The Post Office is planning to close Melbourne post office. This is part of a huge programme directed by the Labour Government.
Liberal Democrats think that when a Post Office master says they are making a profit that it is bonkers to close such Post Offices.
Local Labour MP’s voted last week for such closures. They also appeared in photos campaigning against such closures.
How hypocritical is that?

Southwark Council is really good at removing graffiti. You report it and it’s removed within 24 hours. Fab. We have a great Street Leader network of hundreds of active residents, including children, who report such eco problems. The Integrated Cleaning Contract provides for all street cleaners etc to report eco crimes. Community Wardens patrol our streets and report such eco crimes. One day we might even persuade Southwark’s Police Officers to report such eco crimes.

This is part of how Southwark has become one of the top performers in London for keeping streets clean.

But this only works when the graffiti is at street level. When the graffiti is at height such as on railway bridges, 1st floors or above on buildings it doesn’t get removed.

Southwark Council has metalwork teams that fix signs who use aerial platforms. We have teams that work with street lights who use aerial platforms. We even have some graffiti removal officers trained to work at heights from aerial platforms.

We just don’t seem able to join all this up.

So after many many many many many months of reporting the same graffiti over and over and over and over again, the property owner is served a notice and it eventually gets removed. A bit longer than 24 hours! Usually it takes over a year. It certainly took over a year to get the Gala Bingo hall on Camberwell Road. Its taken over two years to not get graffiti removed from Network Rail bridge over Newington Causeway. Walworth Road had lots of graffiti at 1st floor level but officers were able to stand on solid flat roofs over several weekends and it only took six weeks to get removed.

Needless to say I’m pushing for drastic improvements to this. It should not take longer than 24 hours. It does require co operation from organisations such as Network Rail, Bingo halls. We must lot graffit criminals keep feeling they’re are winning.

Get involved, become a Street Leader.

Sunday 6 April an Olympic torch parade takes place through London celebrating this summers Bejing Olympics. Part of this parade will be through Southwark from London Bridge to Tower Bridge. To ensure the ‘best possible’ Olympics the Chinese state has been increasing its oppression of any dissent. China doesn’t have a free press. It gives long prison sentences and tortures citizens who criticise it. The Bejing Olympics are clearly being used to provide propaganda material for China. The latest Tibet attempted uprising against Chinese occupation and the brutal retribution is just another example of how morally bankrupt the Chinese regime is.

I don’t see how we can morally support a parade through Southwark celebrating this summers Bejing Olympics.

What do you think?

The Spring programme for Dulwich Paradiso film society is out.

A long time ago East dulwich had a local cinema on Grove Vale. It was demolished and replaced with key worker accomodation several years ago.

It is really good to see that this local cinema club is still surviving and goning from strength to strength. It meets on Tuesdays upstairs at the East Dulwich Tavern. I hope that my family, work and council diaries will allow me to visit at least once during the Spring season - especially for Control on 1 April. 

www.paradisofilm.co.uk 020 8299 1136

The Southwark Council adult education team run a lot of adult education from five locations in Southwark. They’ve just added a sixth location with some drawing classes at Grove Vale library, East Dulwich.

When the new Grove Vale library is completed by developers during 2010 we should have a facility that could host a lot more adult education in East Dulwich. 

Over many decades many people that received a state education in Southwark (and elsewhere) had a poor deal. Post school education is critical to help residents make up for this and have the best possible life chances. Without a wonderful mother who supported my waivering educational achievements as a teenager and without business sponsorship for Open University and other courses my life chances would have been diminished.

So how do we find the resources to expand adult education to fill this huge chasm?

The Government has announced plans for a new generation of Nuclear reactors. How bizarre when everyone knows the most efficient and safest way to reduce green house gases and fuel poverty is via insulation, energy efficiency and renewable energy generation.

Insulation - not all homes have loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, draft proofing….

Energy efficiency - we don’t yet have local combined heat and power, we haven’t banned old style light bulbs…

Renewable energy generation - virtually no one has solar water heating….

The government is currently drastically increasing its provisions for decommissioning past nuclear power plants to above £75bn or £1,200 for every person in the UK. The problems will be around for the next 250,000 years and we’ll have to look after highly radioactive material into the future longer than humanity has existed on earth. That’s quite a crystal ball to be sure this will be safe effectively for ever.

What is particularly sad is nuclear power generation will take 15-25 years to make happen. Whereas if we chose within 5 years all homes and businesses could be properly insulated saving more energy that all the current nuclear power station will ever produce. Within 10 years we could have combined heat and power pretty universally in place if a government made a political decision for this to happen. We could ban old style light bulbs within a year. If government chose it could create the conditions for solar hot water to become the norm within 5 years.

So where is the leadership to really transform our nations green credentials - certainly not with New Labour.

The Liberal Democrats want a Green Britain - we are the only party to produce costed plans to make Britain carbon neutral by 2050 without resorting to Nuclear Power. We want Britain to become a world leader in renewable energy and we will continue to fight Mr Brown’s daft and expensive nuclear plans every step of the way.

Drink driving is up in Southwark by 14%. This compares to London-wde figures where charges for a positive breath test have gone down by 10%. How very disappointing and life threatening.

Several years ago the Traffic Police service in south London was decimated.  Perhaps this is one of the results. All the research shows that Traffic Police patrols are one of the two most effective means to reduce average traffic speeds to the speed limit - the other being average speed cameras.

This year 52% of secondary school place applicants have been successful in getting their first choice - 4% up on last year.
This still leaves so many disappointed people.
It will take years to get the three extra secondary schools we need in Southwark. Southwark schools are rapidly improving but it will take several more years before on average we meet the national average as a local authority.

This will never happen soon enough.
The Liberal Democrats started running Southwark Council in 2002. Every year since 2002 education results have been recorded as improving. How annoying that they had become so bad prior to 2002.

How angry does this make you feel?