James Barber

Contractor has agreed to supply for free replacement photos and screw them all down to reduce risk of damage if someone decides to try removing them. The council officer Pippa has done a good job arranging this.

If anyone needs more blue boxes of bags just make your requests via 020 7525 2000. Any problems with that let me know.

Council officers told the previous adminstration that the food recycling collections apparently required the Integrated Waste Management Facility to be built on the Old Kent Road. This wont be finished until 2011. So I've asked where is proposed to receive all this food waste. Hi louisina, You can request a smaller green bin. The normal sized ones are 240L and the smaller ones are 180L. Takes up less room. Call 020 7525 2000. Any problems please let me know. Hi BrandNewGuy, It is amazing how much rubbish our society generates. Much can't be recycled.

I'm surprised by this. The school has been told that they don't have to have an electrical fire alarm and that the local authority H&S team see no reason for this school to be closed for the stated reason.

Exactly why Cambridge Council spent a year working with residents to get such changes just right. Nappies stored for a week probably not a problem if tightly wrapped in plastic bag but people will think it a problem and look to take them elsewhere to dispose of. Unintended consequences of any proposed scheme can kill it.

Some lamp posts have small cylindrical things for plugging in Xmas lights.

Hi edanna, Cambridge Council introduced such a scheme and spent a year counsulting and preparing people for it AND the final scheme was very different to that originally proposed and seems to have popular support. The idea would be that if you're recycling you wouldn't need extra bin bags (which foxes in East Dulwich would love) so my understanding is that they would not be collected. My guess is officers might be helpful to begin with and get stricter over time. I'm not sure what people in flats would do who already find even the smaller wheelie bins a problem.

Hi Miacis, Eddie M, A colleague form Village ward - Cllr Robin Crookshank-Hilton spoke with Southern Gas a week ago who stated two weeks until they finished. Eitherway I'm hopeful they can be strongly encouraged to finish sooner.

Hi Tomsav, Agree Landcroft Road is a pickle. I've reported many of the pot holes for repair and only patching has occurred. The next round of road maintenance budget will decided on its size at February budget setting council. Previous years the Lib Dem allocated an amount for local ward councillors to decide - we decided on Pellatt Road, Landells Road and a bit of Goodrich. It costs roughly ?1,000 per metre of road and pavements to be renewed and we have budget of ?33,333. We plumped for only doing the roads which made the money go a lot further. Southwark as a whole has a backlog of ?18M of highway renewals to bring every road up to decent standard. Largely the 8 years of Lib Dem led council we chipped away at that backlog but didn't seriously dent it. Personally I'd imagine Landcroft next FY being a likely contender.

Hi expat, Where fortnightly bins collections have been introduced they have faield to gain popular support without an extensive consultation which has usually resulted in subtle changes making the originally proposed schemes better. The advice from the ex.Labour government was exactly that. The expereince of Lib Dem councils is exactly that.

Hi Miacis, Eddie M, I'm also really worried that we have what appears to me a near repeat of the circumstances that resulted in the tragic death of a school girl at the junction of Peckham Rye/East Dulwich Road. I've contacted the lead council officer and explained the similarities and will chase later today. With Southwark schools going back today this needs to be resolved asap.

Violence Against the Person is often domestic violence. So largely invisible except to those closely involved. We've done lots in East Dulwich to reduce crime - property marking kits for stopping burglary, alertboxes to cut shop crime, those hooky things under bar/pub tables to reduce theft. We can't fund capital things to reduce domestic violence. Any ideas very welcome.

No, I'm not saying that. In some places I'd imagine fewer and in others more.

Hi Amelie, Sure you're right but must be something more can be done. Ultrasound? Just randomly guessing how long works will take seems a bit rubbish this day and age. Any ideas?

Hi rahrahrah, When modernising the street lights wherever possible the lighting engineers assess the spacing to ensure no big gaps between lights. So they've been placing some in different positions. Fewer. They could only have fewer if they were much taller to spread their light or allowed to shine out horizontally which would cause more unwanted light into peoples homes.

Hi louisiana, A neighborhood dislocation charge. Oh how I wish. Great idea. The good news is that replacing water and gas mains now should avoid such works in the future for the rest of our lifetimes. The reason they don't put end dates is in case they come across the unexpected. With records relating to gas works undertaken 80+ years ago I'd guess and blitz damage where changes weren't fully recorded it would be very hard to know exactly when you'd finish. I work for a telecom company. One customer was held up as the simple trenching for 100m found 2m thick concrete under the road. Truly bizarre. I'm surprised not able to use archeological sub ground radar/sensing to get better idea of what likely to be found. Very low tech at present.

Hi expat, The national government has so far said they'd like councils to not raise council taxes and will work with local councils by allowing them far more freedon and less ring fencing of the monies they receive so they can be more efficient. REal example Audit Commission going. The following is the email received by councillors from Cllr Barrie Hargrove about the planned changes to recycling: "I would like to welcome you to an all member drop in session for a new recycling pilot, which will run in the East Dulwich, The Lane, Nunhead, Peckham Rye, Surrey Docks and Village wards. The sessions will take place on 23 September, from 6pm at Tooley Street, SE1 2TZ, Room 519. We?ll be running a series of drop in sessions at 6.15pm, 6.45pm and 7.15pm where we will be explaining details of the scheme, provide examples of the materials and answer any questions you have. Places for the sessions are limited to 20, so please confirm by reply to this email of your order of preference and we will confirm details prior to the 23 September. Further details of the pilot at www.southwark.gov.uk/foodwaste In conjunction with our waste and recycling partner, Veolia, we will run a Organic (garden and food waste) recycling pilot for 10, 000 homes in the borough from October to March next year. This will not affect residents weekly collections of dry recyclables. The recycling pilot will enable residents to recycle additional materials and will contribute to raising the boroughs recycling rate. This in turn will reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill. " If you follow that link it takes you to a page where at the very bottom it has a link titled 'background details of this scheme" if you follow that link and read very carefully it states rubbish collections will go fortnightly. The wording around this implies they'll be next to nothing left to collect. This is not what other authorities have found. It's sugar coating a controversial decision. This type of burying decisions, obfuscation is an example of what gives politicians a bad name. The whole fortnightly collections idea and decision for Southwark, trialled in East Dulwich, should involve proper public consultation and a robust decision making porocess.

Hi expat, Central Government provides around 70% of the money that local councils such as Southwark spend. In calculating how much money to provide they take into account number of homes, population, number of freezing days and so one. So clearly these numbers affect how much money they provide for rubbish collections. Hi Twirly, I'm afraid I don't know. Currently my uncooked vegetable waste is composed in the garden. My guess is that you'd be encouraged t put food waste in a recepticle or plastic bag for collection. I guess that what's troubling me. The zero consultation that's taking place to talk through issues. Presumption appears to be that the trial booked for East Dulwich and Dulwich assumes everyone lives in houses with front and back gardens to locate more wheelie bins etc. Dulwich has fewer subdividdd properties due to Dulwich Estate ability to restrict this. East Dulwich has high proportion of subdivided properties. Not everyone can share wheelie bins with neighbours even from the same 'house'.

I think recyclnig food is good. I think fortnightly bin collections can cause problems. I think it will increase the amount of fly tipping and I'm not sure many people would want Equally the advice from WRAP (quango set up by Milliband) states: "Our advice on implementing alternate weekly collections systems for household waste emphasises throughout that it is important that the public are fully involved and consulted by the local authority before any new service is introduced, and that the support of the public and councillors are obviously important when thinking of introducing a new service." Have you been consulted? I've been invited to a briefing telling me what will be happening. Not consultation as I know. Where this has been successfully introduced by Lib Dems it's followed huge levels of participative consultation e.g. Cambridge.

Hi expat, I don't think I've ranted. The trial involving 10,000 homes and around 30,000 residents is proposed as a minor amendment to contracts and consequently sidesteps the councils forward plan, isn't subject to a formal report to community councils or council assembly or consultation with residents. If anyone doesn't like the idea 'tough' is the democratic implication. Now, do you think it a good idea or not?

Murder rates compared international per 1,000 population places UK 46th globally better than USA, France, Iceland, Australiam, Canada and marginally worse then Germany, Spain and Italy. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Take a look at http://maps.met.police.uk/ The borders for East Dulwich wards are wrong (which makes Peckham Rye look below average for crime and ED average for Crime in London). If you go sub ward level you can see for many crime type we have low or no reported crimes. One exception to this is around Lordship Lane between Goose Green and Northcross Road and probably relates to alcohol. I've also attached latest Met Crime stats. The original file was over 4MB so I've only kept the last two years data by ward for Southwark and every ward in London for July the last month full stats available. It shows East Dulwich for crime is 141/624 wards in London. Which places it in the best quartile for London.

The new Labour run Southwark Council is proposing to move to fortnightly rubbish collections and make the garden waste collections weekly and add food composting. Surprised this wasn't in their manifesto. Anyway a 'trial' involving 10,000 homes in East Dulwich and Dulwich is proposed to start in October. Weirdly this is not considered by the new administration a major change so has side stepped the majority of the governance mechanisms allowing scrutiny. Do you want fortnightly bin collections? Will you recycle food?

I'm not aware of any street lighting in SE22 being so bright it looks like daytime. I've been assured that all new modernised street lighting deployed significantly reduces electricity useage while producing more lumens. Plenty of evidence that proper street liking goes some way to eliminate crime hotspots in poorly lit areas.

Hi Catma, You could contact your councillors or email me. Your local councillors are: [email protected] or Barrie Hargrove or Nick Dolezal.