Penguin68

If there is a requirement for a seven day wait (that actually makes no sense, when I had gas work (emergency) done outside my house the hole was opened and closed in 48 hours) it could still be scheduled in; and doesn't account for the very much longer delays we are seeing. It seems very unlikely that they are using jointing glues that take 7 days to cure - it should be apparent within 24 hours of gas flowing whether the joints are sound - there are actually ways of doping glass fibre (the sort used in communications) to be sensitive to gasses. I think it more likely that the crew who fill-in and surface weren't scheduled to turn up for seven days (they would be a different group from the ones pipe laying and jointing) - that's why the 7 day delay story was used, because otherwise it looks like (it jolly well is) very bad project management and planning. You might schedule crews with a 24 hour delay (to take account of over-run works because, for instance, of torrential rain) - but 7 days is just " 'avin a laugh, innit?".

Part of the problem is that a number of different trades are needed for the sort of planned works that the gas and water companies are doing locally - instead of proper project management and scheduling they only really plan for the initial hole digging, then send along the other trades as they become available - at least that's what it looks like. They should be required to show a full schedule of works to the roads authority, with all trades planned-in and a firm completion date - which should be agreed by competant surveyors as being reasonable - then fined very large amounts per-diem for over-runs - ?5000 a day seems a good start point, possibly escalating to ?10,000 a day after 5 days, and then up by ?5000 increments for each period of 5 days following. No works should be allowed to start which are not planned for completion in 3 weeks - that being (to my mind) a maximum disruptive period I am prepared to put up with. For extended works (like working all along Lordship lLane) 'breaks' should be required of at least 2 weeks before more disruption starts again (but of course the teams could then go and work in a different area). Unplanned works (sewer collapses etc.) are different, but they should not be prayed in aid when planned works over-run - companies should be required to have sufficient staff/ contractors to hand to cope with emergencies as well as planned works. I suspect that the skills of project management, the existence of Gantt charts, critical path analysis, etc. etc. are all firmly closed books when it comes to the contractors who work around SE London.

Some trees have roots which spread and are close to the surface, birch I think are like this, some which go down quite far before spreading - conifers I think have deep roots - but you should check. Deep-rooted trees are less likely to have an impact on buildings (re roots coming into drains etc.)- but will of course take-up water. If your house is stable removing a tree close by may actually make things bad, by allowing the water table to rise now nothing's drinking it. Take advice, would be my advice, from someone who knows the impact of different sorts of tree.

What is a brick field? A brick field is a site from which clay has been 'mined' to make bricks - if the site has been fully depleted of clay, houses built over it are less likely to subside, as they are not being built on an existing clay substrate - however if the brick field is not exhausted then there will still be clay residue on which houses may have been built. Unless you can be sure that the site is exhausted then it indicates just that there is, or has been, underlying clay. Normally brick field sites will have been depleted of (most) clay, I believe, as that would have been the economic action before selling the land and acquiring a new site for clay 'mining'.

If you are buying, and you believe there may be a problem (or you are being told there is one) your seller may be able to provide you with the original survey done for him/ her - if that identifies 'problems' (for instance wall-cracks) which are essentially unchanged since then (assuming the survey was done some time ago) this may help identify a 'problem' which (see above) has stabilised. Also check to see if trees have been recently removed close to the property, as this will alter the local water table without necessarily being a substantial or real problem. I have said on another thread that (in the expectation that you will eventually want to sell) recording the state of a property when you buy may prove helpful later when selling - my house has a hairline crack in it unchanged over 20 years since I bought the house, and associated probably with a later (pre-war) built garage but which could still trigger concern in a casual surveyor, charged (unless you are instructing him/ her) with protecting the mortgagers interests. Many structural experts are now much less worried about subsidence, particularly in older houses which have had time to flex, than they were previously - collapse is far less common than one might think, and the symptoms are normally pretty dramatic and visible long before the walls go down. That doesn't stop (some) insurers being ultra-cautious of course - mainly because builders who address subsidence do so whole-heartedly and expensively.

skidmarks writes: Would you want to trust your life on this? In addition to anything else, yes - if it can offer additional information then I am happy to use it as best I can - ideally that junction should be traffic light controlled - it won't be for lots of different reasons so we are already into second best land - so a mirror, double-yellows that stop parked vehicles obscuring the view, moving the pedestrian crossing to the other side (my feeling is that would have a better effect on slowing down traffic heading towards the Rye, where they have had a long downhill to pick up speed, than traffic heading up to the Plough) all this would help, a mirror would help even where it wasn't an ideal, or a good sole, solution. I suspect that the majority of users of that junction are 'regulars' who could soon adapt to using the mirror as yet another aide to safety. Where it is obscured by rain or condensation it would be of less use, obviously, but unless this was a permanent condition it would be of some use, sometimes.

And well placed steel mirrors would provide much better visibility on key junctions.

There are two types of problem with the junction - high vans parking in Barry road by the junction can badly obscure the view looking towards the Plough end of Barry Road from the building site/ old wood yard side of Underhill - this causes cars to edge into Barry to get a clearer view (could be addressed with a well positioned mirror) - the intentional narrowing of Underhill at both junctions means that cars committing to cross the road sometimes cannot enter Underhill because of blocking traffic - exacerbated by lorries delivering to the building site. They thus cannot clear Barry. Narrowing also means that cars turning from Barry into Underhill have the same problem. All this is exacerbated by poor driving (i.e. cars that signal and then don't turn, or vice versa - inexperienced drivers sometimes 'believe' the signal or lack of it and then commit before being certain of the oncoming driver's real intention). Problems are worse than for other 'crossings' of Barry because Underhill is a major cut through and of course now a bus route - so it just carries much heavier traffic. The length and straightness of Barry doesn't encourage slow driving either.

Your agent (assuming you have one and aren't selling privately) should be able to advise you whether this concern is normal for your location or whether it seems strange. It may be that your buyer is looking for a large %age mortgage and the risk to the bank is thus greater if lending. This could also be part of a negotiation ploy to get you to drop the price.

I had a full survey done here when i moved in 5 years ago and the report said chances of subsidence were 'extremely remote'. If you can, get the same surveyer back again - he/she would then be able to confirm 'no change' (if there hasn't been any) over the last 5 years. As a general piece of advice, if you buy a property which does have cracks in it (most do) take a dated photograph of the cracks, preferably with a ruler next to them, when you buy the property which might then act as reassurance (assuming the cracks haven't openened further) when eventually selling. The ED area (parts at least) is known as having subsidence potential as it is hilly and on clay. Most insurers mark much of it (too much, in my opinion) as being at risk. However, there also has certainly been some work done to repair subsidence damage throughout the area, so it isn't a complete case of crying wolf. Cracks can occur when large trees are removed (alters the local water table) - and can certainly be caused in garden walls by heavy lorries jumping over traffic calming humps.

ayrec wrote:- BT are a nightmare. I have been with BT (fixed line, ADSL) for a number of years, without any long-term or deep seated problems - and their tech support is at least on a free 0800 number. Apart from a line-card upgrade about 2-3 months ago, which BT did warn about and which took about 10 days to settle down I have been virtually problem free as regards the BT line and ADSL service - although I have had computer and system conflict problems which have led to problems with some computers I use. There are on occasion entire system outtages - normally cleared within hours if not minutes, and local disruption caused by local junction work - but hardly either frequent or generally long-lasting. I do use the BT routers supplied as part of the BT service. Although on a nominal 20Mgb service (which is what the line-card upgrade was about) I normally get about 13Mgb now. Any drop-outs are normally cleared very quickly with a router re-set, and seem caused by 'hand-shake' issues between my wireless modems and the router. The new line-card system can also cause reset issues, and it may be that your router either needs updating in its entirety, or needs its core operating system updated. BT supplied routers should get software updates automatically; others may not. If you are without tone on your phone line this seems like a connection problem on your own line (rather than a systemic fault) - not of course pleasant for you and very frustrating but may be very localised - and could well arise from work done in a local cabinet to you (at one time - albeit 15-20 years ago - something like 20% of line faults were caused by engineers in cabinets working on other things and disrupting service accidently). It would be interesting to know if the engineers can clear the fault on your line causing you these problems, and what that fault was.

.. and the reason is and b) it was still a lot better than the local state schools. - as soon as it was the equivalent or worse than the 'free' offer it would die, as demand would evaporate. Independant school rolls do fluctuate with reputation - particularly for secondary 6th form entry. And some prep schools definitely do fail - not so many locally but the demand is continually high (and the provision is also quite good).

The star in the sitcom 'Rev' currently on BBC2, amongst other things, a diminutive but fine actor.

Ligaturiosity wrote although it is a totally different argument I do think private schools should be abolished The best way of abolishing private education is through market forces; when 'free at the point of use' education offers the same or better product than 'pay out through the nose having already paid tax' education, then the demand will whither away, leaving only those buying for snob, rather than educational, reasons. Until then, private education is filling a completely acceptable need, that of parents to ensure that their children are educated to achieve their maximum potential - the private schools that fail on this quite soon go to the wall.

Interesting first post, justice pro bono - shame you weren't connected to join in this thread earlier (last previous post was in May I note). I assume you must have moved somewhere else in ED to be interested enough in the area to post.

And only 8 tomorrow yum yum (posted on behalf of my cousin The Heron)

As one of the longest and fastest growing 'single issue' threads it has been difficult to keep up/ keep abreast of developments, so apologies if I am repeating what others have written. 1. I do not know the family or the children, which is I guess true of most of the posters here. I wouldn't have been happy with my children, at those ages, doing what these are doing, but I do know that children mature very differently, and I have known children well up to doing what these are doing. We set 'ages' to do things based on what the majority are capable of, but any distribution has outliers, and I (and most of you) cannot say that these children don't belong there. 2. Despite somewhat shrill condemnation, it is clear that the parents are neither feckless nor stupid; what they have done they have done in a considered manner and (I believe) with what they believe are the clear best interests of their children in the forefront of their thinking. I would hope that where conditions were different (very inclement weather, high winds, ice, snow, poor visibility) they would consider alternative options as risks changed. 3. As a society we tend to intervene (we should intervene?) where people are making careless, unthoughtful, ill-considered,. selfish, unconsidering decisions about their children - not true in this case (because I (or you) wouldn't do, don't agree with, what others are doing doesn't make them necessarily any of those things listed). 4. We also tend to intervene where people are making decisions which, however well considered, are immediately and directly injurious - so we consider female circumcision and infibulation illegal in this country even where many cultures entirely endorse it, for what they believe are good reasons. 5. In this case, whereas we perceive risks we wouldn't perhaps take ourselves, there is nothing immediately injurious in cycling to school along quiet residential pavements. And we would all see benefits in our children being more resiliant and self reliant, less fearful and better exercised, all of which comes with this option. So it comes down to - do we want to live in a society where other people take decisions on our behalves about how we bring our children up (given all the caveats about carelessness and thoughtlessness above) or do we want to take that responsibility ourselves? Of course, with responsibility comes personal risk - and we must hope that the worst fears expressed here do not come to pass (but note that life is not risk free, as this 5th anniversary of 7/7 painfully underlines)

Don't be silly. Every school has a limited capacity, and in most cases families will want a school not too far from home. This is (partly) about new schools being opened in competition with existing schools (part of the Michael Gove idea) - so the new schools will not be full (because they are new) and may well be local (because they are competing with failing local schools). They will be looking to recruit pupils at all age levels through the school, at least in some instances. And schools outside local authority control can decide (obviously taking into account issues of actual available space) how many classes to run in any year group - they are not constrained into not competing with existing schools, quite the contrary, that is their purpose.

If schools are struggling to survive because they are offering poorer education than other schools which offer free schooling - i.e. if schools aren't doing as good a job as others, then they should either improve or, indeed, collapse. No school has a 'right' to survive if it isn't doing a good job. Over time the quality of offers from all schools in a locale will tend to improve (that's the normal effect of competition in a relatively free market). The downside is that 'over time' might well include that time when you have children at school - so that your children could suffer during this transition state. Of course you can try to transfer your children to the schools performing well, and a 'free' mrket would mean that you could do this outwith attempts by local authorities to block such moves, but moving schools is always difficult for the children being moved. Having said that, it is clear that discussions on other threads about 'good' and 'bad' schools locally - and problems of children being forced to go into 'bad' schools suggests that the status quo isn't working - the option for third parties to set up schools where the alternatives aren't attractive, setting their own agendas as to size etc. could well lead to 'good' schools emerging and 'bad' schools failing. The fact that these new schools will not be able to select on academic merit stops them becoming old-style grammer schools turning existing secondary schools into effective secendary moderns from having been true comprehensives - if these schools find themselves 'struggling' - then they need to improve their offer and perhaps fit it closer to the needs of the children they do have. The straightjacket of obsessive targets is soon to be removed from all schools, allowing them to focus on their 'customers'' needs more closely. Schools that don't want to bother to change will go to the wall, eventually, if what they are offering isn't sufficient. Actually, good. Institutions which only poorly serve their consitituents should fail, where they cannot or will not, improve. Oh, and to suggest that 'bad' schools are 'bad' because of the quality of the children who go to them is like saying that 'good' hospitals are good because they only take nearly well people, and bad hospitals bad because they tend only the very sick. But that's the tendancy of many arguments I have heard. There are many excellent schools who take children from challenging backgrounds (through poverty, through language difficulties etc., through lack of parental interest in education) and achieve great results. It is not 'bad' children that make bad schools.

MichaelDavern wrote:- transferring what is public property paid for by local taxpayers(buildings/fields/school equipment) to an asset for a private company which an academy would be I have not seen Michael Gove's detailed proposals but I would be surprised if a school which transferred out of the existing system (under his new proposals) would be able to alienate the capital (land and buildings) of the existing school away from state ownership - they would probably be held in some form of trust, only to be used for public (not public school!) educational purposes. The capitation fees to be paid on behalf of pupils cover current accounts costs and are assumed to be used up during the year (maintenance would probably be seen as current expenditure, maintaining but not adding value to the capital assets). New build schools would of course be a different issue. Academies so far have been been new build in the main, even when on the site of an existing school. 'Giving away' public assets would surely be open to judicial review (not that that stopped Westminster Council 'giving away' their cemetaries for a shilling a go). And not that that stops councils disposing of assets at knock down prices themselves on occasion, including school and playing field sites.

Academies I believe do their own selection - but cannot be selective (i.e. take only the most academic candidates). The idea behind this change is so that schools can be responsible for their own futures and so that school governing bodies can be (virtually) autonomous. They will not be obliged, I believe, to follow e.g. the National Curriculum, although they will be subject to inspection by Ofsted as before. The schools lose economies of scale that central purchasing and support (i.e. Bursars departments) offer; however it is possible that third parties could set up such services for these new schools who could outsource to them. There is little evidence that councils have uniformly offered good value for money here anyway, and many council's own works departments (i.e. Lambeth's in the past) have been notoriously poor in this area. That is one reason why so much social housing has been moved efectively from Council to Housing Association care, because of the poor value for money from (some) Council work forces. It would be possible for the Dulwich academies to pool resource for such things as maintenance etc. if they chose. That is the one beauty of the change - they get to choose what is optimal for them, rather than having to dance to a more convoluted tune that reflects the local governance of an entire borough, with all the conflicting calls they have on resource and focus. Academies escape the political ideology of councils, although of course they are not thus politics free.

The concept of zero tolerance in policing work is one that has proved successful in New York - these petrol thefts though individually at times trivial have been mounting up, and frequently the damage caused to the bikes is out of proportion to the value of the petrol stolen. Additionally, if the police can devote any time to this, the pattern of thefts if properly reported may lead to arrests and conviction. The crimes do appear trivial and more of nuisance value, taken individually, but, as the length of this thread reveals, they are not isolated events. And maybe if the 'Old Bill' do find the paperwork behind these thefts annoying, this might stimulate them more to do something about them. They certainly won't do anything if they don't know (because they aren't being reported) that they are happening.

The problem sounds sufficiently localised that it may well be either a hardware problem on the local cell, or possibly a software drop causing conflicts - disabling 3G settings to make it work could be either. It will be interesting to hear what the resolution of this is, and what the carrier admits to. As many people seem to be able to use their systems outside ED it clearly isn't any fundamental conflict between the iphone operating system and the carrier software, but if the cell operating system hasn't, e.g. been properly updated, the problem could reside there. Or it could be a simple hardware failure in the ED serving cell. Edited to say - written before I saw the post now appearing as previous - that explains a lot.

My daughter was stopped further up the road in Underhill (past Barry road I think) about 6 months ago - luckily her phone is so C**p (bound up with gaffer tape) that the mugger gave it back and urged her to 'get her dad to buy her a new one'!. I don't know if the attacker had a knife (it was a lone attacker) but I'm afraid mugging for phones is a commonplace. So is the use of knives - it's a shame these two things seem to have coalesced here. I assume that the police etc. have been informed? [My daughter only told me about her attack weeks afterwards, and seemed sufficently unable to provide any descriptions etc. that a report was by then otiose, she couldn't even remember what date or even day of the week it happened!]

This won't come as a great surprise to regular forum readers http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,434378