Crown House – decision point

Crown House at 41-43 East Dulwich Road is the ex. Dulwich Area Housing office.

It’s had a busy last six month seeing two planning applications to its reuse.

Nursery

The first was a planning application for new 100+ nursery places, refused by Southwark Council but the applicant has appealed it.
It was refused as the council doesn’t think they’ve made enough efforts to lease it as office spaces protecting local employment. And also no transport report.

The former is odd as with such huge shortages of nursery places many are unable to go back to work. So this feels a red herring or ill conceived. The transport issues interesting. When the council applied next door it was allowed BUT on the condition they produce a Travel Plan.

So I’ve contacted the planning inspector who will decide the appeal supporting the application IF a condition for a Travel Plan is added.
The planning inspector can be contacted at: teamp3@pins.gsi.gov.uk reference APP/A5840/A/12/2185756/NWF

What’s very frustrating is that until May 2012 this planning application would have been decided by the Dulwich Community Council but instead council officers miles away made the decision – wrongly in my mind.

Shop

The second is a planning application for a new medium sized shop. We’re not keen on this as if it’s a successful shop sucking retail vitality out of Lordship Lane. Also the needs more school and nursery places and this site on it’s own could provide much needed nursery places.

If you have a view on this planning application tell council officials – planning.applications@southwark.gov.uk – and copy me.

9 December – train service downgrade.

LONDON OVERGROUND is being extended from 9 December by adding a section Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction – http://goo.gl/9roun

It brings 4 trains per hour (tph) 7 days a week between Clapham Junction and Highbury & Islington via Wandsworth Rd, Clapham High St, Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye, Queens Rd Peckham. This will open up new journey opportunities to east and west London. All these south London stations will appear on the new TfL Tube map. The downside to that is that it looks as if the new Tube map will show us cut off with no rail services to central London. How daft is that.Southwark Rail User Group have thoughtfully produced a much more useful map to publicise our rail connections into central London – http://www.bellenden.net/SRUG-maps.

BUT THE SOUTH LONDON LINE DISAPPEARS
But this also means we say a sad goodbye to the inner South London Line (SLL) – http://goo.gl/yWQmd. This hopefully temporary closure until 2018 when London Bridge station reopens will really isolate communities along the SLL route with no direct access to London Bridge and very patchy services into Victoria – many people will be deterred from living in Camberwell and other communities along the line. Many users, organisations and representatives fought a long and hard campaign to save it. But it was not successful. See here for some of that story – http://www.bellenden.net/rail-cuts. We’ll have to fight hard for the service to be returned in 2018.

REMAINING SERVICES
The changes will leave us with these services off peak:

– Victoria from Nunhead, Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill: 2tph Mon to Sat, but none in the evenings, and none on Sunday. (3tph between 8am-9am)

– Clapham Junction via Wandsworth Rd, Clapham High St, Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye, Queens Rd Peckham to Canada Water and beyond on the London Overground: 4tph, 7 days a week morning till night.

– St Pancras and beyond from Nunhead, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill via Elephant Castle/Blackfriars: 2tph, up to 9pm Mon to Fri, and terminating at Blackfriars after that time and weekends. (More tph Mon-Fri between 8am-9.15am)

– London Bridge from North Dulwich, East Dulwich, Peckham Rye, Queens Rd Peckham, Sth Bermondsey: 4tph, 7 days a week morning to night. (In the peak there will be 6tph – a 10 minute frequency.)

DISAPPEARING SERVICES
The services we are losing are:

– the 2 tph between London Bridge and Victoria via Sth Bermondsey, Queens Rd, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Clapham High St, Wandsworth Rd, Battersea Pk, provided by the South London Line. (SLL). They are currently 7 days a week from morning till night.

Their loss means for the stations affected:

– no trains to London Bridge via Battersea Pk, Wandsworth Rd, Clapham High St, Denmark Hill.

– no trains to Victoria via Sth Bermondsey, Queens Rd, Clapham High St, Wandsworth Rd, Battersea Pk.

– no trains to Victoria after about 7pm, and none on Sunday from Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill.

– a reduction from 4tph to 2tph to Victoria from Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill.

– a reduction off peak from 6tph to 4tph to London Bridge from Peckham Rye, Queens Rd Peckham, Sth Bermondsey.

CAMPAIGN TO RESTORE OUR VICTORIA SERVICES
In the longer term we want our South London Line service between London Bridge to Victoria, via Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill and all the current SLL stations, restored once London Bridge station is rebuilt in 2018.

In the meantime, the campaign continues to get the gaps filled in services to Victoria that the loss of the South London Line creates in the evenings and at weekends and to restore the service to 4tph – http://www.bellenden.net/victoria – You will see there the email addresses of all those who should know the effect of the loss of our South London Line.

London Living Wage

Congratulations on Southwark Council being formally accredited with paying the London Living Wage.

Southwark council has been paying a London Living Wage for many years and I’m proud that a Lib Dem led council started doing this all those year ago. This was despite the then Labour national government telling us it was neither “appropriate or necessary” and could lead to “inflationary pressures”.

But what does this accreditation mean?

It means the London Living Wage Unit calculates a figure every year to ensure people live don’t live in poverty. This isnt just a nice thing to do. Paying people a wage they can properly live on rather than just barely survive usually results in dramatic cuts in absenteeism os its good for business.

So no change then for Southwark Employees who have been paid the London Living Wage for many years. It has gradually meant that as contracts with third parties that employ people outside London have ended that they’ve been replaced with contracts where the contractor commits to the London Living Wage. Finally this year all contracts employing people outside London have ended.

It means contracts such as the one with Liberata for Council Tax collection which had call centres and admin offices across the UK have been terminated and replaced with workers in London. So rather than paying a Borrow in Furness worker the London Living Wage which would have been strange when the cost of living there is so much lower.

Also legal advice in 2008 was that EU law meant that the London Living Wage could not be specified in procurement processes. How legal advice angle and contractors change.

So I welcome the accreditation but practically little has actually changed.

Fox in the Wrong

It really ticks me of when I see big businesses flouting reasonably regulations. One such local business is the JD Wetherspoon chain pub The Fox on the Hill.

It licence is very specific about what is acceptable behaviour and what isn’t. Taking noisy deliveries before 9am isn’t. But again, today, they has deliveries before 7am. Which also means it was breaching another rule that the car park shouldn’t be left open overnight or before 7am.

Which probably means the quarterly meetings I helped arrange originally have stopped happening – another condition of their licence. I’ll find out.

Hopefully it wont take council licensing officials to stop these licensing breaches but really big businesses shouldn’t be incurring the enforcement expense this involves. Sadly the system doesn’t allow fines for such avoidable enforcement to reimburse Council Tax payers.

Safer Lorry Procurement

In London the vehicles that pose the greatest risk to cyclists are lorries. Astoundingly lorries represent 5% of the traffic in London, but are responsible for 50% of cyclist fatalities.

Local council’s such as Southwark are major purchasers of companies that use lots of lorries. Combined they contract 1000’s of lorries to serve our local communities. 

The London Cycling Campaign has a great campaign to encourage councilsto ensure that their boroughs’ streets are safer for cyclists. Lorries with trained driver, side-guards, better mirrors. Not big changes in themselves but would make a big change for the safety of cyclists.

Currently no London boroughs that have a safer lorry procurement policy for buying such services or lorries. Icampaigned and managed to get all Southwark Council’s own lorries owned by Southwark to have side-guards and warm promises that they’d work on Veolia to have side guards on their rubbish trucks used to support the Southwark waste collection contract. However on the back of the successful HGV campaigning Transport for London have now adopted a safer lorry contract which LCC are now asking all London boroughs to adopt.

Once one borough has shown a safer lorry procurement policy is possible – ironing out all the legal wrangles – then I see no reason why others can’t follow. Some will argue that they have years left on specific contracts but my professional experience tells me that often negotiating with suppliers comes up trumps.

Talking to my leader Cllr Anood Al-Samerai we will be calling for Southwark Council to do this and it will form part of our cycling strategy.

Broadband power savings

Broadband speeds are increasing. Fibre To The Home is being rolled out across the western world. But traditional telecoms network is always on consuming power constantly. But with rapidly increasing bandwidth demands and despite evolving more efficient kit that could still mean rapidly increasing power demand.

Thankfully a power game changer has arrived. Bit-Interleaved Passive Optical Network kit. Effectively it’s only one when required and only on by the amount of data to be shifted up to it maximum. Already systems supporting up to 10Gigabits are available with immienently 40G.

Traditional 10G bandwidth even in sleep mode would consume 2.5W but Bi-PON only used 60 milliwatts.  Overall they produce a saving of 30% now with further efficiencies expected. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. For every Watt used powering kit typically telecoms needs another Watt+ to cool and remove heat. It also uses significant effort to ensure eight hours battery bakc-uo and stand-by generators. And all these power supporting kits and distribution boards take space which can be drastically cut back. So any power savings are multiplied through the operational costs of running networks. 

The first field trials of this kit are plannd by France Telecom – Orange.

Power Sharing

South Lakeland council have come up with a great idea to reduce energy prices for its residents. Instead of residents approaching power companies singularly South Lakeland are providing bulk energy purchasing – both electricity and gas.

So far over a 1,000 households have signed up for this extra council service. Each household still have individual contracts but under the umbrella of a great centrally done deal using the much bigger buying power of a council.

This type of simple measure can really help lift people out of fuel poverty. A tiny commission is being made which is being ring fenced to help fund insulation driving down energy needs and further helping the very poorest.

Clearly such a scheme should be introduced into Southwark. And that’s exactly what I hope to persuade my party to call for in Southwark.

Heathrow nonsense

I was dismayed to see such stupid protestations from Conservative MP’s  who should know better and supposed business leaders. They’ve been demanding Heathrow have a third runway to magically solve all our economic woes.

First myth. Building a third runway with all the infrastructure would take at least 10 years and would only come on stream in two or three five year parliaments time. Not much economic magic about a ten plus year delay.

Second myth. That air pollution wouldn’t be a problem, that aircraft are so much cleaner. Most aircraft are flown for 40+ years. The current aircraft flying would be the ones to be used. Equally ground transport for passengers and staff would see NOx pollution causing further ill health to residents there let alone all the noise pollution. The World Health Organisation noise limits are already well and truly being breached across London.

What is truly astounding is the latest MP to call for this is Tim Yeo. He’s the chair of the parliamentary Climate Change select committee. Clearly a man in the wrong job.

The coalition agreement is quite clear. No third runway at Heathrow. I’d be saddened if the Conservatives renege on their commitment to this going into the 2015 elections. The Heathrow sound problem reaches across most of south London.

Catch 22 – a Southwark Tram

Since writing a blog about a Southwark Streetcar I’ve been approached by various parties to discuss how we can do this in Southwark.

The most promising is a Southwark SuperTram. This comes from a company that have been working on a Preston SuperTram where they’re only a planning application away from having all the permissions they need.

A Southwark SuperTram could cost £55M and connect London Bridge with Kings College & Maudsley hospitals close to Denmark Hill station.

Within a short walk of its route 130,000 Southwark and Lambeth residents live, let alone the thousands of businesses.

Why this route? Well with t he South London Line closing it would link two hospitals into London Bridge and Guys Hospital. It keeps all the route in Southwark minimising complications to Transport for London alone. Avoiding any need for compulsory purchasing would avoid the huge complications and costs of a Transport Works Act needing parliamentary approval.

When a Cross River Tram was proposed its costs ballooned to £1.5bn for around 20km so how come £55m for 7km? Revolutionary track deployed in concrete beams only 30cm deep – LR55. light overhead lines. Trams made from of the shelf components.

To build such a tram could be done with multiple teams at 400m per team per week. Several options for where to place the depot.

And the tram journey? 15 mins end to end running every 4 or 5 minutes.

So far all politicians like the idea of trams but want Trampower to prove somewhere else it can make trams happen. I’m hopeful that with encouragement Trampower will make their Preston scheme happen and then a Southwark Supertram becomes much more convincing for everyone.

For history buffs this is a picture of the last piece of tram track removed from Camberwell.

Last Camberwell tram track

 

 

 

 

 

 

What were our forefathers thinking.

Shawbury gates

Attached photo is the official opening of the fabulous new Shawbury Court Gates. Previously this area was ungated with lots of anti-social behaviour and access to the Shawbury Court flats above a number of Lordship Lane shops. Real problems of urination, defecation and worse.

So the gates are expected to remove this problem from these residents and businesses.

Picture show Cllr  Jonathan Mitchell, Madeleine one of the residents who led the coordination of businesses and residents to contribute to the gates and the artist Heather Burrell whose team made and installed her design.

The funding was 50% business/residents and 50% Southwark council via locally decided Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding. East Dulwich councillors are particularly keen on crime prevention and were delighted to encourage and support this scheme.

Where else do we need to gate and remove anti-social behaviour in East Dulwich?