Penguin68

No surprises there then, based on other reports of councillor disengament.

There's not a lot councils can do about emergency works, other than require that these are dealt with without gaps of no-work, and perhaps authorise night working. But for planned works councils should, but aren't, be taking account of knock-on effects across the locale, so that continued traffic movement is encouraged. Councils seem to take no account of the knock on costs of delays to the economy. Not their problem seemingly even though economic loss will impact them over time. Where do they think their money actually comes from?

To be fair the majority of the road works are driven by the now privatised utilities, though much of the work (not Underhill) has been planned, and it's clear nobody within Southwark Council has an interest in considering the whole borough impact of these plans, or in penalising over runs, or, if they are, they're pretty bad about it. The huge over run of the planned work at the Lordship Lane/ A205 being a good example, with all the no work days even within the announced timescale. But I do understand an attitude which suggests that the council, and even those councillors representing wards local to us, look on us at best as cash cows to fund the North of the borough, and at worst as annoyances to be ignored. An attitude which opens the doors to Reform.

Oh joy. It's not as if that road hasn't had almost constant work for the last 3-4 months or longer.

To be fair to Thames, I've lived in Underhill for nearly 40 years and that's the first time I can recall that the pipework failed just there (happy to be corrected) - normally it's regular failings at the same spot. Of course both sides of the street are new builds (new to me anyway) formaly a garage and a wood yard on either side) so very possibly new mains installation there about 25-30 odd years ago. For Thames that's not a bad mean time between failures.

Are you sure it's not Camberwell Old Cemetery, which is the one opposite Libretto's?

If forced onto the road by the diversion this may not have been the driver's chosen route. Although a car (even a large SUV, unless it's a Hummer) should be able to navigate our side streets. But drivers do try to choose roads they are comfortable on. And it may be that the car isn't one the driver uses regularly. So may be less certain of e.g. clearances.

It was very firmly closed 2 minutes ago between Friern and Barry (diversion down Friern). The actual barriers are Just west of the Henslowe road junction.

Is Underhill closed to the north or south of Barry? Can you access Barry from the Horniman end of Underhill or not?

The P13 is back on Underhill by Camberwell Old Cemetery

Current reports identify no injuries, so far as I can tell. The fire seems to have started in the small hours. A number of people adjacent were reported as being evacuated for safety.

I think it turned out in the end to be foxes, didn't it? Who we would judge by slightly different standards. And I'm not sure the local bird and rodent population would entirely subscribe to your defenceless description.

Sadly everyone's in East Dulwich is. The move has been nothing but a complete disaster for us. And now I gather that the office isn't even open most of the time, if you could get to it. It must be so disheartening to be a postie there knowing your bosses are forcing you to give a poor service by prioritising more lucrative parcel delivery. That was so much a privatisation too far.

Helen Hayes went to bat for me on a number of occasions,each time I did get a sudden influx of elderly mail. And then service fell away again. 3 or more weeks ago I did get a few things, the postie said there was lots more waiting sorting. But since then, nothing. Frankly it's a disgrace.

I've now had no post in Underhill for close to 3 weeks (parcels a-plenty) - I'm missing a cheque from someone and 2 full weeks of topical magazines - is it just me or are others experiencing an even worse than usual service. I used to get 1-2 deliveries a week, totalling 15-20 items.

I do feel this thread has run its course. No new information is emerging, it's just the same old dogs (I've been one of them) tusseling over the same manky bones. If Admin locked it now I wouldn't be crying buckets.

All fireworks (even sparklers, which remain very hot when they go out, hence advice to have metal buckets of water for extinguishing them) are dangerous, but then so is life. Far better to alert children to dangers so they can avoid them, and take sensible precautions. And don't create fearful children. Get the children to warn the adults of dangers, make it a game but get them alert. But don't let them light fireworks themselves. Cautious but not fearful is your object. And if you're at a display which you feel is being badly/ dangerously run, then leave.

Two guys were going down the south end of Underhill cleaning leaves from pavements and gutters and hoeing to remove grasses and weeds. They were doing a good job as well. And filling lots of blue bags. Lot more leaves to fall, however, so I hope they'll be back!

If you take into account:- The cost of redefining roads across the city for cycles, some of which required extensive and disruptive work The consequential economic on-cost of increasing travel times both during construction and as a consequence of the loss of road paths to exclusive cycle use The loss to TFL of bus and tube revenue as a consequence of diverting paying passengers onto two wheels I think you will find that 'billions' is a reasonable estimate.

That surely would only be legitimate if you could, and did, parlay your expenditure with them to another of their venues. Otherwise I don't think it would stand up in court. They failed to provide a service paid for. When they would have been in a position to do do on reopening.

Nobody suggests there are (replying to march46). But one serious injury for every, say, 20 person miles travelled would be a disaster which would have to be addressed, one for every 20 million person miles travelled would be, again individually, a disaster but, for a community, a much less worrying statistic. You have to be able to understand scale in context.

Of course any injury or death is to be regretted, but the numbers involved do need to be understood in context with the numbers of people and the miles they travel, together with the relative levels of congestion. London has very many people travelling a lot on congested streets, which means the relative incidence of accidents and not just the absolute number needs to be considered. I don't have these figures but I do know that just quoting an absolute number may be sensational but isn't that informative. Congestion is important because we have 4,000 (your figures) casualties, but how many incidents were avoided? How many people didn't have accidents that led to serious consequences? What percentage of journeys resulted in no injury or death?

I think the point being made may rather be that e-bike riders and cyclists share a similar world-view as regards what's acceptable as a rider/ driver of either of these. It's not about the vehicle but its rider.

Clearly driving into anyone if you are able to stop, outwith 'responsibility', isn't a good thing, but I note it always seems to be others 'slamming on brakes' including pedestrians, rather than cyclists. Drivers in cars and vans etc. have to pass hazard awareness tests, cyclists (those who haven't passed driving tests) don't. And of course many cyclists are hazard aware, and I'm sure they also take avoiding action at times, but not very obviously, in my experience. And they are the group on the roads, apart from pedestrians, who are most at risk of serious injury in any incident. Whoever is to blame.

I absolutely did not say that - and you probably know it. Closures in the last 6 months of hospitality venues have indeed cited the last budget as a cause - which is why I suggested those positing a new hospitality option now might be mistaken - but the failures of the prior manifestations were more likely caused by insufficient customers (a point I did make) rather than anything else. I believe the reasons why the fire caused the end of the venue was because the revenues being generated by then were not sufficient to make it worthwhile for repair investment. Nothing to do with Labour at all. If it had been a massively going concern generating profits it would have been repaired (I believe it was insured against fire) - but it had, I believe already ceased trading when the fire occurred. The person who accidentally set fire to it was living rough in the premises environs, as I recall. Although that might have been a subsequent fire after the initial one. Certainly I did happen to visit it in its last days - I was trying to kill time before I met someone - and it was dire and decaying. Clearly not a 'going concern'.