Aerial Insulating

Installing cavity wall insulation is a real problem for tower blocks. Scaffolding costs are enormous, lots of disruption and security risks.

So three years ago I contacted Southwark Council officers suggesting they use rope access. I’d read about an company called Avalon (Avalon Sustainable Energy Services Ltd) doing this for Camden Council – people abseiling down the sides of blocks. I used to climb and could instantly see how efficient abseiling would be. Avoiding scaffolding dramatically reduces the cost and time it takes to undertake the works.

Southwark Council has just decided to follow this technology for a number of blocks in Southwark. Council officials have confirmed its less than half the price of traditional methods. 

So for those that live in Burwash, Smila, Mardyke, Helen Gladstone, Redman, Styles, Prospect, Kennington Park Houses don’t be too shocked to find someone dangling outside a window.

For those living in Laird, Crossmount, Otterburn, Tissington, Addy, Brydale, John Kennedy, Crane Houses officers are double checking whether you have sufficient cavity to make such insulation worth undertaking.

All the Southwark tower block cavity wall insulation works will be completed by Christmas.

Hooray. Its only took three years to get my way!

Not undercover

Last year East Dulwich councillors found the money to go halves on a new covered waiting area – Platform 1 near the rear of trains. This financial year we’ve arrange for £10,000 to make the lighting at the station entrances infinitely better.

Chuffed to see that this all seems to have inspired the train operating company _ Southern Railway – to replace the other waiting areas. Platform 2 looks completed – we had to nag to get the covers taken of  it today but it looks good.

The new Platform 1 is just at the removal of the old covered waiting area stage. We’ll find out when it all due to finish.

We’ve also highlighted that the smaller covered area we helped make happen is leaking in two places!

While trying to get things sorted we’ve reported a number of other issues – flat screen at the bottom of ramp to platform 1 isn’t working, graffiti , dot matrix clock not working.

If you spot anything wrong do let us know and we’ll get it fixed. Also, if you have ideas to make the station better tell us and we’ll see if we can work some magic!

Tram sanity

Britain is an expensive place to build public transport. We don’t do things cheaply. The Cross River Tram proposed for London under Transport for London rapidly rose from £200m to £1.5bn and unsurprisingly was killed as a consequence.

So I’m delighted to see some sanity around the costs of tram spending. Blackpool has recently completed a three year program costing £100m to rebuild 26km of tram lines, adding new signalling to 14 junctions, built a new tram depot and bought 16 new trams from Bombardier.

At that sort of saner pricing trams could have a huge revival. And this is just the start of making trams cheaper to build…

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?

Vanishing groves

Since taking power Labour has net chopped down 196 more trees than its planted on our streets – 70 from the Dulwich area alone. Outrageous. Dulwich has so many streets called groves for a reason – they’re meant to be tree lined!

Everyone knows trees bring lots of benefits apart from sucking up Carbon Dioxide, they reduce air pollution/particulates, act as noise barriers, and lots of research showing people just feel plain better with plants and trees around them.

Come on Labour Southwark stop hating our environment so much – we don’t want an urban concrete jungle round here.

Nuclear conversion

I’ve been passionately against nuclear energy for many many years. Nuclear energy uses Uranium and results in nuclear waste that will be left with our descendants for millennia upon millennia. It also has nuclear weapon proliferation risks and masses of hidden subsidies. Nuclear energy from uranium is part of the environmental problem not the solution.

But it transpires this is only part of the nuclear landscape of options.

Significant work took place from the 50’s to 70’s on producing energy from Thorium. Thorium was never popular with governments as its doesn’t result in nuclear weapons grade by-products. It also doesn’t have the nuclear waste issue of Uranium nuclear power.

So what’s stopping us deploying Thorium nuclear power?

Institutional inertia mostly. One small step towards removing it will hopefully come from the All Parliamentary Group set-up earlier this year. I’m chuffed to see so many members of this group being Lib Dems. UK plc needs to starting investing in this technology.

Seal Southwark Borders?

Average speed cameras have been now proven to reduce 73% of deaths and serious injuries – analysis of 15 sites with SPECS average speed cameras. But they’ve also seen improved traffic flow, reduced emissions and greater public acceptability than spot speed cameras.

The first 20mph average speed cameras are up and working in Southend on Sea.

The beauty of these camera systems is they don’t just make single locations safer but whole stretches of roads and areas safer. Smoother traffic means greater flow with less variability between the fastest and slowest vehicles.

A ‘safe-zone’ scheme was trialled of average speed cameras close to a school in Poole. 93% of parents supported the scheme but what parent wouldn’t support making the area around a school safer.

The key is general attitudes choosing to drive slower or accepting average speed cameras to make large safety gains. Here I’m hopeful. Since 2000 to 2010 the number of drivers breaking 30mph in free-flowing traffic has fallen from two-thirds to half. But at that rate it will take 50 years to solve speeding. Research suggests three types of driver – First 52% group largely speed-limit complaint, second type of 33% only sometimes drive up to 10mph above speed limits and the third group 14% who regularly drive above and often very much beyond the speed limit. Any average speed camera scheme has to be aimed at that third group.

Most research has shown that 70-80% of people support speed cameras. This probably stems from the fact people caught speeding are typically twice as likely to have been involved in a crash. This is born out in insurance premiums which often jump with a speeding conviction. Insurance companies have lots of their own evidence and data that they base such premiums on. They spend a lot of money analysing that data tofinely adjust premiums based of risk.

But how to fund average speed cameras them?

Obviously reducing crashes saves money. The West Midlands send people caught speeding on Speed Awareness courses that the speeder pays £80 towards. The course provider costs around £30 and £50 is used to pay for the camera system operation. So they can be largely self funding in revenue terms. So finding the capital is the issue. Each pair of cameras costs around £50,000. So volume discounts etc £650,000 total capital cost. Allowing for Southwark on costs a cool £1M to make Southwark probably the safest borough in London.

Where to start. Most crashes in Southwark happen along Transport for London trunk roads such as the South Circular, Old Kent Road. Such roads also cause a terrible local environment. Placing cameras at around 16-20 locations, at the Southwark borders, would catch the 50% of all Southwark traffic transiting Southwark which is more likely to be speeding through. 

Such a scheme would increase traffic flow as people drove more evenly. It would reduce pollution and most importantly reduce crashes and people being injured.

What do you think?

Noisy neighbours

The coalition government is bringing new powers for the Police to fine noisy neighbours up to £2,500.

The aim of this is to tackle problems via “community protection notices” allowing £100 on-the-spot fines. And then those that don’t stop can be fined up to £2,500.

Further powers are planned to solve the issue with “crime prevention injunctions” to ensure anti social problems can be dealt with near instantly.

All sounds good. Let’s hope the reality meets this aspiration.

Beyond daft?

I took this photo 6.40am today. Exactly the same traffic managementwas in place at 6pm last night and a number of iterations of this have been proceeding south to north along Walworth recently.

We also had the same issue at Goose Green in East Dulwich recently.

I don’t doubt that all these road works are necessary but why are lanes closed and temporary traffic lights in place for the hours outside when a whole lane needs closing?
Other local authorities I’ve worked with would insist that the lane required by workers when working to ensure their safety are released outside the working period.

Instead we have 16 hours out of 24 hour day where temporary traffic lights are in operation when they needn’t be. Sometimes such pointless traffic management is left in place over whole weekends.

I’ve contacted the Labour cabinet member to ask why this is now allowed to occur. If you also think this is beyond daft email barrie.hargrove@southwark.gov.uk the politician responsible and copy me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk.

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.