Penguin68

The Party, obviously.

24/7 bus lanes in any areas where traffic levels are clearly not 24/7 intense only exist to raise fines, they do not facilitate through flow of bus traffic outside peak hours. There are places in London where they offer genuine benefits to bus travellers but LL is not one of them IMHO. This is a typical response of those who wish to see private vehicle traffic repressed and penalised, which of course is a legitimate point of view, which I do not share, but see it for what it is.

Then put in something like 'Amended following updated information'. Then it won't be empty but it won't have what you wanted to remove.

The best you can do is to amend the post by deleting its contents if you want to remove something. I've noted that when you do that, Admin may actually do the deletion.

Strictly I'd call that a decline in growth rate. I'm afraid that people tend to think of 'a decline in growth' to mean a contraction - rather than a slowing down. There is an argument to suggest that such a slowing down would indicate that maxima (a ceiling) may have been reached.

I may have got this wrong, but wasn't it that fewer households were cycling rather than overall there was less cycling happening? I think that's interesting, although I'd like to see the variance in both figures - given that they will be sample based - but it does suggest that the cycling 'habit' isn't now spreading, and that the expenditure on cycling infrastructure is not being utilised now by an increasing population of households, so the costs aren't being spread. The great worry is that cycling, like hula hooping, was or is a passing fad. You could make a case (which is not what I'm doing here) that as people got bored with traditional human powered cycles and moved to electric, so they will bore of these and move to something else, which might not be transport related. Of course, there will always be hard core cyclists who will stay faithful.

I agree about the site and buying another one, but I was responding to a query about the old site. Which was no longer fit for purpose. Selling that and not buying another locally was just money for old rope for the foreign owners, as was moving the DO to an unsuitable building too far away.

Actually, one of the reasons Sylvester Road was closed was that the space available as more and more parcels were part of the mix was insufficient (and the facilities were primitive). And that was before Covid when parcel delivery numbers soared. Sylvester Road as it existed then would not have coped, probably (and the move to Peckham, when Covid arrived, showed that that wasn't sufficient either!).

Actually, I'm not sure it is 'good news'. Nor that it's bad news, of course. Necessarily. As Spartacus says, it may have knock on effects on others, or on other cost decisions. For those who are in some way disabled, by age or other problems, either on a permanent or temporary basis, a 100% cycling infrastructure would be wholly terrible. For them. And the more other options are reduced in value, or increased in cost by having such an infrastructure, the worse it is. Equally, for those considering cycling is 'healthy' - well I imagine many keen exercisers might be dismayed if that was the only choice open. If you prefer to run, or swim, or work out in the gym, then being told that the answer is cycling might not be what you want to hear. Oh, and if the 'more people cycling' are doing so in the flat areas of central London and using electric assisted bikes then the health benefits are probably limited as well.

I have been trying to work out why the cycling fraternity is so resistant to suggestions that cyclists should wear reflective clothing, and use lights at times of poor visibility (like dusk and nighttime) and I wonder whether it's some sort of 'victim blaming' response. We all know (or should know) that when a woman or girl is attacked the response 'look what she was wearing - she was asking for it' is wholly repulsive - I wonder is this sits in the back of their minds - that identifying that a cyclist has been injured because they are not appropriately dressed for the conditions is some sort of 'victim blaming' equivalent. And clearly people can indeed freely choose to dress themselves inappropriately for the time or season. As they can choose to rock climb without the appropriate kit. Despite any 'official' advice to the contrary. But I am saddened that those of us who would urge cyclists to make best efforts to be seen are being effectively attacked - cyclists who are injured because they haven't been seen have not been injured because 'they were asking for it' - but because the driver couldn't see them or see them in time. No driver sees an 'invisible' cyclist and goes for them because they weren't wearing the right clothing. But if you are a driver and can readily see a cyclist you will naturally take efforts to avoid them, as you do in good light conditions when they are not effectively invisible. It is of course not helped that modern car headlights make those not illuminated by them even more 'invisible' - because of the dazzle effect (LED lights are up to 1000 times more powerful than traditional headlights) - but this makes the argument for reflective clothing even more urgent, I would suggest. I suppose I wonder why cyclists (some) are so adamant that they don't want to help themselves, and so entitled that they think that's an OK response. Everyone needs to contribute to road safety if they use roads. And particularly to their own safety.

Or any other vehicle, however many wheels or however powered, or don't you agree with that?

Though it's often the big corporates who dig deepest. For small independents that's a bigger ask, decorating, when they do their own premises is cost enough. And we're normally happy not to have the big corporates in LL.

To be fair, the lights we used to have in Lordship Lane were dreadful. They were actively depressing, which isn't a good look for Christmas lights.

Cost?

I was several miles away and I didn't miss it, as apparently didn't lots of others also several miles away. But as I and others reported although we guessed it was fireworks it sounded more like the WWI front line, albeit from a distance!

Not in my bit. It's also people in vans. Though on occasion it is the PO, but not exclusively. It may be based on the size of parcel, or the number. Or possibly whether you're a Prime Customer.

Unfortunately there are two ways of examining this, if we even had the figures. The first is simply to look at the revenues paid to the Council and see if the costs (in terms of setting it up and recovery from it, including administrative cost) are less than the revenues. This would be quite simple to do assuming we could agree the proper allocation of those costs. But additionally we have the amenity cost to those Southwark residents either (a) losing amenity value through e.g. disruption, and secondly losing amenity value by being excluded from parts of a public park for an extended period in summer. That is not a fiscal cost to the council and clearly they don't give a damn, but that would be the only way of judging whether this event was of overall net benefit to Southwark residents, the only people who the council should be 'working' for. Don't hold your breaths.

In the past such details have always been described as commercially sensitive, which they possibly are. So we've never really known what the deals actually were. And whether they represented value for money for the council, and hence us.

It sounded less like fireworks and more like shelling. No real breaks between explosions. I'd thought Putin was paying a visit.

If only that were true

OK, I'm sorry, but I just can't resist - I do hope the next time 'the usual suspects' adumbrate on the iniquities of drivers being 'careless' they make clear whether they are referring to drivers of saloons, hatchbacks or people carriers, large medium or small SUVs or SUV style vehicles (i.e. not those based on repurposed Utility Vehicle body plans) small medium or large commercial vans, two or 3 door vehicles, sports cars, 'classic' cars . To us petrol heads they are all different and very easily distinguished between.

Ha de ha. But the speed limit on Amsterdam canals is 6 kilometers an hour, so collision risks are highly reduced, as would be damage. I smell desparation in posts like this. And in general life jackets are advised on parts of the canal system exposed to turbulence.

I think misue of fireworks would involve throwing them, setting them off in public spaces etc. Which would be a police matter. Having a firework party at home in private property at an unsocial time would I think be a council noise issue as this isn't 'misuse' of fireworks as such but anti social behaviour regarding noise. Unfortunately most fireworks parties aren't that long in duration, so by the time a council noise team attended the nuisance would probably be over. It's not like a noisy party with continuing loud music.

Which is a perfectly legitimate political position to take and somewhat parallels the (equally legitimate) 'I hate Tories' or 'I love Labour' positions taken by other posters. Or indeed 'I hate car drivers and owners' or 'I love cyclists' positions frequently paraded.

Certainly the threshold won't be increased, but, additionally, once the position is accepted that central government can impose a rental, for no return, on property you might expect it to be widened. Remember Council tax, also a tax on property, is in exchange for the services we get from our local council, but this property tax is in exchange for nothing. Indeed those hit by this tax are amongst the relatively few people, in general, who are net contributers to national income, as opposed to net benefitters.