James Barber

I'm staggered at how Southwark Council highway Network Management have handled this. I had to walk along Denmark Hill at 9am this morning and 5pm tonight. The gas mains repairs are affecting the southbound lane of Denmark Hill. When works have taken place on gas mains on this southbound lane in the past Denmark Hill has been kept open - even during rush hours - using one of the two northbound lanes for southbound traffic. So this morning after 33 hours of Denamrk Hill being totally closed IT WAS STILL CLOSED. Northbound only returned some time today. No indication of when southbound working will return. Clearly zero CAN DO attitude. Past methods of keeping Denmark Hill open are not beign adopted. Very disappointing.

Hi Ko, I think we have our poo answer - thanks Fuschia. If anyone have dog poo on the pavement they want removed call 020 7525 5000 and it should be removed within the hour.

Hi chippy Minton, Many tha ms for this useful feedback. Hi Ko, I'm not sure about litter pickers remove ping do poo so will categorically find out for you (and me). And yes those days each week your street will be litter picked.

Hi Fuschia, My understanding is all children up to age 8 must be escorted by an adult over the age of 16. That 1-4 year olds must have an adult for EACH child and 5-8 1 adult can escort 2 children in that age range. All children upto 8 can attend rafts and rascale BUT the adult child ration must be kept. Example you've given of 3 year old you'd need one adult to supervise them 1:1. For the 8 year old technically they should be ok as my 8 year old has attended rafts and rascals and we all had a whale of a time - although when my son and I met the head of leisure earleir today we did suggest more fun floats were needed. If you get really stuck please email me and I'll get a more formal response.

A couple of corrections to the debate that have been helpfully sent to me: "The [inter library loan]fee charged in Southwark is 50p if a book is already in stock somewhere in the borough. If the book has to be purchased or obtained from another authority, or the British Library then we charge ?2 per item. These are some of the lowest charges in London, for example Bexley charges ?3 for books not in stock in the borough and an additional ?10 for a British Library loan, Croydon charges ?3.50 and ?12.60 respectively. We send e-mail notifications for people who have reserved books, although there are still some people who do not have e-mail addresses. The Home Library Service has not closed. The funding for this part of the service will cease on March 31st 2013 and we are currently looking at alternative ways of sustaining this service. It is too early to draw any conclusions on this and I am concerned that people may be misled into thinking the service is being cut and that we are not making any effort to look at alternative means of provision." I've been assured books are still fashionable with lending going up. The library consultation talks about lots of other non book things hence my misunderstanding!

I just wanted to express the thanks and gratitude of the East Dulwich councillors - Rosie, Jonathan and myself for the great job council officers and their extended internal and external team have done on the complete renovation of the Dulwich Leisure Centre. Its been a complicated project due to listed planning consents, maximising what was kept open while the works were undertaken and a change of political administration. The centre looks great. I'm sure it will now become an even more popular and much loved facility than ever before. Thank you. Attached a couple of pictures taken this morning a few minutes before the official gym reopening.

Sorry Dulwichbloke, I don't feel that having a limit of 20kg with other heavier weights gathering dust in a cupboard would make sense. I'm sure these heavier 30kg weights wont result in any change of atmosphere. And if Fusion thought it would its advice to Southwark Council would have been different. IT is a very large gym. IF it was much smaller then I think your point could be valid. Hope this explanation makes sense.

Hi richfish, Southwark has 12 libraries. Each one has a manager (well Kingsdale is managed under Dulwich Library) and then it should if everything devolved to local library management need just a head of library managers role. If you then layer it into a cross London Library function you would need lots of other layers and HR team a seperate finance team etc. So cross London I could see being more costly. It would also mean that you can;t blame local councillors when you're not happy. So local democratic accountabiltiy of a local service.

Hi dulwichbloke, As previously posted I've arranged for all the free weights to be put out and they go from 1kg-30kg? What have I missed.

Hi dulwichbloke, All our 2006 mainfesto pledges for East Dulwich are now delivered (greater library opening hours, modern street lighting, fighting to keep the area remaining surburban in character, new secondary school and renovated DLC). So not sure what you're talking about. The grand reopening should be fun. Tessa Jowell, Cllr Veronica Ward and I have been asked to pop along earlier than the official 10am reopening in our gym kit for photos.

I received the rota for all our local streets to be litter picked. Terrible format so I've hacked it around to make it easier to find your street. If you ever find litter picking didn't occur on one of the set days do let me know the details.

Sorry your heard this news from me Otta. Ideally home boooks service would be run from each librsty - this is the ONE area I think volunteers would be great in supporting the library service.

If a dog onwer is unable to control or encouraging their dogs to do such things then the dogs are likely to repeat it to another animal of human - it could be your child next. You must report this to the Police.

10am Frankito - I can't help being so excitied about our final 2006 manifesto promise being delivered.

Inter library loans are a perenial problem. When I've ordered books they sometime never appear. Several other councils have devolved all book purchasing to individual libraries. The library orders them direct and have them the following day if in print or use second hand service called for similar out of print speed of obtaining a book. Eliminates the need for inter library loans and when customers get such a great srevice they come back more often. This also cuts out a whole back office team that add delay to fulfilling actual demand. So I see lots of back office savings that should mean Southwark libraries can be open MORE than they currently are.

Hi micah627, Have you reported any of these criminal acts to the local Police so they can try and solve and deter futher occurences?

Hi Undisputedtruth, I would imagine 12 Starbucks or similar franchises making more than ?400,000 profit and meeting the savings target. But i think the top down library service isn't galvanising enough local support. I think the Simpson's approahc might be better at giving a great customer focused service and get more people in the doors enoughing books.

Ann, great to hear your son also thinks its amazing improvement. We promised in 2006 we'd renovate the centre. Its taken ?6.2M and several years - partly as its listed - to complete and I'm chuffed Labour have finished the job. And it now uses a fractino of the energy it used to. Official reopening tihs Saturday at 10am. Do come along.

Hi ianr, Thanks for correcting my silly mistake. average of 4 libraries on duty for each hour - still implies more than double the necessary run rate even allowing for huge book buying. Hi Smiler, Agreed. I hope that each library is left to be managed locall with local user groups to focus on devolving running a great service and attracting more users from their popularity. In Hilllingdon they've seen step increase in people using their libraries, increased the number of libraries, renovated their libraries while decreasining the budget.

Hi Cora, I'm sorry to say this was a decision the Labour run council took in February when they set their budgets. Cuts had to be made but they chose to cut by ?9M more than required and squirrel ?9M extra into reserves every year. Cynics in my group believe this is a war chest to go on a spending spree before the next local election in 2014 and to be honest it is hard to imagine why they would over cut now and eliminate or reduce valued services such as the noise team. Weirdly the Labour budget was more right wing and cutting than even the tories proposed. Best person to raise concerns/frustration/anger about noise service being drastically curtailed is the council and Labour leader Peter John - [email protected] Yesterday their capital spending plans were revealed which include putting ?6M extra into reserves every year.

When the free weights stacks were purchased they come with 1kg to 30kg weights as standard. A little confusion abotu whether all these weights should be put out. With immediate affect the higher weights will be put out today. Many thanks to those that raised this issue and the council and Fusion staff who've sorted it all out. If you tell me about a problem I will alwats try and get it fixed. The creche is also open to non members using the leisure centre facilities. So can anyone show me how to use the free weights this Saturday 10am at the grand reopening?

After talking to Elsie Road and Tintagel residents and Goose Green school I've formally requested that parking enforcement take place probably via a smartcar. I've also suggested that the school may want to suggest an informal one way use along Tintagel for parents dropping kids of.

Hi languagelounger, Current library funding comes from Leisure dept. I'm hopeful the current model of libraries is drastically changed. The budget is large enough to increase opening hours, reinstroduce home book service for housebound residents and save the sums being asked. Our libraries are open collectively for 518 hours per week. The budget is ?8M in the last statement given to me by the head of leisure incl. libraries. That's ?15,444 for each hour that a library is open. Even our biggest libraries would only have half a dozen staff covering them so must have huge overheads. Any librarians out there?

I've asked whether higher than 20kg free weights have been purchased and locked away. Would seem an odd thing to do but I'd like to know either way. Glad so many regualr users like it and hope potential new users will join in the official mega reopening this Saturday 10am.

Southwark Council is undertaking a 'library review'. The consultation process for the review includes a survey questionaire which will commence in all libraries next week, as well as an online version of the survey being available on the Council?s website. (I'll add the link to this when it become available). The terms of reference for the review have been agreed as follows to: - make recommendations for savings and efficiencies of a minimum of ?397,000 over the years 2012/13 and 2013/14 (potential library closures). - review demand and usage patterns in order to determine appropriate choices for the future scale and nature of provision (potential library closures). - consider and make recommendations on innovative methods of service delivery including through the delivery of other Council customer services - maximise the use of ICT in terms of service delivery and as a service (books arnt very fashionable in Library services). - consider what other services might be delivered from libraries (talk of coffee sales) - review the impact of opening Canada Water Library on the total service offer (as it will cost more to run than the ROthehithe Library it replaces). A public meeting is being held at each library which locally are: 05/07/2011 7pm to 8pm Kingswood Library 11/07/2011 7pm to 8pm Dulwich Library 13/07/2011 2pm to 3pm Grove Vale Library PLEASE DO GO ALONG SO THAT THEY ARE VIEWED AS POPULAR. If we want to keep Dulwich Library opening 7 days a week people need to go along and tell them. IF you want to keep Grove Vale Library and kingswood Library do go along. For background of what might be possible - http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/2011/03/22/expanding-libraries/ Following these ideas the current Library budget should allow for cuts and more opening hours. What do you think should happen to our public libraries in Southwark?