Today East Dulwich cllrs Jonathan Mitchell and I (cllr Richard Thomas is on holiday), along with Greater London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon met with Southwarks Police Commander Malcom Tillyer along with other Police and MPA officers.

A very useful third meeting to discuss the future of East Dulwich Police Station.

We discussed the East Dulwich councillors proposals of how a Police station as we would see it could be kept on the current site, combined potentially with other council facilities, while meeting Police aspirations for new facilities commensurate with their requirements while obtaining capital receipts for the site.

Unfortuntely everything is on hold while the Metropolitan Police Authority reviews it property plans. Hopefully, in 4-8 weeks time we can continue these discussions.

Southwark Council and Southwark Police have been recognised for excellent partnership working. Hopefully we can deliver a role model in East Dulwich that takes such partnership working to an even higher level by sharing facilities and increasing how joined up services are for the general public. If successful this could be a model for other sites in Southwark and London as a whole.

Last year for England crime dropped by 10% nationally but knife crime is still a problem. 22,151 reported knife crimes occurred with half of these in inner London, Manchester and Birmingham.

To help the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team find knives before they are used to commit a crime the East Dulwich councillors are using Cleaner, Greener, Safer funds to purchase a metal detector wand so small it can fit in a shirt pocket. T

Hopefully this little device will work as hoped and help the local East Dulwich find any knives out their. Hopefully, they wont have any to find. Even finding one knife will be a huge success.

If this devices proves useful we’ll fund others.

At long last Caffe Nero, having spouted considerable vitriol about Southwark Council, East Dulwich residents, council officers, and after the latest 30 day deadline, Caffe Nero have finally removed two noisy illegal and ugly air conditioning units they’d installed within a few feet of residents bedroom windows.

I never thought I’d quote the “unacceptable face of capitalism” and think it resonated with the appalling actions of a business located in East Dulwich.

Imagine what it must have been like having these units feet away from your bed, working 24/7, and being particualrly noisy in summer when you need to have your bedroom window open to keep cool.

At last some good news for these residents who can finally get a good nights sleep.

I feel sad and angered with the anouncement today that all eights proposed Post Offices closures in Southwark will go ahead. One of the East Dulwich Post Offices will close. The one on Melbourne Grove.

The service given at this Post Office is so good that many users bypass other Post Offices. Some people just can’t queue for quarter of an hour. This decision is particualrly bad as the Camberwell Post Office will close for an extended period while it is kncoked down and rebuilt. So at the very least delaying until after that project happens would make sense.

But this isn’t about making sense. It is about closing profitable popular urban Post Offices with the presumption customers and their business can travel to other Post Offices and boost profits from urban Post Offices. These decisions are not about giving excellent, better or even the same level of service.

The whole landscape needs to be changed to maximise customer service. Ministers and Post Offices decision makers are not customers of Post Offices. They have other people to run such errands. Hence this daft decision - timed to be announced just after the 1 May elections.

Southwark is one of two local authorities in the country taking part in an average speed camera trial. Barry Road was recently considered for this trial. I have had a number of East Dulwich residents complaining about excessive speeding and so have my Liberal Democrat ward colleagues cclr Richard Thomas and cllr Jonathan Mitchell.

Barry Road over the last three years has had two people seriously injured and 28 slightly injured so clearly lots of pain and suffering.  Barry Road at its junction with Underhill Road had six, four around Etherow Street and the school, seven at the junction with Eynella Road.

The requirements to consider a road for the trial included producing speed stats of the current situation. 63,527 travelled along Barry Road between 12 and 20 March. 1.49% exceeded the 40mph speed limit. The average speed was 25.7mph but 20% of vehicels travelled greater than 30mph.

So average speed cameras to enforce the 40mph aren’t really necessary. But changing the speed limit to 30mph to reflect the reisdential nature of Barry Road would seem long overdue.

Apparently plans are afoot to close t he Lewisham Accident & Emergency service.

Where will people who need A&E, who would currently be served by Lewisham Hospital, go?

My guess is they wont go to Woolwich or Farnborough as proposed. My guess is they will travel, in distress, all the way to Camberwell and Kings College Hospital. What particularly frustrating is that Guys A&E was closed with the expectation that many users would go to Lewisham A&E.

Apart from the extra stress on the Kings A&E that users from East Dulwich ward that I represent will experience.  In these times of increased caution about a big terrorist incident reducing the capacity of London to cope with a severe incident is alarming.

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.

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

I understand that the Labour Government Post Office closures programme has been announced today.

In East Dulwich it is proposed to close the Melbourne Grove post office. This really is vandalism by the Labour government of a local community resource. Secondary shopping parades all over london will be badly affected with post office closures. In a time when we need people to walk and cycle to local services to reduce CO2 emissions the Labour government seems predicated to creating car journeys. Truely bonkers.