Penguin68

Poison has reputedly been left out to poison the rat population in Peckham Rye, but I think Southwark denied it was anything to do with them. Do remember also the publicity for a South London cat killer that turned out to be an urban myth.

I've just checked on my NHS app, it shows that I've had the vaccine but doesn't record which it was. But then, it didn't last autumn and I was then given the record of what I'd had. Presumably this is a cost saving measure. I never get details of what flu vaccine I get or who made it.

I got no information either from the pharmacy in Forest Hill Road

Remember also that, particularly for very young guests publicans may prefer them to be in specific areas and not in every space, even where they are allowed in more generally.

https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-young-people-law

Girobank was genuinely innovative, regarding the addressed customer base (significantly the previously unbanked) - but this would have been an ideally outsourced operation to an existing bank which already had the operational systems (and the regulatory experts) to manage a bank for someone else at marginal cost. The Post Office - when you consider the issues over the Horizon software - never originally designed by ICL/ Fujitsu for the application it ran - is a very good reason why the Post Office being involved in banking was long-term a bad idea. To get back to the topic of this thread, the Horizon debacle is still not over (the software system is still in place) - most of the wrongly penalised sub-postmasters are still out of pocket - I'm not sure I would be leaping to take on the franchise being offered in Lordship Lane.

If you want to look for blame, look at McKinsey's. It was their model of separating cost and profit centres which started the restructuring of the Post Office - once BT was fully separated off - into Lines of Business - Parcels; Mail Delivery and Retail outlets (set aside the whole Giro Bank nonsense). Once you separate out these lines of business and make them 'stand-alone' you immediately make them vulnerable to sell off and additionally, by separating the 'businesses' make each stand or fall on their own, without cross subsidy. The Post Office took on banking and some government outsourced activity - selling licences and passports etc. as additional revenue streams to cross subsidize the postal services, and to offer an incentive to outsourced sub post offices. As a single 'comms' delivery business the Post Office (which included the telcom business) made financial sense. Start separating elements off and it doesn't. Getting rid of 'non profitable' activity makes sense in a purely commercial environment, but not in one which is also about overall national benefit - where having an affordable and effective communications (in its largest sense) business is to the national benefit. Of course, the fact the the Government treated the highly profitable telecoms business as a cash cow (BT had a negative PSBR - public sector borrowing requirement - which meant far from the public purse funding investment in infrastructure BT had to lend the government money every year from it's operating surplus) meant that services were terrible and the improvement following privatisation was simply the effect of BT now being able to invest in infrastructure - which is why (partly) its service quality soared in the years following privatisation. I was working for BT through this period and saw what was happening there.

I think it is less easy/ more expensive to fence off the Common, as opposed to the nicer parts, which is why our nicer parts are hawked off to Gala. Why should we have access to nicer parts of our park in summer when we might most like to have access if it can be monetised. It's ironic really that this council is so Trumpy.

I was implying that it might have been a completely empty lorry being transferred somewhere and therefore being top heavy. As it has no council livery. Indeed I pretty much said that.

This photo does not show the lorry wearing the livery those which collect in our bit of Southwark wear, which suggests it was not a lorry in use on a Southwark contract, which might explain why the council appeared to have no knowledge of it. It could have been running empty which may mean it was top heavy and more vulnerable at any speed if cornering, even legal speeds if the corner was tight. No rubbish seems to have come out of it in the incident.

The two most likely reasons for over-turning would either be speed or loading related (possibly both). A burst tyre at just the wrong time (during a turn) might also cause this, but I think these lorries have doubled-up tyres. [The photo shows the tyres intact, so it won't be that] The other main reason for large vehicles over-turning (caught by wind) is unlikely on this occasion.

Needs to be taken in context with the adjacent road closure as part of the LTN initiative in general not supported, some would suggest, by all those living in the roads so closed.

This is an expensive piece of work at a time when local authorities are cash strapped. Unlike the work being done at the junction of the South Circular with Lordship Lane and London Road, which follows at least 20 years of local agitation in favour of safe pedestrian crossings there I know of no local requests for wider pavements outside the new M&S. (Happy to stand corrected). And certainly no reports of near misses or worse - so close to a controlled crossing place. So not proceeding at all would certainly be an option for what appears to be works not a response to public outcry but (possibly) part of (widely known) an anti-car policy being pursued by the council. This is very much, at best, a 'nice to' not a 'need to' exercise.

I think this is somewhat unfair - it is entirely reasonable to worry about unintended consequences of actions however well-meaning in intent (if these were!). Even 10 years ago I would not have worried that widened pavements would become a thoroughfare for bikes, let alone electric powered ones, yet we see this increasingly across the borough. And the growth of bike-assisted mugging is certainly also a thing. At least sticking to the far side of the pavement (away from the road side) was a protection, but perhaps less so now. Either of these cannot be argued by anyone, even surely the cycling lobby, to be 'an improvement' for pedestrians.

There is also I believe some evidence that students are choosing to go to universities, where they do, closer to home so as to avoid additional costs by living at home. Personally I think this is a mistake - being an undergraduate is a first chance for independence - but if economics and costs are making this so the demand for accommodation such as this will again be weakened.

It only counts as housing as regards the Southwark shortfall of affordable homes if it isn't student one room bedsits for short term rent!

People do of course use the station. And the South Circular is one of the last roads left open in SE22.

In an area which (thank goodness) is stuffed with good and acceptable restaurants (East, West and Central Dulwich) Belair would have to be a real destination - hence I suggested the need for a very high quality offering which would encourage visitors to go in search of it. A restaurant next to a station is a very different beast than a country house down a side street. I know about it because I live, and have lived for nearly 40 years, pretty close. And I have gone there on a number of occasions in its different guises. Sometimes with great enjoyment, other times less so. But for a site like that to work it must deliver its promise, which because of the nature and cost of the site will have to be both high-end and not very crowded, which means high prices and probably aiming for at least twice the covers occupation most nights and some lunches. Frankly, it can't live on local trade alone (because there are too many good alternatives) - so it has to build a rep for people to travel there, and again and again.

But the bulk of the build is for student accommodation, with just 'some' affordable housing which will, if history is anything to go by, become much less once the scheme is started. Southwark has, I believe, quite a number of empty properties which are not in use. The number of people on Southwark's waiting list is frankly irrelevant to this scheme, which won't touch the surface. This isn't 'new housing' which is visible, but commercially profitable student bedsits (at least, the developers hope it will be commercially profitable).

I had thought it was to the actor Gary Cady, but apologies if that is wrong. The 'problem' with it as a restaurant venue is that it is built, as it were, to offer a 'country house' experience, but it is in an area where there is no passing trade, but where, quite close, there is a plethora of good restaurants. It therefore does not have a compelling niche or offer. When it's the only posh game in town, driving out to a country house venue has obvious attractions, but not when you can readily choose many other offers relatively close. It would only work if it could get a ** or *** Michelin rep, but it's never been able to build that. Hence looking for wedding or more dubious gigs. It has offered good 'nights' (such as night-club style magic performances) but it can't keep up sufficient regularity to build a loyal customer base. Ideally it needs, perhaps, an excellent existing up-market restaurant brand to move there, but again its positioning away from good public transport (West Dulwich doesn't have enough trains) doesn't make a compelling offer in London.

Students don't pay council tax so they will be living on an area to which they make no contribution,other than probably quite low levels of profitability for local businesses and some VAT and possibly tobacco and alcohol duty. Those tax payments go to Central not local government.

Is this your department which is being criticised then?

I think it was rather that the works were destroying the existing under pavement installations which were then needing reinstatement. As this work doesn't seem to be described in the letter I received showing scheduling it wouldn't surprise me if the work was also a surprise to the utilities with under pavement infrastructure who are now rushing to recover the situation. Broadband fibre is easily run (or blown) from 'manhole' flexibility points and doesn't need additional works to allow that. I'm guessing existing copper is being recovered to create more space. So I don't think this is clever planning rather more than TFL works screwing up other utilities who are having to install e.g. new cable chambers because their existing ones have been compromised by the works.

Our current councillors follow a rather opposite course, in my view. They certainly don't respect the views of their electorate.

We receive (should receive) 20-30 items of post a week, some subscription magazines, catalogues and (about a third) normal business mail (personal mail is far less frequent, save over Christmas and birthdays). This tends to arrive in only two (more frequently one) delivery. Magazines are invariably late, often up to a week late. Not good for political weeklies. This has been my 'steady state' position following much worse frequency on the closure of the real ED Delivery Office, and of course Covid. There seems little point in complaining any longer - to anyone. There will be a sudden flurry of mail delivered, of course, in the few days after an MP intervention, and then it falls back into rubbish deliveries. It is a combination of senior management focus on high(er) value parcel and special delivery items (which I do get more regularly) which is a management decision, under-employment (vacancies) of posties and, I believe, extremely poor local management of what resources Royal Mail actually has in Peckham. I don't now believe it is curable. I do believe that no one in Royal Mail management gives a sh*t!