James Barber

BT are going to move the phone box. A tree should also have been moved.

The hearing for this application will take place 10am Monday 5 March (edited to correct the month!) at 160 Tooley Street. If you have objected and wish to attend you need to contact the committee clerk - If you feel you've witnessed problems caused by this establishement and would like to relate them to the licensing sub committee please get in touch with me so we can arrange that.

Hi Fenton, The turn up and go train fare to Birmingham isn't ?360. It's ?158 standard class return and ?254 first class return London Euston to Birmingham. With a modicum of planning you can get fares for tomorrow at ?85.50 return. You then need to balance parking costs, ability to work while travelling, etc. Why do businesses base themselves in London. Reports of higher productivity staff and a huge pool of labour.

Hi ITATM, Yes, the current proposals are to keep the tree but reduce the overal diameter by 1.5m and giving that space to vehicle lanes. It will make the rounabout quicker to negotiate and increase capacity. This would make it less safe to all users. Hi eddie, No repairs to the roundabout have been undertaken in the last 18months. The South Camberwell ward and East Dulwich ward councillors have proposed that we use some of our Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding to repair it. We've been blocked from doing this as the council wants to change the roundabout. It will look like we're on an industrial estate, increase capacity and vehicle speeds. It will as a result have more collisions and collisions of greater severity where people are injured. The proposed changes would cost ?30,000-50,000. If this plays out as it did a decade ago. The next step will be for officers to say then perhaps we keep the roundabout the same size much make the lanes bigger by taking some of the Goose Green land. Then we all say no to that. Then they suggest traffic lgihts as happened a decade ago. A big public meeting. All to avoid repairing a few bricks a couple of times a year which can't costs more than a couple of thousans pounds a year. So a payback period of 15-25 years. Hi Penguin68, I agree. The very high levels of traffic using it have highway engineers baffled by the very low collision rate. The rounabout diameter is a key aspect of really slowing vehicles down. I fear changing a largely winning configuration worrying and believe it will result in more collisions for all users. Hi AbDabs, I find it puzzling as well. The last time this proposal was made the councillor leading the meeting had probably the hardest time I've ever seen at the Southwark Council public meeting.

The council have issued plans to radically change Goose Green roundabout - see attached. I recall a past public meeting where the Labour councillor Nick Dolezal tried to persuade local East Dulwich residents that we would prefer traffic lights or a radically changed roundabout so more cars and lorries could pass through our area more quickly every day. He also revealed that Goose Green roundabout defies highway planners by having an unprecedented low collission rate. The attached plans are the current attempt by council officers to make more road space to speed up traffic at Goose Green. The fig leaf of an excuse is lorry damage to the roundabout brick wall. Very occasionally a lorry will hit such a roundabout but if the council never repairs it it will look much worse. And the council hasn't repaired the roundabout for nearly two years now. Apparently its to dangerous to repair the brick work - but not so dangerous they can;t remove all of the roundabout brick work, shrink the roundabout by 6 feet and resurface the road - hypocrites comes to mind. Do you think Goose Green roundabout should be changed?

Just heard Grove Vale library is reducing its hours from 33 pw to 25pw. I met with the heado f libraries and suggested a number of measuresto save enough money to avoid any cut in hours to make the ?98,000 saving stated as required.

Hi Cora, Longshot...but forecasts show we need another primary school with 60-75 children admitted per year. A new 'free' secondary school has just been agreed for 100 chilren admitted per year. Suspect that will turn into 120 as educationalists views are that 4 x form entry (4 x 30) is minimum required to have enough teachers to give a broad enough curriculam. Eitherway such a new school is likely to have a domino affect releaving pressure locally to some degree. IF we wanted antoher local secondary school and the case could be made with forecast pupil numbers it would need to be as a minimum of a similar size to the ED Harris Boys School. OR saomehow not need to have the minimal size of admissions. Steiener schools tends to be not so pescriptive on curriculam so could in theory be smaller. But only one in the country that is state funded.

Hi northlondoner, Hmmm, the change in licensing legislation led to a big increase in licensing hours, 500% increase in emergency admissions for alcohol related problems. So your friend may have a bunch of crazy residents beign vexatious. OR a bunch of residents who came before the licensing changes and don't want people throwing up, staggering around and waking the kids up by loud talking/shouting in their streets. Really depends on the precise circumstances. Residents close to this premise are telling us its already causing them problems. I've seen some of the problems so have objected. IF they had solved the repeatedly reported problems and acted with more consideratin of othe their neighbours then of course I wouldnt have objected and not would others.

Double checking with Southwarks admissions manager - "I can confirm that Southwark's Admissions Forum is still fully active despite there no longer being a requirement for local authorities to have one." My original source was wrong and I'm sorry for misleading anyone.

Whoever parks illegal advertising trailers on pavements will see me try and stop it. I'm not fussed whether they serve pizza or whatever. Never a class thing. We have for the last 12months seen a big rise in illegal advertising from the likes of Dulwich Cars to the solicitors whose name escapes me to this pizza chain/franchise.

Hi fred, ITATM, When local secondary schools have open days do go along. I've visited them all and they are streets ahead of my 1970/80's comp experience in Essex. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

Hi Fred, Yes, if you have evidence of a licenced premise causing any of the following: crime or disorder, endangering public safety, causing a public nuisance or endangering children then you can ask for a licence review. Ideally evidence would come from several people. If you collect evidence let me know and I'll go through it with you and we can apply for a licence review. If a licenssed premise keep applying and being refused then that would feel vexatious.

I was visiting some friends on Ivydale yesterday. I was amazed and shocked that so far 4 months on Cheltenham and Ivydale. With letters placed on windscreens about works taking place that didn't for weeks. Whole thing a fiasco. If you live on these roads and feel you've been messed around the contract for highway maintenance is up for renewal. Tell the councillor who's accountable [email protected] what you think of the current contractors FM Conway.

Hi the-e-dealer, From quite a few PM's and other posts from skyblue that she is looking for specific information related to her circumstances which are location dependent. So yes, I would always post general infromation as I have it but absolutely no I will not post information specific to a resident or someone who has asked for help.

Hi skyblue, If you email me I'll obtain forecasts for secondary school places for you.

Hi Dorothy, I'm sorry if you feel I should not have posted this important decision and started this thread. I don't think the decision will make a big difference generally but clearly for some families it will make all the difference. I think it's best they know of this correction now than in letters about school offers much later. The Charter School is close to the Lambeth border so parochially for East Dulwich I expect the decision to dissipate its impact across its large admissions footprint and only be felt at the margins that could never have been certain of admission. NB. I'm told the council is closing down the Southwark Admissions Forum.

On the 4 January I was also chuffed to hear the East Dulwich Harris Boys Academy had been declared by Ofsted as Outstanding. Southwark has more girls than boys schools. So the co-ed schools are not as balanced between girls and boys as we'd all expect. Hence why this is a boys school and Southwark needs another boys school or two for true balance. So even if you want co-ed school plsces we need more boys schools to ensure co-ed are really co-ed. For now I'd hope we can all support East Dulwich Harris Boys Academy to keep moving from this success to further success. It will be a few more years before this school has filled all its years and it has high GCSE success. IF at a later date the Harris federation chose to go co-ed with these schools then fine but with each having 120 pupil admissions such co-ed would probably only work if they REDUCED total pupil numbers and frankly we need all those places going forward. I went to a comp with 300 pupil intake and it was very anonymous and lots of pupils sank without trace. Combining the Harris girls and boys schools would see something like a 240 pupil intake which is still huge and not a helpful scale. So if they go co-ed they'd ideally go co-ed seperately to maintain admission numbers but at the same time. It would be really complicated to make happen. Would you swap kids to accelerate things. Staged. Real minefield. This really isn't on the cards and we really don't want to distract either school from further improvements.

The East London Line phase 2 is expected to open December with the annual Network Rail timetable changes. The closure of the South London Line was explained as beign a requirement of ELL2. So doubt ELL2 will open thatm uch earlier but would be delighted if it did. London Bridge is predicted to be the worst affected station - probably as much or more to do with The Shard opening just before the Olympics as the Olympics. Avoiding London Bridge use East London Line from Honoro Oak or Forest Hill and change at Canada Water onto Jubliee Line to Stratford. Cycling. Bus to Lewisham and DLR.

Last time I asked many tress in this park had anti bite horrid tasting solution painted on.

Hi skyblue, The ED local non religious Southwark school co-ed choices are Kingsdale and The Charter. I'm afraid I don't have forecasts about secondary school places but can only assume the experienced and further forecast bulge in primary school numbers will continue and affect secondary school places. For the dulwich area this has been 60-75 children per year and looks to continue. The ED Harris Boys Academy has added 120 secondary school places. So I can see extra pressure for places but in our part of Southwark what felt a brave contentious decision about the ED Harris Boys appears to have been crucial to avoiding shortages locally. Does this answer your questions and concerns?

If you want to be really depressed about Southwark Councils snow preperations... http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/2012/01/31/50000-rained-away/

Hi Fred, When I see any potentially interesting licensing changes I'll post something either on this thread or if potentially VERY interesting will create a new thread for it. Hope that's the sort of answer you're looking for. Hi ed_pete, Please do complete the online survey. The more responses the better. The context. After 20 years of services being gradually removed relatively little happens on this 7 hectare site now. Lots of false starts for new facilities and when the economy felt flush they didn't happen - ie a new community hospital. So either we all pray for a miracle or we settle on a realistic plan for the site. Dereliction for another 20 years or a mix of uses for the site with a good sized proportion of any development probably being housing to fund things. Hi skyblue, The Charter School has never had a fixed catchment area. It varies from year to year with applicant numbers and with a large bulge in primary schools places just about to start applying for secondary school a contraction in the effective catchment area would be likely due to that but... Southwark has more girls schools than boys schools. When asked the ex.Waverley School governors and parents were clear they did not want the school to go from a girls school to a mixed school. Hence the 'new' Harris Boys school. BUT with the East Dulwich Harris Boys Academy recently being awarded an outstanding by Ofsted this should be become even more popular with local families. So I would expect that to make a positive difference in places at The Charter School.

The campaign was led by a group of parents living in social housing. Guess some middle class but that's not really the point. The school appeared to the adjudicator to have used the way it administered it's admissions policy to block children from Champion Hll Estate and Cleve Hall Estate - both social housing.

I can understand calling him Mr.X. EDF threads sometimes go of at tangents. Not stating the persons name ensures that if this thread did go of at a tangent the family wouldn't feel powerless and as personal for them.

Stated in the latest Elephant & Castle draft Supplementary Planning Draft that only 16% of Southwark residents comparison shopping takes place in shops located in Southwark. That internet shopping in the last 12 months has increased from 7% to 10% of all shopping. So a Waitrose or M&S on Lordship Lane wouldn't help with that BUT Rye Lane returning to some of its former glory would help keep more Southwark pounds in Southwark with all the obvious benefits of that....but that's another thread for another forum.