paulc

Tony painting the inside of the shop today, said "outside chance open on Friday, but definitely Saturday, please spread the word". They'll be back in the same shop permanently.

From their concern, it sounded fairly permanent. It's unlikely they'd go to the trouble of organising petitions and contacting councillors if they were moving back after the works. Either way they would be critically disconnected from their cafe.

The petition basically says no to the planning application (because they will have to vacate) and that they have been there for 45 years.

They have just started a paper petition. Ask to sign it when you visit the shop. Apparently the new buyer originally gave assurances that only the top flat would be developed but now wants to develop the whole site and the notice period means they would have to be out in March. The shop will be contacting the local councillors and presumably lodging appeals. The planning page linked above says "The consultation period for this application is not open. Please contact the case officer directly if you have any questions". The consultees listed are just those living in North Cross Rd though it might obviously affect a lot more people than that.

familyof4 - sorry to hear about your stress. They're still stooping. Despite nobody in this property ever having had any contact with their company, they have just now decided to put a board up on the fence. Snipped it down and asked them to take it away. Even if it was a genuine error, their rep neither offered to check it out nor give an apology. Searching for "board wars" shows they have past notoriety at this game.

Looks like it came back on at 1.40, lots of spluttering sounds in the pipework!

Work is definitely underway now, repairing the brick wall on the side of the roundabout. Looks like they have about three quarters of the broken bits done. Long queues of traffic in north, south and east directions of course. Goose Green side road and Tintagel Crescent have been blocked off, presumably against rat-running. Sunny day, so hopefully work will be finished soon.

Not exactly current but definitely positive ... Saw an ordinary but rather forlorn guy standing outside the Co-op in Lordship Lane prior to Christmas, stranded by the fact that his bike had been tethered to the bike rack by someone else's lock - every cyclist's nightmare. His only hope was that the other cyclist would come back soon, but the much flashier steed didn't seem to be yielding an owner any time soon. Since the offending lock only passed through his brake cable, I went home, got some tools, and freed his bike, obsviously checking that the brakes worked once reassembled. I think he lived a few miles off so it would otherwise have been a bit unnecessary back and forth in a season when time is short. Good to feel useful and be in the right place sometimes. Haven't seen him since though ... ooh errr!

Same in Goose Green area - 2 short power cuts a few minutes each. (Will I make it to the end of this senten... ?!)

I was looking for information about what was happening to the derelict land next to Dulwich Hospital and found this paper showing a vision of what it could be like on James Barber's mycouncillor web site: http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/2011/12/05/dulwich-hospital-2/ In outline it says "we want to see a GP service with extras remain on site. We also believe that if the latest primary schools forecasts are right that we need another Primary School and this could provide the necessary site. To pay for community facilities on the site we think state of the art zero emission Retirement Village and also private homes should be built." I mention this because there aren't many comments underneath the proposal on the mycouncillor site, so an opportunity to submit views there. There didn't seem to be a reference to this already in this forum, but apologies for duplication if I missed it.

The CPZ study says that ?... on average 20% of vehicles parked in the area during the daytime week are commuters or non-residents.? As a resident next to the station (and user of it) for about 20 years, I?d reckon this was about right. I could witness spaces filling up in the road (now inside the proposed CPZ) just before the rush hour. I knew of commuters attracted by the reduced Zone 2 fares who were local, after all a car journey from south ED or Forest Hill to the station was/is comparable to the 15-minute journey to London Bridge, and considerably more by bus or walking. The scenario that Penguin68 outlines (20 October 10:14AM) did actually happen from about 1992. Shops did shut down (due to the doldrums effect of the Sainsburys development), congestion did ease (due to the recession), and parking became a fraction easier in the road, more so when it became a true cul-de-sac following the closure of the hospital. Recession may do it again. But at the end of the 90s, we experienced parking spaces reducing dramatically as ED flourished and what were once zero-car households acquired one or more vehicles. The amount of public parking space in ED is broadly the same as it always was and it seems to me that today?s ED lives aren?t that different to those of our relatively car-deprived parents (schools, shops, commuting, days out), it?s just that we?ve each claimed a bit of the street for one our bulkiest possessions. So for the equivalent of an extra mobile phone tariff (?15.74 per month per resident, 75% discount for alternative fuel vehicles or motorcycles, says the FAQ), it feels like a CPZ would just temporarily shift the problem around a little. As a car-free household, I?ve accepted the impact that others? car use has on accessibility to my visitors or trade vehicles, but as both the local population and buildings age, more people will need home deliveries and more buildings will need builder access. Even if we could create more parking space, like the M25, cars (or rather people?s decision to buy) would expand to fill it. I?d like to think the council don?t see parking zones as a Machiavellian plan to raise revenue (after all the FAQ says that isn?t legal), but I can?t help feeling a tad suspicious: in 2011, parking tickets were twice issued on the street with fairly dubious means (some of which to my cost) - one to a builder, one to charity collection van - on the grounds that it was a CPZ. Now I find out that it?s only just being proposed! Another factor I find odd is the appearance of build-outs in Grove Vale (see "Grove Vale made smaller") that conveniently create parking bays just as the CPZ proposal comes up for consultation. It all contributes to feeling of wariness.

If you mean the tunnel under the railway to what used to be St. Francis hospital, then that tunnel still exists. However it was boarded up when the St. Francis estate/Abbotswood Rd houses were built, occupying the space where the hospital gardens used to be (had its own gardener and potting sheds). The tunnel used to join Dulwich and St Francis hospitals and was a convenient subway for squirrels too - you often had to share with them scurrying along the top of the service pipes!

Just heard it go by! Must be one of these shown on www.ianvisits.co.uk - different date but same idea. http://www.steamdreams.co.uk/images/Banner800Revolving.gif Shown on estimated timetable for 28th July and map as roughly 11.15 so that would be about the right timing. Guessing it's this either steamdreams or The Sunny South Special. Be great to just hail the steam train and pop down to the coast for the day!

Probably practising for the Battle of Britain flypast on Sun 19th. http://www.westminster-abbey.org/press/news/news/2010/september/the-70th-anniversary-service-of-the-battle-of-britain

Declan, the kind of issue you raise there (getting caught for illegal downloads) exposes a whole can of worms once ISPs are pressured to reveal their data logs. As louisianna says above, our ISPs' tight margins has meant that storing too much of our data and logs had cost penalties in the past and was of no interest until companies such as Phorm came along with a commercial interest in our activities. I'm afraid I disagree with Huguenot's assumptions about Phorm sharing no data about you as an individual - they have said they will 'anonymise' the data, but I feel it's down to whether you trust such companies (or the ISPs who own the surce data) to do so. The issue is further complicated by the fact that the government suddenly required UK ISPs to store our personal web data for up to 12 months starting in April and, as I understand it, will bankroll the ISP storage costs for doing this, thus relieving the 'tight margins' issue. This Indy article has some insightful comments posted at the end: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/personal-web-data-to-be-stored-for-a-year-1662237.html In the spirit of providing solutions (which the Indy article doesn't) rather than problems, I found this guide on using proxies extremely useful - though the kind of populations it's written for makes you wonder where we are heading! http://www.civisec.org/sites/all/themes/civisec/guides/everyone%27s-guide-english.pdf (PDF page). Practical software and sites start about half way down.