Penguin68

They are conservative because they don't know what condition your circuit is in i.e. old cable with poor insulation, water ingress, corroded connections, how much is alu/copper wire etc ... lots of variables There is very little aluminium in the whole local network (it was an experiment that didn't really work), I'm not sure there's any locally to ED. The enhanced copper of G Fast only works over very short runs from the cabinet. If offering ADSL they'd (Openreach) normally wipe up any corroded connections. For the FTTC service it is only copper from the last flexibility point (normally a local cabinet). The remainder (back haul to the exchange) will be fibre where 'condition' won't be an issue.

East Dulwich (SE22) was today identified as one of the DO hotspots for poor delivery by the Royal Mail - of course the ED DO is now in Peckham. This is the first time I've seen it in the acknowledged lists of poor delivery performance. My postie is still delivering, but I know I'm missing one weekly journal which hitherto has been delivered at least by Monday (should be the previous Friday).

BT has 3 main broadband offerings, the slowest of which is ADSL - which is an end-to-end copper based technology and the slowest. BT also offers a FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) service - the last leg of this is copper - which runs up to about 70Mgb - badged as (I think) Fibre 1 or 2 - these are the ones shown as Fibre on your chart - and (in some exchanges, but not I think available in ED) full Fibre to the Premise (end-to-end fibre). I suspect that the determinant is which BT exchange you are served by (you can no longer tell that just by the numbering range). As the underlying service is delivered by BT Openreach you are right that if BT cannot supply the speed you want, in this area it is only Virgin (actually the US Cable company consortium formerly known as NTL) that could - all other suppliers are virtual network operators relying on the underlying BT Openreach network.

So if TFL commissions independent academic research it?s automatically compromised? What are you talking about? You don?t want them to fund research into transport in London? The researcher is clearly independent of TfL - but is a participating advocate for a particular set of views and is therefore not, I would argue, 'an independent researcher; as regards the topic being researched. If the NHS commissioned the Chair of Forest to undertake research on the impact of smoking policy would you be happy?

I assume they must be doing Moderna, as they were giving Pfizer, certainly earlier on, when people were having first and second jabs TJ is giving Pfizer, or at least they were - and they gave 1st and 2nd jabs as AZ for those over 50. (First hand, or first arm, knowledge of both.) There is no requirement to mix vaccines between initial vaccination and booster - but it was felt that MRNA vaccines might be better for boosters - and those are Pfizer and Moderna. So anyone who had AZ initially would get a mix, those who had Pfizer wouldn't (necessarily).

As I've said before, most (but not all) walks in ED are covered by permanent staff, but some rely on overtime and 'cover' staff. When permanent staff are ill, on holiday or taking rest days their walks are frequently not covered - as the Peckham DO has absolutely no slack. With Covid sickness levels are high(er) than normal, so walks are more frequently uncovered. Hence some residents get occasional poor service, and some (on uncovered walks) regular poor service. With more DOs (before a number including 'our own' were closed) there was more slack to be taken up when staffing cover was down.

What is driving your doubt? Is it just stuff you read, you hear, or is it evidence-based? I reported a break-in next door (to which the police did attend) - I provided the police with photographs of the young men actually breaking in, and taking stuff away - a neighbour took photographs of the get-away vehicle - all were provided to the police who in fact did trace the vehicle, but didn't then pursue the case - my photographs and my neighbours being 'insufficient' for them to make the case. The value of the stolen goods was in fact low, so it wasn't worth their effort. In this road rage case the police did not ask for any ID of the victim, or the car, relying on the victim, at some later stage, to report the case. They certainly have never followed up with my daughter, who was a witness and who provided her contact details to the police. This does suggest a certain lack of interest.

I may be wrong but I don?t think we readers have got any idea if the Foresthill rd cyclist has contacted the police. My daughter, who pointlessly, as it turned out, reported the attack 'in real time' as it were, to the police certainly doesn't know - she provided her pictures (off her phone) to the victim. I suspect he may have been too shocked to do so. Even with pictures of the incident and the registration number I very much doubt (other than some boiler plate from 'victim support') that much, if anything, will be done about it.

Just to clarify, my daughter reported this incident to the police, who, as soon as they ascertained that the victim was not seriously injured advised that he could report the attack using an on-line form. As the victim was a stranger to my daughter, who knew neither his name, address or telephone number (and therefore did not give these to the police) I would be interested to know how they might have proactively pursued (or investigated) this. The scene of crime (and it was a crime) at the time had bicycle parts strewn over the road. Now dispersed and not available for evidence. And the people who viewed the crime (and might have stayed around to give evidence had the police deigned to turn up) are also dispersed. I don't know all the facts, of course, but as my daughter was the contact who called the police, as she was a witness (a rather shocked witness) to the whole attack I believe I am quite close to 'the facts' - close enough anyway to have drawn a conclusion about the marked lack of police involvement or interest in such an attack.

Whilst I agree that the motorist should be made to pay for the damage to the bike (by the way, I'm not sure insurance will necessarily pay out for damage caused by the criminal intent of the insured) I believe that he should not be licensed to drive, if he cannot contain his rage for a 'slight' by another road user (as described to me by my daughter, I was not myself a witness). He is a danger on the road and shouldn't be allowed to drive.

My adult daughter was witness this afternoon to a car driver intentionally running into a cyclist (who had overtaken him in a queue of traffic at the lights) hitting him against a parked car several times and running over and destroying his bike. He then drove off. There were many witnesses, a number, including my daughter, photographed the event and his reg. number. My daughter phoned the police, but on learning that the cyclist wasn't severely injured (bruised and shaken I'm guessing, as it was all at low speed) they said this wasn't the sort of incident they would come out to - despite the fact that the cyclist had been assaulted by a man in a car, who had gone on to intentionally total his bike - which makes that assault leading to actual bodily harm and criminal damage in my book. Obviously terrible for the poor cyclist (but a lot of people gave support and e.g. shared their photographs and evidence of the event) - but what sort of service is the Met giving us? Too busy chasing up year-old office parties to bother with trivia like this no doubt (and yes, I know those are different branches of the Met, but really!).

That makes sense, but how are new builds allocated to bands? At actual value or at an adjusted 1991 type rate? This may help https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understand-how-council-tax-bands-are-assessed

Maybe this is the problem? Council tax bands have been static since 1991???!!! So, a property in Dulwich which now on avg goes for upwards of a million pounds might still be banded as what the value was in 1991? The council's fiscal needs are identified and then a rate is set pro-rata by tax band. It is the relationship of tax bands (and the number of premises in each band) and not their actual value at any one time which is key. Each band is allocated a %age of the needed revenue, taking account the number of properties in each band. There is an issue about whether there need to be some additional bands, certainly - but the changes in house prices over time are not an issue per se. You can imagine scenarios where, for instance, the price of one bed flats was static, but of 5 bed detached houses increased by 200% so that an imbalance emerged, but so long as prices are moving generally in line with each other this shouldn't be a problem. Imagine that the 'price' bands were colour codes - so that some premises are 'white' some 'yellow' some 'red' some 'green' some 'purple' and so on. Purple houses pay tax at 4 times the rate of white houses (say) and that's always true, however much a purple house now costs (or a white one). Effectively the 1991 valuations are (treated as) colours.

Has anyone had any post (letters etc.) today ? Yes, my postie is back from his 10 days leave. I suspect (I don't know) that leave has been discouraged in the last weeks before Christmas, which means many took leave owing earlier which may explain poor service just around now. As there is no slack at all for cover. Where rules only allow 5 days carry-over for leave, and if the leave-year ends at the year end (but it used for the Post Office I know to end at the end of March, but may have been changed more recently) you may understand while people may be taking time off. Hopefully things will get back to normal (even for those walks where 'normal' hasn't been acceptable in the last months with no regular postie).

2) Streets don't seem clean anymore and dog mess is everywhere I don't think the council can really be blamed for this, under current legislation - it is dog owners (or walkers) with a complete disregard for their fellow citizens - possibly lock-down dogs bought by people who don't know (or care) how to look after them in a suburban context. If I was to look for 'wasted' expenditure it would be on council dog wardens policing poo. I agree that there is more about, of course. In Iceland (Reykjav?k) dogs can only be owned if the all the neighbours agree - and they can only be walked in one area alone (as regards pooing). I'm not sure we are communitaire enough for that here.

( unrelated to traffic, also on the agenda is for Southwark to set up its own in house construction company to build council housing). I lived in Lambeth during Red Ted Knight's rule. They had an in-house building business - notorious for corruption. This bodes extremely badly. Housing construction is a non-trivial business. Many councils (in the 1920s and 1930s) had quite good in-house firms - but post-war there is little experience or understanding within councils of what qualifies as 'good'.

How very unlucky to have had such a lot of problems in two trips. I gave up taking the 176 into the West End - it always terminated (in the evenings) on Waterloo Bridge, wherever it said it was going when I got on.

Southwark has one of the lowest rates of car ownership anywhere in the country. Most households don't have a car. It's about 0.4 cars per house, maybe less now. That is a borough wide figure - and the comparatively populous north of the borough is well supplied with bus, tube and rail routes. The south of the borough, and particularly the deep south (here) is vey much less well supplied, and I believe car ownership in our neck of the woods is much closer to e.g. the Bromley figures - not surprisingly as our exposure to public transport provision is similar.

The post box local to me seems to be regularly collected. The problems we have in ED are to do with the Delivery Offices - the PO box collections (and the work of the London Sorting Office) seem to be operating relatively smoothly. I suspect delivery failures are to do with understaffing in Delivery offices and on the Post Peoples' Walks. Certainly that's true for ED. My regular postie is on a 10 day holiday - and we've seen no deliveries in several days since we went on leave, although the PO guy delivering parcels today said we might get a mail delivery tomorrow. But there is no slack for cover (holidays/ sick) at all, and some rounds have no one permanent on them.

I can't see these new rules sticking if they are not policed and enforced If you are referring to the latest regulations which came into force this (Tuesday, 30th November) morning - then they only apply to mask wearing in shops and on public transport - not the NHS. The Tessa Jowell centre (the site owned by the Department of Health) is very much a mixed economy - with community services, hospital services and GP services - and (I'm guessing) their cleaning staff are not directly employed by the NHS at all (as they wouldn't be in a normal GP Surgery, for instance). The Centre will have 'rules' for staff (carrying no legal weight) - but whatever they are doing they will not be in breach (or in compliance, for that matter) with the new 'legal' rules announced.

There are clearly differences of opinion about the utility of mask wearing - although it is commonly believed that the most risky behaviour (which therefore calls for mask wearing) is to stay within 2 metres of someone else for over 10 minutes in an unventilated space. The amount of infection that can be shown to result from contact with a contaminated surface is far less than was first thought - most infections seem to arise from aerosol spray. The cleaners (presumably working on their own and not within 2 metres of others on a continuous basis) were probably acting relatively safely - as were the reception staff processing through the building, which is, as I recall, quite well ventilated and open plan - and presumably again not within two metres of others for an extended period. They may anyway be required to take a lateral flow test before coming into work (as many in health care do). I am not sure that anyone would normally claim that it was 'safer' not to wear a mask (unless clinically exempt) - although to rely on mask wearing (rather than normal hygiene, social distancing, being in ventilated spaces and vaccination) would clearly be foolish. Generally mask wearing will make more sense when the traffic (people about) is higher or when you are in closely confined, unventilated spaces. Most of Tessa Jowell, particularly first thing when the cleaners are still about, probably doesn't qualify. You can argue that mask wearing is about social signalling - and hence a form of courtesy - but that (may) be a different issue.

The front section is the car park, isn't it? I believe so

Renata - that's been really useful - did Veolia give any indication whether, when or if they are going to introduce anaerobic digesters (for kitchen waste) into the system? - rather than just combining kitchen and garden waste for composting? At the moment the separation we are obliged to undertake is not actually matched by Veolia, who treat both types together. I know Veolia do operate digesters in some areas. Also, I'm assuming that when you write 'even the darker almost black ones are now recyclable' you mean that the actual black ones still can't be recycled.

TJHC is indeed, I believe, an NHS Community Care (GP Consortium) site for Covid vaccinations so wouldn't be on any general NHS vaccination list. It is used just for the GP practices in the consortium, to consolidate Covid vaccinations in one place for that Group of surgeries. Nominally I believe only patients of those practices are called up there.

Are you therefore in favour of Southwark being a private property developer using council land and money to build luxury flats? Actually, and I'm not saying this is the case here, but if Southwark was using income from the 'luxury' flat owners to pay for the costs of building the social housing (i.e. Southwark gets appreciable amounts of social housing for no net cost to the council tax payer) I would be relatively relaxed. Increasing social housing availability at (effectively) no cost seems a win:win. Particularly at a time when economic constraints are significant on councils. Of course there needs to be a balance here - commercial property developers, when they are obliged to include social housing within new developments tend to include the minimum they can get away with, whereas I would expect a council to be looking for no additional profits from the private housing over and above meeting the costs of the social housing.