James Barber

I've engaged Southwark Council Planning Enforcement several times. I've asked them again to invesitgate and take further this case.

Former Banhams Timber Yard, 103-105 Barry Road. This site is looking a really sorry site. The developers have made repeated and broken promises that they will clear the site and then start construction on several unspiring homes. I've just had confirmation that final letter has been sent to Dickens Development (UK) LLP to clear the site up. Failure to complete these works within 21 days will result in a Section 215 Notice will be issued legally requiring this work. Hopefully the developers will see sense. Fighting and incurring costs and Southwark Councils costs will be many times more expensive than just doing the work.

Hi sophiesofa, Chimney balloons are fab. Watch this space as I suspect we'll do some local offers on those.

Up until now the East Dulwich ward Lib Dem councillors have broadly divided up tasks to avoid stepping on each others toes etc. I've taken interest in the East Dulwich Forum almost totally from a casework perspective. I think this is my first post in the drawing room. I'll point out this thread to Jonathan. I would like to highlight though that East Dulwich ward is one of 8 wards that make up the parliamentary seat of Dulwich and West Norwood. Clearly supporting regular threads across the multiple forums covering DaWN by a candidate is asking a lot while they have final 30 days to campaign in. Tessa has several offices with interns to support her. NB. Afghanistan. I also was against our presence but had the good fortune to hear Paddy Ashdown talking about this issue. We're there. If the Taliban retake Afghanistan, Pakistan will be destabalised and could fall to radicals. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Can you imagine a 9/11 involving nuclear weapons.

Hi sophiesofa, Clearly insulating a roof will have zero impact on reducing CO2 emissions for a basement flat. I believe we still have half a dozen free electricity smartmeters which would help you. Get in touch if you'd like to avail yourself of one. Hi cate, annabel, I'll chase officers about Dulwich Van Hire. Clearly ridiculous situation. Hi Gimme, I emailed Tetrapak people yesterday to ask about their detailed eco life cycle calculations. Wandsworth do collect Tetrapaks. Tetrapak people are happy to receive bails of Tetrapaks which they then ship to Sweden to decompose into recycleable materials. It sound great collect an item for recycling. But if it then has to go long distances it isn't clear whether than environmentally makes sense. Hence my request for the details maths which curiously isn't left on their website.

Hi sophiesofa, I'm afraid I don't know when the Northcross Road thing will progress. I suspect after the elections as everyone gets jittery about purdah during election periods. Hi alachlan, Southwark Council has purchased thermal images of Southwark. Those thermal images have been cross referenced to OS data nd property boundary maps. Apparently the software makes this a cinch. The thermal images show red when no loft insulation. The software also adds up how many homes of a particular thermal range in a defined area. I'm sure some will be council properties. The sample I've seen shwoed blue for some council properties on Crystal Palace Road. The only blue (best insulation on the sample. Hopefully this answers your question.

The East Dulwich councillors have selected the following schemes for our ?105,000 of Cleaner, Greener, Safer funded projects: - Traffic calming in East Dulwich bounded and including Lordship Lane, East Dulwich Grove and Melbourne Grove specifically including Matham Grove. ?25,000. - East Dulwich Carbon Fund funding measures to reduce CO2 and fuel proverty in East Dulwich. ?30,000. First ?25,000 allocated to addressing the 647 homes without loft insulation in East Dulwich which is the most cost effective way of reducing CO2. Last ?5,000 to try other ideas. - Goose Green school greenwall planting along Grove Vale. ?5,000. Reducce the visual impact of Goose Green school on Grove Vale and as important create a much better play environment for school kids both visually, but also green wals absorb pollution and noise. - East Dulwich Crime Prevention Fund. ?10,000. Further projects to build on the huge success of preventing crime in East Dulwich. - Gating alleyways. Installing more alley gates in East Dulwich specifically on Northcross Road and Shawbury Road. Eliminating more anti social hotspots. - Street trees. ?12,400. Planting more street tress in East Dulwich. So far around 220 tress planted in last four years. Plan to experiment with planting them in new build outs further from peoples homes and calming traffic. - East Dulwich station extra covered waiting area. ?6,000. Matched funding with Southern Railways. Make using East Dulwich station into central London more comfortable and pleasant to use. - Bicycles for Schools. ?8,000. Offer every East Dulwich school access to bicycle pools. - Eco dry cleaners. ?2,000. Encourage East Dulwich dry cleaners to become eco dry cleaners. Currently dry cleaners use Perchlorate chemicals which can be carninogenic. Other chemicals can be less eco damaging. I had also applied to other wards for CGS projects which were rejected: - Expanding Dulwich Library ?5,000 - Crime prevention funds for Village ward, College ward, Peckham Rye ward. Really disappointed by this as easy cheap measures to reduce crime have not been adopted. Some fellow councillors seem to view crime prevention as purley a Police matter.

Hi gh, Tetrapaks. Currently 14kg of Tetrapaks are recovered per week from 6 collection sites at big super markets in Southwark. Tetrapak recycling is done at one site in Europe in Sweden http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/Recyclable_recycling.asp. Over 70-90% of tetrapaks is low value cardboard. Shipping Tetrapaks to Sweden is environmentally dubious. Catch22. Enough scale is needed to justify a UK plant to make it eco positive but this is a UK wide issue and really needs national government or the Tetrapak company to lead. I was told about a residential collection scheme where people could post Tetrapaks to an organisation in Glasgow but can't track it down. Should Southwark collect Tetrapaks via street collections? I've done eco life cycling mgmtm studies before. Without exploring the nth detail I'd suggest that kerbside Tetrapak collections appears like 'green wash'. With so few Tetrapaks and low weight + recyclnig taking place in Sweden the allocation of space on kerbside recyclnig trucks seems uneconomic. You could predict that more kerbside trucks rolls would be required to allow for the dedicated Tetrapak spaces that wouldn't get much use. If recyclnig took place in the UK it would seem to make lots of sense. I'd welcome views on this.

Cardboard is collected if placed in blue bags or in my experience next to blue bags. Never had it placed in green wheelie bin. If anyone has this happen please tell me with address details and I'll report the error.

This issue was raised with me in January by Sue(suzyq) and this is the post I responded with: Hi Sue, The part of East Dulwich Road affected, north side of Goose Green, is in South Camberwell ward and although part of East Dulwich not part of East Dulwich ward. Your South Camberwell Labour and Green Party councillors will have been asked to make the decision several times and a public consultation would have been involved. One of the powers the Lib Dems devolved to local councillors at local Community Councils. Without wanting to second guess why council and fire officers asked for this change. Many of the houses along this road have been highly sub divided - Houses of Multiple Occupation. Such highly sub dividied properties are much much more likely to result in fires where people die. Sometimes multiple deaths. On this basis ensuring fire engines can gain access seems a sensible, if painful for drivers, precaution. Apparently 5% of UK population live in HMO's but 35% of fire deaths and 40% of fire injuries for people living s in HMO's. Total 600 fire deaths and 18,000 fire injuries a year in the UK. Your suggestion of allowing fire enginer access across Goose Green is appealing but with two lines of parked cars between Goose Green and the houses would'nt actually mean fire fighters could get ladders and kit quickly into the right place. It would also probably result in more restrictions and fewer public events on Goose Green - which would be a shame. I'd also guess that the pavement after this change could be returned fully to pedestrians which would make walking along here more pleasant and feasible for those with prams and buggies, etc.

Hi genwilliams, I have asked officers about all the Lordship Lane bus stops and while doing this added on the one northbound outside East Dulwich station which is in South Camberwell ward. Yesterday I pointed them all out to the council leader Cllr Nick Stanton and the terrible state they're in. I'm awaiting a response and will update when my chaser of yesterday evening gleans anything useful.

Hi Anna, Yes, I was told end of January works would start and nothing has happened and it'll soon be April. This is really bugging me. I've asked enforcement officers when they plan to enforce and as soon as I get a response will get back to you.

Tetra pack recycling. Sainsbury's on Dog Kennel Hill now collects Tetra Paks for recycling. From June the recycling station at Peckham Rye Park will go comingled which will enable space to start collecting Tetrapaks. Where else in East Dulwich would tetrapak recycling make sense?

Hi Moos, The East Dulwich Road, Crystal Palace Road, Ady's Road crossing is a real challenge and we've been trying to get the timings changes for nearly four years. I'm 6'4" and walking fast the green pedestrian phase is insufficient. My colleague Cllr Richard Thomas has been exasperated with TfL who apparently control our lights. We've tried a different approach of suggesting diagonal crossings a la Oxford Circus to try and get their interest. I'll check with Richard the latest status on this and report back.

Southwark had agreed 81 on street car parking locations ie on Southwark council controlled roads. The East Dulwich would have received 4/5 (one on the border). Using Cleaner, Greener, Safer money the East Dulwich councillors have funded an extra 10 places for East Dulwich. The launch was on Lordship Lane last Friday. Streetcar have 4,500 members in Southwark they tell me. These extra 91 cars should really help increase membership and replace many privately owned cars. They tell me their latest membership surveys indicate 24.5 cars given up and replaced by each Streetcar in the pool.

Late this afternoon I was told that the terrible snow and cold, wet weather has delayed works. That the contractors have allocated as many people as they can have safely working together to catch up with the weather delays. At the worst point a 12 week delay looked possible which is what the receptionist appears to have told people. But that with the extra resources allocated for catching up it should be much less than that. I've asked for a firmer date asap.

Flats above Somerfields. These flats were granted planning permission 2/2/2005 before I became a councillor. Since being built condition 2 related to arrangements for storitng domestic refuse have never been met. Residents of the 1 x 3 bed, 4 x 2 bed and 5 x 1 bed homes have had knowhere to store rubbish or recyling. They have no real choice but to put black plastic bags out on the pavements with all the issues that creates. The site owner has applied via planning application 09-AP-0678 to resolve this. The suggested solution has been formally refused by council planning officers. The next step is formal enforcement of the owner for not meeting a planning condition. Eventually the problem will be resolve one way or another.

When I became a councillor I was keen for work to study Lordship Lane from the pedestrians point of view. That resulted in Living Streets being contracted to undertake a study which you can see via the following link: http://www.southwark.gov.uk/uploads/FILE_40766.pdf Dulwich Community Council discussed Lordship Lane traffic issues 24 September 2008 item 12 but I can't see copy of any presentation on the Southwark website: http://moderngov.southwarksites.com/Data/Dulwich%20Community%20Council/20080924/Agenda/Agenda.pdf I'll try and make time this weekend to search through my filling. I'm loath to ask officers to spend hours digging out something that was so clear cut.

Residents on Etherow Street have highlighted that no.12 and 40 buses which terminate and turnaround there are dumping all the rubbish they clear out of their buses and overfilling Southwarks rubbish bins. Technically this is trade waste. Council officers have visited the no.40 bus depot in Camberwell. They've been assured all bus drivers will be told to dispose of rubbish thoughtfully. Most of this rubbish, around 90%, is newspapers. So council officers are also arranging with our waste contractors Veolia to deploy recycling bins. These will be in place next month and with the bus drivers help resolve the current problems and result in more recycling.

Hi peckhamgatecrasher, I hadn't thought of cleaners at 4am. The lighting comes on term time, weekends, holiday times, xmas day. So I don't think this is down to cleaners. I'm sure the school would like to half the electricity it uses for this illimination. Most likely they don't even know this is happening. I've explained how we might be able to help with a really cool timer that can cope with term time, holidays, weekends, lighting levels, etc.

Hi Karter, I can assure you the crossing was supported by vast majority of those that responded to the formal consultation. I'm sorry if you personally don't agree a crossing there is a good idea or necessary. The reason this crossing didn't proceed is mostly down to TfL buses causing council officers concerns and taking fright at what TfL might do if a crossing proceeded. East Dulwich councillors made a big fuss. Several council officers have since changed. East Dulwich councillors have been assured a crossing as per public formally counsulted support will be constructed and funds have been found to do this.

Heber School lights are coming on at 4am. I've had one resident contact me about this as it wakes them up shining into bedroom. Any other experiencing this? Eitherway I've asked how we can hel pthe school avoid this, save some money and reduce its CO2 emissions.

I'm shocked at this suggestion. I have just contacted the relevant director in Southwark Council to try and establish the facts. The pool was due to re open late Spring and then phase 2 starts where the gym temporarily located to the new dance studios while the main gym is renewed. So reception could have been responding to the pool or gym reopening. So I will find out ASAP and post the response.

Membership of London Cycling Campaign is CTC both bring cycel shop discounts on acessories and bike bits. Membership of these usually pays for itself every year in discounts.

Hi karter, A consultation was completed last summer. Conusultation papers with freepost reply, email, etc was delivered roughly to all homes within something like 200m radius of areas from Goose Green to Northcross Road - from memory 1,200 homes. Huge majority wanted a crossing outside Somerfield supporting the views I and my ward councillor had gleaned from many doorsteps in the area and residents surveys. Hence why we requested the works. The problem was TfL Buses stating that a zebra crossing could not proceed as so many people would clearly want to use it to cross the road and this would delay buses. We suggested via council officers that narrowing Lordship Lane at the pelican crossing clsoe to Northcross Road would allow shorter green time for pedestrians and thus less red time for buses. They weren't interested. We suggested meeting on site. No interest. So we've now been told that TfL buses could probably accept a Pelican crossing outside Somerfield. Not as good as a zebra but better than dashing across hoping to make the other side. The bend. We had originally hoped that the kerb would be built out on both sides so that the bend would make little difference to a zebra crossing. It also halves the distance to cross. It would also minimise issues around car parking being lost as one car park space from each side would be lost. But then the bend would'nt be an issue for a Pelican as the lights will be clearly visible. Hope this makes sense.