legalalien

Here?s where to find your polling station https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voting-person It?s not necessarily the closest one to you and it may have changed since last time.

That is of course your choice. We can all express our views on here but the beauty of democracy is that there?s no ?wrong? vote. Having fun watching news presenters diligently avoiding saying anything about politics/ the election this morning. A lot about Ukraine, interest rates, Depp /Heard and Elon Musk.

There are some fledgling schemes where those with off street charging effectively rent out their driveways/ chargers to others to allow them to recharge. This seems like a good idea, it would be worth the council considering giving homeowners participating in the scheme some sort of CPZ charge waiver to cover periods where they?ve moved their own car out of the driveway to enable someone else to charge. That would encourage uptake?

On a related note, trinidad, with the cost of living crisis front and centre in most people?s minds, I want my local councillors to focus on ensuring the council has good financial management and stewardship and is trying to minimise the cost of council services generally (not just council tax) where they can do so (and I don?t just mean cutting services). There are lots of questions to be asked about details. For example, there?s an item in the most recent forward plan that indicates the council is going to pay more to Veolia to cover the cost of the increase in employer national insurance contributions https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50029115&PlanId=728&RPID=3849436 Why the risk of this increase would rest with the council in an outsourcing arrangement of this type is the kind of question someone needs to be asking. Less grandstanding about national party policy and more attention to detail, I say. Cllr Mills asked a good question the other day about free school meals. If on a particular day or over a period the child selects food valued less than the daily allowance, is the difference carried over and credited to the child or does the contractor pocket the benefit? See It seems she is still waiting for an answer. From watching council meetings during lockdown, the LD?s Adele Morris stands out as a councillor who is very good on this front, in the planning area. She seems to be standing down this time which is a pity. I?d like more councillors like these whatever their party. Not ones who read out prepared speeches from scripts that seem to have been put together and distributed by party central. Off shortly to try and get myself some!

A random question that I wonder if anyone knows the answer to: if a ward changes hands, what happens to outstanding constituency work (emails, correspondence etc) - does it get handed over to the new councillors, or does everyone have to start again by emailing their new councillors? I have no idea of the answer, but you'd think it would make sense to have some sort of handover process? Ditto for MPs after a general election... (just wondering what might happen to an outstanding email to a current councillor)

Or will some of us be so fed up that we actually sign up to the campaign for proportional representation in local government, rather than just talking about it...

Just something that may be of interest to some, looks as though Luna Cinema is applying for its own licence this year, rather than relying on the ?Southwark Events? licence, as it wishes to extend hours for serving alcohol and showing films https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?id=63957&LLL=0 Request is to sell alcohol until midnight and show film until 0:15 as I read it. The police and licensing officer have made representations about the lack of dispersal policy and a recommendation to reduce those hours. Licensing subcommittee meeting is on 12 May.

I?ve had two more leaflets this evening (one conservative, one Labour). Similar in tone and content to past ones.

Interesting thing in DV is that the Labour win in 2018 was (imho) prompted to a considerable degree by traditionally conservative voters expressing their dissatisfaction with the Brexit situation. I doubt that's as much of a consideration this time around, and I wonder (i) whether they feel as strongly about partygate than about Brexit; and (ii) if they do, whether they'll use this vote to express their views- guess that depends on how strongly they feel about LTNs, which we'll no doubt find out on Friday. I'm not sure quite why the "ground zero" thing is supposed to be so offensive? I know there's a nuclear weapon connection, but it's been used as ordinary idiom for "the source of a massive change" since I was a child. I googled to see if I was going mad and MacMillan said the same? https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/ground-zero_1. If you google there's loads of references to "ground zero for COVID" in the mainstream press, so I don't think I'm imagining things. What am I missing? ETA just saw the most recent post. It's that the "Ground Zero" (quotes and caps) looks like a reference to NY/ WTC? If that's the case then I agree it's unfortunate.

The question still comes as to where the ??? comes from. I'm pretty sure that the cost of upkeep would be beyond the budget of state schools alone. So some sort of alternative (commercial?) funding source needed. Which, given it's MoL and there can't be additional buildings, means finding a way to make money out of the green space. Challenging, but not impossible (probably) - but again - likely to require a fair amount of volunteer input to make it fly...

To be fair, I don't think I've received a leaflet from the Green Party, so perhaps they are being environmentally reponsible. I haven't seen them in person, either, though.

The Charter Schools now use the Griffin in DV as far as I know.

If I had to guess I?d say that Labour are focussing a lot of their resources on campaigning in Wandsworth, to try and take seats there, rather than focusing on what they regard as safe seats here in Southwark. Labour had more than 70% of votes in Peckham last time around and more than 60% in Peckham Rye. I?ve heard from friends that there has been a lot of activity in Wandsworth. South Bermondsey also seems to be a big focus. The Peckham Rye Councillors seem to be some of the better ones from what I?ve seen reading council documents and watching meetings over lockdown. I hope they get re-elected.

Just looked and found the leaflet on Twitter. Looks like it has been out together in a rush and pretty amateur (and I note they carefully don?t identify which candidate they are talking about). I don?t get it - surely if it works it consolidates the anti- Labour vote with the ?definitely local? Conservatives (or is it some complicated strategy to make undecided voters empathise with the LD candidate)? And in any case, doesn?t Cllr Leeming himself live in one of the other wards (albeit in Southwark - there is an emphasis on not having someone on Lambeth vote on council tax in Southwark, but given Southwark are likely to be putting in council tax increases at the maximum capped amount for the foreseeable future I don?t see that as a big deal)? Presumably the LD candidate concerned meets the eligibility rules and either occupies (albeit not living in) premises in Southwark or works in Southwark. The leaflet doesn?t suggest he is ineligible to stand.

Haven?t got that one yet (it has been a bumper year for flyers here I have to say!) Had a very generic Labour one this morning that didn?t mention any local issues at all ,focus on the general cost of living crisis and central govt. do you mean one of the village ward candidates lives in streatham, or is it a leaflet about someone unrelated?

I have heard that the charitable trust that owns the field is in the process of exploring options to make more / better use of it for youth education/ sports etc. in some capacity as it doesn't really work for the school given its location. From a quick google the St Olaves and St Saviours Foundation is linked to the Dulwich Estate https://www.thedulwichestate.org.uk/about-us/who-we-support/st-saviour-s-and-st-olave-s-schools-foundation. The school that uses it is a local authority maintained, voluntary aided school according to this? What I would say is that leasing and maintaining a sports ground is expensive and trying to bring in sufficient income to cover costs is no mean feat. While specialist grounds maintenance contractors are paid, pretty much everything else at the charities that operate the grounds in DV that I am familiar with, is done by volunteers. If anyone has brilliant ideas for the ground and a burning desire to set something up there, I'd suggest contacting the trust and finding out more!

The Chinese crabapple in our garden is blooming and standing under it you can hear the buzzing of loads of bees. I love this tree.

I have no trouble divorcing local and national politics, and will also be voting conservative locally* but def not for Boris? crew nationally when the time comes. It?s the only way to get any semblance of accountability back into local government. People voting for councillors on the basis of national politics seems to me to be precisely what has gone wrong with the system. And let?s face it, one historically Tory ward turning blue again isn?t going to send much of a message to Conservative HQ. Southwark council as a whole will undoubtedly stay in Labour control (although I do think there?ll be a swing away from Labour given the situation with council housing developments, Southwark repair service etc.) *having just watched the hustings I was pretty impressed with Richard Wingfield but from speaking to others locally the general consensus seems to be to vote Conservative in DV to avoid splitting the ?vote for change?. I did like the socialist candidate at the end who remarked on Lambeth?s significant ?rainy day? reserves and declared that ?it?s pi$$ing down?.

We?ve now had three visits from Labour, two from Lib Dems and two from conservatives. And lots of leaflets from all three, plus one leaflet from One Dulwich suggesting we vote based on local issues (didn?t have to convince me of that!). In DV ward - presumably regarded as a potential gain/ loss by all three parties.

Had a quick look at old forum posts to see whether any obvious ED traffic incidents that might have caused a spike in second week of Sept 2019. Only thing that stood out was Barry Road closure put in place the week before and due to last several weeks, which seemed to be dumping traffic onto LL and clogging up the GG roundabout, which could I guess encourage cars to turn up EDG and then Melbourne to get around if that was continuing? /forum/read.php?5,2058247

and looking at that there should also be some January 2019 data? as the report compares the Sept 2019 data with the January 2019 data. It does note in relation to evening peak traffic that "The variations observed along East Dulwich Grove and Denmark Hill are not likely to be attributable to the Champion Hill scheme. ", which I guess begs the question as to what they were due to. Northernmonkey, sounds as though you have seen the January 2019 data given you say it's artificially low due to school holidays? Is it available online?

The power of google - think it's this https://www.camberwellsociety.org.uk/rw_common/plugins/stacks/armadillo/media/ChampionHillAreaMonitoringStudyFINAL.pdf

Also worth mentioning that the 2019 data seems to be monitoring relating to the Champion Hill closure which predated the ?Dulwich Low Traffic Neighbourhood? concept a little, I think? So maybe the council counted it, monitored it in relation to Champion Hill, but don?t see it as LTN monitoring per se? And then someone at the water cooler said - you know, we did actually do a count outside the health centre when we were looking at Champion Hill, why don?t we do another count in the same place and maybe we could compare it? That?s my theory.

I had a go and found it - but just to make the instructions slightly clearer, the trick is not to try and use the "Highways" map layer on the map you see on the opening screen. You need to click on the arrow next to "map configuration", select Southwark Highways from the drop down list, this then brings up a different set of map layers which include the option to select traffic counts. there are 8 on there and if you scroll down the list on the LHS there are two 2019 ones by the look of it, one with the detail of eastbound traffic and one with the detail of westbound traffic, both seem to have the same data summary at the front.

In a new development, I received a Reform U.K. leaflet today. The policy on LTNs is ?to improve Dulwich Village LTNs by using smarter technology?. I won?t be voting for them but did like their policy of no party whip on councillors.