Penguin68

What about a good selection of sport. A good selection of Ales and some reasonably priced food. A Pub atmosphere with nice bar staff. Designated areas. Outside space . A function room Something like the tried and tested EDT Which is already on offer within easy walking distance, and has, presumably, a reasonably loyal clientele. If you want to sell a 'me too' product then you must make sure that the market can carry it (there are sufficient customers who would like to, but can't, use the EDT) and that your offer is at least as good as, and preferably better than, the incumbent. 'Better' may be an issue of price, quality or innovation - but if you can't offer a competitive advantage then why should customers not (continue) to choose the tried and tested product (i.e The EDT)?

It would be nice to think that some of the ?400k would be being spent on proper market research to determine (a) who the addressable customers are (i.e. living locally, using ED station, visiting the football etc., perhaps) - and what the various needs of these customers might be. A 'product' could then be designed to meet those needs, ideally offering some unique selling points that competitor venues didn't have. Then spend the remainder of the ?400k to create a suitable 'shell' in which the products could be delivered and the needs met. If you don't know who your customers will be (obviously the existing customer base is not sufficient to operate commercially) what their needs are and how best these can be met, spending a random ?400k on a re-furb. will be a pretty pointless waste of money.

James wrote Hi P68, The traffic counts recently done and from 5/6 years ago show remarkably similar traffic number along Melbourne Grove. So the lordship Lane changes between don't seem to have had an impact OR the very slight reduction in car ownership is SE London has countered it. And if putting in pedestrian crossing where none existing is traffic manipulation then I plead guilty - and proud of it. Can anyone really imagine Lordship Lane without its crossings. I did originally want a zebra crossing which was blocked by TfL buses. And on reflection I think they were right to do that. Several things:- (1) if the traffic has not increased over 5/6 years then the plea for closing the road seems to be somewhat novel - and as has been suggested elsewhere possibly manipulative. (2) I did not suggest that crossings were not needed (for safety grounds, to improve the LL shopping etc. experience and hence drive local business revenues) - I merely suggested that there were unintended consequences to traffic (flow) manipulation. And (3) - new thought - but forbidding heavy and commercial vehicles access to residential streets (save where they need actually to access properties in those streets) might well suffice to relieve many streets of problem traffic, and indeed consequential damage to properties caused by the meeting of heavy vehicles and sleeping policemen (wanted to revive that fine old terminology).

I think you may find that the traffic in Melbourne has increased (although when I use it speeding has never been an issue) because the route through Lordship Lane has become increasingly tortuous as ever more lights and crossing places are installed (all, no doubt, for perfectly good reasons). These have mainly been installed between Goose Green and the old Police Station - pretty well the full run of Melbourne. Not surprisingly the traffic (some at least of it, probably mainly of locals) has moved to the less restricted road. So - another unintended consequence of traffic manipulation. You do not get rid of traffic by making life difficult for road users, you just displace traffic to somewhere less difficult. Every road that closes itself off just makes life for another road that much more problematic - shifting 'the problem' elsewhere. Of course Melbourners want to shift the problem onto someone else's back - even though there is little evidence of anything more than raised traffic levels (I cannot recall any serious accidents being reported here, at least). I have, however, used Melbourne on a number of occasions when other roads have genuinely been blocked (by accidents, road works, water main bursts etc.) - to lose that option will be to place intolerable strains on an area already plagued by blocked and one-way streets, where options on alternative 'ways through' are already limited.

Hi P68, More voters on Ashbourne, Chesterfield individually than the section of Melbourne Grove proposed to have a closure. This isn't about votes. Slightly disingenuous, James, as it is the totality of those living in Melbourne Grove who will 'benefit' from the road being blocked (as regards through traffic from LL at Mr Liu's through to ED Grove) and not just those living in the section proposed to become a gated community.

There are more voters in the (long) Melbourne grove than in any of the shorter streets which will be impacted by this selfish nimby-ism. So of course they get the councillors' support.

It's a timber yard, an industrial site. This is completely different from building work in a residential area. If you choose to live near a commercial/ industrial site, that's the deal.

Whilst I hate them (I have cracking etc, in garden walls as a consequence, as well as regular wear and tear to tires that I would not otherwise get) I do have to say that the incidence of significant accidents and damage to cars etc. around my part of Underhill was very significantly reduced following the introduction of the trio of humps now installed. So I have very mixed feelings about them. I am not certain that the building out of pavement, islands, creation of chicanes etc are any more useful, and can cause real problems when it comes to maneuvering where thoughtless parking blocks gaps. I do think that some smaller roads (as has started in bits of ED, though perhaps only as temporary measures) could be banned to HGVs or artics (except for access) - this would reduce road pressures and consequential damage considerably). Wouldn't help us in Underhill, as that is a bus and through route and open to heavy traffic, but would help others.

M&S will put significantly more pressure on the area. Not much we can do about that now - we objected to the planning permission on the basis of parking but they got their planning permission. I had understood that it was the site owner, and not M&S, who had applied for planning permission - M&S has always been referenced as the retail tenant but had no interest in the site configuration as such, above ground floor level. In so far as, as a retail outlet, it would attract customers (something which - in the guise of Waitrose - has been a stimulus for councilor Barber) who might want to visit by car and park locally, that has always been an issue once a retailer who needed the car-park area for storage was involved. Only Iceland stored where it also sold (in freezers). By all means blame the site owner for pressure on parking, but to blame M&S appears to be hopping on the 'don't like M&S' bandwagon somewhat unfairly. (NB I do not and have never worked for M&S, it's suppliers or associates, nor do I own shares (other than those owned by my pension fund, if any) in the company).

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James - it's probably Penguin68 you meant to ask about satnavs . If it was, then I can report I have no idea - the equipment uses algorithms which match start and destination with inbuilt maps and look (generally, in towns) for the straightest route - which normally implies shortest/ quickest. It takes a long time, in my experience, for changes in roads (i.e. being closed, being made one-way) to get into sat navs, and of course those who don't pay to update their maps won't ever get those changes. My reference was simply to explain why that route is used by 'passers through'. Actually, even if the road was blocked, they would still try to use it (knowing no better) and there would likely be worse problems than before. It's actually a very useful route when (as frequently seemed to happen) the route through the Goose Green roundabout was blocked by accident or road works. The more alternative routes around the borough are blocked by the actions of the anti-car brigade and selfish residents, the more problems, when they do occur, will be hugely exacerbated.

Apparently the Police have expressed surprise that such a residential road would have such a huge volume of traffic - contrasts with Landcroft Road with 300 cars a day. So it's clear we have a serious rat run and the petition has a majority of residents on that road supporting the proposal. I have already said (in this thread or another) that sat navs (including Tom Tom) use Melbourne Grove as a route for anyone trying to get from Dog Kennel Hill direction across to e.g. Forest Hill - so it's not surprising that it's being heavily used. As more and more people rely on sat nav, so they will use this route. Get the route removed from sat navs and the usage will plummet. That would be a far more sensible option than blocking the road off. One final point the deputation made. Melbourne Grove had been closed result for many weeks while the junction was changed with East Dulwich Grove. traffic around the area still kept moving. People adjusted. This seems a pretty compelling real world example that it has worked when implemented temporarily. I live in Underhill - we are all (having) to find alternative routes now that it's blocked (and will be) for weeks if not months, that does not mean that it will be OK to block it permanently in future, just because we are coping now. And that takes a lot more traffic than Melbourne (when it can). We live in a pleasant community (see e.g. the Evening Standard) - the more we try to turn our little bits into exclusive 'stay-away from me you scum' gated communities (spits in corner) the more we won't be living in a community any more.

3 of the 5 least happy are also south of the river.

In order to register for on-line services at Forest Hill Road Group practice I had to bring in a (very simple) paper form with ID - this was 'validated' by the receptionist (i.e. looked at) - I then later received a letter with log-in details - used this and it all went smoothly. Whatever my record was with the surgery (accurate or not) was flagged with a 'turn-on' flag when the log-on was sent out, linked to that log-on. So all I had to input to get access was the log-on already supplied. Simples.

I mean, why people go down there It's the chosen route through by many sat nav programmes - I have been in minicabs and seen it, and on my own sat nav. It is also a way of bypassing the constant crossings in Lordship lane.

There are 'residual' fruit trees in many back gardens which once formed part of the orchards - these are however now very old and a number have been necessarily removed. My neighbour had a very old (and collapsing) Bramley (old style) and there are a couple of pears which I think have some age and were never planted as intentional garden fruit trees. If you can indicate what you think the girth of the trunks might be for the tree to be part of the original orchards I am sure readers could check to see if they have something which might qualify. I am quite close to Dawson Heights.

As the trees are (often) growing through monuments I guess these are not anything to do with a planned arboretum (not the fashion when the graveyard was laid-out in the mid 19th Century) but rather scrub-like growth in a hitherto untended graveyard. Trees can grow very quickly when allowed - I have a 25ft squirrel-planted oak in my garden that can be no more than 18 years old (probably less) - and there is an abundance of green places locally for wild-life, including my garden (!). Careful thought might allow some of the trees to remain (particularly around boundaries) when the remaining graveyard is cleared. The trees are both quite well established (after say 30 years of growth) AND unplanned.

As I recall, the right-turn filter operates during (extended) rush hours, but not outside them. Have you been changing the time you pass this junction?

For those concerned about the enormous and unnecessary basement proposed on the SG Smith development site, and it's implications on child safety Just to make it clear, the basement per se has no implications on child safety - although fears (unsupported by actual facts) about its construction process and resulting vehicle traffic have been raised. All building work has safety implications, of course. Indeed, all life has dangers; one of the jobs of parenthood is to teach children about these dangers so they can act safely. We all have to compromise on our lives at times in order to avoid dangers - compromising around building works has the advantage that these are time limited, and construction dangers are thus relatively short term.

I should have added that one area of genuine 'mass' burial would appear to be the square (oblong) of the war graves and memorial space, where, apart from some later (post WWII) individual graves there do appear to have been a number of warriors interred together (apart from those also memorialised, but not buried, there). I assume that this space is cared for by the commonwealth war graves commission (it is their style of headstone) and that this area would not be bulldozed and re-used. The early 20th century figures do support a later run-rate of 3000 interments a year - granted that some of these would not be taking up much space. Still births/ late miscarriages tended to be treated more as disposal than burial in those years, unlike practice today, and these may have been mass buried.

Many graves are no longer visited or cared for, meaning that the residents no longer have relatives or friends still alive to do this. When you are no longer 'in memory' it doesn't seem unreasonable to make use of the space that your body (thanks to decay) no longer really occupies. Destroying memorials (which have historical and genealogical interest) is less necessary, but these can be placed around graveyard boundaries. Many European graveyards only allow occupancy for a relatively short period before bones are recovered to an ossuary. Unless you have family graves where there are several generations of burials most graves are unvisited after (at most) I would guess 70 years or so - this is particularly true in areas where there is a high turn-over of population (moving away from the area, not dying) so that the grave ceases to be 'local' to you. So recycle/ re-use of grave space seems logical and fair. If this space was a real oasis of wild-life in a desert of urbanisation I might be more sympathetic to your doesn't take into account the pesky bees and birds that live in the untidy mess of scrub plea, but around here, with relatively large gardens and a lot of parks and wooded spaces this simple isn't true. Many of these species will do better where the graveyard is better tended, perhaps with more flowering plants and trees to memorialise the dead. Arguing for areas to be treated as meadow - and only mown in August - would have a greater impact than dark and not very productive scub land that now exists in the untended parts.

Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust If the glysophosates don't get us The nitrogen dioxide must

Sue wrote:- Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- give the dead a break. Really sorry but that did make me laugh. No need to apologise - my aim is to please

People who make a fetish of death (lots do) like to think that they can visit their dead, or be visited by relatives if themselves dead, conveniently. Hence those living around here would like to use cemeteries around here for their corpse disposal. Burying too far away for visiting (particularly where the visitors may themselves be old or frail) doesn't cut it. I don't, personally buy into this (I do enjoy walking around old memorials of strangers, so how odd am I?) but I accept that others do, and that many find the ability to visit their dead regularly a real comfort. That means that making best use of the asset (an established cemetery) makes real sense, which turning it into a woodland glade picnic site doesn't. There are many good areas for the living to picnic locally already, give the dead a break.

At the moment, in the Old Cemetery, maintenance work on those parts not overgrown is not unreasonable - generally it's in good order, tidy and mowed. In spring, when bulbs all flowered, it was very attractive. It is the 'wilded' bits which have no work going on in them, and that, to clear the trees and shrubs and weeds, will be expensive, particularly as you can't just put machinery through, with the existing monuments, however collapsed.