Penguin68

some of the streets either side of Grove Vale on the premise that a lot of commuters were using these streets for parking for East Dulwich station. There was also some evidence that in some quite close streets to ED station - i.e. Ondine Road, it was actually easier to park there during the day than at night, suggesting that the parking pressure was more from ED residents who were car commuting away from ED than from those commuting in to it. The proposed lay-outs actually removed car parking spaces. The 'strangers commuting in, keep ED for ED people' trope turned out to be a bit of dog whistle politics, not necessarily supported by the facts.

Why reward you for acting properly when they can punish you for not. Carrots cost money, sticks can actually earn you some.

And when everyone observes the 20 MPH limit and the fines dry up.. what next... I've got an idea.. 15 MPH limit. As much as I generally hate and despise Southwark Council and its apparatchiks I do not believe the 20mph limit has been imposed as a revenue earner - the evidence on speed related injuries is clear - the slower the speed the less the injury. So on clearly residential or shopping streets a restriction to 20mph is (probably) a genuine contribution to injury reduction. I do not think it will have a great impact (sorry) on accident occurrence - speed (unless really excessive, or over e.g. diesel spills) is less a contributory factor than carelessness or poor driving, including phone based distractions etc. That its imposition has been poorly thought-out and planned, poorly targeted and poorly implemented (including logical and legal signage, appropriate roads, penalties etc.) goes without saying, and is par for the course. It may also reflect a general anti-car bias which we see time and again - as if using private vehicles (indeed any vehicles) is still the distinguishing mark of the idle (and hated) rich.

I think bgw is referencing hoi polloi (the many, in classical Greek) - one can say that someone is 'of the many' - eis ton pollon - that's if my very rusty classical Greek has it right.

This is much less about grammar than meaning, I certainly thought initially this was a thread about a shooting, not about armed police.

'Gun Down' is an active use of the noun gun as a verb - 'gunned' would be a passive use - indeed re-casting the noun gun into an adjectival form (as 'armed' is adjectival). As 'gun down' implies that someone has been shot, so does/ should the quasi adjectival use of 'gunned' (as in 'he was gunned down').

Impact on pedestrians at 20mph is less likely to cause death or serious injury than at 30mph. Imposing such a limit on streets which are functionally residential (where children are most likely to be out and about, playing etc., and where parked cars obscure sight-lines etc.) or where there are shops which would mean many pedestrians, need to cross roads and so on, makes sense. However there a numbers of roads now covered by the Southwark fiat which are not, in that sense, residential, nor where there are 'shopping' populations. Sydenham Hill is a good case in point - much less parking, wider pavements, very little signs of true 'residential/ domestic' style use of the street. A sensible policy (rather than the knee jerk 'one size fits all' response of our elected authority) would have applied some sort of rule of sense to road speed designations to take actual usage habits into account. And would then have ensured that there was funding and support to police the decision properly. 'We'll impose nonsense rules and then not actually apply them' is, frankly, stupid and insulting, leaving idiots (like me) who do follow them and then get tailgated in areas where they don't make sense frustrated and angry. Oh, and many cars in the UK are tuned/ optimised to support a 30mph low speed 'norm' - so cars do struggle to maintain a steady 20mph, at a cost of fuel, pollution and engine wear.

If we want to make the roads safe for cyclists then wherever possible roads should be made one-way for cars and the other lane should be two-way for cyclists. Actually, the safest thing we could do for cyclists is probably to stop driving diesel vehicles given the long-term damage to lungs and breathing that particulates cause - and to keep our children off cycles in London roads until that happens. Care can avoid accidents, but you can't stop people breathing in when they cycle. Cycling is not the healthy option. And making all roads one-way for cars (and lorries and buses and vans and coaches and motor bikes, let's not forget) would add massively to journey times and increase particulate and NOx pollution. Which wouldn't be doing cyclists (or pedestrians, or people just sitting around in their houses) any favours at all.

The 'duster sellers' are often in the control of a gangmaster who will be supplying them out of a van. The quality of the goods is invariably poor and their stories (and the proffered 'ID') effectively fake. What is true is that they are poor - what is not true is that any money you give them will be theirs. The gangmasters take it. Better give to (genuine) Big Issue sellers if you want to support the homeless/ poor.

Penguin - not 100% with you on cars. I do own a car, but most of us can't use them for work. Commuting into the centre of London by car is a thing of the distant past. I agree that car commuting to the centre of London isn't a good idea (and frankly, doesn't work except during unsocial hours) - but if you live in say ED and work say in Greenwich (I did) you are swapping a 15-25 minute car journey with one that can take 90 minutes by public transport. East: West travel (without a car) can be hugely time consuming from around here. As can travel at the weekends when so much of our infrastructure is frequently closed down for routine maintenance. For many of us our communities of interest (life/ work) are not contiguous - we don't have the mass transit (trains into the centre notwithstanding) to support that. The Orange line too is a boon, now, but I still find that having and using a car is a real benefit. As a (relatively unfit) pensioner living on a hill, bicycles do not fill me with glee. I use public transport a lot, but without a car I'd often be stuck unable to live my life as I want to.

I am not sure how long we can all hold out for 19th century suburban values in a 21st century populated London. The skill would be to encourage good high(er) density housing, rather than simply nodding through any old rubbish. And it would be also good to recognise that whilst S London is to be forever deprived of high quality mass transit systems (such as tubes etc.), pretending that we can also thus live without cars is a complete madness - environments have to be designed with cars in mind, not futilely trying to design cars out of the environment. Bicycles as well as, not instead of, cars.

Taking Lordship lane, and a block either side from East Dulwich Station to the old police station by Whately Road, I count 36 appeals recorded. Taking no account of the nature of the application, I find only 9 of those were upheld for the applicant plus 1 partly upheld. Three of those 9 were for the same site address. All others - nearly 75% - are marked "Appeal Dismissed" However I do think you need to take into account re-submitted applications, where only minor or cosmetic changes have been made (if you haven't). I wonder how many, as it were 'overall' applications to make significant changes have, in the end, not got through. I believe some developers apply initially for something they feel has little chance of success, believing that a subsequent, slightly 'scaled back' application will be more readily acceded to.

Has anyone noticed that there seem to be a very fine collection of berries/ rose hips etc. this year in and around Dulwich? Driving recently I passed brilliant displays down road after road in front gardens. Old wives tales suggest that if the berries are 'better' than usual, this portends a hard winter (with the idea, I think, that nature is thus providing for wild life in hard times, though how that would work beats me). Anyhow - it will be interesting to see if the old wives are right!

it was a community thing and the important bit was the safety of those women in the area - nah, just votes. That is most unfair - if James had diverted monies intended to be spent in his ward to someone in another ward he would have been acting improperly. If you want your ward to spend money on such items, you need to get the representatives in your ward to apply for money for that purpose (rather than any other purpose).

This is the perennial problem of Southwark electoral wards not being wholly contiguous with communities of interest - the ED ward and ED are not the same thing. And at times we are a 'community' with the wider 'Dulwich' - perhaps an area 'of mind' bounded by West Dulwich, North Dulwich, Denmark Hill and Forest Hill Stations.

I think, outwith linking your own, frankly, in the grand scheme of things (in which I include the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS), somewhat petty problems with aircraft noise to the holocaust being over-egged and distasteful - the point many, including me, have been making is not that the aircraft noise doesn't exist, of course it does, but that it doesn't disturb us in the way it disturbs you. So we are not denying anything, not even that you are clearly very disturbed by the noise. We just don't share your level of angst. So your accusation of 'being like' holocaust deniers doesn't even make sense. We are denying nothing, just not sharing your levels of pain. The noise is there, it really doesn't bother me. If anything, what you are implying is thus that not being bothered by the aircraft noise is the equivalent of not being bothered by the holocaust. And if you think that...

To suggest that people who are not themselves as concerned as you are about local noise from aircraft - NOBODY, is denying that aircraft fly overhead nor that they make noise when they do so - are equivalent in any way to people who deny that an intentional mass slaughter of 6 million people ever took place is an obscenity. There are things that I get worked up about as well, but I would feel deeply ashamed if I ever allowed myself to equate people who disagreed with me as 'equivalent to holocaust deniers'. Your fixation with aircraft noise appears to be coming pathological - as are the levels of insult you are happy to offer those who have the temerity either to disagree with you, or to be concerned about your tone of voice to those who disagree with you. It is a simple truth that, for many of us, the noise locally of aircraft does not pose us a problem - we are not disturbed by it, we are not kept awake or awakened by it, in the normal course of events we hardly notice it. When we do, it does not upset or anger us. That doesn't mean that you aren't impacted by it, nor that your 'pain', for you, isn't unbearable. But your feelings are not universal, they are not shared by everyone else in Dulwich, and to say we don't share your fears and discomfort is not to deny or denigrate it, as it impacts you. I get hay fever, grass pollens make me sneeze uncontrollably without anti-histamine drugs to suppress it. Other people don't get hay fever. I wouldn't call those who don't share my suffering 'deniers' - (I might call them lucky). Not sharing your pain is not to deny it (for you). Your aggression towards those who don't share your pain (even when they are not denying that you have a problem) should concern you. It certainly does me.

Whilst you may disagree with their political stances - and dislike some of the causes they support - most local councilors will listen to 'personal' cases and will advise fairly whether they will support you or not. If they say they will support you, then they probably will. Of course many do carry heavy case loads, they are unpaid for the case work they do, and they only have a finite capacity. However, do remember that paid-for advocates (such as solicitors) may be more useful to you, in the end. Also do not forget that you can get free advice from various agencies other than that offered by councilors - for instance regarding debt and issues of law (tenancy agreements etc.) from Citizen's Advice etc.

unless it gets them a vote. which is why nimbi's rule . Actually, unless the 'back-yard' is seen as very big (normally it isn't) then councilors can happily ignore nimby-ies as, on any one issue, they are in a very small minority. Once the 'back yard' is seem to be as large as, e.g. a whole ward (as it was on the CPZ issue) then politicians have to take notice - but then that amount of shared disquiet is what democratic accountability is actually all about. I am sure your cynicism is correct about some career councilors/ politicians - my experience is that many (within their own political positions) act as best as they can to the general interests of their constituents. Of course, they have political biases, which they exercise - but that is why they often are elected in the first place, their political views being their manifestos. Mr Barber likes cyclists and dislikes cars in the city, but this is hardly a secret. I may not chime with him on that, but I don't believe he has taken this stance 'to get a vote'. Indeed I suspect it has lost him some, as may have his equivocations over the CPZ issue.

Councils should be ensuring that local needs for housing are being met without compromising on basic minimum standards, of build quality and of amenity. Accommodation also needs 'assets' (schools, transport, power, water and comms infrastructure, doctors etc.) New build and modified buildings need to offer basic minimum standards of e.g. space etc. so that we are not just building future slums. It is where councils also use their powers to implement social engineering that problems can arise, as those of a different political bias can object. One thing councils try to do is to preserve the 'look and feel' of an area (i.e. through urban density standards, building heights, policies about building on gardens etc.) - but here the long view might suggest that simply withstanding change is not, in the end, acceptable. Whichever way they jump on this, the council cannot do it 'right' for everyone. Maybe a long term (20-50 year) strategy is required - one which can be bought in to by most interest groups, even accepting that individual consequences will cause ructions. But then, long term forecasts to support such a strategy will inevitably be wrong. Councils and councilors are really between a rock and a hard place here. Any judgement can be challenged, and most will probably, over a sufficiently long term, be seen as an error. Or not.

Changing an internal layout of rooms does not require council planning permission - there will be building regs issues when/ if load bearing walls are removed. However I suspect that a landlord could require restoration on any unauthorised changes to a rented flat. If your flat is leasehold (i.e. you own it, but someone else holds the property freehold) - then I think it would depend on what the lease says about work on the flat. Clearly a freeholder has an interest in alterations which might impact the structural integrity of the property - and I suppose if the lease is short then in the value of the property per se - a 2 bed property may have a higher value than a one large bed property, for instance. If it is a leasehold property and the lease is silent about internal re-organsiation (outwith structural issues) then I think one could argue that a 10 year old change (with a new lease given on the changed property) would give a good case to resist the freeholder. Indeed one could argue that the lease being renewed on the altered property immediately validates the alteration. But your best recourse is to get qualified advice from a solicitor - this will cost money initially but may save your more money and grief down the line.

The fact it takes 2 hours to get 5 odd miles 10 Miles according to Google maps

I am entirely happy that local elected councilors should live in a real world, with real demands, rather than being professional politicians. It is the professional political class that has also helped ruin Westminster. But the Southwark apparat does now appear to have lost any real contact with the needs and desires of those living in this southern tip of the borough - not entirely helped by some of those for whom some of us may have misguidedly voted. Media manipulation and spin (be it in the ED forum or of the local press) has become the main toolkit of some of those wishing to see change and alteration - getting down and talking face-to-face with people can be belittled and the people doing it ignored or patronised, whilst secret cabals and their spin doctors rule, OK?. At times we do seem to be suffering a democratic deficit locally.

that an 8-year-old on a bicycle must be able to get through safely I'd like to think that your putative 8 year-old would be able to ride his/ her bike one-handed (either hand) so that he/ she could signal turns properly - as I was required to be able to demonstrate by my parents before they allowed me to cycle on public streets (and that was in the 1950s, when streets were much quieter). But since I find hardly any cyclist being prepared (whether able or not) to signal turning intentions I am sure that this wouldn't be an imposition on your 8 year old either. And yes, confusing a novice cyclist with a train does suggest that Mr Logic is taking his holidays.

Yes eventually. - Within about 20 years, if left alone. I too more frequently visit the Old Cemetery, which is closer to where I live, and certainly do not know cemetery topologies by their grid numbers. If the Old Cemetery were to be ceased as a burial place and turned into a wooded park I am sure that this would enhance my property values - but I am happy for a local cemetery to continue to be used for burials. Where there is a plethora of local natural space amenity, as there is in ED and environs, preserving bits of serendipitous 'wilding' doesn't seem necessary, when other, intended, uses can be made of it. For many people (I'm actually not one of them, but I can sympathise with those who are) being able to bury bodies or ashes of loved ones locally and close, rather than having to trek out to somewhere less easy to visit is a blessing, and allows grieving and remembrance. To selfishly want burials at Kemnal Park - nearly 2 hours away by public transport so that you can enjoy your 'wood' amenity (and no doubt the rise in your property value) sticks somewhat in my craw.