rch

Abe, FYI, I got fed up and emailed the highways cabinet member whereupon the head of highways has responded declaring me a local stakeholder who will be consulted on the Melbourne Grove proposals once an engineer has been appointed (which indicates that progress on this is some way away). So, I'll try to find a way to stay in touch with everyone... maybe we can start a new thread for open democratic discussion? One of the things I wanted to ask an engineer about is whether there is enough clearance in the Melbourne/Chesterfield junction to implement a central pedestrian island if it looks like a build-out will get voted against because of loss of car parking, as happened in the 2009 consultation. If so, it might be useful for residents to have a choice between two options rather than the one option being rejected, thereby going back to square one yet again. It may not be possible, but I would at least like to speak to a professional to see if it is viable. Ped islands are actually the best form of traffic calming (and more cost-effective as it would be cheaper than a build-out), while also providing a safe crossing space for pedestrians (which includes a lot of parents and schoolchildren on Melbourne)... this was part of the philosophy of the CGS bid that I submitted for Melbourne, which was rejected by councillors. FYI, I also submitted CGS bids for pavement upgrades on Lordship, repairs to the Goose Green roundabout, trees, etc, but these were all also refused in favour of cycle hangars... although I did get funding in ED for a treepit experiment which could help to save our trees from being murdered by the new planting policies if it is successful. Having observed how local democracy is evolving, it appears that it is really useful to form a residents group with a name (in the same way the elusive MGTAG has done), so I am genuinely thinking of creating the Peoples' Republic of Dulwich (PROD), as I have joked about in the past... what do you guys think?? I think local government in Dulwich needs a PROD...!

p.s. The formula which defines "speeding" means that actual speeding tickets can't be issued within a 20mph zone until it can be proven that the vehicle is travelling over 24mph... but officers tend to wait until a vehicle is at at least 27mph to send a warning letter. So, technically, stats that indicate that the 15th percentile is speeding means that a small number of drivers are travelling at over 25mph... occasional boy racers make territorial statements by getting higher than that late at night. As you point out, average speeds on Melbourne are under 20mph and 85% are under the limit where tickets can legally be issued. So, you can see why so many residents are upset with the proposal to spend ?20,000+ of public money on addressing a minimal issue in a manner which will also restrict emergency vehicles, when there are so many other things that are being wiped out by budget cuts. Sorry, I'm a technical geek, I'll shut up now...

Hurrah, jaywalker... you and I posted almost exactly the same point within a minute of each other! So, I'm really pleased to see that someone who I don't even know can independently process the same information. FYI, I launched the Community Roadwatch sessions with police in East Dulwich and we have identified (with stats and input from the community via the Met Transport Police) a downhill section of Lordship Lane near Milo Road, which engineers are proposing to address with a pedestrian island (the most effective form of speed control which will also provide a crossing point on Lordship between two main bus stops). Plus there are ongoing sessions on Barry Road (which are attended by Charlie Smith), which is said to have the most significant speeding issues in ED ward... but we can't get any funding to address Barry presumably because everything is being directed towards Melbourne.

The logistics of Melbourne Grove are different to Melbourne North, Ashbourne, Chesterfield... Melbourne South has narrower sections which cause passing problems, leading to vehicle damage and road rage incidents. This ironically also acts as a speed calming measure. Matt Hill's briefing to councillors (reproduced on the other thread) confirmed that the average speed on Melbourne South was 19mph and that full width humps will only reduce the speed by 1mph to 18mph. So the public money you've allocated will only reduce the 15% by an insubstantial amount (or may even make it worse if the boy racers regard the humps as a challenge). Speeding issues here are so inconsequential that the police won't even waste any more human resources on monitoring - the PC overseeing the Roadwatch scheme even said that she was going to submit a formal enquiry to the council about Melbourne South, but I don't know if she ever did. This is why we keep saying that highway engineers should look at the genuine problems. On the other hand, in the past assessments, highway engineers have determined that Melbourne South is the best balance it can be given the parameters... which is why we're saying that public resources should be spent on local roads with worse measurable speeding problems, such as Barry Road. I totally agree with ianr's comment above about concerted skilled lobbying.

Argh, James. I'm not being inconsistent, I'm saying exactly the same thing that I've been saying for over ten years. The reason why I was happy to walk home with you via Melbourne was precisely because I wanted to find out what the additional ?15K was being allocated for and to be able to demonstrate to you in situ what the problems on Melbourne actually are, with a view towards liaising with highway engineers to identify viable solutions. The problem with Melbourne is NOT speeding, it's logistics. Speed humps, barriers, etc, won't help this. This is why we created the second petition in an attempt to generate proposals recommended to address the actual problems within the parameters of the restrictions, not to keep going around in the same circles. This is why, every time a car drove by, I noted to you that it WASN'T speeding. I was quite happy to stand in the road and talk to you because it's NOT a dangerous speeding situation, which I am well experienced in due to my Community Roadwatch work and previous speed statistic training by police transport officers. The problem with Melbourne is the narrowness of the road in at least five locations, exacerbated by the residents cars parked on both sides of the road. As residents don't want to decrease parking spaces by creating passing places - which would immediately solve many of the problems - this is why I wanted to speak to an engineer about alternative ideas. Me and other residents regularly witness road rage incidents and damage to car body work and wing mirrors due to passing cars slowly trying to squeeze by. I often offer to support road rage victims and regularly call 101 or local police to report details of damage that I've witnessed so that victims can claim insurance compensation. But it would be much better to actually solve the problem, not rely on a handful of community minded witnesses. Logistics is also the main issue with the Melbourne/Chesterfield junction, not speeding. The distance between the corners and the close parking of the cars around the bend creates visibility problems for both pedestrians and approaching cars. Creeping carefully across the road is complicated enough for adults, but it's difficult for those on foot with small children. Although building out the curve will address the logistics issue, it will reduce parking spaces by approx three spaces, which is why this option was voted against by residents in the 2009 consultation. So, we have a dilemma across the board of improving safety or losing parking. This is why I keep saying that I want to liaise with an engineer on site (not sitting at a Tooley Street computer terminal looking at Google maps), to see if there are any better creative options. And this is what I tried to communicate to you on Saturday. FYI, I didn't vote in the 2009 consultation because, as a non-car driving pedestrian, I would love to see a complete reconfiguration of the road, but I also have sympathy with the community. Because of the geographical distances and poor public transportation in the Dulwich area, I am aware that residents are more dependent on cars, especially for the school runs. This is why I have always disagreed with Southwark's policy to reduce car parking for no practical reason... I actually think that new building developments should include MORE parking where possible - for instance, I think it was insane to reduce proposed parking spaces (which we could have lanscaped with trees) at the new medical centre on the hospital site. I made this point yet again at Saturday's DCC discussions on the New Southwark Plan "visions" for Dulwich, as I don't find the proposed "vision" to be very visionary at all... but this is another discussion.

Groan. Bear in mind that the request of the Melbourne Grove Traffic Action Group's 150 signature petition was specifically to request a barrier and more double yellow lines. And now the highway engineers have rejected the barrier and the residents consultation has rejected the double yellow lines - even you are saying that you fought against MGTAG's petition requests. The point behind our 300 signature petition was that we want to liaise with council engineers on identifying solutions to address the actual genuine problems on Melbourne Grove, not go around in circles wasting public money on another naff pre-determined consultation. Yet, you are STILL awarding CGS funds to a group with less signatures (even though council policy states that petitions have to have 250 signatures in order to qualify for community council discussions) to install speed humps to fix problems that don't exist, publicly announcing that the council will consult with them while ignoring the petition with the most signatures (i.e. my CGS bid was refused). This will be the THIRD speed hump traffic consultation in ten years... and there are still no proposals to address the actual issues. So even if the ?20k gets approved on the third consultation and spent on speed humps, we're still going to have the same problems...

Hi, I'm here, but haven't have time to type. I challenged the whole constitutional process at the DCC meeting, but was fobbed off. Will try to explain more tomorrow... maybe we should resuscitate the old Melbourne Grove thread so that we can have a proper discussion without overloading this thread?

It was too time consuming fighting the political headgames, Abe. Plus the amount of public money I saw being pissed away was shocking. I'm much happier being a community activist... A community stand at the North Cross Road market is a good idea, dbboy. Will suggest it if no one else does. Might wait until the weather gets a bit warmer, though!

A couple of relevant points... Firstly, I submitted a CGS bid for ?20,000 to implement another section of new pavement on Lordship Lane, with an observation that even if we just did one block at a time every year then we would eventually get through the whole length of Lordship in due course. (The problems with the Lordship paving is complicated, I explained it ages ago in a post, let me know if you want me to type it all out again.) But you won't be surprised to hear that councillors refused this bid... instead, they approved ?20,000 for traffic calming measures on Melbourne Grove (which I assume means the pointless speed humps). There was also a bid for trees in East Dulwich ward, which was put on hold because of the new tree planting guidelines... conversely, the Village ward councillors approved a CGS fund for me to plant trees in Village ward, so I shouted out at the DCC meeting (on Feb 1st) that I would be happy to advise on the East Dulwich tree planting issues if councillors would approve the funding. Also, bear in mind that there has already been ?20,000 spent on a High Street Challenge project on Lordship Lane last autumn called Animating Lordship Lane:- http://fantasyhighstreet.org.uk/uploads/images/homepageimages/ArtistBriefLordshipLane.pdf So, the bottom line here is that there are still small amounts of funding available (in fact, we could get quite a useful sum in local CIL/Section 106 payments if we campaigned to stop ED funds from being diverted out of the area), but there doesn't seem to be any administrative sympathy for what East Dulwich actually needs or wants. The only way to address this is for us all to start sticking together and speaking in one voice... Herne Hill has the Herne Hill Forum (which is an actual community group, not just an online discussion forum) and Dulwich Village has The Dulwich Society. But East Dulwich has nothing. To this end, I actually contacted Dan Rigby with a view towards volunteering to help to develop an East Dulwich community infrastructure, building on the North Cross Road market and Lordship Lane destination concept, as I understand how council funding and protocol works. His bid also states that he wants to develop an East Dulwich brand, which is actually a good start... especially as we're going to be known as Goose Green Ward once the new ward boundaries kick in next year. Sadly, I suspect that if no one takes a stand then the East Dulwich community consciousness will evaporate even further. So an East Dulwich logo, similar to the Herne Hill logo, could become very useful as a uniting element. And, if we're going to be stuck with branded banners, then I vote that we use them to protest. East Dulwich (logo) wants NEW PAVEMENTS. East Dulwich wants TREES!! East Dulwich needs Lordship Lane community facilities so that we can actually get together and talk to each other face to face instead of posting on a forum!!

And, yes, Love West Dulwich was awarded HSC funding for:- "Creating a sense of identity for the West Dulwich area that will help promote the local high street to residents. Bringing residents and businesses together to design lamp post banners in the shopping parade areas of West Dulwich."

You can read all about the High Street Challenge here:- http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/info/100002/business/3381/the_high_street_challenge There's a link in the section What's It All About that lists all the current winners along with a description of what the award covers. East Dulwich Traders was awarded funding for:- "Creating a locally owned brand for East Dulwich by installing 35 lamp post banners and a map of the local area. This activity hopes to promote the North Cross Rd market extension (results of market extension consultation due in February 2017)."

I've been regularly tweeting Thames Water updates with photographs, copying the council highway engineers in, and TW have now confirmed by Twitter that the Goose Green roundabout repairs are booked in for Thursday and the Lytcott Grove repairs (which are less urgent) are booked to be finished no later than 12/02/17. You can see the blue spray paint on the pavements indicating where the burst mains are running.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone! Plus, special thanks to Admin for providing this forum for the East Dulwich community...!!

The irony is that I tried to get Southwark to solve this problem roughly ten years ago, when I was a Village ward councillor. We contructed a "holistic" plan to improve the flow of cars, cycles, and pedestrians through the Village by reconfiguring four junctions in tandem (including Townley/EDG and Dulwich Village!)... the engineers came up with a brilliant plan, which even had funding, but it was undermined by political machinations. This is one of the reasons why I gave up on politics and only work through amenity societies now... so I completely support what the Dulwich Village Forum are doing. Well done, guys!! Back in 2007, engineers drew up three variations of the Dulwich Village junction scheme - including two improved versions of the current signalled junction, which were both much better than the scheme that Southwark have announced that they are going ahead with. But their recommended version was a double roundabout scheme which improved flow better than the two signalled schemes. I'm attaching a photo of the roundabout scheme in the hopes that it saves funding on reinventing the wheel.. it may need tweaking to comply with new highway policies, but it's a good starting point. Humorously, one of the current senior Southwark highway engineers may actually recognise it... as he was the same one who oversaw my project ten years ago!

Also, FYI... I put in a CGS funding bid for ?20,000 to allocate towards getting another section of the Lordship pavement Lane properly resurfaced. I don't know if it will get approved, but it seems to be the only way to get sections of it repaired properly as it doesn't seem to be on any lists for the whole pavement to be resurfaced anytime soon. I think James got some funding to do specific trip hazards repaired a couple of years ago, but the whole lot really needs taken up and back-filled and re-levelled properly and set with high quality paving slabs, like the section between Londis and Sogem was done last year. The big problem with Lordship Lane is that it wasn't resurfaced properly when it was done over ten years ago... the council only replaced the paving stones, they didn't back fill and re-level, so everything just caves in and ponds. The ?20K CGS bid won't be enough to do the whole road, but it will be enough to do another section at the standard that the Londis-Sogem section was done, which is now working perfectly. I don't care which section is chosen next, we'll just work our way systematically through the whole road with CGS if we have to...

Bear in mind that the repair process is usually done in two stages if the hole is deemed to be a genuine Health & Safety risk (I can't remember if it's 4 inches or 6 inches deep, but the council can be sued if the depth of the hole meets H&S criteria and someone trips and is injured). So, firstly, they just dump the tarmac in to fill the hole so that no one will trip and then the location is put on a repairs list to go back and repair properly with other locations in the area, which is more cost effective. But, by filling in the hole immediately, they are legally addressing the trip hazard. They do the same tarmac dumping thing with pot holes. Keep your eye on the location and see how many months it will take for them to come back and do it properly. I'm a real highways repair geek, I used to love getting the annual repair lists when I was a councillor, but I don't think they are published online.

Hi Treehugger... I'm aware of those signs, highways officers have been promising to have them removed for years. I think they are technically in Peckham Rye ward, but I'll go back and double check. On the other hand, if they are still connected to the electrics, then maybe a Smiley SID could replace them at a more reasonable cost? caz, are you talking about the signalled pedestrian crossing just south of Upland Road? This location is completely dysfunctional and causes a lot of the speeding problems that we are measuring just to the north of Upland. However, the location of the crossing is in Peckham Rye ward (Upland Rd is actually the ward boundary), so maybe we can get Charlie to update those councillors on what we're trying to do in ED ward? On the other hand, in my experience, highway legislation is dramatically counterintuitive to how Human Beings use crossings... we're having an insane saga at the junction of Lordship and Melbourne because highways implemented a stupidly expensive signalled pedestrian crossing in a location that pedestrians don't want to use to cross to the bus stop, so they run in front of oncoming traffic instead. I've been trying for several years to get the bus stop moved closer to the crossing, or vice versa, to no avail, so I can sympathise with the saga on Barry. I actually cringe when I watch the manoeuvres during the Roadwatch sessions...

I'm glad to hear that you attended the Roadwatch Session on Monday, Charlie, because I had to cancel in the morning due to the flu... and regulations state that no stats can be formally recorded unless at least one registered volunteer is participating. The PC confirmed to me that in an hour and a quarter, there were 26 vehicles speeding over 26mph, including one at 49mph. She also confirmed that Barry Road is one of the worst hotspots on their list, so we will hopefully have the Roadwatch support in trying to at least get a survey done. I'll put in another CGS bid, just to cover that option as well.

I can't be bothered to try to convince you, nxjen. Just Google Southwark demographics and you can see all the graphs. More importantly, I think your last sentence hits the nail on the head... if you could see how much money is wasted in Southwark Council, compared to how much a small local community office would cost, I think you'd be shocked. It's one of the reasons why I got out of the system. I think some people are just more community spirited, it's one of my downfalls. When I first became a councillor in 2006, I ran into this exact mindset... about how resources shouldn't be spent in the area... so the first thing I did was struggle to raise the funding for a free youth club, a weekly Millwall youth football session, and a Pensioner's club - all of which were hosted for free by JAGS. The attendance of these "unnecessary" community outlets was astonishing... the youth club was so popular that the managers had to run it in two-hour rotating sessions, so that over 125 youths could attend. Over 100 youths attended the Friday Night football sessions, who would normally have nowhere else to go on a Friday night. The Pensioner's Club was run by Dulwich Helpline at the time - I personally created leaflets and hand delivered them to reach all the out of touch pensioners in the area who weren't on the internet. All of these projects folded shortly after I stopped being a councillor, because there simply wasn't anyone who would put the effort in to lobby to divert council funding into the perceived more privileged part of the borough. But, it's not even about age, disability, privilege, etc... it's about community spirit. Where is the community spirit in East Dulwich?

Maybe it will have to be a community campaign then, if residents feel it's important... As for costs, I suspect that the internal computer technology is already in place and that the premises conversion could be paid for out of a small portion of the profit of the sale of the connected parts of the property. People on telephones are useful, but there needs to be face to face contact with experienced officers by appointment in the location (not looking at Google Maps!), not just garbled messages being passed through.

Hi James... I hear what you're saying, but unless the community sticks together things will just get railroaded through under the radar. I can't see why MySouthwark service points are okay for the north and the middle of the borough, but not the South Camberwell/East Dulwich area (which will become more united once the boundaries all shift). If nothing else, Dulwich has a higher elderly demographic than any other part of the borough, who don't have access to internet facilities (or cars, for that matter)... hence my ongoing campaigns for leaflet communications wherever possible. FYI, when I heard a rumour a couple months ago that 20-22 had been escalated up the property sales list, I actually went in there to try to talk to someone, to see if some of the offices could be rented by the community... but, aside from an unhelpful receptionist, there doesn't seem to be much going on in there and no one would "comment". My guess is that because of the stairs, using the upstairs for offices won't meet standards, so the ground floor would be best for community service facilities? I could well see the upstairs being sold off for flats and the ground floor converted back to shops... but it would benefit the community better if the two ground floor units were split and one became a shop while the other was converted into a community service facility. Then you get the best of both worlds...

Actually, reading the community council CIL project lists is an enlightening experience! Peckham and Nunhead want to convert an old housing office into a community hall... whereas we want to convert an old council office into... a council office. But the top of the Dulwich CC list is to use CIL funds to build a new Police Station! Yessssss!! http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/4676/cipl_lists_by_community_council_area

The underlying point of this discussion is that no one will give a straight answer. The facility has been being wound down for years and the word on the grapevine is that Southwark plans to sell the property off, hence the discussion of converting it back into shops. Or keeping it as some kind of community facility.

I think you'd be surprised if you knew how many elderly and disabled people live in Dulwich council houses. Reinstating a local housing office so that council tenants didn't have to struggle on the P13 to Peckham was one of the most requested projects that I was asked when I was a councillor... I just looked at Camberwell CC's CIL request list... they're spending their funding on heritage street lamps, posh paving, new bollards, and trees, while we're tripping over Lordship paving slabs while struggling to get to Peckham to talk to council officers. Anyway, there's other funding that we could access to provide council service facilities for our residents if Camberwell needs more heritage street lights. But first residents need to agree that a council facility near Goose Green is a good idea...

Don't quote me, but from memory there was approx ?40K from the approved planning application, with a view that it would be increased to approx ?70,000 if there was a retrospective application to "convert" the top floor offices into flats. I think someone should request a general CIL total for the DCC area, as our funding tends to get diverted into the middle of the borough unless someone keeps their eye on it... We need community facilities!