M&S Appeal Fails

The Planning Inspector has made their decision about the M&S/Freeholders planning appeal about replacing the current Iceland shop on Lordship with a much large shop unit, removing the current car parking and building eight flats above.

The inspector agreed with residents and East Dulwich councillors that the scheme as proposed would add to local parking stress and the deliveries plan was not acceptable.

To read the who decision, which I recommend, please see:

2198122 DECISION

What next?

Well we know Waitrose has been patiently waiting in the wings hoping for this outcome and hopes M&S will walk away. M&S may decide they want to proceed with the shop unit as is. It seems unlikely Iceland will want to extend its lease beyond January 2014 when it ends. But it’s now in the hands of the freeholder.

What will they do next?

New Crystal Palace

After many attempts to redevelop the site of the old Crystal Palace a new Crystal Palace has been proposed. It’s described as a £1/2bn project to recreate a cultural attraction.

New Crystal Palace

Chinese developers are proposing with London Mayor Boris Johnson supporting a replica of the original Crystal Palace. But hopefully with better fire alarms and sprinklers to avoid a repeat of 1936 when the original burnt down!

But such a huge structure with 94,000m2/990,000ft2 of space predicted to employ 2,000 people would have to draw huge numbers of visitors.

How will they get there?

What’s not been mentioned yet is that the original Crystal Palace was so successful it needed an extra railway line and Crystal Palace High Level Station: 265px-Crystal_Palace_High_Level_Station_1908

 

 

 

 

Recreating this railway line to ensure the success of the New Crystal Palace would likely need the rebuilding of Honor Oak, Lordship Lane and Upper Sydenham railway stations as well as a high level station in Crystal Palace to serve this rebuilt railway line. This would revolutionise public transport in south Southwark.

Do you think a these schemes should happen?

Get Britain Cycling

The All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group have produced a report titled Get Britain Cycling.

I’m chuffed to say that thE Liberal Democrats have adopted all 18 of the recommendaitons.

The key components being:

–  government providing funding of £10 per person each year for cycling. That this amount rise to £20.

– cross -departmental cycling action plan be produced

– appoint a national cycling champion

– raise the target proporiton of all trips by bike from 2% in 2010 to 10% by 2025.

These actions owuld produce a heatlhier, happier and richer country.

Carmageddon

It has been reported that one of the coalition minister Tory Eric Pickles wishes to relax parking restrictions. He fear local authorities are “anti-car”.

We’ve had our own local issues around Lordship Lane and the bus lanes being zealously enforced but what would happen if Mr.Pickles had his way?

Through a weird quirk of fate an full scale experiment along the dogmatic lines Mr.Pickles proposes has taken place in Aberystwyth.

Due to a mix=up between the police and Aberystwyth local authority they’ve had no parking enforcement for exactly 12 month.

These extracts from 1 June Daily Mail describe the chaos Mr.Pickles wishes up the rest of the country…

“For the last 12 months, citizens have been free to park wherever they please, without fear of prosecution. And any faith in human nature, that people might act responsibly and observe the restrictions anyway, is quickly dispelled by a visit to the town. Forget Armageddon – this is Carmageddon. Everywhere you look there are cars parking where they shouldn’t be: on single yellows, on double yellows, next to bus stops, on pavements , and – most brazenly of all – in just about every disabled parking space available.”

“As the residents of Aberystwyth are discovering, the iron is that when,  in theory you can park anywhere, you can’t in reality find anywhere to park.”

“With allocated loading bays being blocked by family saloon, frustrated delivery drivers are simply stopping their lorries in the middle of the street with queues of he-up motorists honking in frustration and demanding to know when they will be moving on.”

Loony Left Returns?

I was agog at the 20 month energy price freeze Ed Milliband announced yesterday. He stated he will freeze energy prices from May 2015 to January 2017.

There is no such thing as a free energy price freeze.

Surely he can’t have thought this through. Energy companies have little control on the prices of the raw materials they use while maintaining their legal responsibilities to shareholders – most shares being held by pension funds and insurance companies.

They can’t control their costs without incurring risks and extra costs. If they hedge costs by buying raw material options ahead of need, guessing future raw material prices, they can get this seriously wrong. This risk has to be paid for. That means higher prices for consumers.

A price freeze takes retail pricing out of the energy company hands leaving limited options for them. If their input costs rise above some level they can absorb they can either withhold and not produce and sell energy potentially leading to blackouts. More likely they’ll hedge raw material costs and pay for this either before the freeze with extra price rises between now and the 2015 general election or borrow and pay for the borrowing by post freeze additional price rises. Considering Ed Milliband also talked about breaking up the energy companies the latter option wont be practical. So we should all expect ot see exttra prices between now and May 2015 as energy companies prepare for the freeze.

There is no such thing as a free energy price freeze.

Lordship Lane Council Scam

I’m shocked at the revelation that Southwark Council is fleasing Dulwich residents and visitors.

Southwark only enforce bus lane restrictions by issuing tickets to drivers wrongly in bus lanes at restricted time at five location. One of those locations is Lordship Lane.

for the last complete year of stats 2011/12 Southwark Council issued 1,176 bus lanes tickets of which 978 were for Lordship Lane alone. This cost £60,142 to residents.

Why is Southwark Labour picking on Dulwich drivers?

Do you also think this is outrageous?

Well done Southwark News for revealing this.

 

New East Dulwich Cinema

The Thomas Moore Hall (116A Lordship Lane) is owned by the local Roman Catholic church. In 2011 they closed it as a community centre and have been consulting their congregation and considering what to use this site for next. They’ve had one interested party obtain planning permission for a nursery. But their latest thinking is to have a cinema.

We think this is a great idea – do you?

Picturehouse Cinemas, who run the Ritzy in Brixton, are interested and so are Curzon Cinemas and Everyman. I’ve spoken to all three groups. A cinema again in East Dulwich, but especially on Lordship Lane, could give the area a real boost seeing more money spent locally. Clearly it needs to be sensitively done to avoid parking issues. It’s likely to be busiest when most shops are closed which should help.

Please do tell us if you do or don’t want a cinema in East Dulwich and why?

Payday Lending

Payday lending is a real concern of Lib Dem Vince Cable the Secretary of State leading the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

1 July a summit was held to review what the government is doing to sort the payday market mess inherited from when Labour were in power.

 

Government funded research by Bristol Universtiy and an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report are clear that Payday lending isnt functioning in consumer’s interests and widespread non-compliance and poor practice is present.

We’re lucky that so far East Dulwich hasnt attracted a Payday lending ‘shop’ . I’ve only had a terribly sad case where an East Duwlci resident has been fleeced by excessive charges. I’m sure we have others locally.

The government through the OFT has stepped in and sent compliance letter to each of the 50 leading payday lenders who make up 90%+ of the market. Of the 21 responses so far 6 have decided to leave the payday market.  The remaining lenders have 12 weeks from receipt of these letters to prove they comply with regulations.

The OFT have already revoked 3 licences and another has been surrendered.

The OFT has also referred the whole market to the Competition Commission citing fundatemnetla problems with the way this market operates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) starts regulating consumerscredit from April 2014 and has already committed to prioritising action in the Payday market.

The government is also concerned about how the market is advertising and commissioned research into this. 

Finally to provide a better alternative the government has comitted £38m to support Credit Unions and has been doing other regulatory work to support Credit Unions.

So we’re less than a year away from the Payday loan market being a much healthier market.

Have you suffered in East Dulwich from the excess of this industry?

Estate Agents Demise?

East Dulwich has many estate agents. With the fees and percentages they charge they don’t need to sell many houses to survive and even thrive.

Along with stamp duty estate agents percentages – often 1.25-2% become a significant expense from local property sales.

a new business model of “Pay-per-view” has been launched. Instead sellers pay £118.80 for taking photos, drawing floor plans and listing the property on major property websites – which is how most people look for properties now. They then charge £42 per viewing up to a maximum of £420.

This is really cheap compared to the fees residents in East Dulwich are paying.

Will it take off? Would you use them?

Currently non estate use is around 5%.

If it does take-off Lordship Lane would see around 20 shop units become free….

Income equality 25 year high.

Amazingly post recession UK is less unequal than any time over the last 25 years as per the Office for National Statistics(ONS). As measured via the Gini index an internationally recognised method.

This appears to be from wage stagnation but with benefits and tax credits rising by inflation helping protect the poorest.

The ONS has just announced that 2011/12 tax year the gaps between the poorest and richest has narrowed. And to close a gap that for 25 years has been widening this is big.

Using the Gini index Sweden is at 25%, US 40%, and the UK has improved from 33.7% to 32.3%. So we clearly have some way to go but its clear that over the next few years we’ll increasingly moved towards Swedish levels but the rate will dramatically slowdown with benefit restrictions coming into force.

I suspect during the next government 2015-20 indirect taxes such as VAT will be reduced. These disproportionately hit the poorest who currently pay around a third of their income on indirect taxation whereas as the richest fifth pay around 14% of income.

Direct taxation also disproportionately hits the poorest. Things like Council Tax. Clearly moving local taxation from asset based to income based would also help close the Gini index gap. Another correction for the next government.

Do you think we should aspire to be more US or Swedish?
Personally I’d go for the latter and the most cohesive society we can but creating better entrepreneurial support mechanisms.