Closure of Melbourne Grove to through traffic - new petition

[Zebedee Tring]

Please read James Barber's latest post on the Loughborough Junction thread to see his thinking on the issue of road closures. This may inform his view on the Melbourne Grove proposal.

[hopskip]

Just did. And left a post.

[hopskip]

rch Wrote:

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> We've now got 84 signatures on the No Barrier

> online petition and roughly the same amount again

> on the paper version of the petition. There's been

> a surprising amount of support for the No Barrier

> campaign, several residents who signed the first

> petition have now signed ours.

>

> I don't think we're going to have enough time to

> visit every door before the September 9th DCC

> meeting, so if you would prefer to see public

> funding spent on an open assessment of possible

> traffic measures in the area, and not limited to a

> study of the barrier option, then please sign the

> online petition here:-

>

> https://www.change.org/p/southwark-council-no-barr

> ier-for-melbourne-grove

Brought to the front so not overlooked by Cllr speak.

[Abe_froeman]

Let me guess. "If I lived on Loughborough Junction, ..."??

:)

[richard tudor]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> Let me guess. "If I lived on Loughborough

> Junction, ..."??

>

> :)

How true

LOL.

[Bobby P]

Here's the correct link to the online petition https://www.change.org/p/southwark-council-no-barrier-for-melbourne-grove

All those wanting a commonsense approach to the issue should certainly sign now. (Well done to those who have organised this prior to the next DCC meeting.)

hopskip Wrote:

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> rch Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > We've now got 84 signatures on the No Barrier

> > online petition and roughly the same amount

> again

> > on the paper version of the petition.

[Andrew1011]

hopskip Wrote:

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> James Barber Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

>

> A little premature given the evidence now coming

> forward to show that some of the signatures used

> for the first deputation did not sign up to

> support a barrier. And the significant number who

> are now objecting to it outright. The original

> deputation request could be considered void.

>

> I think that the DCC would we wise to look at the

> allocation of funding again and whether it was

> justified in the first place. Rather than jumping

> to 'terms of reference'.

>

I hope they will do that when evidence of the dodginess of the original petition accompanying the last deputation is presented. It's probably also important for several people to write to the council officer responsible for procedural matters at the DCC to alert them to the alleged irregularities in the previous petition in order to get it and the consequent decision reviewed before the DCC meeting.

[Zebedee Tring]

The Southwark officer whom you should contact is the Monitoring Officer, rather than the DCC Committee Officer. She has overall responsibility for procedural matters.

[Andrew1011]

You can do that. However, I will be contacting the committee officer and recommending that others do as well. I'm assuming that an error was made at the meeting by accepting a petition not gathered or presented in line with procedure. If there was an error the committee officer will seek to have it put right. Obviously if that doesn't happen, and there is unlawful expenditure or a resulting probity issue, then I'd suggest contacting the monitoring officer at that point. Whether there has been any councillor misconduct in this process will likely come out in the wash.

[edhistory]

> unlawful expenditure

This is where the District Auditor comes in and councillors get surcharged?

John K

[ianr]

LalKJ Wrote on 25 June (page 1):

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> 1. what can't be disputed is that there are a number of speeding cars down Melbourne Grove and

> that there is a lot of traffic - over 15,000 in a week and categorised by the police as excessive

> for a residential road of its nature.

Can someone please provide a source or citation for this police categorisation.

Can someone also please tell me the times and locations in MG South when this speed and volume are seen as at their worst.

[Andrew1011]

edhistory Wrote:

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> > unlawful expenditure

>

> This is where the District Auditor comes in and

> councillors get surcharged?

>

> John K

Don't get too excited.

[Zebedee Tring]

As far as I am aware surcharge has been abolished.

[edhistory]

No sanction for unlawful expenditure?

[Zebedee Tring]

Can I suggest that you google surcharge and check whether it still exists.

[rch]

ianr, none of the police I've spoken to have said that the speed or the volume of traffic on Melbourne Grove is excessive, so I would love to know the name of the alleged officer who made this comment.

Bear in mind that there are at least 100 residences on this end of Melbourne, plus seven roads that feed into Melbourne (including two "landlocked" roads who have no other way out), so my guess is that there are easily 1000 locals who use this road regularly.

As a resident, I notice that August is noticeably quieter because of the school holidays, so the school run dramatically affects the volume in addition to local residents going to and from work.

Volume was a bit higher this August because of the Townley Road junction works, but still not as bad as school run time.

I personally don't object to mums driving by my house to take their kiddies to school...

[rch]

Zeb, to be fair, from what I saw at the DCC meeting, almost all of the cllrs at the DCC meeting got sucked into the "action group" performance... the only cllr who spoke any sense lives near Townley Road and therefore personally understood the dynamic of what would happen.

It took us approx six weeks to get to the bottom of the flaws in the paperwork that was submitted by the "action group", which some cllrs appear to have only glanced over quickly.

Unfortunately, it appears to me that changes to the constitution allow this kind of allocation of funds, which is probably a loophole that should be adjusted.

[rch]

We're five signatures away from 100 online in addition to the paper sigs. Sign here!:-

https://www.change.org/p/southwark-council-no-barrier-for-melbourne-grove

[treehugger]

Four now!

[DadOf4]

3 now

[Earl Aelfheah]

It's gone over 100

[Bobby P]

Well done on the petition reaching its century.

https://www.change.org/p/southwark-council-no-barrier-for-melbourne-grove

It's great that people are signing up to a common sense approach.

The more the merrier.

[rch]

Yippee!

You guys are brilliant! Update to come when I have more time to type...

[Andrew1011]

I got two more signatures on the paper petition last night. I'll drop it off to you shortly.

[James Barber]

The original Melbourne Grove residents have suggested a Terms of Reference for the feasibility study:

"

We would be delighted if the study could consider ways of stopping our street being a rat-run alternative to Lordship Lane and of keeping vehicles to the 20mph speed limit. We don't believe that increased signage and speed guns alone can be effective enough, though we'd welcome both.

As our petition has shown, many of us are interested in the idea of a barrier (as suggested to us by councillors) so we'd be grateful if that could be explored.

We are also interested in understanding how pinchpoints could work and where they might be positioned.

The junction with MG and East Dulwich Grove continues to be overloaded at certain times of day. We would be interested in how both a barrier and a pinchpoint might impact on how that junction functions.

In addition, we would like the study to look in detail at the knock-on effect of both of these interventions. Our belief, based on other streets' experiences, is that traffic would fall across Melbourne Grove and the streets that come off it (Ashbourne, Chesterfield etc), but we would like to get better information on this with the help of the study. We have no desire to simply push the problem elsewhere.

"