legalalien

Interesting, as were the linked articles, including about the ?emptied Spain? movement.

I don't think so - a bit of whataboutery? I tend to vote differently in local elections than for general elections - I expect more local accountability from councillors than I do MPs (although I am very much in favour of MPs being more accountable to their constituents and am highly supportive of backbenchers exercising their muscle against party HQ, whatever the party). I don't think the solution for conservative MPs or councillors is to resign - rather, it is to demand change. And ideally break the system of whipping which I'd like to see gone except in matters of supply.

Seems Lambeth are starting to collect commonplace feedback for a potential LTN in West Dulwich. Only read a few comments but it seems many of the residents there aren?t keen, having seen what happened in Southwark. Quite confusing as a number of pro closure and anti closure comments both show as red - I guess that?s because it?s generic input at this stage rather than a response to a specific scheme, so ?road is too busy now? and ?we don?t want our road closed? both show as negative comments. I wish they?d scrap commonplace, I think it?s unhelpful as it only engages a few people and not necessarily from a broad range of residents, and doesn?t stop multiple comments from the same people using different email addresses etc. https://westdulwich.commonplace.is/

What I?d like to know is whether LD village ward candidate Richard Wingfield is related to long term Labour councillor Ian Wingfield. Just because the LD pamphlet says he is frustrated with the Labour council?s lack of responsiveness etc. I?m guessing not. For the record, the LD pamphlet says they want to ?Make Southwark the greenest borough in London by protecting our green spaces, reviewing the impact of the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Dulwich, investing in green transport and tackling congestion...? The Conservative one says they?ll campaign to reopen closed roads (and is just about the closure thing although it does talk about democracy, representation and accountability as key issues).

I think campaigning season has started in earnest. I?ve had flyers from both the Conservatives and the Lib Dem?s today.

The final version of the council?s 2022/23 budget is on the agenda for its next meeting, see https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/b50013955/Supplemental%20Agenda%20No.%201%20Tuesday%2001-Feb-2022%2011.00%20Cabinet.pdf?T=9 Para A39 says that ?The department is expecting to reinvest significant income from the introduction of Low Traffic Neighbourhood in schemes to improve access around the borough including healthy streets and with the aim of tackling the climate emergency. This income is expected to be one off for 2022/23 only and the ongoing income from LTNs will be reviewed for 2023/24.? There?s an amount of ?4million listed as additional income from this source in the associated table. I?m not quite sure how revenue recognition works in the council?s accounts. Could this be PCN revenue already collected as cash but later recognised as income when it is formally set aside to be spent,or are they budgeting for a further ?4 million in fines for the next financial year? It seems to me that there?s a clear conflict of interest here, as the council is incentivised to make signage/ publicity around closures as poor as possible to maximise their budgeted revenue. On the bright side, the climate bit of the report says this: ?Within the revenue budget, there is income received from implementation of ?Low Traffic Neighbourhoods? across Southwark, which is supporting a range of environmental measures including those to help improve air quality. This is not considered a long-term source of income, as we anticipate that income received from fines will reduce as compliance increases.? On a related note, the table showing the LTN income has a column showing whether an equalities analysis has been done, which is marked ?Full Impact Assessment needed? (as opposed to ?undertaken? which appears next to some other items). The cumulative equality impact assessment (if you can make it through to page 156) says that the LTN income line item is ?Assessed as overall positive across all protected characteristics with risk of some potential negative for Age, Sex and Disability subject to an improved approach to be developed through the Movement Plan Update in 2022?, and ? The charges will apply to all people who contravene the rules equally and will not have any adverse impact on any individual group; and overall the assessment is a positive outcome for residents and the local community with significant improvements in air quality / environmental pollution. Full assessment being conducted to understand and mitigate against any perceived concerns from any protected groups.? There?s similar wording on page 162 in relation to disability, 175 in relation to sex discrimination and page 182 in relation to socioeconomic disadvantage. It sounds from this (to me anyway) that the council isn?t entirely happy with where it ended up on the equality assessment with the LTNs, which is promising for those whose concerns around the closures centre on age and disability discrimination - it would at least seem to open the door to some further tweaks to minimise adverse impacts on relevant protected groups. Whether there?ll be any impact on the Dulwich scheme, who knows? Council tax is going up btw. About ?1.28pw for a Band D property, including the increase in the GLA component of the tax, as well as the Southwark rise.

There?s a presentation on this at an upcoming scrutiny commission meeting, with a summary of what the service can and can?t do for people, which I thought I?d post as it?s quite useful knowledge to have https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s104899/Rerport%20Noise%20and%20Nuisance%20in%20Southwark.pdf

An interesting feature is that there is yet another General Exception Report for this decision (these are used when things don?t go through the forward plan publication process when they should. The notice says this: ?The decision is listed on the Forward Plan for a January 2022 decision. However, due to an administrative oversight, the report and appendices were not submitted in time to achieve the January decision deadline. The next Forward Plan to be published will be the April 2022 Forward Plan. This will significantly delay the construction of the proposed works which will potentially damage the reputation of the council.? Ie we stuffed up a bit, let?s use an exception policy so we don?t embarrass ourselves (and not for any substantive reason). Southwark do seem to have a generally high level of these kinds of notices. I?d be interested to know how this compares across different councils.

A wide range of minor road changes included in this notice (including some East Dulwich ones), including various yellow lines, removal of disabled bays following an audit of usage, and making permanent various school streets and pavement widening schemes. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IssueId=50028347&OptionNum=0 Also had a quick skim through the info re the cycle lane they?re putting in on Druid Street (used to live near there a long time ago). The equality para graph notes that ? The scheme will benefit the wider community by providing some separation between the northern residential side of the street, and the southern residential and commercial side.? Cycle lanes / transport policy used as a form of social engineering to keep different parts of the community apart? Surely not? But if you read more of the report it seems ?There has been historic tension between residents of the Arnold Housing estate on the northern side of Druid Street, and the businesses under the arches on the southern side of Druid Street, due to noise and disruption from loading, and disturbance from late night patrons of the breweries and bars in the arches.? I?m not quite sure how much a cycle lane, even one with a Rediweld Splitter Island, is going to help with that. https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?Id=7562&LLL

Posted on wrong thread!

Here?s an extract from the council notification: ?When will the measures be implemented? The measures will come into effect at 00.01 on Thursday 17 February 2022, once all the necessary road signs, posts and other related highway works are in place. This is during most local schools? half term so we can minimise disruption. The changes and improvements Timed Restrictions: Hours of timed restrictions reduced from 5 hours to 2.5 hours (8.00 to 9.00am and 3.00pm to 4.30pm) Better Signage Additional advance notification signs along the main roads e.g. Dulwich Common, Lordship Lane, Croxted Road.?

I imagine they?ve chosen a 17 Feb date as it will take a while to get all the new signs sorted out, and presumably the signs on the south circular need to be signed off by TfL- if they have any sense they?ll take the time to do a better job of the signage than they did previously, as poor / badly positioned signage has been the cause of a number of complaints/ challenges to PCNs.

Consultation on double yellow lines on Abbotswood a road in case anyone is interested. Closes 31 January. https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/abbotswoodroaddoubleyellowlines/

Compulsory reading - council?s vision for its transport policy going forward and its plan to revamp its Movement Plan which is the agreed document that informs detailed transport decisions going forward. No surprises, they are quite keen on a relatively car free future (while noting that a lot depends on central government giving TfL lots of dosh for public transport). It?s on the agenda for next week?s cabinet meeting (1 February), the deadline for public questions at that cabinet meeting is tomorrow (Wednesday) https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s104619/Report%20Movement%20Plan%20update.pdf https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s104619/Report%20Movement%20Plan%20update.pdf The monitoring report looks interesting. Particularly like that the only metric used to assess whether everyone is satisfied with their local area as a place to live, is how many people live within 400m of the strategic cycle network! Not planning to read the whole thing in detail - first impression is it?s a real mix of generic UK data, material cut and pasted from various central sources, a few specific bits of local data (lots on PCNs) and some notes where things aren?t being measured. (Anyone interested in reading the docs - suggest you save them locally, they?ll probably be taken off the website once they realise people are reading them, based on past experience...)

This. Things are worse for those who walk and use public transport but don?t drive. I?m tempted to have more delivered as walking is less pleasant (now not pleasant at all a lot of the time). Artemis Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > heartblock Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > You should try walking down ED Grove at 8:00am > in > > the morning - stationary traffic all the way > down > > the road, cyclists and scooters on the pavement > - > > just an unpleasant walk now, used to love my > walk > > to Herne Hill station - now some mornings I > feel > > very asthmatic. So many school kids walking to > > school in this pollution too. I can't > understand > > what this Council is thinking, it's obviously > > diverting traffic onto other roads. > > Road pricing yes, better local public transport > > yes, but making dirty air ghettos - no! > > Yes. Yet again and again we are told that the > LTNs have made walking ?easier? and ?better?. I > never found any difficulty walking around the area > (if I go for a ?leisure? or ?exercise? walk, I > would choose a park - if I need to get anywhere > for practical reasons, it?s very difficult to > limit the journey to one of the LTN roads as > everything ?useful? (shops, medical centres, > public transport) inevitably involves going on or > via a road that now has more traffic. Therefore, > walking it smellier, more unhealthy and worse. In > my view.

??.the issue becomes who are people more annoyed with?. True, but a sad indictment of the state of politics.

It?s an alliance involving One Dulwich and various residents associations and traders groups - if anything I would have thought that would be likely to make it less party political rather than more? That?s assuming One Dulwich itself has some sort of political affiliation. It might or might not? march46 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dulwich Alliance isn?t a separate group though, > it?s an ?alliance? of One Dulwich with a few other > groups. So the claim that One Dulwich was ever not > politically motivated is dubious.

Update on Wood Vale traffic calming measures https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50026426

Back on the subject of political groups and the allocation of committee places: it seems that some councils include ?solo? independent councillors in their calculation to allocate spots, but Southwark is not one of them, there has to be a ?political group? of at least two councillors in order to be included in the calculation. However, I think two independent councillors could declare themselves a ?group? for this purpose. See https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/FACTSHEET%20-%20Proportionality.pdf And regs here https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1990/1553/contents/made. So, further to my previous post, I think two councillors *just* concerned about LTNs could stand as independents, declare themselves to be a ?political group? and potentially get themselves on a committee (or two). But still couldn?t do much in reality. Given some of the posts above regarding factionalism in the local Labour Party, I wonder whether post- election, councillors on the left of the party might declare themselves a ?political group? for this purpose to ensure they have plenty of representation on committees, if internal Labour politics didn?t already yield that result. I suspect this would be prevented by party rules and a whipping operation though! Always good to learn something new about the operation of local government.

I?ve mentioned before that I tend to try to vote for the person not the party in LG elections ...so if either of CR or TH convince me that they?ll genuinely try to listen to and represent the views of all constituents in my ward then I don?t care if they are Tory or not. The chance of a Southwark wide swing putting the Tories in charge at Tooley Street seems quite slim, and I think a few dissenting voices would be a good thing. I don?t have a view on these particular candidates yet though. Maybe be they?ll turn up here at some point or hold a meeting to tell people their thoughts. Do we know who the candidates for other parties are, yet?

I believe the two candidates referred to on LBC are Clive Rates and Tristan Honeyborne (sp?) who are standing on a conservative ticket. Because of the way the Southwark constitution works, to have any chance of getting on a committee (where you could at least get your voice a bit better heard, even if you?ll be continuously outvoted), you have to be part of a formal political grouping of two or more councillors. So it makes sense for even relatively independent councillors to stand on some sort of party ticket. I don?t know how formal a ?new? political grouping would have to be or how hard it would be to set it up. You get a flavour for how it works from this doc https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s76604/Report%20-%20Calculation%20of%20Political%20Balance%20proportionality.pdf

Interesting piece on Sky about how poorly the changes to the Highway Code have been publicised https://news.sky.com/story/highway-code-revised-cyclists-given-priority-in-new-rules-as-drivers-ordered-to-keep-15-metres-distance-when-overtaking-12521747 Highway Code revised: Cyclists given priority in new rules as drivers ordered to keep 1.5-metres distance when overtaking

I thought the new "give way to pedestrians waiting to cross" rule only applied to junctions that vehicles/ bikes were turning into or out of. So they wouldn't apply where the vehicle or bike is going straight ahead - I don't think. unless there's a zebra crossing? Although from this document, the driver version of the rule doesn't seem consistent with the pedestrian version of teh rule tbh. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041273/the-highway-code-alteration-to-the-highway-code.pdf

Interesting discussion around the oversupply of primary spaces at Cabinet this week - listen to the council officer from 37 mins onward. The situation with the reduction in numbers at a few schools now is only the beginning, it seems - there will be more mergers, closures, reductions in intakes. That said, at this stage Dulwich is not where the capacity problems are most acute.

I think the BBC article says initially a small daily fee but that the Mayor says in the longer term pay per mile will/ should be a thing? https://cities-today.com/london-mayor-calls-for-pay-per-mile-driving-charge/