Penguin68

It seems clear that this is not (just) about a revenue grab in an area which is not restricted by law as to the allowable %age increases, although clearly it is about that, but also about the council's clear intention to attack private car (but actually any vehicle) ownership in Southwark, possibly at least arguably reasonable as regards leisure use vehicles in the north of the borough, very well served by public transport (at least at the moment, till TFL decides otherwise) and sufficiently flat for fit young cyclists to be able to manage easily - but not in the hilly south where what public transport we have (including bus and train frequency) is swiftly evaporating. It is also an attack (but why would 'they' care?) on the working man who needs a vehicle to get to work and transport stuff for work (as is the ULEZ extension) - but the Labour party in London is not now made up of working people but of a professional middle class apparat who have no need to use vehicles for work, and cannot therefore sympathise with those who do.

Operatives were checking BT man holes (cable chambers) along my length of Underhill last week and confirmed they were checking cable ducts were clear for blown fibre, and that this would provide FTTP. He also said that they were not planning, at the moment, to switch off the analogue signal locally (yet). It is the analogue signal that carries PSTN services - digital voice is packet switched.

Because they are under attack from those who disapprove of their live-style/ chosen hobby - or profession. I agree about discussions of the merits of giving the oxygen of publicity to rather sad people who are frightened of difference, but that doesn't mean that those under attack shouldn't have support. If you see six people who hate you, but 20 who support you, you feel less bullied.

I have for some time been saying (from their own statements) that it is part of the Labour Party's policy in Southwark to drive out privately owned cars from the borough. All their actions (LTNs etc; spreading CPZs) have been in aid of this. Only excluding traffic from outside schools at start and finish of the school day can be seen as having another reason (safety) and I'm sure its contribution to the anti-private vehicle policy will have helped councillors make decisions in this area too. When they introduced CPZs into Dulwich it was always clear that once they had sufficient weight they would whack up the charges as far as they could - to punish us for having the temerity of being able to afford cars and choosing not to live in an area with comparatively poor public transport (compared at least to the north of the borough). This is NOT about air quality (and never was), it is about social engineering. And punishing the Kulaks.

Sorry, you said you'd been approached and warned, you did not say it was part of the exercise elsewhere reported of up to 8 uniformed officers in the cemetery. If you were breaching regulations then the police would anyway have warned you, even if they were in the cemetery for other reasons. The discussion was whether 8 officers just for dog-walking might not be overkill. I offered another reason for a bevy of officers to be present, but they'd hardly avoid picking up on a possible breach of regulations if they saw one.

Not all the LL shops that closed around the time that the DKH Sainsbury's opened were necessarily great. The shops that have replaced them offer a wider range and/ or better value than Sainsbury's, or some other USP - that's what competition can do. Trade has come back to LL as the DKH Sainsbury's has reduced some of their range (i.e. no butcher's or wet fish or deli counters). Over time this has benefitted us all.

3 PCSOs seems commensurate with the issues adumbrated on, the somewhat larger police squad described rather less so. In general I have found that PCSOs patrol at the least in pairs.

If you mean about the increased incidence of drug dealing in ED, sadly no (and that includes outside (some) schools! The possibility that the cemetery is being used for dealing is speculation, certainly, but the very fact that you may consider it an unlikely venue might, for the less stupid dealer, be an attraction. Clients for drugs quite quickly find out where to buy. At the moment dealers parked in cars in suburban streets are quite visible, perhaps someone sitting on a bench in a cemetery less so.

Although this could be dog-related policing I know that there are also real problems locally with drug dealing - during the day a cemetery is not a bad place to set up your stall if you're a dealer, I'm guessing. So maybe cut the plod a little slack, unless you know for certain this is 'get-dog-walkers-week'.

This is almost certainly gross profit (basically profit as a %age of food/ beverage costs). It's the owners mark-up over the bought-in food and beverage costs. It ignores overheads (rent, rates and other taxes, insurance, capital costs of paying for equipment, heat, light and power etc. etc.) It may also ignore staff costs, though these may be treated as variable costs. For most competitive businesses (i.e. not monopolies) net profit will be around 7-15% - much less and the business will go bust, much more (over any reasonable time period) and the business will be competed out of the market. Many larger companies quote EBITDA (Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization) but I doubt cafes bother.

https://www.pbspettravel.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-terrapins-and-turtles/#:~:text=ponds and streams.-,Appearance,develop impressive claws in time.

They will have been initially released (by pet owners when they got too big to be kept), but I think they are feral and breeding now. This link suggests that whist at the limit of their range, they can survive and even thrive in parts of the UK, although, as I said, not being 'native' https://www.terrapins.co.uk/general-information/terrapins-in-the-wild/#:~:text=Terrapins thrive in brackish water,water mixes with fresh water.

Just a heads-up that my 3 months old Faraday Pouch (for car keys) just failed - luckily I was aware of this and was able to move my key fob to the second pouch set which still works. But it's worthwhile trying to open the car with the fob in the pouch just to make sure it's still working. These failures are not unknown - the mesh inside the pouch becomes compromised through use, apparently, But don't rely on them without testing. There are regular bouts of thefts of key-less entry cars (you do need specialist equipment to 'steal' the signal) - one at least was stolen from my ED road last year with the owner insisting that the key was in its pouch at the time!

He is also, or maybe instead of, buying a house in Oxfordshire. That was being quoted around the £4m mark. I wouldn't be holding my breathe to see him in SE London any time soon.

The key issue for a kitchen will be where the services (water, drainage, gas, electricity) run - these may need diverting etc. For any rooms on the ground flor (assuming no basement) there will then be issues about where the foundations are (how deep) and where any damp-proof course is. Lowering the floor beneath the foundations in general would not be a good call. However it might be an opportunity, if you take the floor deeper, to insert an insulating layer which can be a good idea. Is your kitchen floor laid directly on earth, or are there floor boards? Without proper examination I suspect it might be quite difficult for a builder to give a cost, unless they have done this type of work on your type of house in the area, before. I am sure this is not a DIY type of project, unless you have good building skills and knowledge.

It is wholly naïve to assume that the cost of preparing a meal is (just) the cost of the raw ingredients. The cooking consumes fuel (and the cooker and cookware, refrigerators etc. etc. have to be bought) - the cook has wages and NI, as do the servers - the land and buildings have associated costs - it is very normal for a restaurant raw ingredients to form only a small portion of the costs of preparing and delivering the food. There are, it is true, both fixed and variable costs - and most of the variable costs of preparing are the ingredients - the others being overheads and costs like wages. In general net profit (once direct costs and overheads have been allocated) will run between 5% and 15% - any less and the business will go bust, much more and competitors will move in to steal the business as they will be able to under-cut prices. Antique businesses price at 100% 'mark-up' of the cost of the item to them (in general) - but 'price' here is a negotiating start-point - and mostly they have to pay (in terms of opportunity cost, which is a real cost) for items which do not sell quickly, as their capital will be tied-up in these, and earning nothing until a sale is made. The economics of running businesses (including retail businesses) is far from simple. Amended to add that businesses open all day (e.g. cafes and shops) are also 'paying' for the times they are empty and not trading - when empty they are no just not making money, but effectively (heat, light, wages, rent, rates etc.) losing money.

The point I was trying to make is that, unless others know for certain, it may well be that Farmer's either owns their shop, or has it on a long and favourable lease. Business rentals are expensive, and not in the main getting cheaper, but it would be wrong to assume that all business properties are rented (or leased). Where they are not, then as a business on-cost the cost of ownership is different - there is still a cost of capital but it is made up of costs of upkeep (that would normally be the owner's responsibility) and the opportunity cost of not realising the capital value of the property. That opportunity cost is why firms sometimes operate sale and lease back options. Oh, and not all properties in SE22 are owned (or ever were owned) by Dulwich Estates. Business rates will still be an issue, as will increasing costs of e.g. power - although Farmer's (unlike say a restaurant with cooking, heating and refrigeration costs) will have more limited power costs - mainly lighting, with limited (I'm guessing) expenditure on heating. Cost models for shops such as Farmer's are very different from restaurants (and, in response to an earlier post, although the 'mark-up' of charges for food is very much higher than for the food's raw ingredients in restaurants the costs of producing prepared food, including storage and so on is significant over and above the raw ingredient cost). Where Farmer's costs are probably significant is in the cost of storing (shelving costs) their very wide range of products - which is also their USP. Some items will hang about in the shop for some time before their price is realised. Skill in stocking and ordering will be a key quality here, especially as, I'm guessing, unlike Poundland they won't have access to sophisticated EPOS systems and ordering algorithms to help them.

You are making the assumption (unless you know) that Farmer's is a tenant or leaseholder. As they have been in place for so long it is not impossible that they own the property. In which case their big fixed overhead will be just business rates rather than rates and rent. They will still need to price so as to cover fixed and variable costs together with an 'allowance' for profits. Even if they are a leaseholder the terms and length of their lease may be such that 'current' levels of leaseholder costs are not relevant to their particular cost model.

A discussion on the targeting Poundland may be choosing, and the relevance of its offer to the store catchment area seems perfectly reasonable,; ad hominem attacks on different social classes (as perceived by different individuals) less so. Perhaps it is time for the thread to be either lounged or ended? At the least, let's wait awhile until the offer has settled down to comment on whether the shop now brings benefits, or not, to those frequenting LL and ED.

Not in any way to excuse or belittle what has happened here, but when my children were teenagers (20 and more years ago) such muggings were very common (and just as awful to suffer) - I can recall one (male) friend of my children reckoning he and his friends were mugged for phones every 3 or 4 months! That sort of crime is far less now, it seems (phones aren't such a catch now, I'm guessing). Let's hope this is not the start of another upswing. My younger daughter's phone was in such a battered state that when she was last mugged (the second or third attack she suffered) the mugger gave it back, urging her to persuade her father to get her a better phone!

If ever there was (apparently) a 'C2DE' shop in LL it is Farmer's - but I doubt if any local resident (and particular those ABC1s who understand value and service - which is often how they got to be ABC1s) has eschewed it because its stock-in-trade is at the demotic end of the range - it offers a huge selection of good value items. Poundland will succeed locally where it matches its range with the needs of its addressed customer base. I suspect its looking very closely now at what is selling (and what not) and adjusting accordingly. That's how it got to be successful in the first place. Its primary USP is of course 'affordability', but that only works when what is affordable is also what is wanted. Woolworth's made the mistake of failing, eventually, to offer what was wanted by its addressable customer base. It may be that is also true of Iceland, which is still closing outlets as Poundland opens them. Look at the Poundland offer in LL in 4-6 weeks time. If they're any good at their job it will have started to settle on what is wanted locally - i.e. what has been selling. For those interested in marketing taking pictures of the offer now, and then, may be illuminating. (And if it isn't, I wouldn't be investing in the firm myself). However good their pre-opening research has been, it's only live punters with live inventory that tell the real story.

The view at night on Underhill at the crest of the hill by Camberwell Old Cemetery looking North towards the BT Tower and the London Eye with all tall buildings illuminated with red warning lights. Similarly there is a good view from Overhill Road of the O2 (formerly Millennium) Dome.

The John Lewis Group is going through some grief at the moment - this may well be a commentary on that rather than changed aspirations and demographics in ED. Additionally I do not know the 'back-office' footprint on the new Poundland site, but it may still be too small for a Waitrose. Waitrose stock will be substantially weighted to the perishable which will need to be restocked on a daily basis - whereas Poundland will operate on a different stocking profile.

Update. I applied for my permit on the day I received the email notification and made the initial post here. I received my permit yesterday (15th March).

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/flaw-in-roadside-counters-for-low-traffic-schemes-j6wbwvzjn This might work. Apologies if not.