exdulwicher

DKH roadworks is this: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dog-kennel-hill-bus-lane-widening/ Think it was about a month later than planned in starting due to lockdown etc.

It's normally anonymised and collated by the time it gets to the council. You can separate out residents from non-residents by postcode / address / cross reference with voting/council records relatively easily to ensure that people are who they say they are and (depending on how the survey was done - in person, online, postal), there's some clever data management stuff that can tie specific responses to specific people if required but generally, the stuff the council see and act on has already had the statistical analyses done on it. Once residents / non-residents of any given road or postcode have been split out, you can weight accordingly so that residents get more weight given to their views than just some random person driving down the street once a day.

Agree with everything you say F.M. That's the part that needs removing, the parents driving right up to the school gates to drop their little darling off (and it's the same at JAGS, Alleyns, Hamlet etc). A significant part of the congestion around the Townley Road / EDG junction is exactly that, people driving all the way along Calton/EDG/Townley to drop the kids right at the school gate rather than 200m away. Suspect you're right with Melbourne as well, the road risks becoming a 2-way jam of 4x4's all going up, turning round and coming out again...

But then you can't fit as many people on the road. And we're back at the beginning with the fact that there is not enough road space to accommodate the current number of cars, never mind if all bus / rail passengers leave public transport and get into their cars.

Within reason (and depending a bit on the layout of the streets, the type of shopping (retail, leisure, restaurants etc), one sort of leads to the other. Remove on-street parking and a lot of the traffic disappears (they were driving down that street specifically to park on it). This does depend a lot on the street in question (LL for example has a mix of through traffic, buses and people wanting short-term kerbside parking to nip into a shop). Manchester have done it with parts of Deansgate too - there's long been a campaign to close that road as it's very polluted, very congested and actually there are other more appropriate roads to get around / through the city centre but part of their lockdown funding went into closing sections of it with big planters to allow the cafes and restaurants to spill out into the road while also allowing pedestrians to move up and down.

For road schemes, I've long been a fan of the "do it cheap and try it, then do it right" approach. Councils could save themselves a fortune and buy themselves a lot of goodwill with constituents if they said: here's the problem, here's our intended solution which will hopefully have the following effects, we'll put it in using these temporary measures and look at the impact over [timeframe] And then come back in 6, 12, 18 months and consult on it using their data and the experiences of residents / constituents. Residents give the absolute close up nitty gritty of it (albeit on a largely anecdotal level), the general data gives the wider feel around how much traffic is displaced elsewhere. You end up with a collaborative approach that responds well to (and actually fosters) respect between councils and residents, tests various options with minimum disruption and then picks the best one to be made permanent. Rarely used though as it spreads the spending out and an awful lot of council funding is grant money that's ringfenced for a particular scheme. Even if you then have to come back and dig it all up again 3 years later cos it's rubbish. Government spending on transport is an utter joke. Short-termist "bid for money" processes that pitch council against council, all desperately bidding for a piece of a small pie allowing them to do one junction or a single stretch of road. That's not Southwark at fault, it's central Government / DfT.

mockingbird Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > wulfhound Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > Unlike OHS, this programme is a trial - they > can't > > make it permanent without a full consultation, > at > > which point those affected will be able to > report > > their lived experience of the outcome. > > Incorrect - Experimental Orders do not require > consultation and therefore the whole concern about > Southwark taking advantage of C-19 measures and > avoiding disclosure of the OHSD results and > impacts Experimental Orders do not require consultation but to make them permanent after the stated time, that DOES require consultation.

@slartib : https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/14/congestion-set-to-exceed-pre-lockdown-levels-as-cars-crowd-back-on-to-uk-roads There's that news item which has various links within it and there's stuff which I've got (not directly applicable to London, more a general trend of data from a range of sources): -------------------------------------------------------- This came from an analysis of home-working potential by occupation type and trip length, coupled with general reduced mobility during lockdown, and the implication is: Continued promotion of home-working for occupations where this is possible will: Keep car travel around 22% below pre-lockdown levels; Protect around 56% of rail capacity and around 17% of bus capacity for key workers who need to use it. Further policies that support active travel modes could: Reduce car travel by a further 1-18% Increase protected rail capacity to 58-63% and significantly increase protected bus capacity to 52-71% for key workers who need to use it. These scenarios include e-bikes that could be key to shifting middle-distance bus and rail trips to active trips. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's a lot of "could" and some rather wide percentage range stuff in there, the data simply isn't there to pull out much more at this stage and as I say this is NOT Southwark data, it's an amalgamation of patterns seen elsewhere and adjusted slightly based on a range of assumptions, information and observations. Personally I wouldn't read too much into it yet although it's an interesting baseline set of numbers to work off. Hope that helps.

We're back at what I said on Page 12: The problem is that most people want fewer cars - provided it's not THEIR car. Everyone thinks that the neighbourhood should be green and peaceful, provided that THEY don't have to change anything about THEIR life. Everyone else's children should walk/get the bus but THEY have to drop their little darling right at the school gates because.....

Actually it raises an interesting point of what is and is not acceptable (taking the thread off topic a moment). 5 people (on average) are killed on the roads of the UK every single day. Not just nationally, but globally, we seem to accept this. The price of each death varies a bit but is roughly ?1 million by the time you've factored in cost of the emergency services, clean-up, medical treatment for the injured / dying, insurance costs, lost productivity and so on, there's loads of factors. No-one really seems to care about this (up until a close relative is killed) but if there were 5 deaths a day happening on the railways, there'd be national outcry, the whole rail network would be shut down. But it's a case of perspective and what is considered "acceptable". To follow the Covid pattern, you really need to look at excess deaths - deaths over and above the national average - which is relatively stable at about 9-11,000 per week (England and Wales). At the infection peak it was running at nearly 30,000 deaths per week, 20,000 above normal: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111804/weekly-deaths-in-england-and-wales/ That counts ALL deaths so it ignores false positives and negatives for Covid and is more reliable than just saying "we think this person probably died from Covid". Which brings us back to if that is considered acceptable or not. Without lockdown, it would have been much higher so life would not have continued as normal, there'd have been piles of bodies everywhere and in those circumstances, the economy is still going to fall to pieces except more people are dead.

jimlad48 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't for one second believe the 470K death > figure. The science behind it is deeply > questionable, there are real concerns over how the > figure was reached and the people behind it have a > very long track record of crying wolf over > previous incidents. How they got listened to or > taken seriously again is beyond me. > So it's all a big global conspiracy? Virtually every country in the world was in on it, the scientists had all collaborated beforehand to say "I know, what a terrific game it'd be if we could bring the planet to a standstill for a few months! You take these countries over here, we'll knock up some pretend figures, oh what a laugh we'll have!" ? Has the Flat Earth forum got a bit boring for you, thought you'd pop over here? What's your views on the Moon Landings? Just wondering if there's any other science you'd like to not believe in for us...

What effect on the economy do you think NOT locking down would have had? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52968523 An extra 470,000 deaths in the UK which would have completely overwhelmed the NHS (and morgues). 470,000 key workers, elderly, vulnerable dying. You reckon the economy would still be functioning fine and we'd all just be carrying on, stiff upper lip, we're British? There'd be CHAOS. Riots and looting as a result of the massive hoarding that would have been going on, mass absenteeism from work as people took their own decisions (or were off work seriously ill) - you may remember that many companies had already closed up shop, locked down, gone to remote working etc BEFORE the Government finally mandated it. No-one would be "just carrying on", there'd be no normal operations at the NHS (because they'd long since have been overwhelmed and would be taking years longer to recover beck to normal). The idea that everything would just be fine with the UK just carrying on regardless (while virtually every other country in the world was on lockdown) is just farcical. It's not realism, it's complete utter fantasy. We had this with the Millenium Bug computer code thing. Thanks to a LOT of very hard work behind the scenes from a lot of computer programmers, nothing happened. (well, almost nothing - in some cases the problem got kicked 50 years down the road by tweaking some 2-digit year codes). That lead to a load of conspiracy theories saying it was all overblown, all a big hoax. It wasn't at all, the preventative measures taken stopped it from being a catastrophe. Without lockdown, we'd be in a far worse place and the economy would still be wrecked for a decade.

Lambeth have done some good work so far, there's a related thread from Lambeth Living Streets here explaining some of it: And a further related metastudy: https://londonlivingstreets.com/2019/07/11/evaporating-traffic-impact-of-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-on-main-roads/ Depending on what you're asking for, FOI's are allowed to be refused if they're going to cost too much (the threshold is usually ?600) or they can ask you to be more specific. Asking for every piece of info from every single meeting for the last 3 years is likely to be refused simply because it will take too long to gather or because the info is already in the public domain if you're willing to spend long enough on the planning pages of Southwark's website. Asking for a specific item from one meeting is pretty easy to gather so do just be targeted in what you're after. Hope that helps.

Unfortunately, all the lunatics are currently in the Government and pushing hard for exactly this, a no-deal Brexit. Covid has been a nice distraction for them - allows them to kick the negotiating can down the road a bit, blame the EU for lack of progress and then sell everything off to the Americans in a "trade deal" that rips up food standards, public services and public protections and turns the UK into a paradise for disaster capitalists who, coincidentally, are the same people who fund the Conservative Party.

Depends how you're defining "the fox problem". The foxes are already there, as pointed out there are actually quite a reasonable number of them. Therefore by their very nature they'll be in and out of most gardens most nights (whether you notice them or not). They'll be marking territory as standard so regardless of whether you / a neighbour are putting food out, they'll still be there and (potentially) defecating / urinating there anyway. But they're obviously finding decent amounts of food whether it's a neighbour actively feeding them or a badly sealed bin or just a bramble patch full of blackberries. They're not going to go away, they're obviously thriving quite happily so the options are: ignore them, they're not really doing any harm (I suspect we'd know if there were lots of decapitated cats or high instances of toxicaris infection) feed them every once in a while (so long as it is periodic and you're not putting out a full roast dinner every night or trying to get them to eat from your hand) do everything legal to actively dissuade them from your garden (fox repellents, a dog, a gravel / concrete / stone garden so there's nowhere to dig, no food). I have to say, overall, first mate's post above (fifth one down on this page) is excellent.

https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/urban-fox There's some useful and comprehensive info in that around feeding (or not feeding!) foxes.

I'd be more concerned and worried if the council had said "all these things that we've been consulting on and modelling and surveying people with a rough general idea of expected traffic outcomes - yeah well we're not going to do any of that post-Covid, we're actually going to do a whole host of completely unrelated stuff which we've suddenly decided is better". Not saying they're right or wrong at the moment but they're only NAL barriers (blocks of concrete). Can take them out in a couple of hours.

It's more or less the first thing that gets considered. Councils and emergency services are very used to this - any time roadworks and/or temporary restrictions go in (digging up streets for gas works etc), the emergency services all have full advance notice. There are slightly different legal proceedings depending on the exact nature of / reason for the closure and the location and permanency of any barrier(s) but emergency services are usually involved right from the start of planned closures like this.

Agree with what @rahrahrah said above. Piecemeal bits here and there don't work (or at least, any benefits are very tiny because people don't change their habits for such a tiny inconvenience, they just drive around it). Would have been the ideal time to put in the full Healthy Streets plan on a temporary basis. Lambeth have got some good stuff going on actually, the vast majority of it has been well managed.

A tin of dog food once a week or so (especially during the winter months) is a nice treat for them and for you to see them up close. Any more than that and they tend to get dependent plus you risk inviting other less welcome guests like rats. Don't give them cooked chicken carcass, the bones can splinter and cause serious injury. Clear up the bowls / any uneaten food promptly and it'll be fine.

We call that "anecdata". When anecdotes (stories, opinion, sometimes first hand, sometimes a mix of "a friend of a friend said/did/experienced...") get blended with assumptions and supposition and (usually) a fair bit of emotion and then uplifted to be "fact". Classic case is pretty much any thread to do with cycling/cyclists and especially helmets which always brings out anecdata like never before - I got knocked off and I WOULD HAVE DIED without my helmet therefore everyone should wear helmets. First part is fact - got knocked off bike, was wearing helmet. Second part is supposition that can't be proven - "would have died" (well maybe, maybe not) Third part is the illogical leap to (wrong) conclusion. The introduction of the Workplace Parking Levy in Nottingham https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/10/17/nottinghams-workplace-parking-levy-creates-jobs-cuts-car-use-and-slashes-pollution/ saw similar responses, if not even more negative than some of the posts on here. It's been a resounding success. It's why anecdata is a dreadful measure of "what should be done" and you look at the bigger statistical picture. It's also why it's important to fill in surveys, questionnaires etc on the council website. Sounding off on here won't do a lot, much as the local councillors do seem to engage fairly freely and openly.

Statistically, low paid workers are far less likely to have cars in the first place; they rely disproportionately highly on buses (in particular).

OK, first off, do not take them alcohol. Mostly because they could then be in a position where they could be drunk in charge of a vehicle. If the police come by and they're in a car, drinking alcohol (whether they have any intention of moving the vehicle or not), its unlikely to go down too well plus they'll be in a position where they can't legally move the vehicle anyway after drinking! If you're genuinely concerned for their welfare (as opposed to being concerned that this person is potentially lowering the tone of the neighbourhood), either ask them if you get a chance or pop a discreet note on the windscreen offering assistance. Don't just walk up with random food or drink. Chances are everything is absolutely fine - it could be someone working locally who has no accommodation option (cos Airbnb, hostels etc are all shut), someone who's split up with a partner/unable to pay rent and currently has nowhere to live but is sorting themselves out, maybe even someone who is self-isolating and unable to do it in the family home. If they're not causing any issues like using your garden as a toilet, they're not doing anything illegal.

SnakeFilth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > i thought it was spooky as the car is in > complete darkness and all i can see is a pair of > eyes staring out of the crack between the door and > car frame right at me as i walk by, im sorry but > its a bit unsettling! If it's any consolation, whoever was in there was probably thinking exactly the same about you - wondering if it was the police come to ask them questions or a vandal looking to put the windscreen through. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-52256245 There was a second BBC article which I can't find now about the number of people forced out of lets, temporary accommodation etc or who could no longer afford rent due to furlough and were trying their best to live in cars. Most of the time (under normal circumstances) you can get away with it if you move around regularly; you can use gyms / leisure centres etc for showering and cafes / libraries etc for going to the toilet but that's not an option at the moment. Also there's much less traffic around so unusual cars or people parked in areas where normally they wouldn't be noticed (like a gym or shopping centre) suddenly stick out a lot more. https://www.southwark.gov.uk/finding-a-new-home/advice-about-homelessness?chapter=9 (info and a link to the Streetlink website) Edit: worth noting before you go in there with calling the council etc (however well meaning) that the person is probably doing their best to AVOID being noticed or interacting with people too much.

Wind has changed direction. Last week or so it was almost all from the east so what little that was going into Heathrow was approaching via Slough. Wind is now SW again so everything is circling in over London. Flightradar is a good site, there's this one as well which shows up military flights: https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/ Often a few Typhoons, F16s and Lightning II out over the North Sea with a tanker plus the massive C17 and A400M cargo planes have been doing a fair bit in the quieter skies. Everything commercial in and out of City is suspended so that's certainly helping with keeping the peace over Dulwich.