Penguin68

Although it appears to have been empty and unloved for some time, Housing Associations do not have unlimited access to funds for major works, so it may have taken some time for it to reach the top of the funding pile - if work is starting soon that should add to social housing locally - which must be a good thing. If it's 'refurbishment' that may come from a different budget allocation than acquisition or new build - and may well be competing for funding with tenanted properties. Obviously they should be funding necessary repairs on currently tenanted properties as a priority (I would hope) before expanding their housing stock.

Are they harming you or anyone else? The issue may be one of eventual numbers - a couple (of vans) probably harm no one, twenty or thirty might (as, I assume, there is no infrastructure, such as water or sewage facilities to support them). Unfortunately with travelling folk, Romani, Irish Travellers or others it tends frequently to come down to an 'all or nothing' position. An authority which offers an inch of welcome (outside formal site arrangements for travellers) tends to end up with a mile of vehicles. Is there an event (fair etc.) which is bringing them here for a particular purpose? Are they on private or public land, with or without permission? That also makes some difference? I would be loathe to see people chased away, as long as numbers are not over-stretching resources, but the densities of 'camping' occupation you can healthily achieve in land which is suitably supplied with water and sewage outlets are quite different from those areas without. Where public land is involved, authorities frequently take pre-emptive action in fear that numbers will dramatically increase, which reduces the option of small site occupation at a reasonable level - it's a vicious circle really which tends to concentrate travellers (therebye frequently exacerbating the situation) rather than letting them stop for a time in many places in small(er) numbers. Edited to say that it's not wholly uncommon for travellers to undertake e.g. building works and, as part of the arrangement, to park up on site (or on a site owned by their employer) whilst they are working. Could this be the case here?

Remember that Labour classification chart, of A1 through to C It is a socio-employment classification chart (now to some extent overtaken by more recent classifications) and used extensively in marketing, inter alia - A, B, C1 C2, D, E. 'E' were the unemployed and (state) pensioners, 'D' manual labourers, 'C2' - white collar semi skilled and other semi skilled, 'C1' white collar skilled and skilled craftsmen, 'B' Managerial and professional, 'A' Higher managerial and senior professional (This by the way is a gross oversimplification). One of the problems is that households were classed by 'current head of household' status. In many indian sub-continent households where there was multi-generational living the head of household was often the retired grandfather, without an occupational pension - so households (and all living in them) where doctors and lawyers were the actual breadwinners were being classed as 'E' by researchers. This has now been addressed. I would suspect that over the last 30 years e.g. C1 and C2 households have been gradually replaced by B and A, with a dissapearance of D's - save those residual who have not moved out of the area in that time. Those moving in are most likely now to be A or B, with a leavening of CI. Outside social housing most C2s, Ds and Es wanting to live in ED would be hard pressed to meet the local property premiums. Unlike the 'upper, middle, working' class classifications these are based on current occupation/ status, not family history or aspirations.

One of the problems I've seen with the drone view of life Many people (of all classes) are frightened of change and would prefer to live in what they consider an orderly fashion - which means one where everyone takes the same viewpoint as theirs, and lives like them. Indeed, this is the down-side to group cohesiveness - the more cohesive and self-supportive a group is, the more they resist change or 'the strange'. And 'noisy, smelly' actually isn't the same as 'entertaining' or 'unusual'. I lived next door to a vibrant restaurant, in Chelsea, many years ago - I didn't mind the occasional late night, or the cooking smells, (although I took the invasion of mice slightly less well). But the neighbour who chose to practice his drumming (full drum kit) next to my bedroom (terraced house) nightly between midnight and four - well there's noisy and noisy. ED has changed in the quarter century I've lived here - sometimes to the better, sometimes not (as it impacts me) - but normally as a response to what was happening in it. Different people move in and out of the area, for different reasons. I cannot agree (on personal experience) with Louisa's comment and as pointed out by LD predominantly white and middle class people becoming the dominant group in a former mixed working class neighbourhood - in my bit of ED (which is, according to the estate agents, quite an expensive bit) there are now noticeably more non-white families living there (if I take my immediate neighbours) than when I moved in - although they tend to be more employed in professional capacities, and are younger. My impression of ED is that it is now more ethnically mixed than 25 years ago (I have no statistics to support this) - and with a larger number of white (European) immigrants. So I am finding it more, not less, diverse as regards origins, though possibly less diverse as regards employment. The upside of much of the change is that ED is now far more economically vibrant than 25 years ago, with more varied shops and food outlets and (I find) more interesting people from a wider range of backgrounds. Indeed I could argue that Louisa is harking back nostalgically to the 'good old days' of a working class monoculture and I am looking forward to diversity (although I know that this isn't what Louisa actually said, or meant). We can all find good or bad things to say about the changes around us (and in this thread have done) - I have found the changes in the last 25 years to have been, on balance and house prices notwithstanding, more postitive than negative, and I do not see the area coalescing around a monocultural future as do others. I think ED at least (and probably the wider Dulwiches) belong to that part of London which is and will constantly be changing, sometimes faster than others.

get on their high horse Yup, I do, when I see people using warm right-on statements to make themselves feel good. The issues of class and class envy and class anger and class hatred isn't helped by wooly statements. Granted it's not covered by legislation, but try substituting the words 'black' or 'Jewish' or 'Christian' or 'Moslem' or 'female' or 'disabled' or 'young' or 'old' for some of the comments made about the desirability or not for a particular class to be, or not to be, in ED. To treat people (any people) as an 'unworthy' group because you prefer your group is an unhealthy attitude.

by the Marxists (I think) who defined the "working class" as people who had to work for a living as opposed to the idle rich who were able to live off their unearned income ...but then, as Bolsheviks, managed to organise the slaughter of the 'rich peasant' Kulacks - who certainly worked, if they also employed and did make some income from renting. This is the propoganda of envy - most people see themselves as working (rents don't collect themsleves, nor do landed estates not need management, nor does day-trading now equal 'doing nothing') so saying 'if you work you are good, if you don't you're a parasite' is a way of rousing a rabble. The numbers who truly don't work to live (outside our children or pensioners, or all those on benefits) are very small nowadays, and often include those who have worked to earn enough not to have to continue to work.

If you have to work to live, then I'm sorry to say, you're working class Lovely right-on view, but obviously and palpably untrue since at least the end of the first world war. What you are hypothesising is that the only qualification for being middle class is to be a rentier, living entirely on unearned income. That might, possibly, be a qualification for being upper class, and could have included some 'middle class' pre 1914, but the middle classes (actually since at least the 16th century, if not before) have included merchants, professionals, clerks and civil servants, all certainly not working class (if rising from working class roots), but all certainly working for a (pretty good in many instances) living. The rentier class has itself almost died out - where people do live on dividends and rents now, they do so having worked to buy those capital assets - as a pensioner would you argue that now I do not have to work to live I have miraculously become middle class, having, all my (professional) working life, been working class until my retirement? It may be politically fashionable to seek to pretend to a working class persona, but it is clearly arrant nonsense for many and ignores what is really a quite interesting issue of classification. It also seeks to remove personal validity from those who really are, have been and are proud of being, truly working class by sidling in amongst them, stealing their clothes and, in fact, their credibility, and pride in their being. I am middle class, have come from a middle class family, and have middle class children. I make no right-on pretence to anything else.

If mortgage rates rise above rental yields, highly leveraged investors are in a tight spot Interest payments are an allowable cost when calculating your tax position as a letter of property(s). I do not know whether these can also be offset against other (non-rental) income, but if so someone who does not just rely on a leveraged property portfolio could still look to capital increases to justify being in the market - as the interest charges offset tax liabilities. With current huge increases in capital values at least in London and the SE a buy-to-let purchaser whose portfolio is of any age will certainly have seen a huge capital increase in values, and can probably 'ride' some amount of fall/ re-balancing if it occurs. Only those last on the merry-go-round (buying at the top of the market) may be significantly hurt.

I have noted before that some fora allow one to endorse a post - the FB equivalent is 'liking' it - that has the advantage of stopping people adding to the thread just to say that they agree with a poster - and also quickly allows readers to guage the level of endorsement - if an outlier opinion receives none there may be no need to weigh-in and refute it. Additionally it would allow people whose posts do receive significant endorsement to be recognised. Some fora also allow you to identify individual posters as 'favourites' (the equivalent of 'following' without actually having to do that) - again this would allow some review of posting popularity. HOWEVER - it must be remembered that some posters may not be popular, but may equally be justified or 'right' in their posts - soemtimes unpopular things are still worth saying. I have 'followed' some posters on fora not because I agree with them, but because I like the forthright way in which they make their points.

Having been the OP and offered no opinion of my own ('Discuss' is what I asked for, and got) I should perhaps note that Dulwich Park, being relatively small, is peculiarly concentrated middle class - the other areas mentioned above by nxjen certainly offer uber middle class spots but, I would argue, are not so concentratedly middle class.

Which was the first?!! Not mentioned by Mr Liddle. It wasn't a list but a description to locate a 'humerous' overheard comment.

In the Sunday Times today Rod Liddle describes Dulwich Park as 'the second most middle class place on Earth'. Discuss.

Also, like capital gains tax, unlikely to affect a primary residence which would not be classed as wealth. That's not what's in the policy, it's a wealth tax and houses are treated as wealth, the tax concession on sale of a primary home doesn't extend to e.g. inheritance tax when the owner dies, even when the inheritor (other than a spouse) is still living in the house - and the Lib Dem and Labour intent is to bring in such a confiscatory tax immediately on election. So expect to start paying a tax within, I'd guess, 12-15 months (given the time it takes to get fiscal bills through) of the next election. Maybe quicker, since it will be in the first Labour budget if they or the Lib Dems in partnership with them win the next election.

Actually, first mate this is less about policy and more about simple process, or management - which is the paid officers' apparent value-add. The policy is about where dogs can go, on and off the lead, the management is about appropriately informing their owners so that the policy can be most effectively applied. And creating clarity -of which the current notification system appears not to be a great examplar.

The issue about a tax on landed property is that many (often elderly) people are asset rich but cash poor. There are people living now in property in ED they bought 30 years ago whose income bears no resemblance to that required to service a current mortgage at current prices on their property. So if a 'mansion tax' is brought in they will be forced to sell because they won't have income/ cash to pay the tax. No doubt that will free-up property for the urgent-to-buy-in-ED brigade whose incomes don't rely on e.g. pensions, but that will force these elderly people away from their friends so that a new batch of yummy mummies can clutter the streets and desirable little cafes with their double buggies. If you tax assets like shares (or oil paintings) these can at least be sold without giving up your home, but tax property (I'm not talking here about local usage taxes but about punitive envy taxes) and you will create a class of dispossessed who will far outnumber those oppressed by the 'bedroom tax'. Mainly in London, of course, because that is where hyper-inflated properties are mainly found. The ?2m 'mansions' in ED are of course not now that plentiful (more in Dulwich itself) - but start that rot and soon you will find that the price ceiling is dropped to ?1.5m, then ?1m (where the Lib Dems started their bidding war). You must not confuse those now living in houses that would cost a lot to buy with 'the wealthy' - unless they have brought them very recently - in which case they are probably anything but awash with disposable income as they work to pay down their housing debts. Forcing pensioners (such as me, in fact) out of their homes to satisfy the young employed's desire to live in nice places will look increasingly less a 'fix' to the problem as you (my readers) approach old-age.

just print a map of the whole park If this was printed on some form of acetate, or with an acetate cover, which could take non-permanent marker then any section which was temporarily out of use for dog-walkers (or other visitors) - for instance areas of grass-land being re-seeded - could additionally be temporarily marked up as unavailable. Southwark could also publish maps of all its parkland marked up appropriately on the internet, so people could check in advance.

if you are priced out of an area you were born in, then obviously the price has changed dramatically. The question is why? A lot of this debate is about the ease of first time buyers to buy in ED - when I bought, 26 or so years ago - when ED was still in the property doldrums (relatively) - it was my third purchase - a lot of buyers even by then were not 'first time' for family homes - so I wouldn't expect my children - ED 'natives' - to be able to first-time buy in the area they were brought-up in - certainly not in the type of property they were brought up in. Unless an area has a really wide range of properties (many in ED are houses) it is quite likely tha 'natives' will have to look elsewhere for first purchases. Once on the property ladder, at a time of rising prices, the equity you can bring to second and subsequent purchases will allow movement to more expensive areas.

The ED Deli arrived quite a few years after the Cheese Block. Apologies, you are quite right - I may have been mistaking it for the other deli noted by nxjen. When we first arrived, 26 or so years ago, LL was an arrid desert of second hand pram shops - give or take the excellent Binester etc.

A time ago (probably pre-CheeseBlock) the ED Deli was a go-to place, in a reasonably arrid row of other stores, although even then not the only place to get interesting groceries. However the world has moved on, particularly in LL, and the ED Deli really hasn't. It probably had an opportunity to re-invent itself about 5-10 years ago, but chose not to. It did stand for an aspirational ED, before its aspirations were realised, and did well when it was (close to) the only game of that type in town. It's a shame, for purely sentimental reasons based on past near-glories, to see it go, but sentiment butters no retail parsnips.

I recognise the site is in development, but to include the (very new) Patch and to exclude Franklin's seems a strange choice - you might also want to distinguish between 'pubs that do food' and gastro-pubs - or pubs where the food is particularly important. The Great Exhibition also needs some mention, again if you are prepared to include the Patch (which is further away, arguably). Not optimising round tablets or (especially) mobiles seems a mistake - that is quite likely to be the access medium of choice. I have a 24inch landscape monitor and it only just fits to be readable and is right biased, not centred, when viewed full-screen. Some of the links do work, some don't do anything, some open the same screen as you were already looking at. Where there isn't a link it would be better to show the name 'black' rather than 'clickable blue'. Had I been designing this I think I would have had less information per screen so clicking a link to food and drink would have taken you initially only to the categories list, and then to the (alphabetical) listings under each category - perhaps ranged under each other so that smaller screens or open windows would work. That would have made more screens for you to write (obviously) but would have made the site more user friendly to navigate. IMHO. You do need to define 'local' and 'nearby' - at least from some nominal central point. It might have been interesting to have seen some editiorial or philosophical statement which described why you were doing this and what your editorial position was as to inclusion or exclusion of e.g sites/ businesses.

It is impossible to talk in general terms Probably the right personal model is to look at opportunity cost/ benefit - what can't/ couldn't you do having paid the 'ED premium' which you want/ wanted to do - what can you do which would otherwise (in a different location) have cost you to do? If you don't/ didn't live close to LL or the Dulwich green spaces - would you have travelled to find them or their equivalents, likewise schools etc. Are your friends local to ED - if they are, would you find new (and equivalent) friends if you didn't live round here. Unless you are a buy-to-let purchaser then you are choosing to live somewhere, so think of the value (or not) of ED to the way you live or want to live. That may help determine whether the premium is worth paying.

Where's the Starbucks? Up the road in Sainsbury's on DKH - mind you that's a few hundred yards from LL - and a Starbucks every few 100 yards is normally the recipe.

Guess it depends whether you would see racism in the following post: Evening all - just had a white male on bike knock on our front door. All lights were off. By the time my partner got to the door, the man had started the cycle away from the house and shouted back 'wrong house'. Anyone else had a knock close to Colwell this eve? My point wasn't whether that post would have seemed racist, but whether that event would have stimulated a post at all.

Once supermarkets began to stock reasonable ranges of quality deli-style produce the writing was on the wall for a general deli without a real distinguishing USP - the Cheese Block does it through a single specialism - with most other things carried linked to that (i.e. breads, biscuits, pickles). Others offer a good range of prepared dishes of a far higher quality/ freshness than you get at supermarkets - often providing a catering service as well as eat-in opportunities. Their trading model was being overtaken - maybe they could have re-invented themselves - deli one side and small cafe on the other was a possibility but would have needed considerable re-design (and would not have been that cheap to do well, which local competition (i.e. Eat) would have demanded.

I am not accusing someone of this specifically - it is about interpretation - some are interpreting the OP's initial response as being triggered by the identifier, others as being triggered by the behaviour. I obviously do not know (and if the OP was being unconsciously racist, neither would the OP). I very much doubt that this was a consciously racist report (test - 'if it had been someone with different identifiers, I know I wouldn't have thought it worth reporting') - but we now understand the possibility of not being aware of one's own biases as biases. The fact that the OP asked if others had seen this behaviour is surely about confirming (or not) suspicions, not about having them in the first place. [NB This is entirely without prejudice about whether these suspicions were justified or not]