worldwiser

I've been looking for a door company in ED for ages - nothing seems to come up to scratch. At the end of the day, if you make a door and its frame from wood, anyone can get through it in about 30s. It matters not a jot what kind of locks you put on it. Also, I haven't found a wooden door that is totally draughtproof or does much for reducing sound. We used to have a Matadoor (just google) and they're beautiful and amazingly secure - the whole thing is steel and concrete but manages to look like wood. Except they cost around 4-5k. A tank wouldn't get through them. Or, for around the 1-1.5k mark you can have a Rockdoor (again, just google) which is supremely secure too, doesn't look far off wood and is thermally and acoustically way way way superior to anything made from wood.

Seems like the noise is back - I'll try and prevail upon them one last time and then I might come back to you. The environmental officers don't seem interested in making an appointment, you have to take your chances one evening to call them out and, if they're busy, they won't come.

We also live on a road off LL and discovered a family of rats in our garden shed this week. Concrete and steel wool has proved the best solution. Plug all holes and burrows with it. It'll have an immediate effect. Make sure you have no redundant pipes/old soil stacks still connected in your garden and secure all your manhole covers and leaky outside taps. Rats need plenty of water so cut off their access to it.

Favourite's towering extractor had been bothering me for some time (we could even hear it through our double glazing) so I had a word with them and they immediately agreed to get it serviced and cleaned which was surprisingly neighbourly of them. Seems way quieter now. Buoyed by the prevailing community spirit, I thought I'd move onto the owners of the huge aircon units on the roof of Foxtons, ask them to screen them in and maybe lessen their industrial impact on all our houses. Do people think this would be worth doing? Do they bother anyone else? Does anyone know who the landlord is there?

I honestly believed that I had dreamt this whole thing. The sounded was like he was being murdered right outside our window. Nice work SunLover.

Thought you were one of the CPZ's most ardent advocates James! All I know is, I've now lived in 3 areas of London during a period where a well thought-out CPZ was introduced and the effects were extremely helpful with very little local upset. The question is how to make sure it is well thought-out. These things are pretty much inevitable: try and name any part of zone 2 left that doesn't have restrictions on every single street during the working day. Within 10 years, we'll have one.

Tr?, good tip - cheers. And ed_pete - wow, had a brief look through.. so the basic flaw was that it was only a limited number of streets and it cost a small fortune. Not surprising no-one went for it!

Hi James, Referring to the council meeting - the state of our road, Crawthew Gv, is hilarious. Covered in ugly patch repairs and attempts at line repainting - the latest ones to the pavement only just last week look like they were done by children. And the entire length of the road is strewn with potholes. The recent street repair survey that came through our door was completed and returned with relish! Re. the parking permit scheme - real shame it was never introduced. Other parts of London that seem like carbon copies of ED in various states of evolution (Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Chiswick, Highgate, Finchley - I'm sure there are others) seem to do incredibly well with a 1 or 2 hour restriction somewhere in the middle of the day to deter long term/commuter parking but retain the facility for shoppers/local visitors. At the very least, it would be worth having marked parking bays. People park so inconsiderately and I'm sure parking capacity could be increased by doing this alone. Oh, and by charging builders a punitive rate to park their Portacabins on the public highway so they actually have an incentive to use them sparingly. Best wishes

We're near Goose Green.. down for 2 days. Same text code as ed_pete - They said it was restored this morning but we came back on last night. Customer services was so jammed last night, it was engaged for half an hour!

Purple and Violet

Is this what all the cones and temporary signs that have gone up today around Crawthew Grove/Spurling Road are about? They put a sign on my car today saying 'marking to be installed on 21/3 or we'll move your car'. Thanks for approximately zero days notice whatsoever.

Mark is something of a pyroguru: terrific service, delivered within 24 hours and showed me his now surely patentable technique for getting our woodburner easily 5 times hotter than we'd ever got it before. Brilliant and extremely friendly guy, can't recommend him enough. http://thelondonlogcompany.blogspot.co.uk/

Loving the extremely reasoned and well-mannered approach of some on this thread. I'm trying to understand, the license application says: "Application to apply for late night refreshment Mon-Sun 23.00-05.00. Opening 24 hrs a day." This is not on their existing license 839903 which was only granted 2 months ago. Does this mean that the Co-op wants to move into the all-night cafe business? I live very close by and I definitely wouldn't be in favour of that. Also there appears to be no mention on their existing license of when they can have deliveries which are typically way more disruptive than the odd late night shopper. Any idea why there's no clause in the current license James? The only possible grounds for objection seem to be under 'prevention of public nuisance'. I can't find anything to do with 'likely to affect existing local traders'. Can one object on that front?

The only problem we've had with local pubs (in my case The Bishop) is the regular collection of noisy refuse in the early hours which is usually expressly forbidden by their licence. I tried taking it up with the pub directly which failed, but Southwark Licensing have been great. Look up the terms of your local pub's license on Southwark's website. Quote it chapter and verse to them with specific times and instances.. and they'll sort it out pronto.

Fascinating tool that webtrak - I had a shot at establishing some kind of pattern. For instance, weekends always seem to be tremendously busy with one flight every minute all day long. Certain days during the week seem to have almost nothing.. sometimes afternoons are very busy, sometimes not. Does Heathrow share the pain around or is it a wind direction thing? Anyone have some insight into this?