Bic Basher

Remember, the cycling lobby don't even like electric cars. Personally I'm for electric cars replacing most diesel/petrol cars as well as rental e-bikes as long as customers use and park them properly. Parking a Lime bike in the middle of the London Road pavement as I saw yesterday isn't acceptable. Incidentally as I discovered on Tuesday, half of Forest Hill is in a no-parking zone for Lime including the railway station, so that's why they all end up on London Road where it's allowed to park.

My two remaining parcels were delivered this morning, but no current letters.

I finally received some post today. Private Eye from a fortnight ago, utility vouchers posted on the 3rd November, one of the three parcels I'm waiting for and a whole load of junk.

A Royal Mail van parked here earlier, but still no post.

One of my parcels still hasn't turned up, so at least on the round I'm on, nothing is being delivered. There are Royal Mail vans going around, I saw one parked outside Sainsbury's Local today and another parked outside the telephone exchange on Friday, but nothing for my address.

There's probably a decent argument for Dulwich Hill and Peckham Rye to join Lewisham West, but not Goose Green. Another idea could be to extend Dulwich Hill ward to cover the SE22 part of Dulwich Wood Ward along with Wood Vale (Southwark side) alongside the Sydenham Hill Estate (which has a SE23 postcode), while leaving Sydenham Hill proper and Crescent Wood Road in Dulwich Wood. This would leave DaWN with Champion Hill, Goose Green (to compensate for the partial loss of DW), Dulwich Wood (SE19, SE21 and SE26 postcodes only) and Village. Lewisham West would be Dulwich Hill including the SE22 area of Dulwich Wood and Peckham Rye.

The issues here I think are about cover. If there's no cover for a round, then the round simply doesn't get done until the postie returns to work which has happened here more than once since the move to Peckham.

Had a phone call today telling me the doctor will be contacting me with regards to a hospital appointment by letter! They seem to have no idea that the postal service in ED is next to non existent.

Email from the Royal Mail today.

This is what happens when the Royal Mail became a commercial business rather than a public service. Flogging off the old sorting office obviously made them a few million, but has decreased the quality of service where postal workers now have to drive from Peckham in diesel guzzling vans to the furthest reaches of SE22 just to deliver post when in the Sylvester Road era, they'd walk to all parts of ED. I think Helen Hayes really needs to drum into Royal Mail that they need to acquire a new site for the East Dulwich sorting office within SE22 which will enable postal workers to provide an improved delivery service instead of cost cutting which only ruins their reputation. The actual posties who do the rounds here are nice people who are fed up with the mess as much as we are.

It's much more than gaining Champion Hill, D&WL loses Dulwich Hill and Goose Green to the new Lewisham West and East Dulwich constituency which also gains Peckham Rye ward. Dulwich Wood is mapped so badly that residents of the Lordship Lane Estate and the bottom half of Underhill Road share councillors with those who live on the Kingswood Estate which have very little affinity between each other being nearer to Gipsy Hill and Crystal Palace. Ideally the ward boundaries would be revised again so that SE22 residents currently in Dulwich Wood share actual ED councillors than being part of a ward that is bolted onto SE21.

The contraflow and temp traffic lights have been removed.

As part of the boundary reforms for 2023, the plan is to split ED between two seats, Dulwich and West Norwood which would only serve SE22 areas in the south of the postcode covered by Dulwich Wood Ward and those on LL served by Village Ward as far as Townley Road on the western side of the road and those in Champion Hill ward (Dog Kennel Hill and surrounding roads). The rest of ED will share a new Lewisham West and East Dulwich seat which also covers Nunhead, Forest Hill, Sydenham and Honor Oak. These proposals will see the the SE22 roads closer to Forest Hill and Upper Sydenham continue to be served by a Lambeth focused MP who's seat will continue to cover Brixton and Tulse Hill, while the majority of ED is likely to have a Lewisham focused MP. All this seems to do is ensure Helen Hayes and Ellie Reeves keep their seats while Dulwich constituents depending on where they live will either Helen Hayes in the extreme south and north of ED with everyone else with Ellie Reeves. https://www.bcereviews.org.uk/

I'd like to think most of the e-bikes at least are now being parked sensibly. The summer was horrendous for them being dumped in the middle of pavements or left lying down across them, but not seen that so much now we're in the colder months.

A quick look at the 'work' tonight and it looks like they've partially filled in the hole with concrete. (It was full of water throughout the weekend), so looks like it just needs to be fully filled in and tarmacked over.

No post here for 8 days, despite postal workers not being on strike last week.

That junction falls in Dulwich Wood Ward, so Andy Simmonds tweeted about the traffic light failure, while Catherine Rose hasn't which isn't surprising.

If anyone remembers when that section of LL was closed for weeks on end because of Thames Water, regardless of it being part of the South Circular, they're never in a rush.

The e-scooters seem to be a fad. Today I saw plenty of them parked up at the e-scooter bays on Peckham Rye/East Dulwich Road and Barry Road. However the e-bikes are being used on a daily basis which seem to be what the public demand.

The Overhill Road/LL works have been completed. The Underhill Road works continue.

We had the opportunity to kick out Leeming, Rose and co at the last local elections this year, but instead the majority of people once again simply went into default mode and voted Labour again, this time as a supposed two fingers up to the Tories for their mismanagement at a national level, which does nothing to affect change at the local level. This time round, Labour are a much stronger party, taking seats from the Lib Dems in the north of the borough, so feel they have a mandate to introduce extensions to the LTN among other issues that will affect Southwark residents for the worse.

I found one of the Lime scooters dumped on London Road in Forest Hill, despite the fact e-scooters are supposed to be docked at e-scooter bays. It was right next to a Lime bike as well.

And once again it wouldn't be the same if Thames Water didn't dig up that section of LL again. This time it's by Overhill Road, temporary lights are in use. Luckily, the water pressure seems to be fine this time round.

It's about the same walking time to Tesco Express in Forest Hill or the Sainsbury's Local on LL.

There's also a Tesco Express 5-7 min walk or two bus stops away from where Toolstation is. Luckily there's the option to either bus it to Forest Hill station or bus it which takes around 5 mins. I hope you guys enjoy living on Streamline Mews.