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So the real issue seems to be volume along the narrow section of Melbourne, not speeding? To be honest, volume is increasing in the whole Dulwich area (and London!)... it's mostly noticeable in Melbourne during rush hour and school run time. The most helpful solution would be to lobby TfL to increase the bus service down here (and extending the tube to Camberwell will help indirectly)... it's only better public transportation that will get people out of their cars. But also bear in mind that Calton Avenue residents have been campaigning for a gate to close off the top of their road and Gilkes Cres are also talking about campaigning for a gate at the junction of EDG to mitigate the displacement from the new Townley junction... so this could be the thin end of a complicated wedge. We could end up with a complex network of private roads with the main roads not being able to handle the displaced capacity...

I've lived on Melbourne Grove for 30 years now and I also agree with the points made by Bobby P. I practice what I preach and don't drive, but I am a regular pedestrian and bus user. I have a copy of the Traffic Survey conducted from 11-24 April 2015, which shows that the average speed is 19mph, which is why the cabinet member couldn't justify spending public funds to change the speed humps from cushions to full-width humps. In any case, most of the highest speed stats (at 26mph, not even up to 30) were generated by motorcycles, which wouldn't be affected by full width humps. This is now the second campaign I am aware of to turn Melbourne into a No Through Road... the first one failed precisely because of the traffic displacement concerns. Furthermore, not only is Melbourne Grove an important emergency vehicle route, but it's also TfL's current emergency bus diversion route now that the full-width humps have been implemented at the other end of Melbourne. Parking will almost certainly be affected by a gate... will have to check what the policy is now, but the clearance requirements used to be 2.5 metres on either side, which could take out up to 6 spaces. The traffic displacement would almost certainly affect Townley road, putting even more pressure on the new junction, which I suspect will already have problems coping with volume. I can almost understand the concerns of residents in the Tell Grove to Chesterfield section of Melbourne, as the road is very narrow along that stretch, but there are other more organic ways to address these issues in ways that won't have such a knock-on effect. One solution would be to implement a raised junction treatment at the Ashbourne junction and maybe another one at Chesterfield, with or without narrowed corners. Because the speed stats are so low here we wouldn't qualify for public funding, but we could use devolved CGS funding. I've also been working with residents and the police to set up a resident volunteer speed camera program (called Roadwatch) so that we could regularly survey any areas of concern in East Dulwich and Village, which will help to raise awareness of speeding concerns in some of the new 20mph areas. I've mentioned both of these solutions to the campaigners, but they only appear to be interested in blocking off the road.

Are you guys aware that the Melbourne Grove Traffic Action Group are making a deputation to the Dulwich Community Council meeting tomorrow night (at Barry Road Methodist Church) to lobby councillors for funding to investigate the implemention of a gate on Melbourne Grove between East Dulwich Grove and Lordship Lane in order to stop the road from being used as a cut through? If successful, the traffic displacement from this would make the refused No Right Hand Turn at Townley proposal look minor...

I had a look as I walked by yesterday at school let-out time. It looks like the lights have been adjusted to allow for all four arms of the junction to have pedestrians cross simultaneously at once, but the corners are too far apart for a pedestrian to be able to do two arms in one go so they still have to do it in two phases (which was causing them to cross diagonally to compensate). The Lollipop Man said that all the advance car timings had been stopped, presumably to allow for the simultaneous ped crossings to occur, which is probably what's causing the car tailbacks. There was an AECOM engineer there taking readings to calculate the future junction timings, but he said that he hadn't been told about the recent light timing changes, so he wasn't able to figure out what effect they had on the timings. There was also a woman there taking notes of all the cars tailing back, but I don't know if she was a resident or a council officer. Everyone seemed to agree that it was a mess, but no one seemed to know who ordered the works or what exactly had changed...

Flanter and Bawdy-Nan, I'll continue to campaign for basic services to our area in my Community Activist role, but it's difficult to achieve much down here as the administration that makes decisions is now based 5 miles away in Tooley Street and has no real grasp of our situation. Even when I was a councillor it was extremely difficult to get public funding allocated to the area, the north and centre of the borough always takes priority. Another one of my campaigns is to also create a small green space at the hospital site so that local residents have somewhere to go as there are no local parks in this immediate area (this was supported by the council's assessment of Open Spaces), but my recent bid for funding to create a viable proposal was rejected. FYI, JAGS also provided their astroturf pitch for free for a Millwall-run Friday Night Football Club that I set up, which was held in tandem with the Friday Night Youth Club run by Redthread... for approximately four years these two programs gave up to 150 local young people somewhere to go on a Friday night, but the football club has now ceased. We have a really specific problem in our particular area... I've spoken to all the local churches and even the Constitutional Club, but financial pressures on private facilities, reduced footage, and location away from public transportation services make regular public usage too difficult. Both Alleyn's and JAGS were invaluable in helping me to up some of the projects on a restricted budget for younger and older residents, but no one is driving this mindset now that I'm not a councillor anymore. In any case, we really need other facilities in addition to meeting rooms, such as a housing office, One Stop Shop, and Police Contact. FYI, because of my close interaction with JAGS on the community projects, I abstained from voting on the Music Centre planning application... instead, I performed the function of a liaison between JAGS and the community and managed to get many conditions agreed on which are intended to decrease the impact on the local area... such as a capped number of major events per year with traffic wardens deployed at each event to control traffic issues. Most of the activities which will take place at the new music facility are already taking place at the school, but spread out across the site, some in temporary facilities... so this project is actually more of a logical re-configuration and consolidation of the site than a completely new project. We can discuss any of this in more detail if you like.

But what we really need in this area is a council-run community centre with a small council housing office, One Stop Shop, meeting rooms (which can also be used for Community Council and Planning meetings), and a Police Contact Point run from the same location, sharing running costs. Since Crown House and the Police Station were both closed, we have a Black Hole in community facilities in the Lordship Lane/East Dulwich Grove area. The Darrell Road community centre is doing an excellent job, but it's too far for residents on this side of East Dulwich to get to... and the local church facilities are brilliant, but hard to book to coincide with council events. A perfect location would either be on the Dulwich Hospital site, in tandem with the new medical facility, or maybe the Fred Francis Centre on Lordship Lane, when the facility there is moved to Camberwell.

I liaised closely with JAGS when the Sea Cadets defaulted on their lease with a view towards making the Hut available for the Youth Club (which is now run by Redthread) and the Pensioners Club that I raised the funding for. It was always understood that the use of the Hut would be temporary, mostly because of the extremely poor condition of the building. JAGS actually spent quite a lot of money stabilising it enough for temporary use, although the back of the building isn't accessible because it's still in pretty bad shape. As a back-up, I raised the funding (with CGS funding) for the conversion of the TRA hall on the Dutch estate so that the estate residents would have a fall-back when the Hut was eventually demolished. This was a mind-bogglingly complex process, but we got there in the end. About a year ago, I found an alternative location for the Youth Club (which is too large for the TRA hall), so I contacted Redthread yesterday and gave them the details again as the staff has changed around, but it's up to them what they want to do. For the moment, I think they're going to take a break from June-Sept.

Hi MarkT... welcome to the vagaries of local government! If you look carefully, the SCI is dated 2008, which was during a previous administration. The changes were made by the following administration and the Constitutional amendments voted through in Council Assembly by the party with the majority vote. In the past I have personally objected to the description that all 63 councillors have approved decisions in Council Ass as this description is misleading... it means that a decision was approved by Council Assembly even if not all 63 councillors actually voted in favour. I used to hate Council Assembly because the way it was structured was nothing more than a rubber-stamping exercise, in my opinion. I strongly feel that the whole Local Government model needs to be reviewed on several levels, but this is obviously low down on national govt's list of priorities. Anyway... you will also note that the number of Community Councils has been reduced from 8 to 5 and the number of annual meetings has also been reduced (which makes it difficult to get through an agenda these days as there is so much to address due to the meetings taking place less frequently). From memory, pretty much all of the councillors in the three Dulwich wards, cross party, weren't happy with the decision to redirect local planning decisions to Tooley St and there has been an ongoing campaign to return them to the Community Councils (although the larger ones would need to remain with Main Planning due to various legal parameters). The reason we were given for the moving of local planning decisions to Tooley St was that it was a cost-cutting exercise driven by the government cuts to the borough... the local planning meetings involved the payment and transportation of a clerk, a planning advisor, and a legal advisor in addition to the venue hire approx 6 times a year across 8 (reduced to 5) community councils. I can't remember the exact amount that was said to be saved, the paperwork is buried now. I'm pretty sure that the constitutional changes to the current SCI will comply with minimum legal regulations as the Tooley St legal team are fairly astute, but I haven't checked. FYI, the way that the Community Councils were reduced from 8 to 5 was by folding neighbouring CCs together where possible, which created much greater boundaries that lost the specific neighbourhood issues. Dulwich got saved from this because of our geographical complications, which is also the main reason why I favour the creation of a Neighbourhood Forum or Parish Council as our priorities and parameters are significantly different to the rest of the borough... I'm not trying to have a go at any one political party here... the current ruling administration was fairly voted in by a significant majority. I just feel that Dulwich is being backed into a corner by the way that local government is set up... this is one of the reasons why I became a councillor years ago - but then I realised just how obstructive politics can be in local government, so now I'm a non-political community activist! p.s. All this is from memory, am happy to be corrected if I've mis-remembered anything!

Apologies for the delay in replying... This has the potential of being a REALLY LONG discussion which I don't have time to type out, so I'll try the short version. Also, I had quite a lot of briefings in this when the legislation changed, but I'm not an expert so this is broad brush strokes. Basically the legislation changed in 2011 under the Localism Act 2011, which allowed for a much more flexible approach to local government. This allows a variety of formulas ranging from Parish Councils to Neighbourhood Forums, which can in turn trigger a devolution of various powers and devolved funding. The term "parish" isn't a reference to church parishes, but is a term for a local government unit. The boundary that it covers is determined by the residents and subject to rigid consultation. For instance, we could form the Peoples Republic of Dulwich (PROD) consisting of East Dulwich and Village wards, or a portion of each determined by neighbourhood lines, or maybe even dip into College ward or bits of Peckham Rye. The boundaries of the current wards are more determined by population numbers than neighbourhoods. The advantage of a parish council is that funds for this area could then be directly devolved to the control of the area via elected councillors and an independent Chief Executive that then works as a unit in tandem with the London Borough of Southwark on borough-wide matters. For instance, I can see that a lot of the campaigns that we're fighting now are a result of lack of funding... i.e., the Townley Junction scheme would be easier to resolve if PROD had a fair slice of TFL's LIP funding that the parish council had direct control of instead of begging for breadcrumbs to be thrown down here from Tooley St. A simpler version is the Neighbourhood Forum, which isn't a completely independent unit... this concept is what is being worked on in the north of the borough. The Dulwich Society is a great community asset, but it's only a constituted body, which is considered a "stakeholder" in consultations, it doesn't actually have any power. It also only mostly focuses in Village ward and part of College ward, not yet ED ward, mostly because of manpower and funding issues. Planning is another complex issue. It's quasi-judicial and supposedly a politically neutral process, but cllrs are assigned to the committees on the basis of political majority, so one party is always going to have the majority vote. The Main Planning Committee only has one Dulwich cllr sitting on it, with two Dulwich reserve cllrs available to stand in (one Con and one Lib Dem). The Main planning committee handles major applications, such as the development of the Dulwich Hospital site, which will have a huge impact on this area. The sub-committees handle much smaller applications, sometimes without much joined-up thinking in my opinion. Here's a quick Wiki link to start with, scroll down to the section about the Localism Act:- http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_councils_in_England Lastly, bear in mind that local ward councillors don't actually have any POWER... all they can do is to represent and monitor. It's a part-time "voluntary" position with a small financial allowance (less than ?11K pa) to supplement expenses, there isn't even much administrative and secretarial support (which is why it sometimes takes cllrs ages to reply to emails, I used to get between 60-100 emails a day). A lot of residents think of cllrs as mini-MPs, making a small fortune, but this simply isn't the case. The power is held by the majority party that forms a Cabinet that is based in Tooley Street... local cllrs at the DCC can make representations to the Cabinet Member, but the Cab Mem can overrule local cllrs based on Constitutional policies (which the majority group can change). Bear in mind that the DCC might not even exist past next year if the elected members feel that the funding could be used better elsewhere... Hope this makes sense... and don't shoot the messenger!

Let me know if you make any progress as I would be happy to help out (I have planning committee experience from when I was a cllr). I kicked the idea around with the Dulwich Society a while ago after the legislation came out and they were positive, but it's a huge amount of work so would need organisation and manpower. I personally think that it would be great to look at becoming a Parish Council down here as the one-size-fits-all mentality from 5 miles away in Tooley Street isn't serving the interests of Dulwich area residents very well at all. But a Neighbourhood Development Plan would be a good start...

Bicknell, my understanding from past experience is that another option would have to go through another formal consultation process. This would almost certainly take too long and therefore put the scheme outside the funding deadline. This is the logic behind why I posted the the draft scheme a few days back... if we lose the funding, then we can probably use devolved funding to address the pedestrian crossing issues that initiated the junction redesign campaign. If the ped crossing is speeded up by cost-effectively redesigning the islands, then this would in turn speed up the light phases which would address the tailbacks.

In theory, anything is possible if residents unite and stick together... Power to the People!

We don't have to use cycle funding, here are two other ways this design could be funded... The usual way that junction schemes get funded is from the TFL devolved LIP (Local Implementation Plan) funding:- http://moderngov.southwarksites.com/documents/s48473/Report%20Local%20implementation%20delivery%20plan.pdf Southwark gets over ?3m per annum from TFL to address junction schemes. Having said that, this junction probably wouldn't meet the criteria to qualify for LIP funding as it hasn't had enough logged accidents. The other way to do it is through devolved CGS funding... it would probably take up most of both Village ward and East Dulwich ward's devolved funding, but it's something to look at. Getting a draft scheme costed up would be the first step. There are always other options that can be discussed, but it depends on how strongly people feel and how much effort they want to put into pressuring this council administration. BTW, I'm guessing that the dysfunctional Dulwich Village junction (which I also tried to get reconfigured as far back as 2008) and the Barry Rd/Lordship Lane redesign will eventually get funded out of LIP funding, it just needs ongoing pressure from residents.

As you can see from the jpeg attached above, this option isn't a complete redesign, it's more of an interim tweak to the existing junction layout... simply reconfiguring the traffic islands to allow a more direct pedestrian crossing, which also creates a second car lane on Townley in order to speed up that arm. Speaking as a vociferous pedestrian, the preferred pedestrian option is always to move the corners of the junctions closer together, so speed up crossings... but this is also the most expensive option as it involves greater roadworks, plus the movement of the TFL traffic lights, which costs a small fortune. By leaving the junction and traffic lights intact, and simply tweaking the pedestrian islands, this will solve a magnitude of problems for a much reduced cost. The main problem is that this draft design will almost certainly not comply with current traffic codes, etc, however it can be used as a starting point and tweaked accordingly...

After attending the public meeting on Saturday and thinking about this situation in depth, I have also decided to vote against this scheme as I feel that the Townley Road arm redesign greatly compromises pedestrians, which are at the top of Southwark's road user hierarchy. I am frustrated that the cycling funding of this redesign appears to have had the effect of the tail wagging the dog, as the biggest problems at this dysfunctional junction design go back to the knock-on effect of the staggered enclosed sheep pens obstructing the pedestrian crossings, which in turn affect the traffic light timings. So I went back and dug through my files and found the draft design from around 2007, that I tried to get public consultation on.

I also attended the consultation on the New Southwark Plan at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We all commented on how badly the meeting was advertised and the officers offered to come back for another local session if councillors requested, so maybe James can try to set something up in East Dulwich, maybe at the Library (which is easier to get to than the Picture Gallery)?? Some of the policies that are being proposed will have a significant impact on Dulwich unless we stick together and object in unison. The One-Size-Fits-All policy approach simply doesn't work down here as we have totally different parameters than the north of the borough. In the meantime, one of the things that came out at this meeting was yet another Revised Parking Standards policy that will further reduce numbers of available parking spaces in addition to the one-hour parade parking proposals. This is something that I fought for Dulwich to be exempt from for many years, but it looks like it could slip back in. Here's a link:- http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50005483&Opt=0

Hi Nigello, yes that was the plan, but obstacles are now hitting, so I'm waiting to hear if the issue can be resolved internally before we go into a public protest. Bear in mind that this ruling could seriously affect the character of the whole area if we can't plant trees as most of our pavements aren't wide enough to accommodate 1m x 1m pits. In the meantime, it's probably best to leave the empty treepits unfilled in the short term as it will only cost more money to re-clear them for planting - only the pits which are definitely not going to be replanted are being repaved. We are lobbying for any pits that can't be replanted to be awarded another tree in the area in lieu (we have a separate Lieu List), but digging new pits costs extra money, which in turn eats into the replanting budget. This is why both Ed and Village ward cllrs have awarded CGS funds for tree planting, in order to supplement internal budget. We should hear back on the 1m x 1m policy in a week or two, then hopefully the planting list that was agreed in the autumn will go through in March and then we can start the surveys up again over the summer to prepare for next years planting list. Fyi, planting season runs from Sept-March when the trees are dormant.

I'm also liaising with the Tree Dept and both ED and Village ward cllrs on updating the empty tree pit spreadsheet as there hasn't been a proper survey for a while now. I was going to start a thread like this, but I keep getting caught out by the CloudFlare problems. So this thread is very useful. FYI, according to the last spreadsheet I updated, both 1 Glengarry and 86 (and also 45) Beauval are on the list to be replaced before the end of April. 1 Glengarry is to be a Prunus x Yedoensis (Japanese specimen cherry) the Beauval trees are to be Ginkgos to match the existing avenue. But everything is on hold until the new treeplanting guide is approved... if the new specs for 1m x 1m pits are imposed, this could severely limit future replanting in Dulwich... in which case we might have to launch a new protest.

Hi Sonia, thank you so much for coming here and explaining the situation, it's been very helpful. Your suggestions of alternative garden locations are very useful as well. From Dee Lewis' email reproduced earlier in this thread, it looks like the felling of the yew trees is immanent... my guess is that it will happen within the dormant season before the end of March, probably just after the consultation period closes on the 4th March. I'm still trying to get technical advice as to whether it is viable to attempt to move the trees, but in the meantime I would strongly recommend that interested local residents attend the Camberwell Community Council meeting tonight to engage with the relevant councillors in order to get some kind of alternative garden program launched.

The problem is timing. In order to give the yews the best chance, they should be transplanted by the first week of April at the very latest. Peter John may be able to intervene in an attempt to keep the trees, but the planning discussions could carry on past the best transplant date, which would doom the trees if it was decided that it was impractical to amend the planning application in order to keep them. There is a Camberwell Community Council meeting tomorrow night which residents could ask to make an urgent deputation at in order to put the options on the table in front of the relevant cllrs. CGS funding is capital budget, to buy Things, whereas this project needs manpower, which is revenue budget. In any case, any allocation of community funds would need to be made at the relevant Community Council meeting, which is tomorrow night. I think there's another CCC meeting on March 18th, but that's leaving it a bit late. The best way forward is to get an agreement for the council to earmark the felling funds to remove the trees and the rootballs, topped up by internal tree dept budget to move and replant them. If this isn't enough then someone needs to set up a crowd funding scheme for local donations. I have access to a "community gardening" fund, but I'm not sure that this project would qualify (this is one of the things I'm checking out), but that's only ?1800 which I suspect wouldn't be enough. Ongoing maintenance would hopefully be provided by Lucy and the community - the first year will need a lot of watering. But first we need the transplantation option to be agreed by the council and then agree a location. I think there's a perfect spot on Goose Green, so am happy to see that the initial response is positive.

Will have one more go at posting... Someone contacted me by PM yesterday, so I'm trying to see if we can get them transplanted. I've done this with a couple of street trees and they have all survived. There's no guarantee that they will definitely survive but, as they are going to die anyway, we might as well have a go. The key is to replant them on the same day. As the trees are currently in South Camberwell ward, I'm thinking that somewhere like Goose Green would give them the best chance of survival. Lucy, do you live nearby? Would you be able to continue to look after them? I reckon that we have a month to pull this off... it will need hands-on community support and probably some funding. One of the South Camberwell councillors is Peter John, who also happens to be the Leader of the Council... I would suggest that you contact him in the first instance to obtain his support.

Just to let you know that I'm working on this... I've just tried posting an update but the blasted Cloudflare program keeps wiping out my posts.

Just to clarify, as the comment referring to "one of James' colleagues who lost their Dulwich council seat last year" was almost certainly directed at me. As per my recent post, which anyone can go back to and reread, I hadn't spoken to James about this meeting, which I attended as a local resident. I hate politics mainly because of the headgames which I feel get in the way of what is best for the community. I am a member of the Dulwich Society and am directing all my community action through this non-political constituted group. Yes, I was an elected representative, but I genuinely feel that it is possible to achieve positive community action without going the political route, which I was finding to be obstructive. This isn't meant to be critical of any party (I actually personally get on well with members of all parties), I just find the whole system to be dysfunctional. I know the background of this junction scheme very well and I can pretty much guess what went on behind the scenes, but the most important point is that the community united and spoke out in a way that was non-political and the community has succeeded in having its voice heard and the decision to ban the RHT has been dropped. Hopefully we can all go forward now, as I am aware of other pending consultations that could affect Dulwich residents adversely, so we will need to continue to stick together. Duvaller - thank you for your earlier nomination for me to handle this matter, but because of these machinations I was very happy to let the people who were already protesting effectively continue to lead. Now maybe you can see why I kept my mouth shut!

I must say I agree with James (and, no, we haven't spoken about this). I don't want to get political about this, because I hate politics, but I'm not going to sit by and watch this happen to the neighbourhood I have lived in for 30 years. As a former Village ward cllr for eight years, I know the history of this junction scheme extremely well and I was quite shocked at some of the disinformation that was spoken in reassuring tones to the audience at this meeting (the poor guy sitting next to me had to put up with me muttering corrections out loud throughout the meeting). One thing that I'm completely clear on is that it's the amazing level of united public outcry that has prevented this scheme from being railroaded through. Everything from the flyers to the biscuits was brilliant. We absolutely need to stick together from now on in the face of one-size-fits-all policies being dictated from five miles away in Tooley Street. To this end, I will stress again how important it is that a formal deputation is made at the next DCC meeting on the 28th Jan so that the opposition to this scheme can be formally noted... a deputation request will need to be made today or tomorrow at the latest.

This blasted forum software won't let me post! James - I'm trying to explain to them how to make a deputation at the DCC, can you help them do this??