really got the impression that the council are stumbling into all this, not clear about what they are doing or the consequences.

I think as soon as you hear weasel words like "evidence suggests" you know the evidence is probably somewhat lacking.

Rockets said: "Funny how Cllr Newens goes on to say: "In reality, the 2022 election results give southwarklabour a strong mandate to improve active travel infrastructure + reduce traffic in our borough"....a little bit rich and someone ought to remind her how she, and her other councillors and party, went out of their way not to mention anything about active travel during the run-up to the election, choosing to pretend it wasn't a local issue at all...." This is so true and I had actually forgotten how surprised I was at the time that the issue was seemingly buried by Labour for the duration of the council elections, it seemed as though it was not mentioned by Labour Councillors at all.

Yes, but not very accessible if blocking pavements or lying in the road. I agree, it is great that young people, especially have a convenient, fun and cheap form of transport but we do need to address current issues with these bikes and find a solution and not create problems for other sections of the community.

Yes, I think this is it as well as prioritising the ticking of green boxes in order to trumpet what they have achieved. I do note what you said about the narrow difference between those who voted no to this and to Calton etc.., which was pushed through. I know a consultation is not a vote but I'd love to know what prompted the u-turn exactly?

I also wonder how many of those focussed only on reducing car use also enjoy holidays and travel abroad and fly to their chosen destinations? How many have wood burning stoves and have loft conversions and side returns, all that building work is polluting and arguably unnecessary. What about the climate costs of technology, whether phones, computers or other gadgets? How many use Amazon and similar regularly? Visiting Peckham Rye yesterday I saw the huge energy consuming vehicles involved in building the Gala site, yet we are told this is a sustainable event, despite damage to the park each year?

You must admit though that despite Dulwich Park and other very large green spaces literally on the doorstep, there is a massive need in this location for a tarmac area for 'permitted public events' and an area where children can gambol and play on tarmac as well.

Yes, we can only hope that the Nunhead campaign is emboldened by this.

I thought this was quite interesting, in terms of souping up an e-bike. How are people getting around this limit? In the real world, there are a lot of ways around the speed limit and some tricks that people are using that don’t stick within the laws. So what are some ways people are getting around the UK e-bike speed laws? Hacking the speed controller – One thing that a lot of e-bike owners do is to use some kind of hack to get their bike to exceed the speed limit. Going faster outside of busy city roads – Another common thing you’ll read on the e-bike forums and places like Reddit is that riders stick to the speed in cities but exceed it once they’re out on roads. Ride normally and avoiding attention – One common opinion is that if you ride sensibly, as you would on any bike, it’s highly unlikely you will be pulled over. Using a Cycle Analyst – With this device you can have a really powerful e-bike of say 1000 Watts but set a limit to it of 250 Watts. At the press of a button, you can quickly reduce your output from the illegal (but speedy) 1000 down to the legally allowed 250. Overclocking the motor to get more out of it – A little-known secret about e-bike motors is that they can actually push out a lot more power than what they’re intended for. Most of the 250 Watt motors built in China can actually give out 500 Watts if you know how to do it. What the motor is officially ‘rated’ as is often far less than what it’s capable of. Do the police know what to look for? Another hot and controversial topic is the question as to whether or not a regular police officer would be able to tell the difference between a legal e-bike and one that was 500 Watts instead of 250 Watts. Or even be able to spot a power-assisted bike at all (some are not as obvious as others). Many believe that they would need special training and knowledge to be able to tell if an e-biker was breaking the law or not. During our research for this article, it was hard to find many examples of people being pulled over and asked anything by the police about their e-bike. Realistically, the police have a lot on their plates and e-bikes are probably not a priority. And it’s not likely they would know what to look for without training. That being said, you might get unlucky and be pulled over by someone whose hobby is e-bikes and they’d know straight away if you were using one of the above tricks to get over the legal limits.

A number of streets in ED today with Lime bikes scattered untidily on the pavement or road. A number seemed to have fallen over. Another road in Nunhead has a freshly painted bay but a number of bikes were left strewn outside of the designated drop off point.

In this link at around 18:17 Cllr Rose outlines her plan to increase hire bikes but especially e-bikes and scooters, across the borough. There will be increased docking but also dockless ( "curated", whatever that means). Also see 26:48 on dockless trials. Perhaps this is the reasons for the sudden influx of Lime bikes. They have been given the green light by the Council.