School Food Hygiene – Still A Problem

sfhrsweb5I’m really chuffed that my expose of shockingly low school food hygiene standards two years ago has crystallised into massive improvements. But their is still more that needs to be done.

Southwark’s 118 school, nurseries and colleges now have 95 x 5 stars, 18 x 4 stars, 4 x 3 stars and 1 x 2 stars – and that school has asked for a re-inspection and talking to them I think will do much better.

Lambeth is now trailing behind Southwark on this with of its 99 schools 85 x 5 stars, 9 x 4 stars, 2 x 3 stars but 2 x 1 stars Major Improvement Necessary. This is still shocking and I’m sure The London Nautical School and Wyvil Infants primary School must be planning to sort this out. They are imperilling children’s health.

1 star

 

If you’d like to see your child, grandchild, niece, nephew school food hygiene rating search here for Southwark and here for Lambeth.

North Cross Road Improvements

So works are finally underway to improve the junction of North Cross Road with Lordship Lane.

NCR_LL Junction Improvement Scheme Proposals

It should dramatically improve the entrance to NCR, slow traffic and improve the look and feel of this gateway into our local street market. It will also reclaim some dead space from Lordship Lane from cars that don’t use it to pedestrians who will use it. Lastly, the bus stop currently doesn’t work – with parked cars blocking buses getting to the kerb. The two car parking space are being relocated and buses will be able to pull in properly.

Do you know any other spots where we could reclaim road space that isn’t used for pedestrians?

New East dulwich Primary School – Planning Permission

Next Tuesday 14 July the Planning Committee will decide whether to grant planning permission for a new Harris East Dulwich Primary School.

I hope they do. The council planning officers recommendation is to grant permission. You can see the full report here.

I have written in support of the scheme. But I have asked for the Planning Committee to leave the proposed kerb buildout on Handcraft Road for the Dulwich Community Council to decide. Council officers have asked for the kerb to be increased from 2.1m wide to 3.5m and for 55m. This is clearly ridiculous and no other local school has such a vast area outside one of its entrances.

A separate application to demolish the current structure has also been submitted. They plan to start demolition on Wednesday 5 August.

Fingers crossed for next Tuesday.

The Future of Democracy

The recent UK general election was the most unproportional UK election of all time. When only 66% of the electorate bothered to vote and just 36% of the people who voted, voted for the winning party. It is hard to stomach radical changes from a political party with only 24% of the total electorate voting for them.

In fact just 16% of UK voters say they trust us politicians. I’m pretty tired of hearing “you politicians are all in it for yourselves”, “you’re all the same”, etc. For the record we’re not. Most politicians I’ve met are really decent public spirited local residents who want to improve things.

Clearly we need electoral reform to start changing these perceptions but winning parties in the UK are unlikely to allow this unless they feel it’s in their interests. A real Catch-22.

In the short-term a Lib Dem Lord Jeremy Purvis is proposing a new Constitutional Convention Bill about how we thoughtfully consider how we run our country – the system we vote under, House of Lords, etc. Fab. Long overdue. I suspect tories will sink it at the first opportunity but you can but hope.

Longer-term how do we make voting easier and the number of issues voters can influence far higher. In Scotland we’ve seen how passionate the referendum became and how high the turnout resulting. Locally we’ve seen huge interest generated by a junction being changed – Townley Road/East Dulwich Grove.

The flip side to this is the huge increase in support for campaigning groups, online petitions. 38 degrees is a great example of harnessing people power.

It was one of the reasons I signed-up to MyMP2015. It feels a logical extension to making myself so available on the EastDulwichForum and trying to get a step increase in how people can participate in decisions.

But with the internet how much more participatory could we be?

One successful mode is Podemos the Spanish political party. They use a mix of offline citizen assemblies and online forums so all members can get to shape party policy. Expanding this to a council or parliament would give everyone a say in how our country in run.

What do you think? How would you shape our

Labour Bakerloo Line Extension Sell-Out

Today’s Southwark News carries a depressing story where Labour GLA Assembly Member Val Shawcross states about the Bakerloo line having two seperate routes from Elephant&Castle “Realistically, only one option will be taken forward.”

Up until the general election one month ago Simon Hughes had been campaigning for the Bakerloo Line to be extended and Lib Dems suggested two separate routes. Labour told everyone it was there idea. Now the election has gone they say two routes was never feasible.

And we wonder why people are cynical about politicians.

Come on Labour if two routes for the Bakerloo line was good enough for your election campaign – one via Camberwell the other via the Old Kent Road – why isn’t it good enough for the residents of Lambeth & Southwark now?

It certainly makes sense about why Southwark Labour have been promoting a Thameslink station at Camberwell when this station originally closed from competition from a mass transit tram system. It really doesn’t look like they were serious about a Camberwell route for the Bakerloo line as well as an Old Kent Road route.

It isn’t too late to sign the petition to extend the Bakerloo Line via Camberwell AND the Old Kent Road.

Cycle Parking Limit The Cycle Revolution

Cycling in London has dramatically increased for London residents commuting into central London. In 2011 London 8.3% of such commuters cycle – it feels much higher now.

Apart from safer routes to encourage more people to cycle, and they appear to be on the way now, people cycling have to have somewhere to park their bicycles – at both ends. Without such parking the Cycling Revolution will stall.

We need a step increase in cycling to improve public heath helping the NHS cope with its financial pressures, longevity, better mental health, fitter citizens, less social exclusion. Cycling has a strategic imperative for our society.

Home Cycle Parking – Most cyclists have to parking their bikes in hallways, outside homes insecurely, blocks of flats basements – often behind many doors. We will never have a cycling revolution with such crap cycle parking. In East Dulwich we’ve been supporting new Bikehangars which are a start. We’ll need 200 for East Dulwich alone to support half of the 25% cycling levels we could reach within the next 10 years. So far we have 4 on order!

Our planning rules must change to ensure cycle parking is really accessible to all new homes – not hidden away in marginal spaces. New houses in London only have to have 1 or 2 cycle parking spaces but in Holland it would be 5 in a proper 4m2 shed. Flats 1 o2 in London, 2-5 in Holland and easily accessible.

Destination Cycle Parking – We currently rely upon ‘free’ cycle parking – locking bikes to lamp posts, railings and the like which only gets you so far. For a step increase in cycling you must have proper cycle parking and lots of it. In London secondary schools are supposed to have 1 cycle parking space for every 8 pupils or staff or 12.5%. Dutch schools have 50-100%. London offices have 1 space for every 90m2, Dutch offices 1.7/100m2. At my workplace – a modern building – the cycle parking is so obscurely placed in the basement that I ‘free’ park outside. So we must not just box tick that parking has been provided for people cycling but that it easily accessible.

If we get cycle parking fixed at both end we will see a cycling revolution.

Are you going to be part of it?

Human Capital

Energy company SSE have just published a report, the first report in the UK, where they’ve commissioned PWC to calculate the value of their ‘human capital’. They’ve calculated it to be £3.4bn.

The calculations are based on assessing the expected lifetime earning of each SSE employee based other skills and qualifications and then factored of how long each employee was likely to stay with SSE. With nearly 20,000 employees these predictions based on averages make sense. In fact they calculated the average ‘human capital’ at £173,000 per head.

A really nice finding was that each apprentices generated £4.29 for all apprentice types, £7.65 for technical apprentices, for every one pound spent.

I wonder what the human capital for the whole of Southwark would be?

New London Lorries

I’m really chuffed to see that the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) campaign for a new lorry design they started two years ago to minimise crashes with cyclists is coming good.

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Construction lorries are involved in around 75% of all cyclists deaths in London each year. The cabs of these lorries are high, they have turning movements that many aren’t used to and they weigh so much that if they do run you down you are literally squished. A very dear friend had this happen over and she died.

So LCC came up with a concept from their lorry expert Charlie Lloyd ideas with a much lower cab. This gives much great vision and fewer dead zones where the lorry driver hasn’t a clue what s going on. But with a lower profile it reduces drag for the lorry saving fuel. And fuel is major expense for companies running any commercial vehicles.

Mercedes have just launched a new line incorporating these ideas. I hope it becomes the new standard that other lorry manufactures adopt and literally many lives will be saved…

actual design

Save Southwark Woods

We have the ridiculous situation where our graveyards don’t have sinking funds to pay for their upkeep. So we have to have new burials to fund their maintenance.

But new burials – and Southwark Labour are planning for 4,500 new burial plots – mean that what have become nature enclaves for residents to seek refuge from frenetic lives have to have that atmosphere destroyed. Bad for these 100 acres of woodland and residents.

An alternative would be to buy commercial burial plots for Southwark residents just 5 miles away. Kemnal Park is a no brainer. Also to make cremation cheaper to encourage more to use this service.

The Southwark Labour councillor responsible has said he wants poor relatives to be able to visit their deceased love ones. But for most Southwark residents our Southwark graveyards are several miles away tucked into the very SE corner of the borough. Not many live round the corner.

We can then concentrate on making our historic cemeteries into much more loved nature reserves.

If you agree please sign the petition – we need to make the lives of the living better in Southwark.

 

East Dulwich Neighbourhood Fund Allocations

This year Arpil’15-Mar’16 we have £30,000, + some underspend from last year, of revenue to spend in East Dulwich ward – Neighbourhood Fund.

We allocated the following – if you’d like to understand more about these projects please get in touch. If you have any great idea for how to improve East Dulwich please let us know we still have £31,365 to spend on local projects.

Name of Group: Name of Project: Funding awarded £]:
Bangladeshi Welfare Association Asian Elders Lunch Club £4,000
Crystal Palace Road Big Lunch 2015 Crystal Place Road Big Lunch £500
Dulwich Helpline and Southwark Churches Care Communities Reducing Social Isolation for Older People in the Dulwich Community Council Area £1,421
Dulwich Milan Association Eid and Christmas Event £970
East Dulwich Community Centre Association Open Day £640
Girl Guiding UK – Southwark District Southwark Guides Carnival Camp weekend £334
St Anthony`s Road Safety Action Group Road Safety Feasibility Study for St Anthony’s RC Primary School £5,000
St. Anthony’s Road Safety Action Group Safe Crossing Patrol for St. Anthony’s RC Primary School £5,000
Southwark Explorers Club Southwark Pensioners’ Club £1,500
The Vale Residents Association Physic gardening £1,900