legalalien

Thought for the day..

Here’s the Times view of the report, suggesting the Guardian is selectively reporting on it LTN delays for emergency services ‘could risk lives’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4c4015af-6fae-412e-9976-6750091f19d4?shareToken=05a7fe073b3f997de2f75c4cd2f7debc Be interesting to see what the govt does - interesting idea of removing access to ANPR data for councils being too enthusiastic about enforcement - not sure how they’d measure that…

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.co.uk%2Farticle%2F503439b7-e425-4c45-bfff-e51c216c240c%3FshareToken%3Dbca4f5ba2d4ffcb4874a3bcbb11198d3&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ccc7cb78cfa5d41464ce908dc3edd10d3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638454366396089951%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Pyi%2BbCz1asuM3qJhwb0gk8odEf4Bflr4fr1enMsHcdo%3D&reserved=0 Not sure if this link will work.

Not sure if it's already been posted elsewhere, but here's a link to the officers' report/ recommendations on the DV/Calton and Red Post hill junction re-designs in Dulwich Village. Haven't read it yet. Issue details - Dulwich Village Streets for People - Junction re-design and Red Post Hill - Southwark Council

Sadiq Khan admits south London’s new low-traffic neighbourhood ‘not great’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e8636826-0a45-4d4e-9dc2-05a983c75e90?shareToken=eacd07b1789f8862adca1b8e019fcb5d The mayor has noticed that the emperor has no clothes?

Not sure if this link will work - but seems that in Croydon the Conservative mayor is copping some heat on his decision to retain LTNs, in part because not having the fine income would put a hole in the council budget... PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions

just catching up on recent developments. Have the proposals for pocket parks in Melbourne, Derwent, Elsie, Tintagel been circulated? Forward plan says decision will be made in May. Couldn't see it on the council consultation page. I walk through there quite often so just wondered what was happening. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50033739&PlanId=804&RPID=23591546

This seems a great example of people hearing the things that they want to when they read an article. I interpreted it to say that most of the errors found were image manipulation because easier to spot, but the main example given related to reproducibility of some cancer studies - clicked through to the paper which makes some interesting observations about science/ peer review https://elifesciences.org/articles/67995 With apologies for the length of the quote: "Science is a system for accumulating knowledge. The credibility of knowledge claims relies, in part, on the transparency and repeatability of the evidence used to support them. As a social system, science operates with norms and processes to facilitate the critical appraisal of claims, and transparency and skepticism are virtues endorsed by most scientists (Anderson et al., 2007). Science is also relatively non-hierarchical in that there are no official arbiters of the truth or falsity of claims. However, the interrogation of new claims and evidence by peers occurs continuously, and most formally in the peer review of manuscripts prior to publication. Once new claims are made public, other scientists may question, challenge, or extend them by trying to replicate the evidence or to conduct novel research. The evaluative processes of peer review and replication are the basis for believing that science is self-correcting. Self-correction is necessary because mistakes and false starts are expected when pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Science works because it efficiently identifies those false starts and redirects resources to new possibilities. We believe everything we wrote in the previous paragraph except for one word in the last sentence – efficiently. Science advances knowledge and is self-correcting, but we do not believe it is doing so very efficiently. Many parts of research could improve to accelerate discovery. In this paper, we report the challenges confronted during a large-scale effort to replicate findings in cancer biology, and describe how improving transparency and sharing can make it easier to assess rigor and replicability and, therefore, to increase research efficiency. Transparency is essential in any system that seeks to evaluate the credibility of scientific claims. To evaluate a scientific claim one needs access to the evidence supporting the claim – the methodology and materials used, the data generated, and the process of drawing conclusions from those data. The standard process for providing this information is to write a research paper that details the methodology and outcomes. However, this process is imperfect. For example, selectively reporting experiments or analyses, particularly reporting only those that 'worked', biases the literature by ignoring negative or null results (Fanelli, 2010; Fanelli, 2011; Ioannidis, 2005; Rosenthal, 1979; Sterling, 1959; Sterling et al., 1995). And the combined effect of constraints related to the research paper format (including word limits, and only reporting what can be described in words), the tendency of authors to report what they perceive to be important, and rewards for exciting, innovative outcomes is an emphasis on reporting outcomes and their implications, rather than a comprehensive description of the methodology (Kilkenny et al., 2009; Landis et al., 2012; Moher et al., 2008). The sharing of data, materials, and code can also increase the efficiency of research in a number of ways (Molloy, 2011; Murray-Rust et al., 2010; Nosek et al., 2015). For example, sharing provides opportunities for independent observers to evaluate both the evidence reported in papers and the credibility of the claims based on this evidence; it allows other researchers to analyze the data in different ways (by, for example, using different rules for data exclusion); and it helps other researchers to perform replications to determine if similar evidence can be observed independently of the original context. Moreover, giving other researchers access to data, materials, and code may allow them to identify important features of the research that were not appreciated by the original researchers, or to identify errors in analysis or reporting."

apparently they are declining on the grounds that it wouldn't benefit residents to fill in the questionnaire, and they think it's a political stunt by central government https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/dulwich/southwark-council-refuses-to-complete-governments-optional-ltn-survey-ahead-of-national-review/

seems SL bus drivers not that keen on LTNs https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3bd51122-06d1-4899-97cf-8b1e44397f8e?shareToken=74863a2461509287f7c2f1d2dd426a17

Watching yesterday’s cabinet meeting, where there was a discussion of public toilet availability and accessibility. For info there is a list of public toilets on the Southwark website https://www.southwark.gov.uk/environment/public-toilets if I heard correctly there is a new Changing Places Toilet opening in Dulwich Park this weekend. I think there was also a mention of some sort of accessible app, from googling there seem to be a few apps out there so may be some way to go to get something comprehensive across London. There is a TFL toilet map here https://tfl.gov.uk/help-and-contact/public-toilets-in-london just in case useful for anyone.

At the risk of derailing my own thread, I don’t think it’s specifically about scooters - see https://www.scootschoolrun.org/dulwich-wards (idea will be that if no parking near schools people will be forced into active travel I guess).

Here’s the full list of all the proposed new charges. Actually quite a good way of identifying the services the council provides. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s117646/Appendix F Draft Fees and Charges Cabinet report - 5 December 2023.pdf

The council’s budget is on the agenda for the next Cabinet meeting, they are struggling a bit to make ends meet although have managed to reduce the budget shortfall from what it was last year. It’s quite interesting reading - worth having a look at this document to see where we can expect to see increases in council charges in the next couple of years https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s117577/Appendix C Income.pdf Garden bin collection, planning fees, PCN charges, leisure services charges, car parking in parks and leisure centres all proposed to increase and there’s a big chunk called “savings from investment in active travel” which I’m wondering about, as an income item - it can’t be reduced investment? All the other items seem to be income streams. Surely it’s not fine income (that couldn’t be described as “savings”)? You can also see proposals on council rents/ heating/ charges for garages here, also on the agenda for the meeting. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s117444/Report Housing Revenue Account - Indicative Rent and Charges Report 2024-25.pdf Full agenda at https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=7680&x=1 - meeting’s at 11am on 5th and I imagine it will be streamed online.

Just reading through the proposed council income stream adjustments in the budget going to next week’s Cabinet meeting. They are struggling to balance the budget. Looks like garden waste charges are going up to £80 next year if approved. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s117577/Appendix C Income.pdf

Tonight’s overview and scrutiny committee meeting is shocking, relating to another major works project. The interim chap had apologised profusely, disciplinary investigation /action is underway and auditors are involved. There’s not even an attempt at defending the incompetence/ poor behaviour etc. Just to add the council officer who is the inter person in charge has just described this as a catastrophic failure and has also said that if fraud is shown it will be referred to the police. And that he’s struggling to understand how this has happened when residents have been raising issues to staff and councillors over a period of several years. He’s shocked as well.

On that note the Environment Scrutiny Commission have the issue of EV charging cables to the kerbside on their agenda for next week with some providers of cross-pavement gully infrastructure coming in to talk I think. There’s a desire to avoid people paving over their front gardens so that they can park next to an EV charger close to their house. Good to see it’s being thought about. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=7858

Apologies if these have been posted on here already as the consultations opened more than a week ago. Couldn’t spot them after doing a cursory scan. Consultation on Southwark Cycling Plan https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/streets-for-people-cycling-plan/ And Electric Vehicle Plan https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/streets-for-people-electric-vehicle-plan/ And Walking Plan (hooray!) https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/streets-for-people-walking-plan/ close on 31 Jan 2024. Haven’t read them yet so no idea what they say/ask. Also a whole lot of Streets for People consultations which close at end March. Ignore these kind of things at your peril as you will end up with the kind of borough wide CPZ plans that stem from the previous Movement Plan consultation. (but not a referendum etc)

Interesting report prepared for the Environmental Scrutiny Commission about whether / what steps the council can take to prevent / charge for applications for dropped kerbs / people paving over their front garden (presumably anticipated in response to roll out of CPZ zones). Answer seems to be not much can be done without risk of breaching relevant law. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s117311/Vehicle Footway Crossovers.pdf Hopefully this heralds a new approach of taking legal advice before announcing policies.

What I take from the response is that the council has taken legal advice which has confirmed that they can only put in controlled parking where there is a demonstrable need for it in a particular area, and not to pursue a blanket “no/ reduced cars” policy. In my view it’s important to hold onto the point that this is not just about the quality of consultation or whether the residents of a street want a CPZ in their street or not. The question is whether the CPZ is NEEDED to achieve the regulatory objectives of the road traffic act. The point of consulting properly is to ensure the council has sufficient info to form a proper view on the need for the CPZ, and the residents of the street are obviously very well placed to provide that info (and are more likely to want a CPZ if there is parking congestion in their street). But consultation is still not a referendum (!)

Just had an email saying the deadline for that funding has been extended to 22 October which suggests there is funding available. I’m away on holiday next week but happy to try and help put in an application- if people are willing to post on here some info about the previous Physic Garden and what would be involved, where the suggestion is that it goes and I think there would also need to be agreement consent from the school or TJ depending on where people think it should be. If there’s a week to put in an application it shouldn’t be beyond the power of the folk on here and perhaps we could work together instead of arguing with each other for once?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aI_RBnQ4pvk

No suggestion of that. Seems the council’s housing lead departed recently, as one of the other senior execs was at the meeting doing the apologising notwithstanding he’d only been covering the post for about a week. I think he usually covers the child/ education portfolios. Anyway is not relevant to this thread so I guess continue any discussion in the lounge ☺️

There’s a licensing application for a wine shop /wine bar where Forest plant shop used to be, I think. Not sure whether they’ve started work / moved in yet? https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=7824

Following on from the comments about graffiti above. Looks as though Southwark is planning to provide ground height graffiti removal services to private property / infrastructure without charge going forward - proposal on website awaiting formal sign off with service to commence this month. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50033380 Might be something that everyone can agree on for once?