Penguin68

It is not Thames Water's fault that the infrastructure is crumbling, but it is their fault that they seem unable to complete a repair satisfactorily. Even where they replace extensive runs these still fail, in e.g. the South Circular by Horniman or Underhill Road or Woodvale. Both their planned and unplanned work are shoddy to the extreme.

It's not uncommon for these to be under the control of a 'gang-master' who supplies them with materials and takes (most) of the income. Ex offenders can themselves be vulnerable and the fact that they are ex-offenders (offence not disclosed, of course) supplies them with built-in intimidation. They ignore any signs which suggest that the occupier does not buy unsolicited. If we all 'don't buy' then the gang masters may see us as a poor choice of neighbourhood and go elsewhere. Normally these gangs will 'hit' an area over several days. Alerts via fora like these are useful.

Dear Admin The entire Covid Board has now seemed to have disappeared - which seems precipitate. In the 'General' Board there were 5 threads in 2 'pages' of posts (the last 2) which would have been appropriate for an ED Health specific board - so I'm not sure your comment about lack of use is entirely accurate - (some on e.g. parking restrictions in Tessa Jowell I think would be relevant. for instance). There will be at least one more round of vaccinations for the over 50s and clinically vulnerable - and as you and others have implied, a new Covid crisis isn't impossible, given the speed at which the thing evolves. It anyway gave a useful history of what happened and how we locally addressed it. It's a shame the board is gone.

I really didn’t like TJ - the setting is noisy and intimidating it feels like going into hospital. For the purposes of the ONS Covid study, it is a hospital. Do remember that the surgery is co-located with a number of out-stationed hospital departments (e.g. phlebotomy) moved from the old Dulwich Hospital. The GP Surgery is just one of the tenants of the site.

Is there a way a sports ground that is not fully utilised If the sports grounds are allowed to scorch over the summer they will be unplayable in the autumn - assuming no return to 'normal' rainfall levels by then. This is an awful waste of an asset which provides an important part of a rounded education. Granted that many state schools have chosen to squander their sports ground assets by selling them off, when this hasn't happened all schools should be allowed to preserve their open air sports assets. That they are not being used now will anyway allow them to recover from use through the school year. Our lawns can scorch and recover because they are not used as intensely as sports fields, nor do they present any dangers to their users if they are cracked and scorched. Re-seeding, if necessary, domestic lawns is also a smaller expense than full re-seeding of areas used for sports, which require different and more costly levels of care. As mentioned lower down the thread, the waste of water from poorly repaired Thames Water infrastructure (poorly repaired because it always seems to be the same stretches of road where leaks occur) is far more concerning. Figures suggest that approximately 25% of water is still being lost by Thames Water through leaks.

During the very hot weather Veolia seems to be sending their collectors home at 11.00 am - this means that bins unemptied on the correct day will be emptied the day following. In terms of staff wellbeing (and indeed health) this seems the right idea.

Having looked the signs are identical. A cynic might suggest that someone with influence (but not enough to get their 'own' LTN) has managed to convince someone with authority over signage to get a sign which almost achieves the 'LTN effect' of a private road without actually being an LTN. Only those really in the know will be trespassing past their house.

No. You are allowed e.g. to drop patients off at the centre without incurring charges. They note the numbers of parked cars, not cars circulating or dropping off.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/apr/21/thisweekssciencequestions4#:~:text=Burning%20wood%20releases%20all%20sorts,on%20the%20fuel%20being%20used. Possibly related to this type of news....

Had the same problem trying to get Guinness recently in the Moor Park Hotel on Wood Vale Recently? - it hasn't been a pub for at least the last 10 years, if not longer Or was that your point?

If this is the same person who has been described, and indeed named, elsewhere then he appears to have moved from being a nuisance to a danger, and he may indeed need to be arrested in order to be sectioned. However, the police are very poorly equipped to handle mental health issues (and indeed the NHS itself is woefully under-resourced - there are I think only one or two ambulances across London that can handle mental health issues with paramedics trained in psychiatric and psychological health responses. It is not impossible that the man is already under treatment but is not taking his medication, or is exacerbating his problems through drink or (non prescribed) drugs. It is quite likely that he has already been sectioned (possibly more than once). I don't want to live in a society where the mentally ill are simply locked away because they are mentally ill - that seems inherently wrong save in the case of the criminally insane - and yet we seem to have few other remedies. If it is true (I don't know whether it is) that he has been 'treated' but is now ignoring the treatment I am again concerned that we should be able to force treatment on someone. I remember the shock and anger I felt when I first saw 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next'. This is inherently a difficult issue. Which doesn't lessen the shock and distress of the child attacked.

I suspect that you may need to supply 2 other items - (1) what operating system you are using - Android, iphone, Windows, Mac, Chrome, etc. (2) If using a browser, which browser?

He said that he had also been hurt on on the same bike a week before, but the company in question didn't seem to bother. Reading the above it suggests that the rider was on a bike supplied by a third party - possibly the company for whom he was delivering Pizzas, possibly a delivery company. In either case, if the bike was faulty causing an accident then it is an Heath and Safety Issue - being an accident at work which must be reported. The driver being himself injured; the accident clearly did need reporting as a legal requirement - even where he was being treated as self-employed - the 'workplace equipment' was faulty (allegedly). A company with faulty equipment not keeping an (accurate) accident register is breaking the law. There are existing remedies within legislation to take action here, although the driver would be better placed for support if he was a union member (the union does not have to be 'recognised' by an employer to actively support a member in need).

The moped/ driver should have been insured - so there should be a claim on the insurance. If the moped wasn't insured then you may have a claim against the employing company. Even where the brakes failed (i.e. it was not driver error) there is an insurable claim. As you were quite severely injured the police should also consider prosecution if it can be shown that the moped was not properly maintained. (They should do anyway, but they tend not to bother when injuries are only slight, in my experience). However actions against two-wheel drivers always seem more difficult against those on 4 wheels.

All for profit. Yes, well, that is what living in a capitalist society is about. For most actual businesses profit is the key motivating factor. Profit, IMHO, is fine - there are issues about excess profits, of course, where market power allows you to exploit your suppliers (labour and goods) or your customers, but there is legislation to address this. Not always with much muscle or teeth, of course. It is taxes on profits which (partly) pay for much of what we value in life, as well. Without profits you don't get some types of tax income.

PPI killed the NHS - making a fortune out of ‘new builds; charging £200 to change light bulbs in the PPI building for example - all work was charged at an excessive rate to make profit for private companies... This is getting close to being lounged - but PPI had nothing to do with defunding the NHS and everything to do with getting public expenditure 'off the books' - it was a PR exercise, by, mainly, the Labour government. It's just that as the largest receiver of public expenditure the NHS was the most successful target for what was, at best, an accounting obfuscation. Most companies let contracts to other companies for e.g. services. They do so with very tight contractual requirements which are closely vetted by experts in procurement, and with clear cost and performance targets. They employ heavy-weight lawyers to ensure this. They do so, generally, profitably (normally for both contractor and employing company). PPI contracts were, and are, a mess because HMG has no idea how to let or manage contracts (more accurately they forced the NHS to do so under their fiscal rules, but without ensuring they had a proper, commercial, procurement set-up). Government Departments and Nationalised Industries tend to fail to recruit procurement professionals of sufficient calibre to let contracts in a commercial space. PPI was always a bad idea, as it's job was to hide expenditure, not to control it.

Sadly Wes Streeting and Starmer seem ok with private healthcare in the NHS... it’s all very depressing. At one level 'private healthcare' - in the sense that health care is being provided to NHS patients through private contractors as part of the NHS service - has been fundamental to the NHS since its inception in 1948. GPs never 'joined' (as did hospital doctors) the NHS, preferring to remain individual or partnership or company contractors into the NHS, as did both dentists and ophthalmologists. Many laboratories serving the NHS are also, and always have been, non-NHS entities on contract. The core part of the NHS offer - that treatment be 'free' (not charged to) the user at time of need - is what makes the NHS different and special - and that does continue still (in the main, dentistry, eye care and drug prescriptions notwithstanding). How that treatment is delivered, via NHS hospitals (or private hospitals on contract to the NHS) - via private GPs or NHS A&E - via government or private labs is just a matter of process. There is nothing magical, or necessary, in those delivering healthcare being in the employ of government. If the delivery is bad, of poor quality or poor timing is a separate issue - and needs to be addressed whether the deliverer is directly employed by the State or delivering a contract to the State.

Cutting funds to the NHS plus the loss of staff due to Brexit has led to this (Covid not so much, I suspect). Actually, far from cutting funds the Tories (like every government since the 1970s and before), has pumped money into the NHS - frequently at well above inflation, - so increased in real terms. The business model for the NHS was set in 1948 and has effectively not changed since then (with a little tinkering around the edges). Name me a commercial business operating with the same business model for close to the last 75 years and I'll show you a business that went bust 25-50 years ago! And remember that the GP sector (primary Care) has always stood outside the NHS - they are simply private and independent contractors who provide services to the NHS (although mainly trained at the expense of the NHS).

I do think people need to recognise that whilst old people may be able, in theory, to 'work' IT, poor sight (cataracts anyone?) and e.g. annoying things like Parkinson's can get in the way of readily using what can appear 'fiddly' things like smart phones. I'm lucky, in my early 70s that I'm still sufficiently fit that these are not yet a hindrance, but I'm aware that they may become so, even though I'm fully able to know how tech stuff works. So 'think about the old' may well be 'think about the people not fully able' - which disproportionately do include the elderly. Clearly the physically and technically able 'old' may feel patronised by those who plead their presumed problems - but they are not the only ones out there. And there are technophobes - again of all ages but again disproportionately on the aging side. Who should still be able to bank with some convenience.

I particularly enjoyed the weasel comment in the report "The majority of residents in Southwark do not own a car, we are providing facilities for those walking, cycling and using public transport. There are still locations to park for those who need to use a car." - which is comparing the flat, highly public transport supplied inner London part of the borough with a part so far south, hilly and without good public transport that it is virtually not in Southwark at all - and whose car ownership (and needs) much more closely allies to the outer London boroughs it is surrounded by. But then lies and obfuscations are what we expect from this source.

Thanks Mark

The alleged actions may have been unwise, and outwith PO regulations, but (1) there may be a back-story here in mitigation and (2) possibly making a person lose his job (that will really benefit his children, won't it?) and even be prosecuted seems a disproportionate outcome. I'm afraid Covid-19 regulations and alleged breaches of them have brought out the Stasi under the skin in some people. A note on the windscreen might well have been sufficient. Acting to protect children (which is what I assume happened here) may have brought unintended consequences (well, clearly not unintended I suppose) which will be far more damaging to the family.

However; several tables for 4 all with one person with a laptop and spreading can lose a café (if it's 3 tables, say) 9 potential covers. In weather like this - when getting out of the sun and rehydrating may be a clinical necessity this is simply not fair, on other potential customers or the café in question. If you're going to café work - to use their power and air conditioning be prepared to share tables and order frequently.

That was about the arrival of M&S in its place. Many mourned the loss of Iceland too. If we could have had both...

Now that the future of the Forum appears more certain (for which huge thanks!) I wonder if I could boost this? Despite the very high current levels of infection, it is to be hoped that Covid per se does eventually drop below our event horizons. However local health needs and issues of local health provision will not, and a dedicated board to that might obviate the regular pleas from newcomers to the area for advice as to GP surgeries etc. - where previous discussions might be more readily to hand. Of course it would need to be locally specific and not include general discussions about either health itself, or about the NHS etc. in general. Obviously you will have other items much closer to the top of your agenda, but I hope that by the time we start to wonder whether a Covid specific board is still necessary you might have time to think about this.