James Barber

The reasons for these changes ARE NOT to improve train services in South London. They are to make way for more very long distance commuters on a revamped Thameslink service that requires more through platforms at London Bridge station which means reducing the number of terminating platforms used by services such as the South London Line. Actually London bridge has the physical space for more through platforms and the same number of terminating platforms but has lacked the political will to make this happen and now probably lacks the cash. So the South London Line as the least used line into London Bridge station is beign sacrificed. Lesast used. No barriers at any of the station. Rarely opened ticket offices. No recording of the free train services some have used it as. East London Line phase 2 should be useful for some and has been chosen over Victoria-Belligham services to make up for some of the loss of utility of losing the SLL. Changing trains to get to London Bridge from Denmark Hill etc. If people have to do it they will. They'll have no alternative. Will as many people find moving into our area or staying as attractive. No, not if they have work at Victoria or London Bridge. When life circumstances change they'll consider more favourably buying where they can get direct trains for the journeys they need to take to work. I personally don't take train journeys that involve train changes. Certainly never when with my kids. Will the local teaching hospitals be as popular for students, patients. No, because if people have to ever move from one site to another they wont like changing trains for what is currently a 9 minute direct train journey. Areas not currently served by trains to Denmark Hill are unliekly to have local health contracts with Kings to perform medical treatments for their residents. To me bigger issue. South London is blighted in many areas by massive railway viaducts and cuttings. For these to be used more intensively with all the affects on residents to run more long distance services while reducing the services locals find easy to currently use feels morally wrong.

Hi toast, The Gardens and some parts of Dunstans Road are part of Peckham Rye ward. East Dulwich ward has four primary schools that are providing 285 reception places between them for the 122 East Dulwich ward resident applicants. Overall Southwark has 200 spare reception places. The problem is not a local shortage or borough wide shortage of reception places but a lack of perceived attractiveness of some of our schools. All schools in Southwark are improving but the general view of a school seems to lag behind a schools improvement by around 4-5 years. Hence why Heber School has spare places in years 5 & 6 dating from when it wasn't as popular but had already been turned around. I'm hopeful Goose Green has already been turned around. It certainly has talking to its parents.

Road resufacing. Pellats Road between Lordship Lane and Cyrena Road will be resurfaced starting Friday 4 June and ending Monday 7 June. Landells Road between Lordship Lane and Goodrich Road will be resurfaced starting 7 June for two days. Upland Road between Lordship Lane and Mount Adon Park will be resurfaced later this year.

Hi Ladymuck, You stated Labour tradionally have fought for fairness. It was a great Liberal Lloyd George who introduced state pensions 100 years ago before the Labour party existed. He was a passionate believer in progressive taxation. William Beveridge the architect of the NHS and welfare state - another great Liberal. The new Lib Dem/Con coalition that will reintroduce the link between pay and state pension increases and will raise the tax threshold to ?10,000 taking the poorest out of taxation. Regards james

Hi Scoottagal, All decent homes works for Lordship Lane estate have been completed during the last 3/4 years. With the block you stated in a PM/email being completed a year ago and just out of defects period. So it would seem unlikely huge bills in the near future. However, putting some money into your own savings to allow for future major works would seem a wide precaution. Any future works will come via the Stock condition Surveys which I understand as being completed but not collated.

Request made asking me to find out the level of 4th preferences in East Dulwich ward. Council Admissions Officers has reported the following allocations for East Dulwich ward residents: Preference Children 1st 112 84.2% 2nd 13 9.8% 3rd 2 1.5% 4th 1 0.75% (Goose Green Primary School) Manual allocation 5 3.75% Total 113 So for East Dulwich 96.2% of applications received one of the choices they made. I'm hopeful that those 5 will shake out into a school they actually wanted and again if I can help them in any way please if you're one of those families get in touch. NB. Another 13 late applications have been submitted for the SE22 area which includes East Dulwich ward, bits of Peckham Rye/College/Villages wards with offers being sent out after 21 May but before the end of May.

Request made asking me to find out the level of 4th preferences in East Dulwich ward. Council Admissions Officers has reported the following allocations for East Dulwich ward residents: Preference Children 1st 112 84.2% 2nd 13 9.8% 3rd 2 1.5% 4th 1 0.75% Manual allocation 5 3.75% Total 113 So for East Dulwich 96.2% of applications received one of the choices they made. I'm hopeful that those 5 will shake out into a school they actually wanted and again if I can help them in any way please if you're one of those families get in touch. NB. Another 13 late applications have been submitted for the SE22 area which includes East Dulwich ward, bits of Peckham Rye/College/Villages wards with offers being sent out after 21 May but before the end of May.

The four main tenets of our national manifesto are part of the coalition agreement. I'd like more to have been agreed of the Lib dem manifesto but we will get more of it that we ever expected for that brief week where we were ahead of the other parties - that was a heady week. The tories were willing to compromise the most. Labour the very least. Lib Dem will see more of its policies in place than via any other means. Politics is the art of the possible. I'm as wistful as the next person but we will see real positive change on so much incliding reducing taxation on the very poorest in our society. Regards james.

Hi gavster, I've contacted council officers to ask for an explanation. Clearly very stressful time for you and your family. I'm assured that Southwark do chase secondary admissions up and that includes The Charter School. BUT every state secondary school in the borough is either an Academy or Foundation school and with that status they are their own admissions authorities. So Southwark can only work by influencing these schools which they attempt to do.

I've just asked the lead officer for latest news. I now when the Lib Dems ran the council that the contractor was working flat out to make up time for the delays caused by the unseasonally colder 1 in 30 year winter = concrete wont set and more non concrete and mortar setting days than usual.

DJKillaQueen, I really take humbridge at being told Lib Dem Literature in East Dulwich was dishonest. What leaflets were dishonest? NB total council tax collection rate is running at 96% in Southwark along with Wandsworth and Westminster. The in year collection rate is lower as many residents in Southwark have to be chased in the following year before they pay. Recycling at year end is 24%. In 2002 when we took the lead in Southwark it was 3.6% and falling. Contracts with Veolia will see recyclnig at 38.6% minimum with lots of financial incentives to go higher and expecting it to be 40%+ for 2014. ni 2002 Labour spent ?0m on roads every year Lib dems have sepnt ?4M. Still circa ?18M backlog of long term road renewal.

Hi PaddyKelly, I'm afraid that's a little outside East Dulwich. Southwark closes it parks at sun down and walking through would be quick. Several options come to my mind. Cycle. Ask for the park to have a lit path. Such lighting would be a major project to ensure it is safe. This is in Peckham Rye ward. You should talk to Southwark Living Streets about what can be done from their experience. And yes, it would certianly make that station and ELL more accessible. Their contact details can be found at: http://southwarklivingstreets.org.uk/

Hi Nero, When the works were progressing I queries whether the sinusoidal humps met the correct standards. They didn't all feel right when cyclnig over them. Council officers checked and they didn't all meet the correct standards and quite a few are beign re done at the contractors expense. Hopefully this time correctly.

Hi dc, From memory that was 59 offences per 1,000 thousand population. Hi Scootagal, Lordship Lane estate is in Village ward. Unfortunately national legislation doesn't legally allow councils to run 'sinking' funds as private blocks of flats do to smooth out such extremely lumpy renewal bills. Simon Hughes tried to geta private members bill through parliament but failed. I'll ask the Dulwich area housing manager what plans he has. If you privately email me at [email protected] with the name of block etc I can then directly feedback to you. Hi northlonder, Nero, Bags on tope of bins does seem sensible. Not entirely fox proof but certainly better. I'll make another effort as leaving the bags out overnight must be infuriating for the cleaners to see al their hard work undone and more work created.

Southwark Council, with Transport for London support, offer FREE cycle lessons if you live, work or study in Southwark. Book via 0845 652 0421 or www.cyclinginstructor.com I thought I knew lots about cycling but had some really good pointers for my commute to work during two hour lesson.So might be worth doing this with your new bikes.

12 month period ending 31 March 2010. Met produce this rolling 12 months figure every month.

Hi Katie1997, Fixed term parliaments pretty standard in other western countries. A prime minster excercising royal perogative very archaically British. Understand much more detail on the agreement to come with time.

Hi DJKillaQueen, I've had the deep joy of sitting on Southwark Council's Audit & Governance committee. I chaired it the first year. We rotate the chair to ensure cross party. The internal auditing reports were really interesting and helpful in our role. We have made real strides with these internal auditing reports (using external auditors to assist). The Audit Commission by law decide who Southwark Council and other councils are allowed to use to perform external audits on them. They decide how much we will be charged. They decided they will be our external auditors. Every year we asked for a copy of their project plan. They have never produced one - not even in closed session. I tried FOI'ing them but they decided it wasn't in the public interest to produce one. They once produced a list of things they'd probably do in a sort of order they'd like to do them. They produce a document plan of what they'd like and when and then don't stick to it. Every year they decide to increase the fees Southwark pays above the rate of inflation. Well over ?1/2M and heading towards ?1M. The audit for this year just gone will probably be completed next year. How can you learn lessons so retrospectively when financial regs are constantly changing. As a member and chair of the audit & governance committee we just could'nt use the Audit Commission report because it was always so out of date. No private company would put up with such attrocious service and bad value. The private company work for will have its end of year results in the public domain with 3 months. So from my personal experience of how badly they appear to run audits it is galling to have the results held up as gospel. Now I have been internally and externally audited in a private company. Both have been thorough, quick and the external audit after two years they've come back to ensure the actions completed two years ago have stuck. Why can't a council choose auditors - it would surely tighten up the Audit Commissions act.

Hi Smiler, It could/should be but I'd prefer to ask after 21 May deadline when I can be sure this query wont get in the way of helping parents. The easy thing to do would be ping such a query in but lets hold back until 22 May when we can be sure we're not getting in the way.

Dog Kennel Hill is really annoying. Means I have to take it slowly.

Of course I should have typed Sinn Fein - funiliy enough just completed a history of the IRA. Yes I do understand Sinn Fein orignally the political wing of the IRA and that Sinn Fein's current leader in the past also commanded the IRA. An amazing man to have helped make peace possible. Funny the angst we all have for a coaltion in comparison to Northern Ireland. The point I was making is their MP's have not sat in the Houses of Parliament and have not voted. So the actual number of MP's required for a majority is fractionally less than half the number of actual MP's. It made the maths of an alternative to a Lib Dem/Tory coalition more possible.

This Satursday at 2pm a Take Back Parliament demo taking place in Parliament Square. Despite the Lib Dem/Tory coalition agreeing: - fixed term parliaments - a right to recall corrupt MPs - a statutory register of lobbyists - deepening devolution in Scotland and Wales - a review into how parliament should resolve the ?West Lothian Question? - party funding reform - measures to codify British sovereignty - House of Lords elected via Proportional Representation - referendum on House of Parliament beign elected via Alternative Vote. Many feel that wont go far enough. I agree with them - but am still delighted at the propect of all these changes happening. For further details of the demo http://www.takebackparliament.com/undemocratic or if you?d liek to be a steward [email protected]

Hi KestonKid, Yes the Lib Dems devolved ?100,000 capital funding to each of the 8 community councils for road renewal. However, we've been told by lawyers and accountancy officers that this year, due to the 1 in 30 year extreme winter, we can use this capital funding to repairs pot holes. I'd hope that in East Dulwich we'd agree this diversion of funds this year to really get on top of this issue.

Hi Smiler, This information has been requested elsewhere on the forum. I promised to obtain it at a later date and suggested about four weeks time. The officers who would provide it are also dealing with queries from parents and I'd hope they could be left to concentrate on those more pressing queries first.

Sad to see that knee jerk letter/email. Lib Dems haven't given up on our beliefs or aspirations. But many wont happen in the next five years. Without a coalition very few would happen under the tories or labour. We have a number of our policies in the coalition agreement. A number of policies we don't. Ditto for the tories. Deficit. When the economy was doing well labour were still increasing the deficit. At such times you pay back national debt to prepare for bad times. Gordon Brown stated he'd brought about the end of boom and bust - King Canute moments. As a result little room for fiscal stimulas that we would have had if greater prudence during the good times.