rch

When one of my Smeg cooker hobs became problematic, I actually called Smeg and they referred me to a list of their authorised service companies. I called Pegasus because they looked good online and were fairly close (Bromley)… and the guy Dave was brilliant. Ironically, I was thinking of calling him again to do a service before things go wrong again, so I can highly recommend him. Contact details here:- http://pegasusrepair.com/index.html

I live at the Lordship Lane southern end of Melbourne Grove where there are several residents who don’t own cars (including me)… but we all opposed the CPZ partly because of the shops but also because there are a significant number of teachers who park here due to the Harris school on Lordship and also the Charter school at the northern end of Melbourne, which does have a CPZ. I’m regularly saying hello to the Charter teacher who parks outside my house, stressing to her that I don’t mind her parking there at all. So I suspect that as the cabinet member who is overseeing this is a teacher, he may be sympathetically delaying the Goose Green CPZ imposition. Ironically, during the school holidays, our end of Melbourne is completely empty.

Just heard that the former Pedder Estate Agent on Lordship Lane is going to become a furniture/homeware shop.

I also highly recommend David Godden’s Godden Structural Repair LLP. I had a really frustrating time getting quotes from several brick repointing companies to address the issues in the front of my house as they didn’t understand the structural nature of the problems. Most companies only wanted to repoint the entire brick frontage of my house in order to increase the charges and they didn’t understand why helical bars needed to be inserted in specific locations. But David assessed the problems immediately and was able to address the issues reassuringly and professionally without wasting money on unnecessary elements and cosmetic factors. I’ll definitely use them for further work in the future.

Also highly recommend Aston. He recently addressed a difficult issue which had three fiddly aspects… but, instead of having to juggle three different specialists, I only had to hire one Aston!

Thanks for your comments, RichH. I totally agree with your theory that foxes are becoming more urban… I regularly see a fox strolling along the section of Melbourne Grove where I live and can hear them breeding in the road junction outside my house. I suspect this will get more common as apparently foxes like resting in long grass, which is now becoming more common with the council’s climate friendly reduction in mowing the grass in public parks. I also see regular magpies, crows, and jays hanging around the rooftops and street lights here. As I don’t have a garden, it’s quite nice interacting with wildlife in the roads… which is also one reason why I visit Camberwell Old Cemetery, as there is more wildlife interaction there than in the local parks.

My Twitter photos of a Magpie and a Fox socialising in Camberwell Old Cemetery made it into Southwark News:- https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/southwark/fox-and-magpie-form-unlikely-friendship-in-camberwell-cemetery/

I live at the Lordship Lane end of Melbourne Grove South and I could hear it all day and until 10.30pm at night inside my house (it was louder outside in the road). So, I got so fed up that I called the noise complaints line (020 7525 5777) at 9pm, whereupon a really helpful engineer called me back. He was really interested in my noise experience as I’m approx 1.4 miles away and I’ve experienced this every year. So, he’s logged it and is going to request that the noise team travels along Melbourne as part of their monitoring rounds. He noted that my complaint was the only logged complaint, which was unusual… so I explained that the most people don’t bother to call because the system is dysfunctional. Whereupon, he stressed that more logged complaints gave them the stats to address the problem now and in the future… so, he asked me if I could communicate to as many people as possible that they should call 020 7525 5777 when the noise can be monitored and confirmed. He also asked if I could email Environmental Protection and Licensing as a back up, which I’ll do eventually.

New update to inform everyone that the Goose Green SNT are doing another free Bike Register cycle marking session at Evans Cycles tomorrow, March 25th, from 10am til 2pm.

Just checking in to let everyone know that the local Goose Green police have started the free Bike Register cycle marking sessions again. There’s a session today (Sunday, Feb 26th) starting at 1pm, being hosted by Evans Cycles on East Dulwich Road:- https://www.evanscycles.com/east-dulwich-ev-store-2084

The key is to provide a mixture of several solutions. The PlantLocks aren?t planters per se... they are small bike racks that are provided for shops with forecourts (not on the public pavement) and the shops look after them. I can see that the council are providing groups of cycle racks along the junctions of some Lordship Lane side roads, but this doesn?t address the issues of people specifically wanting to lock their bikes up outside a shop for ten minutes. Having said that, there is a redundant phone box outside of Franklins which is due to be removed, and that would be a perfect location for proper cycle racks to be installed (most cyclists lock their bikes along the railings protecting the crossing along there). Lastly, as with everything else, people need to report thefts and suspicious behaviour vociferously, otherwise the police won?t have the intel to address the criminal activities around here. As with everything else, there needs to be joined up thinking...

The bottom line is that Lordship Lane is a Destination High Street where the shops are struggling due to a variety of reasons. But, as the council is trying to encourage more local cycling, we need measures need to be taken to reassure residents and visitors that their cycles will be safe, to encourage them to shop locally. During lockdown I spoke to many cyclists who told me that they prefer to lock their bikes directly outside the shop rather than down the road, so another pro-active use of the CGS funds was to buy some Plant Lock units to place on the forecourts of some of the shops:- https://www.frontyardcompany.co.uk/products/plantlock

The difference is that Bike Theft is currently the highest crime stat in Goose Green Ward and our ward has recently had the highest Bike Theft stats in the borough. Crime statistics are what determines police focus, which is why we keep encouraging everyone to keep reporting everything...

These bicycle marking kits are funded by the annual Cleaner Greener Safer bids that I submit every year, approved by our ward councillors. We?ve used the CGS funding on the cycle marking kits for two years running now and I?ve submitted another bid for next year. I always post a notification of the sessions on the Goose Green SNT thread on the EDF and also attend all the sessions in order to interact with the team and the residents (community engagement with a visible police presence is a vital part of the process). In addition to Next Door both me and the police post updates on Twitter as well. These cycle marking sessions have become so high profile that some of the Dulwich SNT teams have applied for funding for their wards. We use any underspend on other devices to address local concerns... for instance, we bought a proper speed gun so that officers can issue speeding tickets on relevant roads, reported by residents. We?re currently looking at attack alarms to hand out. Because of ongoing budget cuts, this funding is extremely useful on multiple levels!

Good to hear you?ll be coming along, DulwichFox... it would be good to see some new residents as well.