James Barber

Next week we'll transfer the details of all the supporters we've collected to the Haberdasher's Aske's Federation. We've collected 575 and Habs over 70 so far. SO we're well over 600 supporters for a new secondary school. Thanks for everyones support. And people can still register via www.newschool.org.uk for another week.

Certainly no consultations underway about this or recently closed:http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200024/consultations/1703/petitions

Let me take a look after tomorrows election.

Hi hazwald, Let me ask and come back you.

Just to confirm that the East Dulwich ward surgery tomorrow evening at 7pm is CANCELLED. The venue is the East Dulwich Community Centre which is a polling station and the polling station takes precedence. But if anyone has any issues or problems let us know and we'll organise a home visit.

Hi jLO, I raised your sofa collection with council officers. Apparently you'd also mentioned it to your College ward councillors both of whom raised it with officers as well! Collection made, officers working out what went wrong.

Junction of Grove Vale with Melbourne Grove. The road is in a terrible condition. Due to the danger to cyclists officers have agreed to make patching temporary repairs and in the very near future permanent resurfacing on this area of Grove Vale.

Hi SebsC, The Garden Centre plot does include Railway Rise. The three houses and builder merchants have right of way. I'm afraid I don't know if parking restrictions can be enforced especially if someone is still in their car. I suspect not.

Hi KK, I was asked questions which I responded to. Some questions are impossible to answer without being political. But zebra crossings rarely have such political sides. This area of the forum is meant for General ED related issues. The lounge or drawing room would be better for more political debates. Next time I'm asked a question which trigger all this I'll suggest responding in a more appropriate part of the forum.

Dulwich Park. Really interesting problem I was PM'd. Dulwich Park has a few disabled parking bays in the park. But no benches near any of those bays. Incredibly obvious problem once pointed out. The parks team immediately agreed we should have benches near those bays. They should be in place within 6 weeks.

Hi ZT, I agree and am resisting further response to PT. Hi PT, Happy to have dialogue via PM.

Hi PokerTime, You're still re writing and making up history. The Lib Dem led council built more than 10 times more council housing when the Labour government was opposed to this than the current Labour council when the national government has supported councils housing being built. If you opened the excel spreadsheet I posted you'd see nearly 6,000 homes were sold under the Right To Buy. The council has no choice but to sell them to tenants. So telling us of for obeying the law isn't helpful. Closing the Heygate Estate and rebuilding it was a cross party agreed policy as part of recreating the E&C and had been talked about for many many years. But the details of the contract for doing this does not have cross party agreement. The Lib Dems negotiated a deal that due to Purdah was blocked from happening before the 2010 local elections. The new Labour administration threw this ready contract away. Southwark News has reported that ?50M was thrown away as a result, they say that Labour settled for ?50M less and no automatic 35% social housing. I'm not legally allowed to tell you the figure as Labour Southwark are determined to keep it a secret having spent ?70,000 so far on legal fees to stop this information being made public - fighting the Information Commissioner. This week they've just lost another round and are considering appealing to a higher court at more council tax payers expense. ?100M on a call centre. Not sure where you plucked that from? Do you mean the cost of running the call centre over many years with many hundreds of thousands of calls each year? Southwark Council was created in 1964. For all but 8 years in the last 50 years Labour has run the council. Frankly when Lib Dems took control in 2002 it was a complete mess. It did a huge job of turning that around. The recent Labour administration has benefited from that.

Hi PokerTime, The Lib Dems didn't sell the Heygate estate. Labour did shortly after taking office in 2010 and Southwark News reported for ?50M LESS than the Lib Dems deal on the table with the developers had been proposing. Also the Labour deal didn't include 35% social housing. The deal struck over the Heygate Estate was by Labour and they chose to accept as you've stated 3% social housing. Under the last Lib Dem administration of Southwark Council 368 council homes were built. Please se SE1 for useful background to all this http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/7565 Hi ITATM, I hope not. I'm stuck. If I don't respond people will read things into that or think I'm being rude and if I do respond I get people like PokerTime re writing history. Hi Renata, Please see attached latest council data about house sales, demolition, etc. Looks a lot different to 16! NB. The demolition is a weird one. Most of those are the Heygate estate which has only just been demolished but for accounting purposes is recorded as demolished when people leave their homes as it's going to be demolished.

Hi Zebedee Tring, If Sainsbury's now saying 2 May then 20 May I would expect to be the new reopening date.

Hi Nigello, Will check this out. Hi Zebedee Tring, w/c 20 May. Hi Dun, Will take a look tomorrow evening.

Which bit/s Dun? I know a few tweaks to standardise parking are coming which generally slightly increase parking availability. But they shouldnt need any suspension of parking.

Hi ITATM, My figures are slightly out. 38,000 council tenanted properties with 16,700 leasehold properties where Southwark is the freeholder and the lease held by a private individual.

Hi KK, Local East dulwih pledges http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/?p=2547 We have a great record on delivering our pledges despite being in opposition. And Southwark wide pledges as per above.

Hi first mate, For our Manifesto please see http://www.southwark-libdems.org.uk/manifesto For our older people pledges see here: http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/simonhughes/pages/160/attachments/original/1393868415/Older_People_and_social_care.pdf?1393868415

Hi GinaG3, and anyone else, If you spot things like dead foxes in a public place in Southwark do call 020 7525 2000 and report it. If you find nothnig happens for a couple of days then do escalate to a local councillor. I've reported the dead fox. Grass cutting. I have had casework about this before about 18months ago. I agree that sme areas could be more attractive if managed as grass meadows. Potentially this would also save money. Can you email me about this and I'll then make enquiries to see if this has been considered and if it has why not persued.

Hi KK, If my party was selling all East Dulwich ward council homes as they become vacant I would be declining the whip and telling people why and trying to change the policy and campaigning to do this. But we're a very democratic party and I'd hope never to have to take such drastic action as we make group decisions for such important issues. So sorry I can not feel unity for Renata (as much as I personally like her and respect her) about her political party selling all East Dulwich ward council homes when they become vacant. Lastly, before I hope we get back to the reaosn for this thread, councillors are not all the same. They each bring different amolunt of effort. Many do it for the Southwark wide stage. Many like me and ward colleagues do it to change their area for the better. If we lose on 22 May I'll still be campaigning away to finish what we've started.

Hi KK, I was asked a question and responded. Renata responded and I responded to her. I genuinely think it a long-term problem for East Dulwich if it doesnt remain a mixed community. Hi KoolBananas, We havea shool places crisis that we've been worknig on solving by getting new free schools built since 2011. The latest pahse is a secondary school after securing primary schools. We've also campaign to make Lordship Lane 20mph and aded crossings, new cinema. We've made a lot of things happen locally scuh as the Dulwich Leisure Centre ?6.2M revamp. So I think it a bit unfair to choose one element of our work and criticise us for being one dimensional.

Thanks LondonMix about admissions. Hi Bumpkin, I can't imagine a new foot bridge and the Green Dale footbridge would mean crossing JAGS land. That's quite an assumption being made about JAGS especially with children safe guarding these days. HI LondonMix, Sports facilities and other facilities have been discussed. We have made it very clear we'd expect sports halls, etc to be located so they can easily be opened for the local community out of school hours. Hi ITATM, we're proposing 2/3rds of the hospital site be used for a new secondary school with remaining third being the size the local health organisations have said they need.

Come on Renata people aren't that daft. No, the requirements for major repairs to be needed causing the council to sell homes ended when your party took control of the council. Even ?1,000 of repairs caused the sale of a 4 bedroom house. Perfectly good homes are being sold and the threshold for selling is ?300,000. In East Dulwich ward we have no homes for sale under ?300,000. It doesn't take Einstein to work out this mean social cleansing. You can't pretend this isn't your local parties policies causing this. Over 900 council homes have been sold or demolished since your party took control of the council in 2010, you've promised to build 11,000 new council homes but only built 26 in four years. And the council doesn't have 55,000 properties. It has 55,000 freehold properties but 13,500 of those are leasehold properties and not for the council to sell.

The Dulwich Festival Fair on Goose Green had a an area for the Parents Steering Group and Haberdashers' Aske's Federation to talk about the school we're proposing. We also had ex.pupils, year 9 pupils and Haberdasher's Hatcham College Vice Principal talking to local families. I thought it really useful. Hopefully others did as well. Setting it up first thing today I was worried about the weather but it didn't seem to dent the spirits at all.