James Barber

From the description most of these burglaries can be deterred or stopped by hardening homes. Sad we need to do this. Criminals are largely opportunistic. If they're determined they go for property that's unmarked and involves making the least noise and fuss. For crime prevention tips go to the Crime Stoppers website OR ask your local Safer Neighbourhood Team for a home crime preveniton visit or even better do both in that order.

The perfect job for Smart car to enforce parking regs...

The new General Manager of the Dulwich Leisure Centre has been appointed - Kay Skelton. Sounds very enthuisiatic. They've told me that people leaving stuff in cubicles is quite common. That she will ensure signs are placed in cubicles and that when staff find unattended items they will remove them and place them in lost property. She also told me that the preperations for the grand gym reopening 10am 25 June are progressing well. Hope to see lots of you there.

The new General Manager of the Dulwich Leisure Centre has been appointed - Kay Skelton. Sounds very enthuisiatic. They've told me that people leaving stuff in cubicles is quite common. That she will ensure signs are placed in cubicles and that when staff find unattended items they will remove them and place them in lost property. She also told me that the preperations for the grand gym reopening 10am 25 June are progressing well. Hope to see lots of you there.

?5M is a lot of public money. The school needs this level of investment to provide accomodation that we want all children to have. The majority of reception year kids September 2009 when I last had the data came from the surrounding area. Its expansion is likely to see some kids who curreently go to Caprini attending this school and Caprini will probably have a few more local Lewisham kids. So a handful of Southwark and a handful of Lewisham kids will attend more local schools and all the kids get a decent school to learn in. This planning application is a great chance to get the school to have a modern School Travel Plan as part of the planning conditions. I see many kids already walking but non cycling to this school. But clearly more drive to this school than others. In the future with the bendy buses going this autumn Eynella Road as some point could be reshaped to deter anti social parental parking.

Hi Mr.Edwards, I didn't say ?3.5M on lolly pop people. I said lolly pop people were one of the many things funded by the surplus. I don't see that they should have to have placed a sign, i know the regs say they should, but that implies the laws can be ignored where no sign. Kford is correct these smart cars are provided by contractors of Southwark Council to enforce regulations Southwark can enforce - typically parking. Sadly they're not loaded with ANPRS catching missing vehicle excise duty or the uninsured. The main thing is they should again show more discretion and apply some humanity. Getting rid of targets is tricky. I had a long chat several years ago with Met Traffic Wardens. They had no targets and were really not bothering or focused. Lovely people but frankly not doing their job. But targets that create over zealous behaviour clearly not right either.

Has any one else been turned away from the Lambeth Council Vale Street recycling centre - 200m across the border from South Croxted Road? Some years ago the former ED Lib Dem Cllr Richard Thomas arranged a formal agreement to allow residents from each borough to use each others recycling centres but Lambeth appear to have reneged on this. Ironic considering both councils now the same Labour persuasion.

Latest figures I looked at - all revenue from parking tickets, parking permits etc ?11M pa. Costs to enforce ?7.5M. Surplus on the parknig revenue account ?3.5M. The surplus is used to pay for things like lolly pop men and women, road crossing training for young and old, etc. BUT to drive a car you have to pass a test. That test is meant to ensure everyone knows the rules of the road. You only get tickets by breaking those rules. The best way to see these annoying cars removed is ensuring they're not making a profit. ...but they do seem extra zealous at the moment.

If you live in East Dulwich ward get a free property marking kit from the local Police - contact me with all your details. East Dulwich ward is area bounded by Grove Vale, East Dulwich Road, Crystal Palace Road, Upland Road, Friern Road, Uniderhill Road, Dunstans Road, Lordship Lane, Melbourne Grove. The SelectaDNA FREE property marking kits are a HUGE deterrent when properly deployed to burglars. You mark valuable property, register the unique kit and markings to you and your home address and place stickers at entrances to tell burglars. If they get caught with an item the evidence of the marking and the reported burglary is enough for a conviction. Sadly Ivanhoe Road isn't in East Dulwich ward. BUT if anyone wants to buy a kit google SelectaDNA or selectamark - they retail at ?55ea and after the research we did we think (local Police convinced me) the best product at this time on the market.

If only Peckham native. Some households will need more than one of the wheelie bin types!

Hi bloonoo and others, To receive a free property marking kit you need to be an East Dulwich ward resident - area within the area bounded by Grove Vale, Melbourne Grove, Lordship Lane, Dunstand Road, Underhill, Friern Road, Upland Road, Crystal Palace Road, East Dulwich Road. Contact the ED Safer Neighbourhood Team or me with your full name, address and contact details. The ED SNT then pop round and help you deploy the kit and most importantly register it. My contact details are below. ED SNT [email protected]

Hi hibbs and Gussy, Sorry for not making it clear. Southwark Council will provide a new seperate wheelie bin for all you recycling needs - mixed recycling. You'll put all your recyclables paper, metal, glass, plastics in the one wheelie bin. So a recycling wheelie bin is great and delighted the Labour administration has taken up my repeated request for this suggested to me on this forum by ED residents. Thank you. Storing paper outside the house in a wheelie bin is great. Mixing it all up - as agreed by the Lib Dem in the Veolia waste contract is great running a year late but hey they're getting there - is really useful in that this will increase recycling.

Hi trizza, binary_star, The rationale is saving money. I'm not clear yet if this is a net saving after paying for 47,000 recycling wheelie bins or gross before paying for them of ?375,000 over 3 years or ?2.65pa per involved household or 5p per week. I also fear that frotnightly recyclnig will mean less inclination to recycle. If it deters 38kg of recyclnig for a household per annum then it will cost more in landfill than saving in collections. Again no information yet on the life cycle management costs of this option and nothing presetned to any councillor on the merits or demerits of this. I will be asking the Environment Scurtiny committee of which I'm a member to be allowed to scrutinise this decision fully. Hi Siduhe, ALL properties facing onto a street will in the autumn have weekly food waste colelctinos and ALL OTHER ITEMS WILL BE COLLECTED FORTNIGHTLY. So fortnightly recyclnig and fortnightly 'residual' waste collection. Expect fly tiping etc to increase. Expect some to put recycling into residual waste. The food waste pilot has been a solid success so far but I fear these changes will undermine it.

This Sunday 5 June Big lunch street parties are taking place with the following SE22 roads closed during the day. For fuller details please see attached. Crystal Palace Road Playfield Crescent Hope the weather holds and everyone has a fun day.

Today Southwark Council announced that all non food waste andrecycling will be collected fortnightly from homes that face onto streets - street properties - from the start of the autumn. Effectively an extension of the food waste pilot scheme from 10,000 homes to 47,000 homes while reducing the frequency of collecting recycled stuff from weekly to fortnightly along with the regualr waste going fortnightly. They've listened to my request that people be offered wheelie bins for all their recycling.. Unfortunately I'd guess that making recyclnig collectinos fortnightly wont encourage people to recycle to avoid it hanging around for the normal waste which will be fortnightly. Probably should do non food waste fortnightly and collect food waste and recyclnig weekly and once people are used to maximising their recyclnig then go, if they must, to fortnightly for recycling. What do you think?

Hi Sue, Which street did you fail to get Police to support neighbourhood watch? If it was ED Police I'll be shocked. Hi biancason, On our oak front door glass sections we've had a laminate added. So the glass can't be smashed. We've also had manchester and london bars, If you live in the East Dulwich ward parts of Barry Road the flat can have FREE property marking kits and using them properly and placing the stickers at doors will seriourly deter burglars. For bikes I've installed a wall anchor to lock them to via the anchor to the wall. I'd really recommend these.

I know it will seem trivial to you but every theft report to the Police affects how many officers we have locally, where they look to prevent and solve crime, can be part of a bigger picture that they can;t see without all the detail. These crooks went up to your front door looking to steal. They probably checked if the front door was locked or not.... I REALLY think you both should report your respective crimes.

WoodVale street name plate has now been installed at its junction with Lordship Lane. Any other street name plates missing in the area?

Have you both had a chance to report these thefts to the Police?

Hi DJQ, You're abolsutely spot on. Private rents are so high and tenure low that such property should only be a tiny part of the property mix. But in Southwark it isn't. Buying homes is also ridiculously expensive. How to lower the price? Clearly the supply of homes is to low - this is partly why the government is trying to incentivise local authorities to allow homes to be built by recieving giving extra funding for 7 years after a new home built. But it wont be enough. Equally the demand is outstripping supply. Things like high speed rail should soread the economic benefits of the south east northwards but wont be enough to counter London growth. Locally what can we do to increase supply. Very few sites you could built many homes. The Dulwich Hospital stalled plans envisaged around 2/3rd of the site being built on for homes.

Council officers will work with Fusion employees to try resolving the left cloths in cubicles to block them for others to change ie people not using the lockers.

Hi DJKilla Queen, As I said. The Lib Dem led council when last in Southwark did sell council properties. The new Labour led council is planning sell 2 or 3 times as many per year. When the Lib Dems led the council the Labour government set the rules about building new social housing. To fund it requires either council tax payers pay a lot more to fund it or council borrows money or grants from central government. The 1st isn't tenable, the second isn't allowed so the only option for new social housing WAS via grants from central government to housing associaitons - the Labour govt didn't allow any such grants to councils. And DJ you know this so why pedal the distortions?

Hi DJKilla Queen, You haven't read the Dutch pear reviewed research on broken windows theory - litter is part of the driver for more propenstiy to commit crime. Banks don't invent the legislative framework they work within. Govts lead by politicians do that. Thatcher eased the framework, brown eased it a lot more. Closing 12 day centres which largely catered for particular ethnic groups. Some might go to one of the 2 left but my hunch along with the dozen centres is most wont. Sad that their social lives which are known to keep people healthier for long will be wrecked for many. I'm spoken to one of the key workers at Holmhurst they take a different view to the council official report saying closing it was such a good thing.

Hi minder, The policy is not quite as you've quoted from the South London Press I believe. The previous Lib Dem led council sold council homes in exceptionally poor condition - from memory needing more than ?25,000 of repairs to make habitable. But larger homes were exempt from this as the council has a severe shortage of larger properties. When over crowded families move into larger properties it tends to have a ripple affect for many others. Looking at the property profile we felt this would overall have minimal impact and the capital receipt allowed for more renovations on other properties earlier. The new Labour policy will not look to keep larger properties and the threshold of renovation costs has been lowered a lot and significantly more properties will be sold. The most likely affect will be acquired street properties - generally flats and houses in victorian terraces - being sold. In East Dulwich ward we have about 500 such homes out of 5,200 total homes. The next council Cabinet committee will be discussing and agreeing the long term capital investment strategy for council homes. With that we'll be able to tell which homes will receive no investment and probably being primed for sale.

Perhaps Pugwashe prescient for the May election results with Scottish results that if repeated at general elections means Labour will be squashed nationally further.