heartblock

Local elections are always a bit more fluid than national - and local councillors a little more variable. Many of us on the left find it difficult to tell the difference between let's say a Labour MP like Wes Streeting and a Tory MP lets say Tobias Elwood. Seeing that a Conservative MP can merrily join the Labour MPs and have the whip given to him, makes it harder to actually see the difference these days. LTNs are not a party political issue - although they are a Tory policy, they are a health and clean air issue. So yes, although there isn't an anti-LTN of any shade standing in my ward - if they did I would vote for them in this local election. Nationals...depends on policy I'll wait and see what the LP say before they earn my vote.

Labour is presently 'Tory light'.. so tell me the amazing LP policies I should vote for? I'm not in Village Ward anyway - so will vote Green in the hope they listen to a former Green Party Council candidate for Lewisham and WHO advisor on clean air policy who recognises LTNs as a disaster for residents living on main roads - or as she phrases is "clean air apartheid" her words not mine.

Seeing as the Labour Party is quite happy to give the whip to a Conservative MP, with a highly dubious voting record - even I as a lapsed member (although as the LP has data issues - they don't know who is a member and who isn't - hence we cannot even vote for someone to stand as a councillor at present) - I find it hard to tell the difference, especially with the LP promoting private healthcare and Rachel Reeves comments the other day. So more than happy to vote for a centrist Conservative who will remove LTNs than a centrist LP member who won't. Even the background to any LP MP on TV is now a purple colour.

There is a lot of ableist thinking in the LCC - it's not the only 'ist' by the way.

Cycling a lot, but not so often now, motorbike for on call, but not any more, car for visiting parents, family in the North East and South West (but not for the last two years) , 4-wheel drive with trailer for 8 years and hot-air balloon for 8 years (another story). Chosen mode now Commute 10K walk and 10 minute train Weekends Walking, bus Going out - Walking, train, tube and occasional Uber Car battery - probably very low. Criticising bad cycling, bad driving, bad motorbiking or even rude pedestrians doesn't mean that anyone dislikes anyone else..does it?

Sadly Southwark Council removed them - another piece of history taken away with no consultation or consideration...

Agreed - but Councillors who continually say 'it's not my fault', 'it's not my remit', 'nothing do do with me' - without coming up with some sort of temporary solution or thinking about solutions for the future are rather pointless in a position of power. Townley and Melbourne could have been opened up temporarily to ease idling, polluting traffic - there could be a temporary opening policy for planned events. Let's face it - we usually have at least two to three days of a nice new waterfall or new river before Thames water actually does something - lots of warning to put plans in place. Actually action can stop closures - maybe Leeming and a few others should have taken some direct action and occupied the Post Office, I didn't see very much actual action.

I support a cycle lane - preferably an elevated one as part of an extended pavement, I suppose the issue on ED Grove is buses - we could do with a bus lane, now that the congestion has slowed the bus route down. Village way from EDG to Half Moon is the parental parking paradise for school drop-off anywhere and everywhere.. CPZ hasn't stopped some extra-ordinary parking by parents on ED Grove, with an extra bit of idling fumes thrown in.

Maybe the parents of the children attending Alleyns and JAGS could deliver their children by cargo bike rather than to Mercedes, Jags, Range Rovers ... including the ones that park on Village Way and sneak out a bike for the last 20 metres to pretend to all the other parents that their kid is travelling to school actively

Nigello I have no personal issues with any of the Councillors on Southwark, I disagree with my local Councillor James, but like him as a person and admire his hard work and ethics, but I do feel that some of Leemings posts and declarations do not comply with the standards one expects from a representative politician and there does seems an awful lot of 'it's not my fault' going on with his Tweets. So please do not put words, thoughts and deeds onto me that are unrepresentative of my beliefs - this is known in the trade as gaslighting. Goldilocks The Southwark Post Office closed on a Labour Council's watch - at the time I was a Labour Party member and still intend to vote Labour nationally if they actually find a policy or two - so let's not congratulate the Labour run Council while saying others are not going to do anything - maybe?

The whole point of having a Council and leadership is so that unexpected events and planned procedures can be acted on in a Borough wide process. Hence flood planning, planning for health emergencies, making sure that emergency vehicles have access. A councillor saying it's nothing do with him is ridiculous - of course planning for events such as burst water-mains and traffic easing is part of a Councillors remit.

Hopefully he will be voted out in May...even as a Labour supporter I would hold my nose and vote him out. Oh well as long as my neighbours on Calton, Court and Melbourne are ok - that is all that matters - I'm sure the counters on ED Grove will register no traffic Northbound as all this traffic will disappear down the magic hole..

The road system needs flexibility - this is why LTNs are the most dumb way of trying to resolve car use, congestion and pollution. I'm working from home today and looking out my window I hope no one needs access to any urgent aid from paramedics or any other emergency service in this area. I also hope that the Charter School abandons using the sports area next to the road.

Not actual traffic counts because it was a new counter - so the pre is made up, but obviously I'm either lying about the new amount of congestion on my road or despite senior academic status I'm an idiot. If it had reduced traffic I would happily support. Where is the pollution data? How did they come to a number for pre -LTN when no counter device existed? Where does the nearly 3000 extra vehicles go once past Melbourne Grove - do they magically disappear? How can a traffic count register almost zero traffic going north on a road with no turn-offs and 11,000 cars a day? Is the new traffic counter actually on Melbourne Grove? Is that the counter?

'We are the cyclists'

So - basically dump your pollution on your poorer neighbour, whether in a different borough or on a road managed by TFL - well at least at last there is a truth being told. Originally the traffic everywhere was going to 'evaporate', then it was going to be diverted to streets 'built to take cars', now it's clear that traffic doesn't evaporate and the urban streets that traffic is diverted to are major residential areas - and quite clearly cheaper/higher density housing on the South Circ, so will be more affordable than a leafy street of 5 bedroom houses, the excuse now is - 'oh we have no control over those roads'. The changing narrative is so obvious. I would like to know what the rise in congestion has been pre and post LTNs there must be a historical way of measuring this from Google-maps. I would also like to know why, when I walk out of my door in the morning I am faced with cars, HGVs and buses idling in a traffic queue from LL all the way down to Village Way - which never existed before the LTNs went in. Even in the 30+ years of living here, if there were road works etc - there was always the ability for traffic to divert. Why are my lungs, my ears, my health less important than someone living in Melbourne or Calton, why is my road and my neighbours lungs less important. The traffic has not evaporated - this is a failed 2 year experiment and a failure of the East Dulwich and Dulwich community to care about others. Selfish.

The current route was allocated in the late 1930s to existing residential streets. There were several proposals to replace it with a parallel motorway, but nothing has happened and most of the road is still residential streets. A 2007 report said it was the eighth worst road in Britain and in December 2020, pollution from the South Circular was ruled to be a factor in the death of 9 year old Ella Roberta Kissi-Debrah. The portion in Dulwich has been completely ignored by Southwark in terms of pollution and traffic monitoring pre and post closing roads - why?

Paul Wheeler a Labour Party member is pretty on point here too. https://www.onlondon.co.uk/paul-wheeler-why-londons-road-wars-are-tearing-labour-apart/

GSTT charity article on pollution in Southwark and Lambeth. https://gsttcharity-uk.shorthandstories.com/thecausesofairpollutionininnercities/index.html

Why are main roads not the object of reducing pollution in Southwark - considering the GSTT (Guys and St. Thomas) report that states. "Annual averages for PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 show that people in Lambeth and Southwark are exposed to more air pollution along the main roads" They also reported that the North of the borough was more polluted than the South - so why where leafy streets in Dulwich chosen? Seems to be very little to do with the most polluted streets in the Borough. And yes - there are accounts of people on closed roads who have complained of a sense of isolation and difficulty in accessing transport. I think for the less mobile and elderly, this is an issue. On boundary roads our issue is the noise and air pollution -it wasn't great before and Southwark have made it worse.

Well I suppose Southwark seems to be pretty care-free about demolishing estates, cutting down trees and building on green spaces, so yes I agree not a Stalinist endeavour, but certainly not a socialist-green one either. Maybe when they stop demolishing buildings, stop building on green spaces in deprived areas and actually carry out some actual policy that does positively impact the poorest in this borough rather than the wealthiest both myself and Bic might have a little more faith. I'm not sure you are so important that someone is going to search every household on the road you live, but it is interesting how all of the pro-LTN crowd do not say where they live - whereas us lot on ribbon-boundary roads are quite happy to put a poster or placard up and say we live in ED Grove, near Charter and in a flat, despite my neighbour having someone come on her property and up to her front door to vandalise a placard on her property - there are some oddballs indeed.

I'm not sure they care - it is a big selling point having a wood-burner. It needs to be made socially unacceptable - as should bloody BBQ's by the way - no need and a huge contribution to poor air quality. Go eat some veg and stop burning dead animals.

They don't care about Social Housing Bic....apparently we are all living in mansions...as long as they - who incidentally do not say where they live, so one can only assume Court, Calton, Melbourne, Gilkes..(which by the way was closed not because of rat-running, but as a temporary order because Southwark messed up some speed humps) - and so I suppose that we on ED Grove are rats as we take up the traffic, so you don't have to.. There is a reason that clean air campaigner Rosamund Kissi-Debrah is anti-LTNs after her daughter died due to asthma exacerbated by a peak in air quality on the South Circular. Is it because she is too lazy to walk? Is it because she loves her car? Well - let's consider? What event would concentrate one's mind to the truth - possibly the death of one's child - rather than the glee of a quiet road and the congratulations of Simon Still and some other white men that one's bicycle can be ridden without any inconvenience down some very leafy roads to a nice cafe on the square of shame to watch some Morris dancing.

Measurement near EDG nursery shows an extra 2867 cars a day - seems pretty Central to me. the amazing reduction the Council is so proud of is a reduction of 52 cars per day using a made up number as a baseline - still 11442 cars a day in Sept so 11007 cars a day or 11442 cars a day. You think that's ok? You do know 'Central' was sort of made up by Southwark - because if they measured the whole of ED Grove there is an increase and they also wanted to make up a 'new' number as an excuse to keep Melbourne closed. OK - bored now. It doesn't matter - Southwark is going to make these permanent - vote wisely.

If Councils and LTN supporters can use 'modelling' to prove LTNs work, I am sure by the same strange logic - I can also be allowed to point out that a house in an LTN will go up in value.