Residents kept in the dark…

I was amazed to discover that Southwark Council is considering switching of Southwark street lighting. Clearly adjusting street lights is an ongoing sage managing over 16,000 street lights in Southwark.

What’s really amazing is that this news is buried in Highway Electrical Newspage 12. The article is titled “42% of Councils in England and Wales Planning Some Street Lighting Cuts”. It shows Southwark as one of of the local authorities in the “Councils planning total or partial night switch off”.

I haven’t knowingly heard this before. Have you?

It’s the only London Authority listed in this category. No public announcement. No public consultation even with the Police let alone residents or businesses.

Another example of no democracy in a Labour led Southwark.

What is particularly galling is that it took me four year to get all the street lighting in East Dulwich ward brought up to modern standards – bright white light rather than faded yellow light. This saved buckets of electricity. So really frustrated to hear they might be turned of.

Peckham Rye station

I was delighted to hear that £10.6M will be spent making Peckham Rye station and the immediate area around it something we can all be proud of.

I helped ensure this was in the Lib Dem 2010 local election manifesto so it has always been a priority for me and my political group. So its good to know its become a local Labour priority. Roughly half the money will come from Transport for London and half from Southwark Council.

Creating a large open square to the front of the station, renovate the station, create a buzzing pleasant day time and most importantly evening destination. Currently things like the cinema are fine but really under used. Venturing out into the centre of Peckham for leisure doesn’t seem popular. I regularly take my family but it feels odd with so few people around. Changing this for a cafe culture and hopefully other attractions will be a real fillip for Peckham and more generally Southwark.

The only fly in this ointment is the proposed four year time scale. Christ that’s a long time to make it happen. I wish I was the project manager…

Capital Projects

At the last Dulwich Community Council meeting we decided (in no particular order) how to allocate our limited capital to projects:

1. Artistically illuminate East Dulwich station bridge £10,000 – we think making the station area more attractive will help reduce crime and the fear of crime there.

2. Go slower signs £6,000 – residents often contact us that people are speeding on there roads but they don’t want speed humps. Where do you think we should put the 4-5 active speed signs?

3. Cycle contraflow on Henslowe Road £8,500 – some residents have told us its a long cycle round while others have told us they don’t like pavement cycling. This should solve both points but we hope to do it for a lot less than the ridiculous sum council officers have suggested.

4. Fix North Cross Road grot spot £4,000 – just by the electricity sub station.

5. Community notice boards £3,000 – they’ve worked well so far and more should work even better.

6. 20mph Lordship Lane £15,000 – we’re hopeful that with the new crossings on Lordship Lane simple signing of a 20mph speed limit will work making Lordship Lane even more attractive.

7. Trees on Lordship Lane £8,500 – we want to make Lordship Lane even greener and more friendly.

8. Goose Green School £5,400 – they’ve asked for help greening the school grounds.

9. Goodrich School £3,300 – they’ve asked for help greening the school grounds.

10. East Dulwich Crime Reduction fund £8,000 – some more funds for local Police to tell us how to reduce crime further.

11. Worlingham Road grot spot £5,000 – space between sheltered accommodation and 31A Worlingham Road.

12. Goose Green playground £5,000 – a little help to make it an even better playground.

Total £81,700 (with reserve of £312).

Stop crime?

Facinating research suggestion being tested in Santa Cruz – can Police predict and then stop crime that hasn’t yet happened?

They’re trying futuristic sfotware that looks at crime data and predicts where it is next most likely to happen. They then put more emphasis on those locations for Police patrols. The hope is that this will prevent crime or if it fails to do that increase the chances of catching the criminals there and then.

The software has developed by mathematicians from Santa Clara University – George Mohler and co. In a previous successfil test 2004-05 they predicted 25% of the actual burglaries and the locations on any pday based on the previous 36hours data of that crime type.

I’ve read about crime being studied epidemiologically but these guys treat it mathematically as an earthquake with aftershocks. The aftershocks being further crimimal events.

Do you think we could apply this theory to East Dulwich?

Food Fight

The coalition appears to be heading for a food fight with plans to ban Environmental Health Officers from having the right to enter food premises to ensure they’re safe and not causing food poisoning and risking public health.

The Protection of Freedoms Bill could result in EHO’s only being able to inspect premises with the invitation of owners or a court order. Obtaining court orders takes time – allowing food poisoning to spread OR the owner to cover-up whatever the root causes of poisoning have been. The same type of problems are likely for pollution control inspectors and trading standards officers.

I really think this is a case of throwing out good regulations. Most people who eat out do so on the basis of believing businesses are responsible and regulations will find out the bad businesses. Breaking that covenant means people will feel less certain their health wont be compromised by the perfectly innocent act of spending money in local food businesses. To rely on outbreaks of food poisoning to catch badly run businesses and inspections where the business is forewarned to put on an act will see more instance of food poisoning.

Hopefully no one in East Dulwich will become a martyr for the foolishness of these changes.

Draft House

Blackcherry appears to have been sold and renamed Draft House.

The first thing the new owners do – talk to neighbours NOPE but apply for shorter licensing hours.

They have applied to be open Thus, Fri and Sat 10am until 1am and the  rest of the week 10am until midnight. Draft House licensing extensions. This is dramatic improvement on the current 2am and 3am closing.

If you think Lordship Lane and East Dulwich already has enough anti social problems from late night revellers then please do SUPPORT this application by emailing licensing@southwark.gov.uk and please copy me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk. Equally if you think we don’t have enough late night drinking tell me that.

The only tweak would be closing at midnight on Thursday.

Whenever you see or hear any anti social problems that don’t warrant a 999 call please do call the the non emergency 101 number. Without reporting problems they never happened as far as licensing and Police officers are concerned and businesses can keep on causing alcohol fuelled problems for East Dulwich.

But this application is a move towards a saner East Dulwich.

MisAdventure

This week the Adventure Bar on Lordship Lane licensing application to remain open on Thursday nights until 2am and bank holiday Sundays until 2am was decided. They wanted to add to the current Friday and Saturday 2am closing.

The Licensing Sub Committee did not allow Thursday night opening until 2am but has allowed bank holiday Sundays until 2am which this year will happen four times.

Big thank you to everyone who objected and to Fred and Joe who attended the hearing with me. I’m really sorry for all the anti social behaviour this bar and Boho bar are causing you.

So, please whenever you experience anti social behaviour locally that is not an emergency please DO report it via the 101 non emergency number. Failure to report problems means officially they never happen and make it very hard to resist more late night licenses and longer licensed hours.

East Dulwich police station

This month it was announced that the East Dulwich Police station has been given a stay of execution for 2012. Hooray.

Despite East Dulwich Police station only being 40years old, and the previous East Dulwich Police station (junction of Crystal Palace Road/Upland Road) still being used by some secretive Police units, it suffers from concrete cancer.

You can see me pointing in this picture to the reniforcing rusting steel where the covering concrete has fallen away. The stay of execution to its closing is due to other building works and some Police teams are temporarily being housed in East Dulwich.

Longer term though we need accomodation for the East Dulwich and Village wards Safer Neighbourhood Teams, School Police liaison officers, over 30 and increasing special constables  who are all based there. It’s also a great drop in for other Police officers working in the area as the nearest other station is in Peckham. Equally we want to keep a front desk so locals can easilly report crimes, ex.offenders can locally sign in as part of their parole.

Right to be forgotten

The European Union is proposing a new data protection rule – the “right to be forgotten”.

The idea is that individuals would be able to insist that data about themselves must be deleted unless it was being kept for a legitimate purpose.

I think this is a potentially great antidote to people doing daft things on the internet and not being able to escape them. It would also be useful for escaping the clutches of annoying marketing companies. This week I’ve had an appalling time stopping one company from repeatedly posting things to my dead mother. This proposal would add even greater weight to be treated with dignity when fixing such things.

The other important element would be a requirement to notifiy people within 24hours if a company loses your data, has it stolen or has it hacked. With the “right to be forgotten” it would mean only live data was available to be lost, stolen or hacked and protect many people whose data isnt actually relevant to an organisation anymore but has been kept.

Businesses are concerned at the requirement for a statutory Data Protection Officer but by harmonising these rules across European the Commission estimates a total saving of £1.9bn a year across Europe. It would also mean people could be more relaxed about providing data which could further boost internet use and the depth of internet use.

Fingers crossed these new consumer rights get approved.

£10 gift

The Lib Dem GLA team have submitted their amendments to Boris’s budget. Lots of useful suggestions to save lots of money from what appears wasteful or overly generous staff perks – such as free housing for senior Police officers to free travel for TfL friends and family.

This budget would see £10 less taken from every London family every year while providing the following extras:

  • Reinstate the 150 sergeants -I’d hope we’d get our East Dulwich sergeant back again.
  • One PCSO within each Safer Neighbourhood Team to work with young people.
  • Fund  more Safer London Foundation to boroughs with the highest levels of gang crime.
  • Improve cycle safety including vital junction safety improvement works.
  • Better and fairer fares package: the One Hour Bus Ticket to allow passengers to change buses and only pay one fare; part time Travelcards to stop the discrimination faced by those who only work part of the week; reintroduce a Zone 2-6 one day Travelcard to save people having to pay Zone 1 fares when not required; and to help those often low income earners, we will introduce an ‘early bird’ fare for the Tube, TfL rail and DLR.
  • Promote walking.
  • Ensure continued operation of the London Fire Brigade Museum and develop a ‘Blue Light Museum’.
  • Protect environmental projects and speed up the rate at which London’s buses and taxis become cleaner and develop a central Clean Air Zone where pollution is worst.
  • Guarantee the roll-out of easy-to-install energy efficiency measures.
  • Tackle rogue landlords establishing minimum standards for private rented housing.
  • Take effective action to build more affordable housing in London.

All in all a great budget amendment to make London a better place.

What would you do to make London work better?