Penguin68

James in an earlier post in response to one of mine raised the xenophobic ticket - am I living in the CPZ to justify my postings against it, or am I some sort of interloping foreigner? Answer James - no, I don't live in the CPZ zone (don't let's say 'proposed', it's clearly a done deal) neither do I live in immediately adjacent streets, although I have friends in both whom I visit. However I (1) do live in ED (and have done for 23 years) and (2) do have knowledge of the impact of creeping CPZs on the amenities and 'pleasure to live in quotient' of an area. Actually, as I have also said in other posts, with off-street parking for 3 cars in ED my house value will rise in the face of creeping CPZs, so I would probably be a fiscal gainer from this. One thing that has not been mentioned is parking zoning - set by many councils at a small area, which you are encouraged to think means that you are competing with fewer cars for spaces; but the moment the 'car per dwelling' quota goes above 1 (as it has done in much of ED, even without multiple occupancy), it means that there will always potentially be more cars than spaces in your street, - if you then have to park somewhere when there are no spaces in your zone you will have to park outside the whole CPZ (which for may will be much further away than the 'walking two streets' complaints we have been having re the introduction of a CPZ). There is nthing more depressing than to watch the early morning walk-and-hunt as car owners track around to find somewhere 'legal' for their car to park, if they've chosen an adjacent zone to theirs to park in at night to avoid a long 'come and mug me' walk back to their house from somewhere legal late at night. I've done it in the distant past, it's a nightmare. It's not far to walk from the estates where the muggers live to get to the rich pickings the CPZ will offer them soon, which will be another contribution to the redistribution of wealth so dear to the hearts of some of our councillors. If zones aren't being set up now, remember that once the thing is there the council will change the rules without feeling any need to consult with anyone. Of course, the council may well decide to ration you to one permit per household, so 2 or more car families will no longer be welcome in ED. And don't tell me that we can all use public transport - yesterday the whole Victoria and Circle lines were out of use, as was much of the District, the DLR etc. etc. Bus routes were disrupted by about 12 separate events across the centre of town. At weekends (when you might want to travel out for fun, not work) you don't use public transport to do it - unless your idea of fun is travelling rather than getting there.

Cottaging?

and it really wasn't that painful once I obtained some visitor permits You won't have been a poor, elderly person, or a young mum dependent on visitors - or maybe you only had a few visitors in a year and didn't have to pop double the cost if you went over your initial paltry first book offering, and maybe you were just lucky not to arrive home after a holiday and find the bay where you had been parked suspended and your car clamped or towed. I wonder what questions you werer asking people? - anything which mainly suggested that parking outside their own house would be the result of having a CPZ will have been to mislead. More benefit to the neighbourhood could be achieved by using the old hospital site to build a free multi-story car park than anything else - would bring people into the neighbourhood to spend money locally in shops, bars and restaurants, alleviate the parking pressure on local roads etc. etc. (And it would be somewhere under cover to sell drugs - so a win all round).

Could you tell me if this were to go ahead, why residents and their visitors cannot be issued with free permits? I don`t know why anyone who is a resident should pay? This is about revenue generation - the council saw an opportunity (no doubt encouraged by James' reporting of a groundswell of opinion in favour) and are taking it. This is NOT, repeat NOT about helping out local residents (although James may have been motivated by that). It is about generating a continued and unregulated revenue stream which sits outside any government interference in council tax increases. Once a tax is in place, no subsequent regime will remove it (Boris removing the Western congestion zone is the exception which acts as proof of this rule).

an almost certainly erroneous hypothesis about political motivations I am sorry - if local politicians belonging to political parties are not politically motivated, why are they not all independents? I would be quite unhappy if I voted for a local politician (as I do) to find him or her not politicaly motivated. That's the point of politics and elections. Politicians want to be re-elected, which means pleasing their supporters and not worrying too much about those who don't support them. If they can achieve ends they think are good (spending money on things they think are important) by redistributing that money from those who don't support them to those that do - do you really think they would hold back from doing that - when that's probably what they stood for election to achieve (the spending, not the taxing). What I am trying to say is that ED is not a 'constituency' whose howls of pain at a council proposal are going to worry labour local politicians too much. Not if their proposals form a necessary part of their revenue ambitions. What I object to I suppose is the charade of consultation (and its costs) when I can be pretty certain that the result is already decided upon. The weasel worded 'poll' and the careful drawing of consultation boundaries is enough to make that clear, as are the unfounded claims (raised by James) of the 'benefits' of the proposal. Oh, and the trigger, an unvouched for '20% are foreigners (i.e. non residents)' claim. Just a touch of local zenophobia to keep things rolling on.

Gathering signatures is great, and very public spirited. Here are the results of the poll - 'the residents have decided in favour of a CPZ, to operate throughout the working day' Of course, lots of people will say they didn't vote for that, and eventually, if James presses hard enough, we will hear that although there were a number of votes against, these came from individuals outside the area being polled. [i am not saying that people inside the area will actually vote that way, but how will we know?] And unless someone acually re-runs the poll we will never know the true results - and who will be bothered, or can afford to do that? And even if it is done, the council will say it's not the offical poll, so doesn't count. Remember how Ken treated those who wanted to resist the extension of the congestion zone. Local democracy? - one day every 4 years or whatever. And the really sad thing is that councils ignoring what people want is so commonplace that Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs' won't even be interested.

Penguin 68-its a bit presumptuous to you to think you know how I vote! Of course it is, and I was using hyperbole for effect - but in Southwark, ED and Dulwich are the distant heel of the borough boot, and like all heels will be crushed and worn down. If a Labour controlled council can raise revenues from wards which are not wholeheartedly labour, why wouldn't they? And why would they care if in doing so they reduce the value and joy of living somewhere most of their supporters don't. You could argue this was a valid form of redistribution - if you wanted to - but I prefer my taxation to be overt and part of a political platform which I can vote for, not slid through wearing false colours. Frankly those who think they are voting for an end to congested parking (for them) and easy parking outside their houses are wheeling in the biggest Trojan horse they could imagine, and they, and we, are all going to be slaughtered. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes the poet sang, and boy are these greek gifts poisonous.

That's what happens when you choose to buy a house in a location that's convenient for shops and stations. Although you will have bought, or moved, without realising that you (and your visiting friends, until they stop visiting) will have to pay a premium if you have cars, and of course visiting tradespeople will now be charging you more because it costs more for them to visit. Your local inflation rate is going to soar well above the 5.2% (CPI) or 5.6% (RPI which includes housing costs, which these will be). And, because 80% of the cars (by the council's own weird figures) are still local, and car ownership is going up - you still (you initiating complainers) won't be able to park close to your own houses, and (miracle of miracles) you may not even be able to park in adjacent streets any more, as soon as the council (as it will) severly limits the zones where your annual fee will entitle you to park. But good news, the shops will soon start shutting down, as they lose visiting customers and as the district turns into a parking enforcement nightmare. So maybe some congestion will ease, although of course by then it won't be 'conveniant for shops' - because they won't be there. But at least we'll get some affordable housing, as prices fall because of the increased costs of living here, and the reduced benfits of doing so. Or maybe, you lib dem and tory voting house owners you won't think that's a good thing. But why should the council care? And they won't.

This is nothing to do with what residents want and everything to do with revenue generation - the area is precisely chosen to ensure that there will be intended consequences - leading to more calls for control by a few in the newly effected roads, and extension of the CPZ and later on ramped-up prices. All of you close to ED station - and soon to be not so close at all to ED station are a little pot of gold waiting to be dug up by the council - you vote lib dem or Tory, so they aren't going to lose any votes over it. It really doesn't matter what you say in your feedback, you are going to get a CPZ, it's going to be extended and extended and you will end up paying through the nose for what once was free. Does it matter if the nature and environment of free to park ED is changed irrevocably - not at all to the ones in power who don't visit and don't care about the leafy anomaly in their borough, particularly if that leafy anomaly can be made to fund their ambitions. I have off street parking for 3 cars and all this will do is ramp up the price of my house. But I still don't want the CPZ to happen, because it will change the nature of the area and reduce its utility and attraction.

With the current council's track record for listening to local opinion - vide the Northcross Road Market road closure scheme, I don't think it much matters what you say, if they've made up their minds and can charge you for what was once 'free'.

Would you eat human flesh Horsebox As Flanders and Swan noted - 'if the great JuBJub in the sky had not wanted people to eat people, why did he make them of meat?

A domestic situation? DV isn't based on bricks and mortar and a mortgage But you are likely not to be (a) living on your own or (b) living in a shared flat with other twenty-somethings. If you don't have somewhere to exercise 'domestic violence' then it becomes a street affray etc. 'Domestic Violence' suggests violence between people in some form of long-term relationship (i.e. a domestic relationship, from domus a home)

I am not sure I understand James' post about booze fuelled domestic violence. What does he mean by 'hidden' - does he mean 'unreported' -in which case how does he know? What are the domestic violence figures for ED - how much of this can be traced to attendance at licensed premises? Most of the licensed premises (though not all) in Lordship lane are restaurants - many of the others cater to a young clientele - people not yet sufficiently in a domestic situation to tend towards domestic violence. Reducing licensed trade in Lordship Lane will have a strong tendency to take money out of the area - as people go elsewhere to dine or party. Good call, James, let's turn LL into another suburban wasteland.

There is an irony to the fact that the new vivid blue bins are made out of almost indestructable plastic - which will last tens of lifetimes and never need replacing - so no chance that in our, or our children's, or our children's children's lives will there be any economic need to replace them with something less intrusive. The thoughtless decision of a local aparatchik has saddled us indefinitely with these eyesores. All in the name of the environment!

As vehicles vary is size the council wouldn't mark the individual boxes for people to park in. Curiously they don't seem to have this problem when it comes to marking up parking spaces for e.g. parking meters

but also, if you are not in favour at the moment, whether you would change your mind if the road next to yours became controlled Sorry - but on the basis of this information - you are more likely to be against (not in favour) of the proposal if a street adjacent to yours becomes controlled, becuase that will shift the problem to you. Basically - once you start, the controlled area will continue to spread until it is so wide that it would be too far to walk comfortably to ED station from outside it. I can see to the west the ED station zone reaching out to the Herne Hill station zone (and I am sure that North Dulwich will 'fall into line'). And a nice litle earner it will be for a council now constrained not to raise direct revenues through rises in council tax.

Please see attached montage If you attach it

With the police cuts coming in I think the likelihood of seeing more bobbies on the beat is somewhere round zero According to senior police themselves, of the established force approximately 10% are on the streets at any one time - assuming 3 even 8 hour shifts that still means that for each policeman on the streets 2 are in police stations/ not available for street duties. It is estimated that a better allocation of resources could substantially increase 'bobbies on the beat' even where overall numbers employed fell. The police themselves have chosen to move away from street policing - they are focused less now on prevention (which is what street policing is mainly about) and more on addressing specific issues - including for instance visiting absent fathers not paying sufficient maintenance to 'educate' them about their responsibilities. You may feel this is a better use of their time than simply 'being visible' on your residential streets. Or you may not (if you are a poor single mum your views might be different than those of an established suburban householder).

It should be remembered that it was a carniverous diet which allowed sufficient intake of protein to fuel our enlarged brains, which consume (weight for weight) a disporportionate amount of energy. Our herbivore cousins remained in the trees. If we weren't (pre-historically) an omnivore species with a taste and capacity for meat (and fish) we wouldn't be the dominant primates we are today (granted with some other stuff as well - but we needed the big brains and we wouldn't have got and sustained them without a high protein diet).

And cow, pig, sheep, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant (not quite yet), deer ,,, sausages, black pudding, salami, bone-marrow, oxtail, liver, kidneys, oh yes, bring it on.

There used to be one in Covent Garden (German style market) - don''t know if one's planned this year - also York had a Christmas Market last year - worth checking if there is one this year.

Many years ago I recall a fine summer festival in Dulwich Park which concluded wth a classical pops concert, closing with the 1812 accompanied by a good fireworks display. I really enjoyed that night with my family and I would be happy to see it repeated. We get enough fireworks around Halloween anyway (although Guy Fawkes/ Bonfire night is a good English tradition which should not be lost to some wishy washy multi-cultural sell-out).

BT Vision supplies live Freeview material through an aerial (plugged into your BT Vision box), but other material is supplied via broadband - you get two 3-pin plug adaptors - one is connected to your hub via an ethernet connector, the other to the supplied BT Vision box, again via ethernet. The signal is carried around your house within the ring-main (so obviously both adaptors have to be plugged into the mains). I believe Skye sports is delivered via broadband. BT only supplies one Skye Sports channel, I believe, not the full set - although that isn't (at all) why I have BT Vision so I may be out of date.

It has been going on for years and costing Southwark council and leasholders a fortune. This is a very serious allegation - if you have knowledge of any particular jobs you believe are suspect it might be worth involving the District Auditors. Of course many people suspect problems of this nature in the building trades (and these were proven in the case of Lambeth, if I recall) Massive and unecessarily costly works for instance turn out to be (a) legitimate and (b) still massive and costly in PFI schemes - part of the scandal of this type of funding. Sometimes call-off contracts also lead to huge inefficiencies without actually themselves being criminal (just very badly negotiated). There is a fine line sometimes to be drawn between incompetence and fraud, but they are different things even where their results seem very similar. I would not be at all surprised to find thorough-going incompetence in the Borough offices, more surprised to find all-out fraud (though, as I have said, it is hardly unknown in the building industry, with kick-backs and uncompetitive tendering processes).

If you have a loft then you are suitable for loft insulation (there is some money available I think for certain categories of individuals to get some financial help with this) - if you have a Victorian, Edwardian or earlier property you probably don't anyway have cavity walls to insulate - the alternative (wall insulation either internal or external) is very expensive (comparatively) - this month's Which magazine discusses this in some detail. However, I wouldn't let anyone into the house 'cold-calling' without some very clear ID - and not at all if I was alone and considered myself vulnerable. Perhaps if you are interested in the survey and can get through to the Council you could arrange a specific time/ date for a visit.