Penguin68

I think delivery problems are chiefly for post, not parcel post, as regards delivery by Royal Mail. However do remember that large parcels are delivered, or not, by Parcel Force, which is a separate operating company from Royal Mail. But I think 'Royal Mail' should mean what it says, in which case parcel delivery is prioritised over normal letter post

There was also an off licence I think in the 1980s. Indeed the whole row was shops, now only two left. The CTN couldn't survive once it lost the sub post office trade.

That's per dozen, not just one pint. 2/6 (12.5p) was the price per pint of good bitter in 1968!

Trying to divert attention eh Mal?

I had thought it was possible to cross-connect once in, happy to stand corrected. It's not a facility I use.

For that to work they would need separately monitored entrances to the pool and gym sections - with no cross-over allowed between them (and separate changing rooms perhaps?). And gyms actually make their money from people not using them. 'Members but not users'. Of course what you suggest would be sensible and convenient as regards the members - but that isn't the game they're in, is it?

I think it was me saying I lived in Underhill and then pointed out things that were no longer there. Mal appears to have picked up on that and started a new thread. But he only ever claimed to have passed through Underhill I believe. Librettos is probably the best butcher in ED. It opens on very declared hours. It shuts over a longish break in August because most of its customers are away enough to make opening loss making. It was open throughout lock down and a life saver then. Kim Libretto has served the district for 40+ years when he bought the shop as a going concern. As it very much still is. As a sole trader with no staff he closes for lunch for obvious reasons.

Did you write it?

Clearly their 'nuclear' intent to impose blanket CPZs across the borough - which were overtly not triggered by parking pressures (the only legal justification) but for political (equal pain) and clearly revenue generation intent - both illegal reasons - I'm guessing they were advised of this by their lawyers as something which might then call into question all the borough CPZs and have now gone back to their sleight of hand approaches - piecemeal and allowing their cohorts of willing idiots to 'vote' willy nilly and without regard to actual 'interest' in any proceedings, but with sufficient deniability that they can claim anything for any result. There are many good things that the borough does, but these do not excuse or validate their underhand double dealing as regards privately owned vehicles in the south of the borough comparatively poorly served by alternates - and where the topology militates against the human powered alternatives they favour.

But also note that water tables in London have been rising as a consequence of industry closing down. A bit swings and roundabouts. And removing trees as well can cause movement.

As the Moor Park Hotel has been closed and converted to flats for at least 10-15 years, and was a seedy dive for some years before that, its glory days long past, you either have a Tardis or you are not as much a local frequenter as you imply. Oh, and Wood Vale News has been closed almost as long. Newspapers are still available from the Wood Vale supermarket.

Before we all get to irated about all this, it does seem likely, based on my own observation (I quite regularly have to use that road to access, eg. Croydon and places south) that it isn't being used by cyclists, at least not noticeably. I can quite honestly say that I have not seen a cyclist in the dedicated space for - well, I can't remember seeing one at all (although I do avoid rush hour when I can). It clearly does slow traffic down, it clearly doesn''t actually benefit many real cyclists (and indeed its topography would militate against regular both-way use, save by the very fittest). So it was either a trojan horse to get speeds reduced on that road or (and?) it was a complete waste of money as regards meeting cycling needs - it certainly wouldn't have brought new and inexperienced cyclists out. All those encouraged to vote 'for' who weren't local wouldn't have know that, of course. Because it remains broadly unused its actual effect is to annoy other road users, because it is visibly pointless, and, I believe, gets the cycling lobby a bad name. It seems a greedy take of road space which isn't actually being used by its dedicated users. It turns out that when quite steep hills are in question - 'build the road and they will come' isn't actually true.

I actually live in Underhill, you don't even live in Southwark. I recognise that you are trolling here, but sometimes you step over the mark, as you have done here.

It used to be until the Dulwich LTN was implemented. Now it's one of the few routes to the South Circular.

Underhill (I live in it) already now has rush hour queues, particularly in the evening, of traffic trying to get onto the only East;West route in Dulwich left after the Village closures, the A205 - to further allow right turn queues into it, presumably for the morning rush for traffic heading intro East Dulwich up the London Road would be additionally intolerable - we have the overspill already from the now traffic free LTN routes. Of course such right hand turns would be dangerous across the A205 at that point, and would need road re-configuration and yet another set of lights - which I'm sure cyclists would ignore as usual. In this case almost certainly to their personal detriment. And right hand turns into Underhill would also, I'm guessing, make a complete mess of the crossing configuration now being worked (I use that word quite wrongly) on at the Lordship Lane/ A205 junction.

Trees in streets can cause e.g. boundary wall disturbance and issues around the trunks, but remember that tree roots in the main go down, so are unlikely to directly disturb foundations of houses, although they can, on clay soils, have some impact on water tables which may consequently cause movement. However trees, with most older houses, even where they may show some cracking are often not actually materially disposed to cause real problems (which more often are caused by building on hillside slopes etc.). We had slight cracks in a front wall facing the street when we bought our house nearly 40 years ago, the cracks have now effectively closed and over those 40 years we have had no subsidence issues at all, (fingers of course still firmly crossed). Insurers love subsidence and 'rising damp' as it allows them to whack up premiums without any real risk to themselves. Unless you now have clear and visible problems I really wouldn't worry. And I'd certainly not start any process which may only result in your paying much higher premiums, or making your house unsaleable in the future.

It is not that bikes on pavements cause 'massive' dangers now, and nobody I think has suggested that they do, but they do pose real risk of injury to pedestrian pavement users - and bicycle accidents do have the capability of killing or injuring severely even though this is a rare occurrence. The more pavement cycling occurs, of course, and the more cyclists, and particularly electric cyclists, use pavements the more frequently real damage will be caused. The fact that the cycling lobby dismisses these dangers, and shrieks in fury when they are mentioned tells me rather more about the cycling lobby than I wished to know. 'Wider' pavements per se have no merit in most areas - although clearly where there are shops and high levels of pedestrian traffic they are advantageous to users, and very narrow pavements when bins are placed on them, even if only during bin collection day, do cause problems (as does overgrown hedging). But in most places widening pavements is only done to restrict road usage, by those who have an agenda which is anti-car. I am by no means sure if the 'pro-cycling' lobby is rather more anti-car than pro-cycling - and if so can I just note that as someone who is definitely not anti-car, I am also not anti-cycling.

Agreed the policy makers don't get on - but I'm assuming that the project managers, for an agreed project, do speak the same language and operate to the same agenda, even if that is 'hang the ratepayers!'

Wrong, but a car body type not a truck body type one, So much like most of the others pilloried as SUV owners. Also it's a hybrid. But I don't have the luxury of having a city car to go with my car, I'm afraid, as I don't just use it in the city.

Which the customers apparently wanted. Your 'the customer is always wrong' mindset, if typical, may suggest the reason why the UK is currently in such a financial mess. Allowing the customer only to have what they don't want doesn't seem to me a highway to growth.

Actually, I am somewhat experienced in project management - and, curiously, because of the coincidence of words, in traffic planning, if for telecommunications traffic. And what I do know is that, when you are disrupting infrastructure you aim for minimal disruption where there are economic consequences - as there are for traffic flow on the South Circular. You aim to work in parallel where you can, you aim to do all your planning, calculating risk management etc. at the desk before start of work, not on the job - and you schedule disruptive work - for instance installation of new traffic islands, at times of low traffic - i.e. the evenings. The ideal - and I've seen this work on road schemes in Europe - is that you have people working on site throughout the day and evening to limit the time when roads are closed off or work causing queues. When I had teams working on physical works I expected to see productive activity all the time (ideally) - and certainly during the working day - save when, e.g when large items were being moved or installed and this had to wait till night-time so as not to be disruptive. The two organisations involved, TFL for the A205 and Southwark for Lordship Lane should surely have no problems working together, and the remainder are contractors whose job it is to meet the needs of their paymasters, or lose the contract. Good project managers are worth their weight in gold, of course, but any works department not prepared to buy-in such expertise is going to find itself wasting money hand over fist. So far there seems (based on the slow pace so far) little evidence of world, or even capital city class project management. Unless the brief was, take your time, spend as little as you can, don't worry about any disruption to the economic or social lives of the local peasants. Oh, wait....

Just try comparing the number and extent of tube station north of the river against south. Obviously London north of the river is topographically larger and more populous, but even accepting that...! Compare the North with the South Circulars. Compare indeed the 'overground' trackways and stations north and South. Even allowing for population and size it is very clear that the north is far better served. The Elizabeth and Jubilee lines are both predominantly North and West serving. The 'extensive suburban train network' South of the river is frequently closed in the late evenings and weekends, And what 'new' stations are there South of the river - other than those serving the DLR and some docklands extensions. None really 'new'.

The only people able to define whether a journey is necessary or not are the people making that journey. There is no journey that any readers of this are making that I consider necessary (to me). And vice versa. As it happens, I am old, with, probably, few years left me - so any journey which I make which wastes my time is not necessary, compared with an alternative which wastes less time - for me. When coming to judge 'necessity' we are all solipsists - or liars.

As the person who kicked this thread off could I just note the following:- 1. As a resident of the Southern end of Underhill (for the last nearly 40 years) this junction (of the South Circular with Lordship Lane as it runs into being London Road) has always been considered hazardous to pedestrians. There have been numerous attempts to get 'something' done about it, the key issue being, so far as I understand it, that there were no 'simple' solutions which could be easily input. So nobody has argued that something didn't need to be done, but no one actually knew what that something might be. Because of the width of the roads at the key point the necessary time taken to stop traffic (from 3 directions) to allow pedestrians to cross was always considered too long to stop traffic entering and exiting the South Circular. I am very clear that all those pedestrians using the junction were very well aware of its dangers and wanted a solution, whatever that might be. 2. On the assumption that there is now a solution to this, my complaint was that 13 weeks to implement it seemed far too long - if the problem had been solved (which I imagined might involve some pretty canny traffic light timing and sequencing) the work to set it up was actually a programming job for the lights - which might take a lot of time but would be done off site and in advance. On site it would just be a matter of wiring in lights and controller boxes, signage and road marking. With, possibly, new traffic islands, and consequent re-surfacing 3. The fact that the amount of actual construction work done in the first week was minimal, and in the first two weeks hardly more so, does suggest that this is not a well planned (project managed) exercise. It has taken, it would seem, two working weeks, excluding evenings and weekends, to achieve what appears to be two days work. When quite long stretches of Underhill were resurfaced, including reinstating stretches of paving, this was blitzed out in a couple or 3 days, for instance, so I do have an idea of how fast even contractors for Southwark can work. When the plans were first published (only a few of days before the start of works), I felt that 13 weeks, even assuming only weekday daylight working, was far too long. Which it seems, so far, to have been. 4. But this is not work which wasn't wanted, and which has been imposed on an unwilling electorate. Far from it. It is the method and manner of the project, not its intent, which I believe is the act of very poor planners without any regard for local users of these roads. But then TFL (and the Mayor and his predecessors ) have always hated and despised South London and have no interest in investment in transport - compare the North Circular with the South, compare the availability of Tubes north and south of the River - well, need I go on?

I know people hate me using this term, but that little achieved in 2 weeks does suggest to me that the augustes in the car that falls apart under the big top are well and truly on the job. Or rather, clearly not on the job. The project manager should be fired. And his or her boss!