James Barber

Victoria, Why would the change over of adminstration make getting this information difficult? The officers know how to get the info and know who the councillors are. Candidates know the standing down councillors who should be mentoring the new councillors and all candidates attended the scrutiny meeting and met the relevant council officers. The Lewisham shakedown will probably be less than last year as they have 19 bulge classes serving nearly 600 reception kids. More Lewisham parents will probably stick with what they have. Hi Fuschia, Worth reiterating that. As people move into the area and apply for a school place/s they make better meet the admissions criteria and join waiting list higher up knocking others lower down. Equally if you accept an offer its locked in.

Significant parts of the Lib Dem national manifesto is part of the coalition agreement. Significant parts of the Tory manifesto is not. It's called compromise. Labour party could'nt deliver compromises and prefer to be in opposition than compromise. Clearly its not that bothered about having its policies in place. I'm really looking forward to a rapid increase in the tax allowance upto ?10,000. Many people will during the next five years be taken out of paying income tax.

Hi Loz, Southwark Labour plan to recreat a dedicated Southwark Housing department. I can see the temptation. Some well run housing depts equally many rubbish ones. So a housing department as such isn't the key. Southwark Lib Dems merged housing with the environment dept as so much commonality and lots of money saved by the merger. For example when Southwark Lib Dems took over from Labour in 2002 6 grass cutting contracts - some overlapping - of Southwark grassy areas. Merging these into one covering housing grassy areas and all other grassy areas made huge savings and improved the quality. Many similar areas of duplication - energy, littering, roads, anti social behaviour, etc. Once you split housing out a housing department it's likely to want to have ownership of each of these areas seperately. Creates duplication and the boundaries of estates. We want to integrate estates into high quality streetscape not seperate them. The key to Southwark council housing it having enough capital to invest to catch up with decades of under investment. For the last 8 years around ?320M has been spent so far. A full condition survey is due to be completed soon which will state the scale of problem.

Under the Lib Dems every year all 320km of Southwark roads are assessed at over 4,500 locations for structural integrity, wear etc. The ?4M annual budget was then spent based on these condition surveys. The criteria can change slightly year by year - we did ensure that the weighting was slightly higher if a desingated cycle route as bicycles suffer pot holes more than vehicles. I'd like to get this annual survey on-line so everyone can see where their road is compared to others. Goodrich Road. If you look carefully you'll see repeated red lined corners on the road surface. They are showing the intended boundaries for extensive pot hole repairs. Pot holes are a particular issue after a 1 in 30 year winter. When water seeps down through cracks the freeze thaw action breaks up the road surface (as water melts it expands to maximum volume at 4 degrees C). Due to this exceptional weather lawyers and accountants have said capital money can be used for revenue purposes of fixing pot holes. The Dulwich Community Chair person was 'reticent' to allow this to happen locally before the next community council in June. Yes, extremely annoying.

The latest crime stats by ward are available from the Metropolitan Police. See attached. It shows East Dulwich is the safest ward in Southwark. The 108th out of all 624 wards in London - so well and truly top quartile - but for the 243 inner London ward East Dulwich is the joint 7th safest ward. I?m delighted that all the effort my ward councillor colleagues and I and resources we?ve allocated and put into crime prevention along with the dedication and expertise of the East Dulwich Police Safer Neighbourhood Team have paid even more dividends. But how can we reduce crime further through prevention?

Hi EDmummy, Sunday night one Lib Dem MP I spoke to was hoping for a coalition of national unity with Lib Dems, Labour and nationalists. I found this the most attractive possibility and Gordon Brown enabling that by announcing his standing down from Labour Party leader seem to herald this progressing. The parliamentary maths isn't quite what it seems as IRA never attend. Additionally, nationalists should be nervous of tories trying to run a minority administration as they have one Scottish MP and tories had remarked about 70% of spending in Wales being government and that this should be reduced. Problem seemed lack of serious negotiation and backbench Labour MPs such as Blunkett queuing to be on the telly saying no way and they wouldn't support it. For many such MPs First Past The Post guarantees them a job for life. AV threatens that + proposed right to recall an MP to fight a by-election + house of lords being elected which is currently used for retiring MPs to soften the blow. Frankly I don't get it. Either you want your policies or as many as possible or you don't really care. To throw away the potential of a coalition preferring to see a mix of Lib Dem and Tory policies. I just don't get it. Do take a look at the agreement. Interesting reading of what the next 5 years should bring. Hi Gimme, Ditto. My instincts nationally. Except serious breaches will involve an election. Not sure voters would relish an election caused by breaching an agreement MP's consented to enter. I'd hope for wreckers to be punished by voters. But I'm an idealist.

Hi anna_r, I'm afraid I don't have the Peckham Rye ward data. Presume the whole is still SE22. Only 5 in the East Dulwich ward part of SE22. So that would leave 16 kids in the Peckham Rye ward and College ward parts of SE22. Not sure this helps.

Hi DJKillaQueen, Do you read every word of every political leaflet delivered to you? If you and everyone else did then we could add the level of details you've suggested. Lambeth Council increased council rents by 17%. Period. They then reduced the increase at a later date. They were willing to raise the rents by 17% and were slow to change their minds later down to 14%. Yes I do know that Southwark ran housing better than Lambeth. But as you also know very well, Southwark Labour Party have stated they want to adopt the Lambeth model of housing directorate and wanted originally to merge services but now review joint purchasing. Elephant&Castle redevelopment. Only government money for housing is via housing associations. With over ?600M of debt incurred decades ago to build the Heygate estate and Aylesbury estate and ridiculous treasury rules about borrowing Southwark can't afford to build council houses on the scale required. So you work with what is available. However, the Southwark Labour Party leadership has stated they don't think enough social housing being made available as part of the scheme. Either he waves a very magic wand or the definition of social housing will be watered down or the scheme close to signing will collapse. You can recycle 14 different types of plastics in Southwark. More than almost all other boroughs in London and its collected from your doorstep. Southwark's recycling rate is depressed as so few homes face onto streets. 80% are flats and half of those social housing. Both tend to reduce recycling rates.

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Please see attached for copy of the Liberal Democrat coalition agreement with the Conservatives. Tell me what you think. Shame Labour didn't take a potential coalition seriously.

Hi fuschia, The statutory limit is 2 miles. A Lib Dem run Southwark Council has always striven and worked to a 1 mile maximum. Five families in East Dulwich had allocations given to them that were not one of their 4 preferences. During the 'shake down' period it is expected that they will end up with one of their preferences. Hope that helps? Hi toast, I'd really prefer to leave the allocations team dealing with parental queries and casework than analysing the percentage that received 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences. Could I ask you to remind me in four weeks time when I'd hope they'd be freer. Hi prdarling, Please contact me via PM and lets see if I can help.

Hi DJKillaqueen, Lambeth Housing issued letters to tenants stating an increase of 17% in rents while slashing repairs down to critical H&S ones only. The government then changes it rules which then meant Lambeth Housing could revise the hike to 14% but still only conduct critcal H&S repairs. 2006 Labour in Lambeth came to power and with no indication or anything in its manifesto transferred all council housing to an Arms Length Management Organisation. It seems/ed reasonable to assume that after all the praise Labour in Southwark have given Labour in Lambeth they'd repeat this - especially after stating they would review all departments to see which ones could be merged etc between Southwark and Lambeth. You've implied critiscm of Lib Dems with regards to various topics: - recycling. Labour 2002 3.6% recyclnig rate and falling. Mar'10 its 24% and will be over 38.6% in 2014 as per current plans with the contractor heavily incentivised to be over 40%. - housing repairs. the repairs service in customer satifaction surveys is significantly better with 90% happy but 10% is still a large number of unhappy customers. - decent homes. DEcent standards includes kitchens and bathrooms less than 35 years old. Huge proprtion of Southweakr council homes have reached 35 years and frankly keeping up with modernising this bulge hasn't happened. Equally Southwark owes ?650M in debt for loans taken out to buy estates such as the Aylesbury and Heygate which are in the process of being demolished. - call centre. What vast amounts of money? - New office at Tooley Street. This has so far saved in excess fo ?35M. You wont see Labour closing or reversing this decision. Criticising adding up 15 years rent and stating that ?100M is wasteful as if spent in one year is exactly the shoddy politics that give us all a bad name. - road repairs. Labour in 2002 spent ?0 on road repairs. Every year since then the Lib Dems have spent ?4M. We've just had a 1 in 30 year winter. Every part of northern Europe has lots of pot holes. Planned that in June the Dulwich Community Council be allowed to spend capital road renewal on fixing this years pot holes. - enough school places. Every child in Southwark who wants a Southwark school place has one. The vast majority of primary schools kids within 1 mile of home.

Attached is a copy of the negotiated agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. It is radical and progressive. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Overall in Southwark 82.9% of this years admissions have been given their 1st choice. Last year it was 74%. In total 94.4% have been given one of their four choices. Last year it was 81.2%. Last year 474 applications were fulfilled by a non chosen school. This year 175. This is stunningly better than last year. Please see attached. For East Dulwich ward we have 5 of those 175 not allocated a preference: ? Rye Oak School (1) ? Gloucester Primary School (1) ? Goose Green Primary School (1) ? Grange Primary School (1) ? Peckham Park Primary School (1) Of course, many of these parents will get a preference as things shake down as people decide not to accept an offer as they've made alternate arrangements. In the mean time I've asked where in East Dulwich ward these applicants live. If you're one of these five please get in touch so I can try helping you. I've had the breakdown of all 175 by postcode as follows: Post code Area Count of Students SE14 1 SE23 7 SE16 12 SE19 1 SE21 8 SE22 21 SE24 10 SE26 1 SE17 13 SE11 3 SE5 29 SE1 22 SE15 47 Total 175 But again during the shakedown the vast majority of these will change to a preference as per the original application.

I can't say I like the idea of nationally being in colaition with the tories. But Labour refused to take a coalition seriously having refused all compromises. A negotiation where Labour didn't negotiate was sadly going nowhere. The Conservatives have compromised on many issues. I'd sooner have many Lib Dem policies and amended Tory policies than the Tories have won. They came incredibly close to winning.

Hi Fuschia, Tomorrow I should have the breakdown for East Dulwich.

Primary school admissions announced today. They will see 84% of applications getting 1st choice and 94% getting choices 1-4. See attached. (Lambeth achieved 75%, Lewisham 90% getting choices 1-5). This is a huge success and testament to the great leadership shown by Cllr Nick Stanton and the hard work by council officers. The process of placing bulge classes with demand, although adding some days to the process, has allowed this. I hope this process it followed in subsequent years under the new Labour administration to ensure this level of success is sustained. However, if you have any problems with your admissions results please do get in touch with me ASAP so I can help. Tomorrow I hope to have the break down for East Dulwich.

Primary school admissions announced today. They will see 84% of applications getting 1st choice and 94% getting choices 1-4. See attached. (Lambeth achieved 75%, Lewisham 90% getting choices 1-5). This is a huge success and testament to the great leadership shown by Cllr Nick Stanton and the hard work by council officers. The process of placing bulge classes with demand, although adding some days to the process, has allowed this. I hope this process it followed in subsequent years under the new Labour administration to ensure this level of success is sustained. However, if you have any problems with your admissions results please do get in touch with me ASAP so I can help. Tomorrow I hope to have the break down for East Dulwich.

Hi intexasatthe moment, I'm sure Labour will have views of what they think Dulwich should be into the future - especially with two College ward councillors. But the Dulwich Community Council has 4 Lib Dems, 3 Tories and 2 Labour councillors. The current constitution which they could change would required the Dulwich Commumity Council to have its say on this document, as would the main planning Committee. So Some checks and balances. When the lib Dems were making these documents happen we always looked for consensus so that they lasted and developers were clear that they had a more than four years in them ie. would last over several adminstrations.

hi dc, They may well prove to be excellent but they weren't expecting to win and their life plans may need to change to support being a councillor which should be a very demanding role.

Hi dc, The Dulwich and West Norwood results were a surprise. Labour received a slightly higher share of the vote. Lib Dems went up. Tories and Green party both down. But clear that Labour first and Lib Dems second. No opportunity for Converative leaflets talking about being 'notionally' second and claiming the Lib Dems have the second highest number of votes were dishonest. At least it over. Hopefully for some time.

The Green Party did well in Brighton but were squeezed terribly elsewhere. Dulwich and West Norwood constituency which includes East Dulwich +4% for Lib Dems and we're much more clearly second that the 'notional' second place the Conservatives had repeateldy advertised themselves to be suggesting the Lib Dem were being dishonest to suggest otherwise. That nonsense is hopefully dead now and the corresponding Labour suggestion that only the tories were challenging them locally. Will Tessa Jowell stay? She is 62 now. At the next election circa 2014/15 she'll be 66/67 asking to be elected to represent people into her 70's. Delighted to see BNP in Barking result but even more so the first non sectarian MP in Northern Ireland. That speaks progress there for me.

If anyone has withdrawal symptoms from Lib Dem campaign literature let me know your address and I'll make a special point of dropping some round :))

Now the local elections are over hopefully we can all get back to some normality. if you have any East Dulwich or council issues or ideas do please let me know. Several issues came up during the last few weeks of the election campaign. People living close to East Dulwich station asked about car parking. Seemed more interest than before. Local businesses and residents asked about a crossing outside Somerfield/Coop. Former mixed views with two coming out against in the South London Press, latter keen to be able to easily cross the road.

I'm chuffed to be re elected to represent East Dulwich. Huge thanks to all those who voted for Rosie, Jonathan and me. Disappointed that all the improvements in Southwark were'nt enough for the Lib Dems overall to still lead the council. Most of Labour's pledges are just Lib Dem things in the pipeline - doubling recycling etc. Monday primary school allocations will be really good for example. The Southwark Lib Dem group, compared to others, have done well but still having the national election had even more impact than we bargained for. It will be interesting for those living in College ward as the two elected Labour councillors were paper candidates never expecting to be elected. I'm sure their colleagues will support them. Looking at the voting papers during the count many people split votes between candidates from different parties and others just seemed a little confused. Lots of ballot papers with just Jonathan Mitchell voted for. Clearly some read the instructions for the general election and did the same for the local ballot paper. A couple of residents have contacted me stating that when they went to vote some one had already voted under their name. I've directed them to Deborah Collins the Director of Legal and Democratic Services at Southwark Council. I'm not really comfortable representing this type of casework as the operation of voting systems should be neutral and my involvement wouldn't be seen to be neutral. Again, many thanks for those that voted for Rosie, Jonathan and me.