Green Dale changes

Southwark Council directly and indirectly are planning some big changes to the incredibly popular Green Dale cycle and walking route.

Cycling alone in the  4 months April to August has seen a total of 39,287 cyclists using this route. That implies over  100,000 cycle movements along this route a year.

The changes at the northern end to reduce car blocking with Champion Hill and at the southern end removing excessive bollards and planting look good. The middle section, Wanley Road junction, sees a hedges usefully cut back to increase safety with further changes of adding bollards which looks daft and dangerous.

To compound the middle proposals a Planning Application has been made that would increase the tunnelling affect by narrowing Green Dale and adding blank hedge frontage just south of Wanley Road junction with Green Dale:

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I’ve asked the Cabinet member for Transport Cllr Barrie Hargrove to amend his middle plans and not added unnecessary bollards. I’ve formally objected to the Planning Application.

Fingers crossed common sense prevails.

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.

Wokingham?

Family Investments have produced a study of the UK and how family friendly each area is – STUDY.

It says Wokingham is the most family friendly area – mostly it appears from Primary School results. It takes a whole postcode area e.g. SE22.

For SE22 it suggests we’re a little above the national average for crime but below for anti social activities. Above the average birth rate and levels of obtainment at Key Stage 2 but not stunningly above the average. We have a Leisure Centre but surprisingly no green flags in SE22.

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.

Stunning green

Bizarrely Southwark Council have started to issue stunningly brighter green wheelie bins to residents.

You can see the marked difference in this photo which really doesn’t do it justice.

What seems especially odd is the departure from the quieter more staid green used for more than a dozen or so years in Southwark.

Can you imagine how our streets will look with old green bins, bright blue bins, brown, bins of various sizes and now brghit stunningly green wheelie bins.

It’s almost like someone doesn’t care.

do you think it’s important for our streets to look clean and tidy?

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.

Red roofs

Sometime ago Southwark purchased aerial heat photos of Southwark. It shows blue for cold, through green and amber to red for hot ie lots of heat leaking away.

Attached is a more detailed copy of that map superimposed on OS map showing property outlines. Fascinating. Take a look at your East Dulwich neighbourhood. In East Dulwich ward 625 uninsulated lofts out of 3,500.

Heat map East Dulwich

We’ve had one program to try and persuade more people to insulated their lofts. Clearly lots more to do.