‘Pay your rent Harriet’

A couple of months ago while popping into the Town Hall to attend a meeting about East Dulwich I came across a Harriet Harman MP surgery. It was taking over the whole ground floor of the Town Hall and special security was present. Amazing.  After asking questions at a full council meeting I was shocked to hear that Southwark Council hires the town hall to Harriet Harman for only £50 per surgery.  Weirdly I believe the invoicing for this stopped when Labour ran Southwark council.
When Harriet holds surgeries I’ve seen a minimum of two extra security guards hired by Southwark Councl for her surgeries. When Harriet is generating lots of press interest, such as when she was busted for speeding to her Suffolk home, Southwark Council hires even more security to keep photographers at bay. Even two contract security guards  must cost more that £50 each time.As MPs have significant expense accounts and allowances paid for by parliament they really shouldn’t be treated as charities and subsidised at the expense of Southwark Council tax payers. Equally hiring out the town hall shouldn’t get in the way of the council holding meetings – currently the main council Planning Committee can’t always meet when it needs to as Harriet has bagged Tuesday evenings.

Can we be sure that ALL the costs associated with the use of Southwark properties by MPs are charged at commercial rates and will be kept commercial going forward?

I’ll keep asking until I’m happy such weird subsidies are resolved sand that invoices and bills are actually being paid.

Battery recycling

Batteries contain lots of nasty exotic chemicals that really should’nt go to landfill or incinerators. Ideally we’d all use wind-up appliances such as radios, mains power or rechargeable batteries. But for some things only a battery is available. 

Southwark Council has just introduced battery recycling boxes in all libraries. For East Dulwich the nearest libraries are Dulwich Library on Lordship lane and Grove Vale Library on Grove Vale.

Up to now I used to put battery in my pocket and cycle them up and down the Walworth on the way to and from work. Everntually I’d remember and divert into the Manor Place recycling centre. Now I’ll just stroll along with the kids on a Saturday morning to Grove Vale Library.

Carbon Reduction Action Group (CRAG)

Every month the Peckham CRAG meeting at Peckham Library. The concept is brilliantly simple. Attendees calculate how much Carbon Dioxide their lifestyels result in and share ideas of how to reduce it. Some groups even commit to reducing by a specified amount the CO2 they produce. Very effective CO2 slimming club.

We really need to create one in East Dulwich.

Anyone interested?

East Dulwich crime

The latest crime stat for London are available on the Metropolitan Police website. It shows that reported crime in East Dulwich has taken a sharp dip. Some of this is due to the Police more accurately showing East Dulwich political ward boundaries. But most of the dip can’t be explained in this way.

Much of the dip is due to the hard decisions the three Liberal Democrat councillors have taken to spend local Cleaner, Greener, Safer money in ways suggested by the local Crime Prevention Officer. Things like Alertboxes and gating alleyways. We’ve also been following up our promise to ensure all East dulwich streets have good modern street lighting levels.

So 2006 East Dulwich has 99.72 crime per thousand population. During 2007 this dropped to 86.16 crimes per thousand. This means we’ve gone from being the 3rd to 2nd best ward for lowest reported crime levels in Southwark. The next round of Cleaner, Greener, Safer applications has opened with a closing date of 31 March for applications.

Again we’ll be taking extra heed of what the evidence tells us will reduce crime when deciding between schemes. In one years time I expect to be able to say that East Dulwich is no.1 for lowest reported crime in Southwark. Watch this space….

80% E-Crete

Over 5% of global CO2 emissions from man comes from plain old contrete.

For every tonne of concrete, 1/2 tonne of CO2 is produced from the chemical reaction and another 1/3rd of a tonne of CO2 from the fossil fuels used to heating calcium carbonate to 1400 degrees C.

During the Soviet Union era they developed a concrete based on Geopolymers. This technology has been rediscovered by Australians. It raw materials are fly ash and slag waste from fossil fueled power stations – great recycling – and works at room temperatures. This technique produces 80% less CO2 than traditional concrete.

considering that in Southwark we have so many regeneration schemes that will require huge quantities of concrete – Elephant & Castle, Canada Water, Bermondsey Square, London Bridge, Blackfriars Road – we need to reduce the embedded energy of all these schemes.

So when will this technology reach our shores helping us make the 80% CO2 reduction we need to make to avoid catastrophic global warming?

New Grove Vale library

I’m delighted to report that last night my ward colleagues Cllr Richard Thomas, Cllr Jonathan Mitchell and I supported a new community library at 18-22 Grove Vale. The library component is something I proposed to the developer two years ago. Last night Southwark Council’s main Planning Council GRANTED planning permission for a new Community Library at 18-22 Grove Vale replacing the current Grove Vale Library. The scheme will include 22 flats, 25% renewable energy, green roofs. The new library will have twice the current floor space for users. This will enable school classes to visit, adult education and increasing the number of days and hours of opening. The new site being next to East Dulwich station will have significantly more footfall. The current library has just over 100,000 visits per year. I’m expecting this to increase by at least 50%. Local businesses in Grove Vale and the surrounding area should benefit from this new magnet for visitors.

The Planning Committee voted: James Gurling, Eliza Mann (reserve), Gordon Nardell, Althea Smith and Aubyn Graham for the scheme, with Robin Crookshank-Hilton voting against the scheme.

The expectation is that six months of finalising planning conditions. Then 18 months to complete the build.

Getting to this position would not have been possible without the developer and agents St.Aidan’s and many council officers, council departments and councillors sharing my vision and overcoming considerable hurdles.

Many thanks for all their hard work. What stars. A really great result for the residents East Dulwich and South Camberwell. 

Planning and Energy Bill

Currently councils are extremely limited in ensuring new developments meet the highest possible and practicable environmental standards.

A private members bill being promoted by Michael Fallon MP would allow councils, after  involving their communities, to set high energy efficiency standards for new developments and to require them to generate energy locally. This would dramatically save on CO2 emissions, create local jobs.

IF you want such a bill to happen then please contact our Dulwich & West Norwood MP Tessa Jowell and ask her to vote for it on 25 January – Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, House of Commons, Westminster, SW1A 0AA  

Telephone number – 020 7219 3409, Fax number – 020 7219 2702, E-mail address – jowellt@parliament.uk

Fortnightly rubbish collections – thwarted so far

Southwark Council has no plans for fortnightly rubbish collections. It is in the process of signing a PFI contract with Veolia for all its rubbish collection and processing services that states weekly rubbish collections.

But I’ve read that councils that have introduced fortnightly rubbish collections have a step increase in recycling. I’ve lots of reservations about how such a fortnightly service would feel. So as an experiment our house has been trying to only put out our rubbish bin every fortnight. For the last two weeks we’ve failed dismally. The rubbish collections guys are so thorough that even when we’ve not put out our rubbish bin out they’ve fetched it from down the side of the house – thwarting our experiment so far.

Peak Coal

This week I was horrified to read about an Energy Watch report suggesting Peak Coal is only 25 years away. I’d previously heard about Peak Oil from an East Dulwich resident, which is the point at which from then on ever decreasing amounts of oil will be available and prices will sky rocket. But along with everyone else I’d imagined that some of that problem would be ameliorated by substituting with coal. But to read that Peak Coal is potentially only 25 years away is truely frightening.

If this prediction is correct we are set up for sky rocketing energy prices. Clearly we’re not ready to continue our civilisations globally, nationally, regionally or locally with energy prices ten or more times the current prices. Or with energy becoming unreliable and intermitent.

I had been thinking about more insulation and installing renewable energy for my house. I’m going to accelerate these thoughts into plans.

What are you going to do?

Railway Bridge – Red Post Hill

Tuesday 15 January the Dulwich Community Council Planning Committee met to decide, amongst other things, a Listed Building Consent to demolish the grade 2 listed bridge outside North Dulwich railway station on Red Post Hill. Weirdly the item was submitted as a late item with less than five clear days notice. Network Rail have known they’ve required permission since 2004.

I asked whether we could hear the justification for this demolition and judge whether Network Rails stated necessity justified this apparent vandalism. The Southwark Council legal officer stated we were not allowed to consider whether the demolition was justified in our minds. What a silly law. The logical extension is that no listed building is safe. 

It was clear that all the Conservative councillors were minded to allow the demolition. We discussed the details of the replacement and how alike Network Rail plan to return the bridge to its former glory. Sadly Network Rail only offered very limited and few architectural features will be recreated in the replacement bridge.

The application to demolish this part of our architectural heritage was approved. The voting was four Conservatives for the Listed Building Consent and myself against. Democracy in action.

What next. 26 weeks of Red Post Hill being closed to through motor vehicles so that bridge no one wants strengthened for 7.5 tonnes t o44 tonnes can take place.

TWENTY SIX WEEKS.