Nigello

Whereabouts? Rough area, not specific

Tax the trees! Each vendor should add £1 to each tree sold to be given to the council which would then promise to pick up abandoned trees for the whole of January. If you’ve dumped a tree on the pavement or on the road then you’re really rather selfish.

I’d be less averse if the council told us how much profit was made and where that money would go to.

Did you request collection from the council or just bung it on the road and hope for the best?

I love trees, especially street trees but not Christmas trees left on the pavement because the owners CBA to request a free collection from the council. I’ve seen primary school children having to walk into the road to avoid these fly-tipped trees. Get rid of yours responsibly or don’t buy one if you don’t plan to do so. Ask a neighbour to offer space in their brown bin, for example or take it to a tip - preferably taking a few at a time to extend that spirit of Yuletide togetherness. (I’ve rung the council environment line to tell them about the SE22-wide problem so not just ranting…)

I just saw a (male) blackcap feeding on suet balls in my front garden - a first.

It was dark so maybe I was mistaken.

Workers were putting up a new ramp (or just new fencing on the original ramp) and the door looks new. What’s it going to be, does anyone know?

I pick up cans and bottles regularly just while walking from A to B. I’d prefer it if barbarians didn’t drop litter in the first place and if the council had omnipresent street cleaners and twice the number of litter bins but I’m a realist. If the littered can or bottle looks too grubby I leave it and I wash my hands or use alcohol gel afterwards.

The article is more than 12 months old. It’s possible that the council has reinstated some of the street cleaners. Possible, not likely, but still possible. The online reporting system works well, in my experience. As long as you’re specific and provide details the problem gets dealt with within 72 hours and often before.

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/street-care/street-lighting-and-furniture No need to fill in your details but be detailed as to location (ie. street number or junction etc. )

I see leaf sweepers and collectors often. It’s impossible to have all leaves cleared, unfortunately, even if the result is hazardous pavements. A call to the council will at least alert it to the problem.

J and B, please show your evidence for your claim that the flu vaccine prevents your immune system from working as well as it could without it, then at least the readers of the EDF will have another point of view. Thank you very much and stay healthy.

I agree with the poster who asks that people don’t mean the whole centre when they really mean one of the service providers, such as the GP facility or whatever. The blood drawers are excellent and the pharmacy is good. It’s bright and clean and airy. Parking spaces are available, as are e-chargers. The vaccine service during the first couple of years of COVID has been great, if a little over-staffed with sometimes not altogether competent volunteers.

The pool ought not to be pre-booked for anyone. It is a real pain to get a slot and then if you do, to see plainly that at least ten percent of people booked in for that hour don’t arrive. It’s a public facility that is in effect cutting off access to some people by citing outdated Covid guidelines. I feel bad for the staff who are mostly good and welcoming, having to work for this company.

Great if you’re considering a child making his or her future on Taiwan, but don’t put you daughter (or son) on the mainland stage.

I’d like to agree but see evidence of great progress in other parts of Southwark, such as Walworth Road, where fronts have been scrubbed clean in what seems an organised effort. I see a lack of real conviction on the part of all players. Landlords who are living far away and not in the slightest bit bothered about their tatty properties seem to the the big contributory factor (after the vandals themselves). The fact that many people who work, live and visit there are working class and relatively poorly off must have something to do with the lack of imagination and effort on the part of all parties. I go only when I have to and lament the lack of true interest by politicians and business owners there.

I don’t blame the shop owners for the graffiti. That is solely the responsibility of the (mostly) young men who do it. I do blame them for doing nothing. They could remove it, paint their shutters with a varnish that helps with easy removal of further vandalism or install shutters behind glass or install those shutters that are grilles. They could demand action from the council and MP, asking, for example, for assistance in removing the tagging. Councillors could try coming up with and then fighting to implement the ideas that have taken me three minutes to think of and type here. But they simply CBA and have no interest in collectively making the place more attractive to current and future patrons.

Is it all of the collection or just some? If the latter it seems half-hearted.

I’m pleased this is the result and hope the powers that be clean up this midden once and for all. It’s a disgrace that landlords/business owners should be allowed to get away with dumping rubbish and not cleaning their walls and tatty shutters. Avoid at all costs.

Two Dott bikes had been left on the pavement - dead centre, near a corner - a few Saturdays ago. I sent a picture of them to the company which eventually confirmed it had removed the riders from its books. Win!

Those obviously vertigo-suffering bus passengers who refuse to go upstairs, even just to look for a seat, and instead join their allegedly claustrophobic friends who just won’t move down the bus. Worst of them are the exit-door crowders.

The tits - blue and great - are back. They were there in early spring but went away. Wren (dunnock?) and robin also making appearances.

It’s right and proper that cyclists who go through red lights, ride on pavements and don’t have lights or bells on their bikes should be deprecated and dealt with by the law. Those that don’t shouldn’t be railed against and left to go about their business. I regularly see cyclists in the dark with no lights, no reflective gear, listening to music etc. via headphones. They’re much more likely to be involved in an accident that doesn’t just hurt themselves. Pedestrians aren’t moving fast on metal machinery and are much less likely to cause problems (but those who do, by walking into busy roads, not taking care and paying attention, deserve the same kind of treatment as drivers and cyclists who act dangerously and illegally).

Someone around the corner told me the bags of rubbish outside my neighbour’s house one morning had blown there when I went to the address I’d found in refuse in one of said bins….!