Glemham

Oh come on Malumbu don’t be so disingenuous! There are many causes of obesity and LTNs are a minute part of the solution. If active travel is so important to you why not start using your undoubted energy to campaign for it in the form of improved public transport and access to it; to and from, and in and around Dulwich. It’s not too late, although it might have been more sensible to make improvements to public transport before closing roads. Certainly most of our elected representatives don’t appear to have had much interest in doing so.

Some facts:
Going to Beckenham and Bromley from East Dulwich by public transport - which many people would like to do necessitates two bus journeys, whereas there’s a direct bus to Lewisham. Easier to take the car.

Getting across  Dulwich from East to West is almost impossible by public transport. There is a single decker but that goes via a congested South Circular.

You might say take the train, and indeed in the area covered by Dulwich and West Norwood constituency there are 10 rail stations. BUT only three of these have step free access, Herne Hill - the only one with a lift, West Norwood and East Dulwich. There is one step free northbound platform at Tulse Hill and Gipsy Hill. But the remaining five are problematic.
If you are a parent with a buggy, disabled, elderly with heart or breathing problems, have a heavy suitcase and cycling is not an option, then your active rail travel options are somewhat limited.

So Malumbu are you willing to try and make difference?

Many of the tradespeople care because their footfall at the junction has fallen since January when even more traffic restrictions in the form of a CPZ were installed. This combined with the high rents levied by the Dulwich Estate and Southwark business rates, are forcing more businesses to close. 
Romeo Jones, one of the last independent businesses in the Village will close on Saturday and Harold George the hairdresser is moving to smaller premises a few shops away. A Tapas bar is rumoured to be taking that corner site.

I realise this posting is not strictly on the topic of the  West Dulwich Action Group, but no doubt they will recognise their own concerns in the Dulwich Village problems.

A very balanced article about LTNs from a Guardian journalist who lives in Lambeth. His point about public transport in South London is well made. Local councillors and MPs have failed to lobby for improvements. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/14/low-traffic-neighbourhood-ltn-lambeth-culture-war?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Perhaps someone who works there owns a Tesla and is keen to promote more sales. After all poor Musk needs all the support he can get right now 😢

Isabel Ramirez a journalist with Southwark News wrote an article - sadly behind their paywall - in October last year. “Why has this pub in Dulwich been vacant for twelve years?” There was no response from the Dulwich Estate.

Perhaps you could contact her:    [email protected]     M.07939857532

As the lease is due this year, and nothing has happened since last October she might be interested in asking some more questions.

Many years ago Private Eye published an article criticising  the Estate’s response to parents in West Dulwich who wanted to adapt their home for a disabled child. I seem to remember that the Eye referred then  to the DE as the ‘Village Idiots’.

Now that’s an idea worth considering #ab29!

The Grove saga should be coming to an end soon as the lease from the owners - The Dulwich Estate - held by Stonegate Pubs should run out this year. The group recently found financial backers to help with its £2.2 billion debt.

The Estate refuses to reveal anything about their plans for the site citing commercial confidentiality. But they have had many years to plan for the lease ending.

However they spent  three years refurbishing  The Crown and Greyhound aka The Dog in Dulwich Village so don’t hold your breath for anything to happen to The Grove  in the near future!

Indeed! You are entitled to your opinion and to speak freely as long as you don’t  criticise the Council agenda ………….now where have I been reading recently about similar attitudes to “Free” speech?

4 hours ago, DulvilleRes said:

 

This same sense of opaqueness and the sense I feel of things not quite adding up applies to some of the posters on this forum. They claim they have no idea or no interest in who might behind One Dulwich, and yet demonstrate a detailed knowledge of local politics and a relentless anti-council agenda that would suggest being political activists. The sustained attack lines and strong alignment with One Dulwich's pronouncements suggest a campaign. They might of course deny this, and say it is all a massive coincidence. Whatever the truth, I have no issue with people engaging in local politics, but the question remains is it being done transparently on this forum, and in the good faith manner a local debate between neighbours should be?  

Please could you explain the difference between being a “political activist” and “people engaging in local politics”? You seem to be suggesting the former is not to be trusted, but the latter is acceptable. 

If all cyclists were required to have liability insurance, and their bikes registered and therefore recognisable surely this would be a deterrent for the antisocial  behaviour of those who break speed limits, ignore traffic lights and cycle on pavements.

14 hours ago, malumbu said:

Do people have a problem with RPZs.  I doubt if this affects any of us.  

Glad Townley was mentioned.  Several entitled selfish motorists on double yellows today, with homemade signs placed on the windscreens 

As the car is parked outside the NHS clinic at the end of Townley Road, could the car belong to a member of staff or a patient? Perhaps the clinic has negotiated with Southwark for permits for staff who need a car to do their work. 

Have no recollection of any mention of RPZs by the Dulwich Village Councillors, Margy Newens and Richard Leeming. This is very definitely their patch.

Again if you are a stranger to the area how are you supposed to know that you can’t park there at certain times. How would you know where to go for a permit?

Are RPZs the future? I do like the irony that it’s to minimalise the need for too many signs and street furniture, when not a million yards away at the junction there’s a plethora of signs and cycle racks …………

Until next Monday the tickets are warnings, fining in earnest starts on Monday. If you don’t know the area, have been driving sensibly and not looking up at signs that require you to get out of  your vehicle to read them and park in Calton during the proscribed hours, would you have a valid reason to appeal?
Please could someone/anyone from the Council explain the rationale behind this system?

5 hours ago, Rockets said:

Are those signs (that have now been amended) the only signs notifying people that they are entering a CPZ? I saw the one at DV end above the beacon for the crossing and could not see any others.

Yes,  see my post with photos from January 8th. The two signs have now been amended to remove the ‘one hour only’ notice.  I understand that in nearby Gilkes Crescent which is now a CPZ as requested by the residents, the signage is the same.

Rumour has it that Southwark has outsourced the ‘design’ of these CPZ areas to a private company.

The CPZ in the main part of Calton Avenue is now live but penalty free until 20th.  There are no markings in the road nor any kerbside signs. Just a sign fixed to the Belisha beacon at the zebra crossing close to the Woodwarde Road junction and one on a lamppost at the junction with Townley Road. See attached photos. Both could be easily missed by drivers.

It appears that parking is only allowed for one hour. No visible information about obtaining a permit. Perhaps it’s only a temporary arrangement……….

Residents and people who travel to work in Dulwich, have had an early and unexpected  Christmas gift from Southwark Council.
 

In 2023 Southwark consulted about a CPZ for a wide area in Dulwich Village. All but one road declined the offer and the scheme was withdrawn. This year the council proposed a smaller zone to cover Townley Road, Calton Avenue, Gilkes  Crescent, Gilkes Place and part of East Dulwich Grove. Once again only one road, Gilkes Crescent, was in favour of the scheme. Adjacent residential roads made clear their opposition citing displacement of parked vehicles to roads that were already congested during the week.

Last week the roads that were consulted were informed that a decision had been made and the CPZ would be operational from January 6th. The hours: 8 to 9.30 am and 3 to 5 pm on weekdays. The decision has taken everyone by surprise because nothing had been heard since the consultation. Residents had understood that only those roads that specifically wanted a CPZ would get one. None of the adjacent roads were informed. The timeline is, to say the least, very tight given it’s only two weeks to Christmas and most people’s minds are not fixated on CPZs. 
There are some who think that this is a deliberate ploy by Southwark to cause parking and traffic chaos so that residents in roads who chose not - for whatever reason - to have a CPZ last year will quickly change their minds.

Time will tell; but what is not in dispute is the failure of Southwark Council and our elected representatives to inform residents of the result of the consultation(sic) process and to allow a reasonable timeframe before implementation.

The paving in front of the shops has been done and presumably paid for by the Dulwich Estate and the ‘shields’ are those of the Estate. There to remind us all of who holds sway over the ‘Manor’ of Dulwich and to whom many of us pay the annual ‘tithe’.

Didn’t take me very long to find this article in the Guardian from March of this year:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/mar/28/how-child-labour-in-india-makes-the-paving-stones-beneath-our-feet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Did Southwark Council and/or its contractors do their research before choosing Indian sandstone? If you’ve ever visited India you will know that labouring work is more often done by women and children whilst the men ‘supervise’.

Actually DKH the delay to building on the SG Smith site was caused by the company who first purchased the site for £5.25 million from the Dulwich Estate. McCulloch Homes, based in Southlands Road Bromley, sat on the site for quite some time and made a start on clearing it, but locals will remember that it became an eyesore with a large mound of debris in the middle. Sometime later in 2021 Aquinna Homes announced they had acquired the site and were given planning permission to build expensive houses, whilst managing to remove the affordable housing requirement.

Many residents had hoped that the site would be used for re-siting the Dulwich Estate Almhouses together with some retirement flats that could be sold. The Estate has been looking for a new site since the 1930’s and was refused permission to build on the Judith Kerr primary School site in 2016. They are still looking.

Complete lack of joined up thinking.
When Aquinna Homes bought the SG Smith site I saw from the plans that there would be underground car parking for 20 cars. I wrote to Southwark Council asking why, when they were attempting to stop local residents from using cars, were they allowing this amount of underground parking. The feeble reply said it was in the original planning application granted to the Dulwich Estate in 2014 and couldn’t be changed.

Will the residents in these very expensive rabbit hutches - most expensive being £3 million with no outlook but 5 bathrooms - want to be bothered parking their cars underground all the time? If not where will they park them? CPZs currently being proposed for Gilkes Crescent and Calton Avenue.

The latest from the great works underway at Vanity Square - aka the Village junction. The photo shows a rubbish site at the junction with a discarded bench which is reputed to have been recently outside the bookshop, and both brand new and expensive. Southwark has money to burn it seems. Will we ever find out the true costs involved in this vanity project which is supported only a minority of local residents?

It’s not really about creating yet another public space. It’s the obsession of Dulwich Village ward  councillors and the pro cycling-anti-car-at-all-costs lobby. Driven, as others have pointed out, by the expensive failure of the remodelled junction. The Council and TfL were lobbied at the time by a group who crowd-funded to instruct an independent planner for an alternative model. This would have used mini roundabouts rather than traffic lights, slowing the traffic down whilst keeping it moving. Not surprisingly it was dismissed as having no merit. The re-modelled junction was, as predicted, a failure, but Southwark couldn’t lose face, nor afford to start again.

Along comes Covid and the restrictions ordered by a right wing Government were, ironically, the saving grace for a left of centre Council - if it can’t be changed then it can be closed! No tedious consultation with residents needed and problem solved.
Some local residents luxuriating in a few now quiet roads and uncaring about the displacement of heavy traffic to other residential roads took it upon themselves to decide that the small space at the closed junction should become a public ‘square’. Once again no wider consultation but a fait accompli aided and abetted by the Ward councillors. It only needed the trustees of the Dulwich Society to ‘indicate’ that the members (who were never consulted) would not oppose the scheme for it to become a reality. Somehow, somewhere the money has been found for this vanity project. 
 

According to an article in Southwark News in 2017 the lease will be up next year, 2025. Meanwhile the leaseholder, Stonegate Pubs is looking at re-finanacing a debt of £2.3 billion in July of this year.

The Dulwich Estate which owns the building is very secretive about any plans whilst pocketing an alleged £100,000 every year from Stonegate (which is owned by a hedge fund registered in the Cayman Islands). The building is on the Dulwich Wood Conservation Area. Southwark Council are responsible for protecting the site and have powers to make owners renovate dilapidated property.

So since The Grove closed 10 or so years ago and started to slide into the disgraceful sight it is now, neither the Estate nor Southwark seem to have been able /willing to effect any change. 

Got it in one First Mate! 

The answer to this question Rockets is literally “blowing in the wind”. You could go to the Dulwich Society website where you’ll find the former and present constitutions, minutes of all recent executive and sub-committee meetings and SGM and AGM minutes. I particularly recommend the SGM of 2021 - the first ever in the Society’s recent history, and held on Zoom with some 150 members participating. There were only two motions both pertinent to posts on this thread.
 
If you look very carefully, as some members of the DS have done, buried in this plethora of documents you will find that around the time of Covid and the closure of the Dulwich Village and the introduction of LTNs, the Travel and Environment sub-committee gained a new Chair and lots of new members. The local DV Ward Councillors became regular attendees at this but not any of the other sub-committees.
Indeed it seems to have been a time of some upheaval in the DS as the long-standing Chair of the Society retired in 2021 to be replaced unopposed by the current Chair. 

At some point during this time it seems Southwark Council gained the impression that the DS and its members supported the closure of the junction and introduction of LTNs in their present form. Hence the SGMs of 2021 and May 2024.