Penguin68

First come I. My name is JOWETT. There's no knowledge but I know it. I am the Master of this College, What I don't know isn't knowledge. Sorry Admin, couldn't resist a proper attribution.

I would assume they use the same Terminating Equipment at the Exchange. ? Technically they are connected to different line cards - cables route through the MDF (Main Distribution Frame) onto racks - BT Retail or 3rd party, with line cards capable of handling different signal types (ADSL, SDLS etc.) So, they are not using the same 'terminating' equipment. I am pretty sure the line cards for BT Infinity are different from the ADSL offering, and they have to do some installation work (probably just shifting a switch on the vard) to enable Infinity 2 - they give a 3 day lead-time if you order.

Surely right if you mean 'hate the taste of dog' - why eat anything you hate the taste of - but many people can hate dogs (wandering about, fouling the pavements, biting people) without also hating them in a culinery sense. I wouldn't be too keen on heifers wandering loose about Dulwich, but I love a good steak. And most people don't hate dogs, they just hate the people who keep dogs badly. I hate cats, slaughtering the birds in my garden, leaving (last week) a little clutch of 4 fledglings, in a neat little pile, by my back door. Oh - well I wouldn't actually eat cat either. But I'd be very happy if someone started serving them up for those who would.

Actually, I have signed up to BT Infinity 2 - I am currently getting (over a wireless connection at its 'N' limits) uploads of close to 17Mgb - and I have not experienced more than 3 significant service outages over the (many years) I have been receiving ADSL and its fibre successors. It is entirely feasible to supply high speeds over copper when we are talking only of the drop from cabinet to premise - speeds tested at my modem (before attenuation through a wireless system) are very much as promised. I have often found that when my PC apparently drops out my mobile is still working (on wireless) - which suggests issues with PC/ wireless router on PC rather than with the service itself. I have seen lab tests of transmission over copper (at Martlesham Heath, the research labs) of well over 100mgbs - which suggests the current field promises are not wholly unreasonable. Infinity 2 is being promised locally at 60Mgbs download (measured at the modem). I also find that an occasional re-boot of BT Retail modem and of PC helps restore uninterupted service, which again suggests that the problems are more likely in my own system than that being delivered to the Openreach modem (if you have BT Infinity it is supplied through two bits of kit, and a special junction box, not one as for ADSL broadband).

Mine went as well, about that time, in that I needed to re-boot, but it was all back again no problems as soon as I did. That may just have been coincidental.

I'm really surprised that the jumped up dog haters on the forum haven't suggested a Korean yet Sadly, I suspect that you are probably not allowed to eat dog in the UK (no slaughterhouse licenced here to kill dogs for the table) - it is is a very rich and dense meat - a friend who travelled extensively in the Far East was advised by his dentist to stop eating dog in the summer, as the meat was causing his teeth to loosen (he had been and they were loose, so maybe his Chinese dentist was right). Despite rumours and stories, it is only special breeds of dogs that are generally eaten, not any old pooch (except I suppose in a famine). There is more to Korean cuisine than dog (and many of the cuisines we do favour, such as Chinese and Vietnamese, indigenously use protein ingredients we would baulk at).

Ridiculously, a house where subsidence has been seen too and 'cured' costs more to insure than one that doesn't. The costs shouldn't be as much as double an equivalent non-underpinned house, but it will be more. Some insurers however won't even make an offer on a house where the problem has actually been solved. Try the NFU - relative stars amongst the dross. Insurance companies are mad, bad, and dangerous to know. God rot 'em.

There are many people who might think that having an M&S (any newly done up good store) within a couple of minutes walking would be a plus, not a minus; better than an empty unused shell anyway. People living around Iceland are in easy walking of good public transport, so may be less worried about parking competition. As I have said, the choice may not be between change and no change, but between changes with different merits. How many locals will be happy to lose annoying Iceland deliveries to an extent where thay are also happy not to have any store on the corner? If it's economic for Iceland to stay they will, it it's not, they won't. For the site owner the rental from offices may be far less interesting than the rental from appartments. Any argument which looks to block more residential housing, at a time of real shortages in London, is too nimbyist by half.

Can we have a reality check here please - sure you can block (or try to block) the planning application - as citizens that's exactly your right, but if Iceland has decided, as an economic decision, to give up its lease you have no rights to force it to stay - your 'unintended consequences' might be that Iceland goes (because that's what it has decided to do anyway) and the site remains empty and unloved because you have blocked the store that was prepared to move in - remembering that Iceland currently has no storgae space, so the location as it is currently configured and sized is not at all desirable. What do you want, an M&S in a useable store size, or an empty boarded-up location (charity shop perhaps, at best)? As I have said, if Iceland wants to stay in LL because it's the right location for it, it will; if it doesn't, something will take its place (or rather, possibly, nothing - in the retail line, anyhow). You can stop M&S moving in (given a strong enough argument) you can't force Iceland to stay. And perhaps if local councillors want to weigh-in here, they also need to think what 'no Iceland, no M&S' will do to LL. 'Cos that's a real possibility.

Answer the question ? someone? "Whats the situation if someone hasn't got permission and closes their Road?" They will be arrested and the street re-opened (assuming anyone notifies the authorities). Actually, depending on the size of the road being 'closed' - and whether it's on a fire police or ambulance access route there may be little actual come-back - however anyone inconvenienced by the closure (or, for instance, having their house burnt-down because fire-engines couldn't access quickly enough) would have a damn good civil case against those closing the road, unless they were themselves party to the closure. It's an offence to block the public highway.

Stores judge particular outlets' attractiveness/ performance based on such measurements as footfall and turnover/ profit per square metre. Future attractiveness of locations is also based on cachment in relation to target market. If Iceland is going to give up its store on Lordship Lane (no firm proof of this as yet, I would have thought, but the planning application is suggestive) then it will be using the LL store's metrics to make its decision and in addition it will be taking account of forecast demographic change - based both on economic factors (broadly the A;B;CI,C2:D,E breaks, but things are nowadays much more sophisticated) together with age/ cultural group profiles. As/ if the cachment drifts from the target customer profile, so will it become less attractive. At a guess (I have no idea) Iceland's target market is older and poorer (and compared with say Waitrose or M&S- psychographically probably less aspirational). Its product range suggests a culturally traditional English target customer group - with little appeal to cultural diversity. The advertising use of Kerry Katona was probably to move the target age towards the younger end, but I am not sure that worked. ED has become younger, more culturally mixed, richer and more apirational over the last 10-15 years (I've been here for close to a quarter of a century to watch these changes). That demographic shift is unlikely to be appealing to Iceland with its current target strategies. That doesn't mean that it has no target market left - it clearly still does, the shop isn't empty - but it may mean that it expects that target market to be uneconomic for it in LL over a planning future. If Iceland does decide to give up its lease in LL then it will do so for good economic reasons - and I suspect that an increase in rental will not in itself be a deciding factor. If it only moved when its last customer had died/ moved away, it would be being incredibly stupid - it needs to get out when it is still viable (but when it is clear the writing is on the wall for future viability). I also hope that the staff there find re-employment with any new store locally, if that is what they want.

Nice one, but I'm getting a weird header in my browser reading: - East Dulwich Forum Is it me or you? Well, it's me as well so you're not alone

I believe the former police fire-arms unit house is to be converted for use by clowns on release back into the community.

Of course, maybe the people who work in the offices all travel in by public transport, but if they don't, and some use cars, there may well be something like a straight swap of office for flat cars - certainly during the working week. It does seem to me that with the offices being let, and the Iceland staff not knowing anything about this, the planning application could be a mare's nest. For those wanting an M&S, don't count your chickens, for those fearing one, don't cross your bridges before you get to them, for anyone not really bothered - find your own trite aphorisms.

second hand and rubbish shops would that be the art shop 2 butchers and two greengrocers? No, that would be the shop selling second hand prams and other (let's be honest, much of it was, rubbish). The greengrocers, butchers and the art shop were all admirable of their type (and I miss the art stationers) - there are other fresh food merchants (one butcher's outlet was replaced). I also miss the toy shop (Binester's also replaced) and the trainer shop (very good value). But the people living around here now don't seem to support shops such as those. Outlets which close (other than through sole proprieter's death/ retirement etc.) do so because they no longer meet local needs (don't have sufficient local customers to continue trading), or they can't generate sufficient income to cover increasing costs. Sometimes that's down to increased rents or business rates. The way to keep local shops is to buy from them - just walking past with a warm feeling that they are still there won't cut it. Cash trumps sentiment.

I think it's a shame Iceland hasn't been successful enough to stay. James - I have already, on this or a related thread, gone into the sort of planning/ strategic detail that retailers look at when planning their location policy - when leases come up for a renewal it is always a good opportunity to review a particular location. Unless you know (for a fact) that 'Iceland haven't been successful enough to stay' then you can only speculate about their reasons for moving/ giving up their lease, but one might be that the future demographic trends of ED do not match, or will not within the lease's future match, their chosen target segmentation. They may wish to invest for future success, even while this outlet may, now, still be performing against their required expectations for its size, if they believe that over time an investment elsewhere may prove more successful. Iceland (like M&S or any other retailer) locates to meet its financial needs, based on meeting the needs of customesr they chose (segment) to serve. I have lived in the area nearly 25 years, with Iceland serving ED needs - but you only have to look at the other shops and resaurants/ bars now in Lordship Lane, and the people in those shops and bars, and the price of the houses, to know that this area is very different to the way it was, and is likely to stay so, or get even more different. Of course there are still loyal and happy Iceland customers now - how many will there be in 5 or 10 year's time? Get over your sentimental attachment to old-time shops - Iceland is very clear what demographic it intends to serve (and good for them) - if this area now has, or will have, too low a concentration of this segment, of course it should move on. This is about successful application of strategy, very possibly, and the opposite of 'being unsuccessful'. Second hand pram and rubbish shops have closed down in Lordship Lane over the last 25 years - are you sad to see those go as well?

You cast the fly across the water and lo.. the trout rise to snap it up

I am certainly bemused by your view that people living on Chesterfield/Ashbourne Grove are lucky to do so, and therefore should essentially just live with it. Most people have either been in these streets for many years and/or inherited homes through family, or have more recently already paid a premium to move into them, and all have every right to raise their concerns/objections, rather than putting up with it because they are ?lucky?. I suspect that the house price/ ease of selling will increase in houses with an M&S on the corner - particularly where they are also in easy walking distance of a main-line station 12 minutes from the City. Of course there will also be downsides - but this is hardly gloom city. Goodness, it could have been an Iceland moving in to replace an M&S! Or a Foxtons.

Iceland will make/ may have made a decision based on quite clear calculations - what revenue/ profit per square foot/ metre are they earning from their Lordship Lane site and how does that compare with - other close stores/ their regional/ national averages etc.? If their Lorship Lane site is a high earner/ highly profitable, then they will strive to keep it (taking account of additional costs associated with refurbishment which may be coming up, increased rentals etc.). If it is a poor performer they may be happier to withdraw. An 'average' performer where there may be a call for an expensive refit may be unattractive as profits (as opposed to revenues) may drop when cost of refurbishment is taken into account. They also may have a siting strategy based on cachment - undoubtedly the social mix of ED has changed, which may mean that their concentration of target customer groups has reduced. If they perceive that this trend will continue, they may want to get out before their store becomes socially isolated. End of a lease is always a good time to review positions. It may also be that whereas the planning application suggests someone is keen to spend money on developing the site, that may not be Iceland's strategy regarding its sites - so the site may actually be more attractive (because it offers greater options) to someone other than Iceland who has different site development strategies.

Actually, if Marks is to open a shop, could it be a knickers, bras, tights and socks shop? There used to be specialist one of those in Brixton, I recall.

Just over 5 hours and we're nearly on page 3 - go go EDF, care where it counts.

Be careful of what you wish for - maybe all those who begged for an M&S or a Waitrose actually on the site now being proposed (Iceland) will now weigh-in in support of this (I think James was one of those - or did he just pose the question and raise the chimaera?). Just think if all the blogging here actually persuaded M&S that this would be a good place to open - blogging initiated by James. I can't recall this plethora of doubts and concerns being mentioned before - it will be interesting (I don't plan to do it) to match those voicing concerns now with those who voiced concerns in the endless thread before, and to see whether the fact of it has dampened any enthusiasms. A car park on the cleared Hospital site looks a better bet now - might even be a money earner from M&S aficionados drawn in from around SE London.

oh for goodness sake, it was a throw-away remark by an activist depressed about what he saw as an outcome of a flawed selection process for mayoral candidate, it was not a conclusion drawn from a 1000 respondent survey or a doctoral thesis. And, considering it was activists who were disproportionately tee'd off with Ken I would guess it was about overall personality as judged by working with him and not just a single specific such as the tax issue (which might have influenced others, of course).

Penguin, do you mean that the Labour people you were speaking to said there was a contingent of them not voting for Ken because of his personality? Please explain. I was talking to a (senior) Labour activist who told me that their own findings in London had shown that 5% of Labour party members in London would not vote for Ken, which rose to 15% when Labour party activists and workers were questioned. Clearly no formal poll had taken place, this was purely anecdotal, but it reflected (seemed to reflect) real Labour problems with Ken as candidate. We will know in only a few hours, but if Ken's share of the vote is significantly less than that of Labour candidates for the Assembly it might be a pointer to the truth of that (though, obviously, figues will not identify Labour party members voting records, let alone those of activists). And yes, it was his personality which was being questioned.

There was also a very low national turn-out - just over 30% I believe - don't know what the London figures are - but the disenchanted often stay out of the polling booths in local elections but still 'forgive' their party at national elections - whereas those voting 'against' the national government (to send a message) are more likely to turn out. This may be particularly true in London, where (outwith the Mayor issue) most of us feel fairly remote from the London Assembly. London will be interesting, with personality (possibly) counting more than party regarding the run for Mayor. Speaking very recently to a (Labour) activist (and former parliamentary candidate) I was told that the 'anti-Ken' vote was running at 5% for labour party members rising to 15% for labour activists and party workers!