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!

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.

Harlem Zone’s vs Sure Start

As a nation and indeed local Southwark community we seem to be floundering how to solve the root causes of last summers riots and how a significant proportion of our communities are so disengaged from the majority.

The recent report seemed to blame the problems on everything from schools having pupils leaving who couldn’t read to rampant materialism.

Harlem under inspired insight from Geoffrey Canada has the Harlem Children’s Zone. This is a long term scheme to raise expectations of the whole community not just save the lucky odd child or family. Focus initially was on the first three years of children’s lives with pre nursery, tutoring, dance and sports classes, food co-ops, social services, and help with housing and health. Real community intensive care of families.

A 2009 Harvard report that evaluated this scheme after five years reported stunning results. They said it was the most effective intervention of any kind in the whole US at creating a huge step increase in school results offering many more opportunities.
The cost is about $5,000 per child per year but the costs of not making these life changing interventions is wildly higher.

This all makes our UK Sure Start interventions look very British. Small and very marginal.

How can we create our own Camberwell and Peckham Children’s Zones?

Empty Rooms – what a waste

Bristol has proven very successful at tackling under occupancy of council homes and encouraging tenants to downsize, homesteading and community land trusts.

They have found 1,000+ homes which had been standing empty and found people to move into them.

To ensure they great traction with property owners and after exhaustive attempts to get empty properties back into use they use compulsory purchase orders. Big hammer but this is a really tough nut to crack.

In East Dulwich we have several properties that we really need to get back into use – 73 Crystal Palace Road, 34 East Dulwich Road immediately come to mind.

We also have a few pockets of land that we need developed – Melbourne Grove, Barry Road.

Sympathy but move

I have some sympathy for local politicians undertaking cabinet roles part time. Politics is one of the least secure roles you can have. Giving up a day job to become a local full-time politician is a brave or foolish act especially if you have a family to support.

Short-term you have little job security. In the Lib Dems you have to please all your colleagues and they elect you to the role every year. Annoy them and you’re out. In the Labour party the leader appoints you. Neither routes to holding a cabinet portfolio offer much job security!

Longer term the ‘pay’ a councillor gets is an allowance and isn’t pensionable. Special Responsibility Allowance for things like cabinet roles also come without any pension. So again giving up a day job to become a full time politician means no pension.

So I absolutely get being a part-time cabinet councillor and holding a normal day job part-time that with a very considerate employer you can go back to being full-time if you need to.

What I don’t get is being in a role that needs a full-time councillor leading the portfolio but doing it part-time. Housing in Southwark is a role that needs a full-time councillor. Southwark is the largest social landlord in London and third largest in the UK. That’s not a part-time role. It transpires that Cllr Ian Wingfield is only working as Housing Cabinet councillor two days a week. To get some direction into the role he’s created a ‘quango’ to advise him costing £104,000 and appointed new senior housing council officers costing £380,000 a year. I’m appalled.

If he can only do the role part-time, and I’m sympathetic to part time woring, he should be a cabinet member for a different portfolio that could be done part-time without incurring huge costs for council tax payers and tenants.

£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?

Dulwich Hospital – the future

Liberal Democrat Vision for Dulwich Hospital site

Local Liberal Democrat councillors deeply regret the running down and the loss of services at our hospital in East Dulwich. We want to keep our Hospital not lose it.

We congratulate local residents who have fought a long running campaign to protect health services being delivered from this site. Given the current position of the site we believe it is important for the community and local elected representatives to be clear about the long term aspirations for the area taking into account the new economic realities.

We have, therefore, set out below our initial views following our many conversations with local residents. We are keen to hear more from local people about what they think and what they would like to see on the site and will be specifically asking residents about these proposals. We appreciate the need for any plans to be financially viable, but also recognise that the site is of such local importance that community uses must also be valued most highly.

Taking into account Southwark’s policy for 35% social housing and Section 106 SPD and the expected developer contributions we propose the following:

Western section

We appreciate that the site will need residential units for it to be financially viable for a developer and, therefore, suggest the western part of the site for this purpose. Developers would, of course, have to go through the planning process which would ensure that development is appropriate in terms of design and density. We want a development of the highest possible green credentials to enhance and inspire East Dulwich. We would want to see a high quality development which also provided affordable homes and a financial contribution to the community (to be used in the eastern section).

Eastern and northern sections

As well as a financial contribution from the western side we would also need to find uses which were as economically sustainable as possible while still bringing positive benefits to the community. In this area we would therefore like to see:

– Housing for retired people

We want Southwark to show leadership in providing a high quality ‘retirement village’ development. These would be for a mix of income levels and have different levels of adaptation for varying needs as people become older. They would provide income in ground rent, which would help the rest of the eastern area with developing other community uses. As with the housing development on the western side, the development should have the highest green credentials. A vibrant place for older people in this area would also help to free up larger council properties on nearby estates for families.

  – Primary School

We strongly believe that a primary school should be considered. Local parents tell us that a new primary school will be needed in future and building around 200 new homes will only increase such a need. Although this is not needed right now, pupil projections are clear that we need to be thinking about this possibility over the next few years. We would, therefore, take this opportunity to plan ahead and to consider building a new community primary school here (at the other end of the eastern section from the retirement village.). We would look at a number of sources for the funding of a new primary school.

– A new Medical Centre.

Our vision for a medical centre would for a clinic which offers a GP surgery plus. It could also include blood tests, potentially a pharmacy (although a local one on Melbourne Grove exists) and other medical services. This would be in keeping with the history of the hospital and could be flexible according to local needs and whether local GPs wanted to move in. It would also tie in perfectly with the retirement village and could specialise in services for pensioners.

– Sports, gardening facilities and indoor community space.

The potential opportunities for sharing space with new residents, existing residents and a potential school are vast. This has been done in other parts of the borough and would mean that there could be provision for sports facilities (indoor and/or outdoor), a shared community hall (for use by residents when the school does not need it), and some form of allotments or walled garden.

The Chateau

This building should be kept for community uses into perpetuity as a standalone charity unless the school is able to provide all the necessary shared facilities. It could also have some rented office space and possibly a nursery to bring in revenue. A similar project at Cambridge House is proving to be very successful. The council could even rent office space from here if it needed to. And SELDOC could be based in this building.

The Chateau should also provide space for the Dulwich Helpline and this should be confirmed with them as soon as possible so that they know they have a secure home. If there are other local voluntary sector organisations who need a base then this would also be a good location for them.

Environment

This whole development could and should be carbon neutral. We would create an East Dulwich Zero Emissions Development along the lines of Liberal Democrat London Borough of Sutton’s Beddington Zero Emission Development BedZED (http://www.bioregional.com/what-we-do/our-work/bedzed).

Following the Zero Emissions principles for development would maximise the space used for new homes and retirement homes while minimising the impacts on the local area from cars, energy and water use. This site is less than 5 mins walk from a local station and 5 busy bus routes and there are fantastic opportunities to lead the way in radical environmentally friendly ideas as part of this process.

Conclusion

We are realistic that there will have to be private housing developed on the site to make our other suggestions viable. However, with council commitment and funding as well as the private sources of income we have a fantastic chance to pursue a vision which provides homes, education, leisure and health in a sustainable and exciting way. If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas that you would like to share with us, please send them to info@southwark-libdems.org.uk or complete our survey.

Council error in your favour collect £500

From April 2011 Labour led Southwark Council increased council garage fees by a whopping 50% to £18.62 per week per garage. Ouch.

Well for 1,000 garage renters this has proven no problem. They were moved wrongly to the concessionary rate of £5 per week saving so far over £500 each.

This has only just come to light after a number of residents, scared at running up huge back bills, complained and raised the alarm. Whoever you are thank you. 

The Labour cabinet member has made it clear they wont be collecting any back rent owed and put the 1,000 mistakes down to “human error”. That’s an awful lot of errors.

Council finances run like a game of monopoly. So that means the £676,000 loss now has to be found.

Jobless and homeless

Southwarkcouncil is planning on changing how it allocates council homes. It plans to give priority to people in work and volunteering over others. The philosophy is to end the “something for nothing culture”.

I’m sure a review of how council homes are allocated will be useful. The council has had a number of commissions – Democracy Commissions, Teenage Pregnancy Commission – so a Council Housing Allocation Commission would be a useful mechanism to decide this. However I fear this is a knee-jerk reaction to support an Ed Miliband speech.

But in Southwarkuntil ten years ago we had appalling council run education. Then a Labour government stopped Southwark running Southwark schools until a Lib Dem led council when the Labour government of the time felt the Lib Dems could be trusted. Labour had ground down state education they provided from the council via political correctness. Speaking to an old Labour guard he made it clear they loaded up governing bodies with Labour councillors and the like who opposed competitive sports, streaming and the like.

So why should we double penalise Southwark born residents who suffered at Labour’s hand with an inadequate education and then when they can’t find work during their adult life say they’re going to be tougher about allocating them council homes?

We need to redress the past historical mess of peoples education. Adult education is the key to this not cutting housing opportunities.

Expensive travelling

Labours capital budget being discussed tonight at council assembly has several items related to the four traveller sites in Southwark.

In total they propose to spend £1.23M on the 38 traveller pitches or £32,368 per pitch. WOW!

Southwark being 1 of 32 London Boroughs is providing 1 in 14 of London’s traveller pitches.

Surely their must be cheaper ways of refurbishing these pitches – even if it means buying places elsewhere in London to create new or extending existing sites?

Why is Southwark disproportionately accommodating travellers compared to other London boroughs with a housing policy to promote money for more traveller sites?

Do you think these are strange choices?