former East Dulwich councillor - how can I help?

[James Barber]

Hi Ko,

I think we have our poo answer - thanks Fuschia.

If anyone have dog poo on the pavement they want removed call 020 7525 5000 and it should be removed within the hour.

[Fuschia]

James apparently it's 4 hours although the website says 1

I got told this after making z complaint

[FreeB]

Thank you at last.

[trinity]

Hi James,

I have just been informed by my childrens' school that the lollipop people who attend the Townley Road/EastDulwich Grove junction and the Dulwich Village/Red Post Hill crossing (so 3 lollipop people in total) will no longer be funded by the council.

These crossing are incredibly busy in the mornings and afternoon and the lollipop people look after children from Charter, Alleyns, JAGS, JAPS, the village schools and probably more. How do we find out the reasoning behind the axing of these services in particular?

Thanks

Trinity

[Ko]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi Ko,

> I think we have our poo answer - thanks Fuschia.

> If anyone have dog poo on the pavement they want

> removed call 020 7525 5000 and it should be

> removed within the hour.

hi james, thanks for the response. however given that dog mess is such a problem, why do the cleaners not remove it while they are doing the litter??? it would make sense and deal with a problem that many people complain about. if the street cleaners are there anyway, why not deal with the dog mess at the same time? james, please could you ask the council about this? many thanks

[Fuschia]

Ko Wrote:

>

> hi james, thanks for the response. however given

> that dog mess is such a problem, why do the

> cleaners not remove it while they are doing the

> litter??? it would make sense and deal with a

> problem that many people complain about. if the

> street cleaners are there anyway, why not deal

> with the dog mess at the same time? james, please

> could you ask the council about this? many thanks

The cleaner I asked about it showed me his pick up stick, which wouldn't cope with dog poo...

[Ko]

so why not give them the equipment to deal with dog mess at the same time?

Fuschia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Ko Wrote:

>

> >

> > hi james, thanks for the response. however

> given

> > that dog mess is such a problem, why do the

> > cleaners not remove it while they are doing the

> > litter??? it would make sense and deal with a

> > problem that many people complain about. if

> the

> > street cleaners are there anyway, why not deal

> > with the dog mess at the same time? james,

> please

> > could you ask the council about this? many

> thanks

>

> The cleaner I asked about it showed me his pick up

> stick, which wouldn't cope with dog poo...

[James Barber]

Hi Ko,

Litter pickers have very little kit and a LOT of ground to cover. I suspect the idea is to avoid loading them down as they wont cover the ground. Whereas we now have street sweeping once a month and they have everything needed and more to undertake it.

In the past we didn't have litter pickers only street sweepers who cleared litter at the same time and it costs an awful lot more sweeping the streets several time a week.

Sorry to hear dog poo clearing now 4 hours rather than 1 hour response time. Another cut back this year (I'll refrain from explaining why it wasn't needed!).

[Fuschia]

I

Must day the litter pickets do a good job

[James Barber]

Hi triniy,

Southwark Council have decided to reduce the number of lollipop people from 52 to 42. The 10 selected to be removed are at signalised crossings. I don't believe any survey of how many vehicles don't stick to the traffic lights have been undertaken. All are located on roads above 20mph. Recent research not taken into account is clear that 7-11 year olds are unable to judge vehicles speeds above 20mph - hence why kids in this age groups feature disproportionately in traffic collisions. The research surmises that this is why you get comments "they just stepped out" of course they did beacuse at 50mph you don't register in such kids brains.

So the junctions Southwark Council have chosen to remove 10 lollipop people are exactly the locations they should'nt be removed without proof that vehicles ARE obeying the signals.

The money that will be saved is calculated to be ?50,000 in total. The pot of money this comes from is the surplus on the parking account. So after paying for parking wardens etc all the money raised from parking fees (prices double this year) parking permits (increased by 26% on average this year), and parking fines (money spent enforcing this reduced after a renegotation). So they've loads more money and their slashing spending keeping our kids safe.

This means many families will be much less likely to let our kids walk to school unsupervised and when they do let them do this they'll have to be much older. Huge cost to our society far outweighing the ?50k a year. Even one child in a serious or fatal collission every 20th year at these crossings will cost more than the savings.

If you don't want this to happen then several things you can do:

- write to Southwark News and/or South London Press ([email protected] & [email protected] respectively) telling them.

- Email the Labour council leader your views on this and why and it can't be money - [email protected]

- Join the Facebook group Save Southwark's Lollipop crossing.

- Promote this issue to your PTA and spread the word via the school. Even if your school isn't affected it could be next time.

[savage]

James,

Last night on Friern road one of residents held a party with very loud music playing until the early hours. A number of neighbouring residents called the anti-social behaviour & noise hotline listed on the Southwark website but were just held in queue waiting for an answer.

Whilst this may have been due to a heavy volume of calls surely it would make sense to have an answer phone service so that issues can be reported. If a number of different people report the same issue then it suggest action should be taken.

Alex

[James Barber]

Hi savage,

Southwark Council is led by the Labour party and their budget for this year was to drastically cut the noise teams. They no longer operate after 2.30am and reduced. Weirdly they are on during weekday 9-5 hours.

This was a political choice they made while hoarding an extra ?9M into reserves every year going forward.

[savage]

James,

Thanks. I understand budget cuts, surely my answer phone suggestion makes even more sense. Most of the calls were lodged around 11pm so someone should have been there.

Alex

[James Barber]

Hi savage,

You're right someone should answer the phone or it should divert in extremes to voice mail. Easy to hook this up to email voice converter so that the noise team get to see it straight away.

[James Barber]

My ward collegue Councillor Jonathan Mitchell is out of hospital but must reast for the next 4 weeks.

So please, any case work direct it to me and avoid JM for the next month.

[georgegarrett]

Hi James

My childrens school was closed today, I was unsure what to think ? What is your take on what is going on and is it going to get worse ?

Thanks

[James Barber]

Hi georgegarrett,

I'll PM you else this thread would not stick to local issues you'd like me to fix.

Regards james.

[Fuschia]

James, nice to see parking attendants visiting Heber

However, standing on the zig zag with arms crossed, while scaring away the miscreants that day, didn't prevent them all parking there again the next

I am not sure it's a very intelligent approach

Do you think you could suggest they send their little camera car on a little sweep up and down and issue a few tickets? That is the only thing that will actually reduce the selfish parking on the zigzags, I think

[James Barber]

Hi Fuschia,

What you've described seems daft.

I'll ask about the smart cars and whether they can visit.

[Fuschia]

Traffic warden standing on the zig zags this morning

[karter]

What Fuschia has described is not daft, parking enforcement officers do not play fairly. James has targets to hit and is rude.

[Fuschia]

I don't really understand your post karter

I want selfish and dangerous posters on the zigzags outside schools to be ticketed to put them off

Having a warden standing on the zigzag had no effect except when it's actually happening

Quick poodle down the rd by one of those little camera cars, snap snap, issue a few tickets and the dangerous parking problem will miraculously resolve, I predict

[Sue]

karter Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What Fuschia has described is not daft, parking

> enforcement officers do not play fairly. James has

> targets to hit and is rude.

xxxxx

Erm, James was saying that the behaviour of the parking attendants was daft, not Fuchsia.

Why are you saying he is rude? It is clear that he is trying to help!

[karter]

I hope Jon Mitchell is feeling better...but thanks guys for your posts...

[James Barber]

Hi karter,

What fuschia has described traffic wardens is daft. Either as you point out they have targets to hit in which case hiding and giving tickets would be more successful in hitting targets OR visitng more than once.

This is probabl a job for the smartcars :o)