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Also, bear in mind that the Dulwich Parameters don't just affect highway and public realm issues... they also affect policing (crime), council services and public engagement. Our local police teams are going to be moved from Camberwell to Peckham, which means it will be more difficult for them to get to their wards, thereby further limiting patrol times and public accessibility. Council housing services are also located in Peckham, which is difficult to get to on public transportation from ED/Dulwich. Plus, the existing community meeting room facilities are limited and difficult for some residents to get to... it would be really useful to have a shared police, council services, and community meeting facility on the Lordship Lane axis, but we keep hitting dead ends on this solution.

Pavement repairs and upgrades are in the public domain and need to be done through the council, who addresses public liability issues in its contract with Conways. The best way for residents to raise funding to address pavement issues is via the devolved CGS funding, which is what I have been trying to do, but councillors aren't approving my bids. Going through Living Streets, and getting them to understand the Dulwich Parameters, is just an extra step which delays the process. I've been trying to circumvent this by liaising directly with the highways officers and am beginning to get some information. A section of Chesterfield is going to be upgraded in September and I've got wind of a highways budget underspend which will hopefully become available soon, which can be used for local issues. The problem is going to be getting councillors to understand what the local issues are...

I know the work of Living Streets well. The crux of this issue is that these volunteer groups, such as Living Streets, are more used to dealing with the parameters of issues in the middle and the north of the borough... and what we keep saying is that East Dulwich and Dulwich have unique parameters which affect inter-related transportation issues, such as large geographical distances with poor public transportation, which makes residents more dependent on car usage. So, the "one size fits all" philosophy, which works in the middle and the north of the borough, doesn't work in the Dulwich area. This is why we're trying to side-step these volunteer groups that claim to represent all of Southwark and try to get the council (which is based 5 miles away in Tooley Street) and local councillors to understand what needs to happen in order to improve the quality of life for residents in East Dulwich.

Totally agree.

Thanks for the update, Sally. Being a geek, I would be interested in seeing the specifications of the hangars that the council are currently consulting on, as it's all a bit vague. But on the other hand, I'm personally far more interested in seeing public money allocated to improving the roads, pavements, trees, and other public realm aspects that affect all the local East Dulwich residents, not just cyclists. We all need to interact together.

Just to be clear Rendal, the astonishing update comment was because just minutes after I posted to say that I thought the cycle hangars should be paid for by internal council funding and not devolved local CGS funding, I found a link confirming that the council was indeed paying for hangars in the area and therefore we didn't need to allocate CGS for this. It's actually a good thing. And if the council are being encouraged by the Mayor in one form or another, then that's even better. Hopefully this means that councillors will approve CGS funding for things that residents actually apply for in the future... which is what CGS funding is supposed to be for. Nigello... sadly, there was a situation a while ago where cycle hangars were cut open and the cycles easily stolen. And yes, I expect they'll be tagged as well. I wonder if there's a way that disused council garages can be converted into community cycle storage? On the other hand, I think Rendal's comment about in-garden storage is more practical, but not everybody has a garden. Maybe developers can be encouraged to incorporate cycle storage into new flats, etc?

I guess I'm probably more used to translating "council speak"... The whole Quietways 7 project that's about to start causing problems in the Village next week is funded by the Mayor, so I'm assuming that there are other "funds" for local councils to apply for in order to be "supported" by the Mayor for London's Vision for Cycling. In any case, I think it's better that the cycle hangars are funded by internal Southwark funding rather than by CGS devolved funding, unless local residents specifically submitted a CGS bid for it.

I don't drive a vehicle or cycle, because of health issues. I am a vehement green person, walking or taking public transportation when possible. As you can see from the discussion on the other thread, our issue is about questioning why devolved CGS spending is being allocated to projects which weren't directly proposed by residents, when improvements for pedestrians that are bid for are being sidestepped.

An astonishing update... I've just stumbled across a Southwark consultation about cycle hangars, that appears to have be funded by the London Mayor, that was conducted just a couple of months ago in June 2017. You can see it here, along with all the proposed locations for cycle hangars:- https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/cycle-hangars-local-consultation/ There are several locations proposed for East Dulwich, nominated by local residents, that are being consulted on to be paid for by City Hall. I guessing that this was the part of the consultation letter that was just sent to Nigello? So, this is great news... But the question is... why are councillors allocating devolved CGS funds for seven more hangars when there is actually an externally funded scheme going ahead in the area?? And, at the same time, residents' CGS bids for pavement upgrading are being declined... even though pedestrians are top of the priority list in Southwark's transportation strategy.

Thanks for reposting my comments above, firstmate, as I've been biting my tongue. I basically don't have anything against cycle hangars. If local neighbourhood residents want to group together and put in a CGS bid for a hangar for an agreed location on their street, then so be it. That's how the democratic nature of devolved CGS funding is meant to work, it's meant to empower residents to address issues that they feel aren't being addressed by internal council funding. But, for actual ward residents' campaigns and CGS bids to be overruled and rejected and for devolved CGS funding to be allocated into a theoretical project "pot" is contrary to the "devolved" philosophy of CGS. It's now creating a situation where residents are having to circumvent obstacles simply to get basic issues addressed in their ward. Having said that, I personally think that bike hangars should be consulted on and funded by internal council funds as part of a bigger overall strategy across the borough, so that we don't have a situation where devolved CGS funds are diverted away from residents' issues. BTW, firstmate, I've recently been circumventing obstacles with a view towards accessing information about pavement improvements in the area, will try to start a new thread to update so that we can all stick together.

Bingo, firstmate. You've hit the nail on the head.

FYI, I was at Dulwich Park yesterday, so I popped into the Francis Peek Centre to check on the garden waste bags (yes, I'm sad!), and there were none... So, I talked to a Park Warden who told me that the bags are delivered on Thursdays and are usually gone by Sunday at this time of year, so the best time to drop in and get them is Friday or Saturday at the latest.

Yes, Dulwich Pot and Plant next to North Dulwich Station have got them. Plus also there is usually a large supply in the foyer at the Francis Peek Centre (the community centre) in Dulwich Park, which also has a large car park near to the College Gate entrance.

My understanding is that all the devolved underspend is gone now, Barge. Allocations voted for by cllrs and formally confirmed at the June 26th DCC meeting. Spare resources are being spent and locked down because the ward boundary changes are due to formally be implemented by next May 2018, with the phasing process starting in October. We're not even going to be called East Dulwich ward anymore, we'll be designated as Goose Green ward, yuck. I totally share your view of local government protocol... one sees so much money being wasted on "infrastructure" and internal "priorities" that the actual public only gets leftover breadcrumbs. This is why I keep talking about us leaving the union and becoming the Peoples Republic of Dulwich... Dexit? In the interim, it's worth exploring how much we can circumvent obstacles via the Dulwich Society, as per the other thread.

Yes, dormant balances... you're better at digging through official paperwork than I am, so definitely let me know what you can dig up. My understanding is that these funds can be allocated via the Dulwich Society for works and projects in East Dulwich, which can be topped up or match-funded with other funds such as CGS, Neighbourhood Fund, or even crowdfunded/donations. So... maybe we can actually finally have our pavements replaced if the residents support this?! We should make a priority project list...

I haven't seen this myself but, from past experience, it's sounds like these were emergency "interim" repairs. Basically, Highway Legislation specifies that potholes of a certain depth are "Health and Safety" hazards and must be addressed immediately, even if just as a temporary measure. I can't remember the depth offhand (been awhile since I've done this)... I think footpaths are 2 inches, roads might be 4 inches? So a schedule will be made for temporary repairs (usually a plug of tarmac) to be done in severals roads in an area, which is why the truck is so big as it will be driving up and down roads in an entire area bunging in tarmac plugs all day. It's actually more cost-effective to do emergency repairs like this and then schedule more formal repairs for an area later on, as they are different crews using different materials. If you haven't been given tarmac plugs, but had squares cut in and backfilled, then tarmaced, then it will be a proper H&S permanent repair with the smaller potholes scheduled to be done later. The next stage will be for the proper permanent repairs to be done on all the potholes in the road... there will be a schedule somewhere of where the repairs are to be done. Bear in mind that permanent works can be delayed if another area is deemed to have greater issues developing (Dulwich is often bounced out of the queue). So, the easiest thing to do is to track down the relevant council highway officer and explain what has happened and ask him for the date when the permanent repairs are due to be done on the whole road, then keep bugging him if the works get delayed. It used to be possible to call the department directly, but now everything has gone online, so you may have to email environment@southwark.gov.uk or there may be a direct address for highways@southwark.gov.uk Otherwise call 020 7525 2000 and hang on until you can talk to a customer service person who can explain the best way to proceed. Because I'm a geek, I'll have a look next time I'm down there...

Yes, nxjen, I actually agree with you... but I've asked repeatedly both on this forum and to residents in person if they want to be involved in any of my East Dulwich campaigns/activities, but everyone tells me they've lost heart because there's no point. There are real logistical problems here in ED that don't exist in the Village... for one thing, communication is so bad that no one even knew about the above "ceremony" to fold the ED Society into the Dulwich Society... I only found out in passing when I talked to the chair of the DulSoc at a community council meeting after the fact, as he just assumed that I knew. So, I've just been going ahead with specific issues I care strongly about (bearing in mind that I have been an East Dulwich resident for 31 years now and know the area extremely well), openly sharing my actions on this forum and using the Dulwich Society as a constituted amenity society to process activities through. As I've said over and over... we have nothing set up in East Dulwich to use as a vehicle (in my personal experience, there were more complex problems with the ED Society, which I used to be a member of, than you have cited above), so the fact that the Dulwich Society are volunteering their services is the only current viable way forward. Therefore, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing...

It's a looong, complicated and patchy process, edhistory. If you start with this link to all the recent DCC minutes and agenda reports, start by working your way through the March 25 and June 26th reports:- http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=176 Bear in mind, though, that the various ward recent underspend decisions were only made verbally so the written confirmation will only be buried in a public document a week before the next DCC meeting in Sept... I can explain some of the references if needed (although there are other layers that are more cryptic unless one has been privy to background discussion), but I don't have much time to type at the moment.

This is the logic behind why I've been working with The Dulwich Society over the past three years with a view towards extending their remit into East Dulwich (Lordship Lane in the initial instance) in an attempt to sidestep all the obstacles. I was in the process of discussing the concept of setting up a local ED steering committee with some of the more pro-active traders led by Laurence Rouellier White before he sadly passed away, so now I'm back to square one, liaising with Ian McInnes directly. If you can identify more frozen funding, edhistory, that would be brilliant...!

Totally agree with you, Barg. My experience as a company director, used to dealing with "budget cuts" and priorities, made me horrified at what I witnessed in local government management. I could go on about this for hours, and could give many shocking examples if it wasn't for ex-councillor confidentiality issues. Identifying council employees doesn't help... I challenged many senior officers in my time (leading to actually the worsening of some issues), but the one overriding factor in local government is "employee rights"... gathering evidence to prove incompetence is extremely difficult and then an officer can't be sacked for doing a bad job - they have to be given second and third chances and an "opportunity" to be "retrained". This then becomes dis-incentivising for the better officers, who inevitably get fed up and leave. One thing that would help is if the councillor position was reviewed and designated as a full time position with a salary that a human being can live on, as this would attract more competent and experienced candidates. It really is almost impossible for someone with a fulltime job and a family to be an effective councillor. The workload is meant to be shared between the three ward members, but this almost never happens. In the meantime, we residents in East Dulwich need to figure out a way to be able to stick together... probably a discussion for another thread.

It wasn't specified at the meeting who had decided on the underspend allocations. Normally, all three ward councillors have to agree on how the devolved CGS/ Neighbourhood Fund allocations are made. Otherwise, a majority agreement can be made if two councillors outvote one councillor on a decision - this is one reason why there are supposedly three ward councillors in each ward, so that there can't be a deadlock (although this will change next year when the ward boundaries change and some wards will only have two cllrs). Back when I was a Village ward councillor, we had such a difficult time agreeing to devolved expenditure decisions, that we would often split the devolved funding three ways so that each councillor could at least implement some of the community projects that they felt strongly about. What worries me now is that it appears that a lot of the community bids are disapproved, but councillors appear to be approving funding for their own bids. I've queried this and apparently this is acceptable, although I seem to remember that councillors couldn't make their own bids in the past, so the constitution must have changed. Having said that, I always worked with a ward resident or a community group on funding projects as I believed this to be more inclusive. On the third hand, Village ward has more active and vocal community groups and RAs than East Dulwich, presumably because residents in East Dulwich have gotten so fed up...

I totally agree with you guys. I was dismayed to hear ED councillors allocating ?30,000 in CGS underspend funds to bike hangars at Monday night's DCC meeting. I can't tell from the disjointed public reports whether this is in addition to the approx ?25,000 allocated to bike hangars at the last DCC meeting or whether the ?25,000 was upped to ?30,000. But this is definitely in addition to the approx ?50,000 of CGS, in total, which has been allocated to Melbourne Grove "traffic calming measures" in the southern part of the road which has an average speed of 19mph. BTW, the conversion of the existing speed cushions into speed humps has now been approved so an engineer is now being paid to work on the detailed design. So I think we may be looking at almost ?100,000 of devolved public money in East Dulwich being spent on speed humps and bike hangars? This is why I just want to scream when I hear the excuse of "budget cuts" being used to block works and services that the community is continuously campaigning for...

Oh crumbs, I saw a police officer direct a bus into Pellatt, but they must have had to reverse back onto Lordship. Am guessing that they will direct buses into Townley then via EDG to Lordship. Saw some TfL guys up there, they were probably trying to work out the best route.

There is an extensive police cordon, both the junction of Melbourne with Lordship is closed as well as the end of Melbourne... neither buses, cars, bikes or people can get through. Is best to divert via Blackwater, to Melbourne, then to Colwell connecting with Lordship that way. Buses are being diverted up Pellat. Police aren't giving out much information, hope everyone involved will be okay.

My understanding is that that's only part of the story, worldwiser... I was told that the overall quantity of the granite from China for the whole of the borough works being done at the time was problematic and therefore it was decided by council officers that the slabs for our works in East Dulwich would be directed to a "higher footfall" area in the north of the borough where it was deemed more important, for "Health and Safety" reasons, that the pavement works were finished while East Dulwich waited for the Chinese slabs to be produced from scratch and imported, which took ages. Conways wanted to import the same spec granite slabs from Ireland, which we had dug our heels in and done in another similar East Dulwich fiasco, but the council manager who created the street works manual refused to allow the Irish slabs to be substituted for the "more cost effective" Chinese slabs that he had specified. So, it looks to me like the gist of your FOI is meant to sounds logical on the surface, but it circumvents the ridiculous situation that a small fortune of public money was lost in order to pacify a council officer's specifications which were intended to use "cheaper" materials in order to save overall repair cost. Baby out with the bathwater. I'd love to see your FOI papers, worldwiser, as I'm quite experienced at determining how communications are selectively presented out of context.