Saving energy – council tenants

The councils energy team have procured £90,000 for reflective radiator panels and draught proofing to be installed before the end of the financial year (31 March 2011) in council tenanted homes. Or for leaseholders will be installed for £62 and £145 respectively.

Free Radiator panels – metallic reflective film placed behind radiators – are particularly good for radiators on external solid walls and can save £25 a year or 35kg of CO2. To get these panels installed in your council home call 020 8293 6150.

Free Draught proofing – if you have not had new windows or due to get them in the next two years you can get free draught proofing buy calling 01954 250 155.

Lee Valley Park

Lee Valley Park – mostly 10,000 acres in Essex and Hertfordshire – was created in the 1960’s as a regional park.

When it was created a levy system was created and this year Southwark residents will pay £294,190 towards its upkeep.

What do Southwark residents get for this?

When I’ve contacted the park authority to ask how many Southwark residents use this park in Essex and Hertfordshire with a tiny sliver down into east London they told me a couple of Southwark school classes had visited last year.

I think this money would be better spent on Southwark parks. Hell, our money would be better spent on Lewisham or Lambeth parks as we know at least some of our residents visit their parks.

Where do you think your £292,190 should be spent – Southwark parks or a Essex/Hertfordshire park? 

Devolved highway and lighting budgets.

In Southwark under the Lib Dems we devolved a proportion of the highway and lighting renewal budgets. £175,000 for each of the eight community councils in this financial year – the last set by Lib Dems.

We now have to decide how to spend this money in the Dulwich Community Council area covering East Dulwich, Village and College wards.

What roads surfaces, pavements and street lighting do you think need renewing as a priority?

Cemeteries

Southwark runs several current and closed cemeteries – Nunhead Cemetery, Camberwell Old Cemetery, Camberwell New Cemetery.

The issues around illegal dumping of building materials nearly resolved with the planting of new bushes etc taking place in October. It’s taken over 18months to get this sorted.

Southwark has only one years supply of spaces for burials.

Officers have options to suggest to provide more burial spaces of either reusing common graves if they obtained Home Office approval – this involves adding 2foot above the current plots (which are only 4 foot deep) with their initial thoughts being using lots of concrete blocks to add the required extra height. This would be contrary to Southwark’s climate change strategy as concrete is a really really high carbon option. This option would give another 10-12 years of burial plots. Seconf option is to use an adjacent sports playing field giving another 25 years of burial plots.

What I hadn’t appreciated is that when you ‘buy’ a plot you’re effectively renting it for 50years. Naively I’d also thought it was for ever. So one option officers will suggest is reducing that 50 year period. That does’nt feel right to me as 50 year is so much shorter than I’d imagine and 50 years should out see most relatives lives.

It’s also suggested Southwark burials are really cheap by London standards. I’m not yet convinced of this. The main price is much cheaper but pricing is so complicated with so many exceptions and extras. Not sure you can compare prices other than the average price which I’ve not seen yet. I recall when the Lib Dems increased prices that the Labour opposition was up in arms so it will be interesting what they propose to solve the lack of burial plots gonig forward without changing prices.

A less pressing problem but bigger is how to permanently improve our cemeteries and take them beyond the drab state they’re currently in.

Recycling rate and amount 2009/2010

The last full Southwark council year hasa just been reported to me – delayed due to Valuation Office Agency (VOA) not issuing figures of how many homes in Southwark.

The recycling rate (National Indicator 192) was 22.13%. Disappointing as the expected rate was 24%.

Amount of rubbish per home (NI191) 696.13Kg which is slightly down from the previous years amount of 703.61kg.  This has been delayed as Southwark has an extra 1,331 homes.

NI193 is the percentage sent to landfill 45.70%.

More recycling bins

Cllr Paul Kyriacou set in motion more recyclnig bins across Southwark in Juanry. They’re still being installed….

19 sites werhe commuter recycling bins have been converted to have new apertires and facia to take recyclnig  – 42 bins hat can take cans, plsatic, paper and card.

 Another 58 location for co mingled bins at (starting with East Dulwich ward):

Lordship Lane / Whatley Road   
Lordship Lane / Chesterfield Grove     
Lordship Lane / East Dulwich Grove     
East Dulwich Station, Grove Vale

Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Rd
Bankside Pier, Bankside Jetty  
Tate Modern, Hopton Street     
Southwark Tube, The Cut
London Bridge, Duke Hill Street
Shad Thames / Tower Bridge, Horsleydown Lane   
Old Kent Road / Tesco  
Old Kent Road / Asda   
Elephant and Castle, Elephant Road     
Morrisons Walworth Road
Camberwell Green, Camberwell Church Street     
Denmark Hill, Champion Park    
Rye Lane / Rye Lane Market     
Rye Lane South 
Rye Lane / Aylesham Centre     
Dulwich Village / Gilkes Place 
West Dulwich Station, Thurlow Park Road
Sydenham Hill near Bowen Drive 
Tesco Surrey Quays, Deal Porters Way   
Rye Lane / Bournemouth Road    
Herne Hill / Half Moon Lane
College Road / Dulwich Park
East Street Library – Old Kent Road

Green Deal

The Annual Energy Statementissued by Lib Dem Chris Huhne MP was a commitment to keep the nation briefed on all our energy futures.

One huge step forward was the commitment to the Green Deal. This deal is where energy efficiency loans are made a against an energy meter. So any savings are made by the person paying the meter and when people move the loan repayments stay with the energy meter, whether that be electricity or gas, where a smaller bill from greater efficiency is generated. Great way for people to be able to make long term commitments to big changes to their homes.

This idea came several years ago via a tenacious Camden Lib Dem councillor.

Energy Future

As a long term ‘greeny’ sort of person Climate Change and future Climate Chaos worries me. Along the road I’ve become a parent and have even more interest in helping create sustainable future for them and their peers.

A great Friends of the Earth report in March 2006 “A bright future – Friends of the Earth’s electricity sector model for 2030” showed clearly that relatively simple policy changes would ensure a much safer and greener energy future for us all. It placed heavy reliance on encouraging Combined Heat and Power and phasing out nuclear power stations.

Combined Heat and Poweris where you generate electricity by burning something – gas, biomass, whatever – and use the spare heat left over from generating hat electricity in district heating systems. Generally it is twice as efficient as letting that heat escape directly into the atmosphere.

Gas electricity production is 49-52% efficient, coal 38%. You see huge chimneys for such plants letting out unused heat. CHP plants usually attain 80%+ efficiencies.  CHP plants also have to be smaller and closer to where the end district heating system is so they also avoid 7% loss of efficiency of the electricity being lost in being converted to high voltages and back again to be carried over long distances.

On a national scale, I was horrified to hear Lib Dem Secretary of State talk about nuclear power. It has to be one of the most wasteful forms of generating electricity and takes so long to build that it’s an irrelevance to our future energy needs.

On a local scale to see the new Labour run Southwark Council making it very possible for the Elephant & Castle to not have a CHP plant under a MUSCo arrangement (MUSCo is where you run CHP district heating pipes in and while you’ve a hole in the road also put the telecoms and other utilities in).

We’ll fight to ensure common sense at both levels to ensure all our low carbon futures.

20mph average speed cameras

I understand Transport for London is looking for four more areas in London to trial 20mph average speed cameras. Initial trials have been very successful in having collisions and injuries that involved illegal speeding. In Southwark the only trial we’ve been involved with is on Salter Road. Very successful it feels to. I’ve yet to see a definitive report on it.

Ideally Walworth road, which is meant to be 20mph, would have average speed cameras. We’d then see a further step decrease of injuries and collisions and crashes after its complete rebuild and redesign. It would complete the Walworth road project.

Equally, Southwark Bridge Road. It would ensure Cycle Superhighway no.7 which runs along it would be more successful and that a Cycle superhighway in Southwark means something tangibly better for people cycling. This is certainly what I ensured was put in the Memorandum of Understanding when I was the Cycle Champion councillor for Southwark.

Some people argue cameras should not be used but that a road should be self enforcing. Such self enforcing normally involves speed humps which can cause huge discomfort for people with back problems, etc. I’ve had one Southwark Council Officer say that the cameras and poles are ugly and that is the reason they fought against them.

Speeding vehicles really disect communities and make streets so unpleasant that only the poor and disadvantaged get left behind. So collisions disproportionately involve the poor. Unsurprisngingly the most vocal complaints against speed cameras come from those more well of who don;’t suffer any of the dreadful impacts.

But on balance I truly believe having speed cameras, despite the discomfort of better of people being caught for illegally speeding and the slashing of injuries and collisions is better than putting speed humps down everywhere and the real pain and suffering caused to generally poorer people lawfully going about their lives.

Where will the next trial in Southwark take place – we wait and see. I’ll be making a formal request on behalf of my group.

100 new recycling bins

At last. In January Cllr Paul Kyriacou  Lib Dem executive councillor responsible for the environment including recycling announced 100 new recycling bins would be placed at Southwark transport hubs and tourist attractions.

It appears the election period purdah and the new Labour administration being elected have delayed their installation until now.

Eitherway, well done Paul for making this happen. It should really boost recycling and our image to all types of visitors to Southwark.