James Barber

Thanks for clarifying P68 the look and feel of it on the ground. You've saved me a cycle trip tonight. Thank you.

Hi bornagain, You are so wrong. Many families move away from the area for decent school places. This fragments our community and means many move here expecting to not make long term plans. The numbers mean we need another local secondary school. The Tony Blair education act created the situation making what he called academies what the current government call free school academies the main route for new schools. By leaidng a cmapaign we can select who we want to open a school rather than waiting around for any provider to make it happen. Hi Denmothersmith, I also have huge concerns about a 4 form entry for Ivydale. This is contrary to all the advice I've received from Southwark Education Improvementment Managers. This is more about the councils aversion to free schools than whats good for local kids.

Hi fazer71, I'm a member of the Heathrow Action Campaign Against Noise. Have been for a decade or more. I would encourage others to join. When leading the council the Lib Dems ensured Southwark Council supported financially court cases with other local councils around noise. Hi edanna, Yes, I have read the Dementia Manifesto and my goup and I fully support it. Hi P68, No decisions have been brought to the Dulwich Community Council to remove traffic calming measures from Underhill Road or other local roads. If traffic calming is removed it should be replaced. If it isnt in the next week or so please email me and I'll chase. Hi Olly, Yes, seems bizarre. White H bar markings shouldnt be needed but nor should double yellow lines of junction corners either. But human being humans they need reminders. The Street Design Manual appears to have become an excuse for the umpardonable. It was used to block segregated cycle lanes on East Dulwich Grove. It needs to be scrapped and some decent Dutch or Danish traffic engineers come up with a replacement.

Hi grabot, Free schools aren't allowed to select on academic ability UNLESS its to band admissions and ensure a comprehensive mix. Hi bornagain, It is indeed daft to build a school people won't send their kids to. I don't think we'll have any problems filling a new secondary school in ED. As shaggy has related we have a looming places crisis locally. People already move out of the area and indeed London to ensure great secondary school places. We will solve this for our area. Aylesbury estate is going to be rebuilt and will have many many more residents than it does now.

Hi bornagain, Some schools in Southwark have spare places. But families in Dulwich aren't willing to send their kids the three bus changes required to go to them. Pragmatism says we need a new secondary school in East Dulwich. Already many families move out of the area to live somewhere they can get a great secondary school. Southwark's original stance when I met them in November was they have enough places and parents should be willing to send their kids whereever Southwark has spare places - new secondary school on the Aylesbury estate opens this September for example. Frankly that's cloud cuckoo land and I'm relieved that Southwark Council has agreed, when we met with them last Thursday, to change this policy to support our new secondary school campaign. And yes I am relieved that the free school option means parents do now have a final say in education.

Hi Louisa, What B&G and Otta said. It would fail planning permission with a roof terrace. As it is the outside cafe area may cause neighbour concerns and I would imagine will have to have conditions about opening hours.

Thought this interesting - Caroline Pidgeon?s Questions to the Mayor ? 26 February 2014 Dulwich Common Junction Traffic Lights Question No: 2014/0489 What work is Transport for London carrying out to install a much-needed safe crossing at the junction of Dulwich Common and Lordship Lane and what is the timescale for this work? The Mayor TfL is carrying out a study to determine the best option for providing formal crossing facilities at this location. This work has commenced and will conclude this year.

Hi worldwiser, Two avenues. Southwark Council employs consultants to produce an annual road condition report. The majorityl of ?4.2m is allocated on this basis. Slips and trips also inform this. Each ward also have ?36,000 devolved capital spend to allocate to highways. This year and last we allocated funds to fix Goodrich Road (Barry Road to Friern Road), eastern end of Pellatt Road. The issue is a huge capital backlog. I know my political group are committed that if we take control of Southwark Council in the 22 May local elections we will used some of the next 10 years ?1bn capitla spend of Southwark Council to fully catch-up all highway repairs. This would cost circa ?18m.

Hi bornagain, ITATM, A number of providers have been approached and we are in discussions/fact finding with some IN CONFIDENCE. So I and the steering committee can't comment further at this stage. We will be able to fully comment Monday 31 March.

As per email to Lucy. Hi lucyjessica, It took several years of campaigning and involving Lib Dem GLA Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon to get the green person crossing time increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds. Last week I asked Southwark Council officials about how much TfL would charge to add Pedestrian Countdown to this junction. I've fowarded you the correspondence around this. Showing the 8 seconds between the green person ending and green lights to highway traffic should make the junction feel less threatening. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/15490.aspx#page-link-next-steps I've proposed that we potentially use East Dulwich ward CGS capital funds for this. The suggestion of a scatter (diagonal) crossing here we've also made in the past. But we have no working example of this in Southwark. However the first example is proposed for the junction of East Dulwich GRove with Green Dale and Townley Road. Lets see how that works out. NB. One of the requirements is all arms to be red at the same time. This junction already has this so in my mind its a prime candidate eventually for a scatter crossing.

The idea of free schools is to create choice. So ticking that box is part of any free school application. Also people have rightly highlighted we already have sufficient Harris secondary schools with two in the area.

Hi TE44, Well hopefully you'll be pleased that two of the steering group and mysefl met the coumncil leader, cabinet member fo children's services and 3 council directors to discuss what we're proposing, our preferred provider and seek their at worst tacit agreement. The council leader Peter John was also very supportive of our propsed new school. He agreed it was unrealistic of the council to expect Dulwich children to accept any spare places anywhere in the borough. This is huge breakthrough as it was only in November/December that the council clearly expressed the opposite views. So we nearly have cross party support with council involvement.

Hi Kiera, I've chased council officials about the safety survey of those railings and what their findings have been. We've even offered to pay for this short survey with our devolved CGS revenue budget. As soon as we know the outcome will let you know. Sorry it's taking quite so long to make happen.

Hi TE44, That had crossed y mind with the Localism act but it would add delay. One method that is now available is to expand an existing school onto a different site a la proposals around Ivydale. But the council has to fins all the money to do this. Which for a primary school if you already have land is around ?5M for the buildings.Or around ?500 for every home in the borough. Free schools are free for the local council but the cost is no control over them. As for Nick Santon and Steve Davies. I suspect Nick was trying to ensure Southwark Council was rid of such educational contractors running Southwark education ASAP. He was remarkably successful in persuading the Labour government to remove them and hand back Southwakr education to the administration led by Nick.

Hi fl0wer, Fly tipping in curable. People do get caught.

The pavements on North Cross Raod southside near to Lordship Lane are a real pickle around the UK Power Networks entrance. Starting on Monday for up to two weeks we're repaving and sorting htis out. It's part of a Cleaner, Greener, Safer application made much earlier this FY. Attached is the scope of the works.

Hi flOwer, For Southwark to undertake undercover surveillance it would need to obtain a RIPA agreement from local magistrates. Magistrates wont authorise this for this type of incident. But examples like the oroginal one with a named person, at a named address should be enough for officers ot trace back the companies responsible.

Hi Zenoria, The last I've seen on this was a direct email to local ward councillors about a month- 6 weeks ago. I've not seen any planning application and have just checked. If you spot any notices on lampposts please prod me!

Hi Chocky, What a useful campaign by the National Union of Teachers. I wonder why the NUT don't sponsor some free schools. They clearly have lots of expertise. Councils can open new schools. But the process is painful, not as painful as it was but still painful, and they have to do it almost as a last resort. So making it easier would be good but only for those councils proven to provide great schools. Blanket change allowing hopeless councils to do it wouldn't be good for local children. If the petition had some caveat along those lines I'd sign and be promoting it.

Inspirational. I wonder how many women in our area could use such pricing. With foodbanks we must have many who find sanitary pads an equally tough household budget choice.

Hi ITATM, That was why I linked to a critical Guardian article. The contractors brought in were Atkins who don't just do building and then Cambridge Associates. Harris must be doing something right to be heavully over subscribed and have nearly all outstanding schools. Hi redjam, Ditto about pragmatism. The assumption all local authorities are great educational providers is at best na?ve, and at worst political dogma, and annoyred me. Apologies for reacting with our own example. I've recently wondered about the US approahc to get people voting about education of educational boards. And yes we either have new free school academies or no new schools. Been this way since 2006.

Hi Vanessa3, I wouldnt expect Southwark to change this crossing as one reported crash involving slight injury over the last 8 years have been recorded at this site. Lots of other East Dulwiuch locations with more danger and crashes I'm afraid which should be dealt with first. Hi fl0wer, What a tricky problem. Can you please email me direct when you (or anyone else) spots such an example. Southwark Council would then have a chance to enforce laws and regs about waste transfer, fly tipping etc.

Hi Coach Beth, Yes and no. Lots of councils are not good educational providers. Should they be allowed to establish poor schools giving children poor education? I would suggest not until they reach an agreed standard with the schools they run. Tony Blair's Labour government was so exasperated with how badly Labour Southwark Council ran our schools that they stripped Education away in 2000 http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/22/schools.schoolprivatisation It was several years later under a very different political leadership that it was returned and has since flourished under Lib Dems and more recently Labour administration. Equally some authorities are good and should be treated more maturely and allowed to open new schools. Sadly the bad councils and history means central governments haven't and don't trust councils.

Hi wavy line girl, I agree. I would counsel joining the Heathrow Action Campaign Agains Noise HACAN. The more members they have the stronger their voice on our behalf and the more resources they'll have to fight for better conditions keeping excessive noise at bay. Airport noise is a regional issues outside of normal councillors spheres of influences BUT we have in the past used a small amount of Southwark council money with others to fight a court case about a previous government not listening to residents views. I hope the council will do the same again.

Hi TE44, I think we've gone through these questions before. The free school process means any group can make an application to open a new school. The Dept for Education to grant an application would want to see sufficient demand for places, confidence that the applicant has thought it through and has the ability to make a successful school happen. It's a big undertaking creating a new school. We've recently seen more evidence of just how challenging this can be with a northern chain getting into difficulties with a few of its schools. We also regularly see Ofsted discover long standing schools not working well and going into special measures. We've had this happen a number of times locally over the years. Fortunately this is beaching rarer and rarer. This particular campaign isn't proposing to make the whole thing happen ourselves. We're looking to obtain enough support. We've just reached an important landmark of support to make any application possible. But instead we're looking to hand over this project to the school provider we feel best suits parental needs and community needs. So the steering group will decide the provider they wish to see provide a school locally. At the launch of this campaign I made it clear I was only working for a co ed non faith school and the steering group have reconfirmed that. I hope this answers your questions TE44.