East Dulwich Highway Renewals

Every year we have a little devolved highway renewals money to allocate on East Dulwich ward.

This year we’ve decided to allocated our 2015/16 £38.095 on:

1. £24,843 on renewing the pavement along Lordship Lane eastern side going northwards from North Cross Road.

2. £13,252 remaining on repairing the pavement on Landells Road not repaied this financial year. The total cost would be £37,257 Goodrich Road to lordship lane along landells Road but we have to start somewhere.

Sadly we don’t have sufficient money £88,636 in our devolved pot to resurface Rodwell Road footways. Sorry.

Southwark Civic Awards 2015

Nominations for the 2015 Southwark Civic Awards should be submitted by the 31 January 2015.

These awards are recommended by the Southwark Civic Association an independent non-political organisation. The actual awards are then confirmed by Southwark Councillors.

There are two main categories of Award, which satisfy most circumstances: Letter of Commendation or Liberty of the Old Metropolitan Boroughs of Southwark, Bermondsey or Camberwell

In addition, and in exceptional circumstances, there are options for further Awards, as appropriate: Mayor’s Discretionary Award, Southwark Lifetime Award, Young Southwark Civic Award and something … of the Year Award

Criteria

Letter of Commendation – A Letter of Commendation may be awarded to a nominee who has demonstrated an exceptional contribution to the life of the local community, usually for a period exceeding five years.

Liberty of the Old Metropolitan Borough – A Liberty of the Old Metropolitan Borough will be considered when a nominee has demonstrated exceptional commitment to the life of the community, usually for a period exceeding ten years.

Mayor’s Discretionary Award – A Mayor’s Discretionary Award may be made to an individual/organisation that, during the Mayor’s term of office, has attracted special notice for exceptional community activity.

Southwark Lifetime Award – A Southwark Lifetime Award may be recommended where an individual has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to the life of the community, typically for a period exceeding twenty years.

Young Southwark Civic Award A Young Southwark Civic Award may be made to a young person of 18 and under who has demonstrated exceptional community spirit and civic responsibility but, by virtue of their age, is ineligible for a Letter of Commendation.

… of the Year Award – An ‘…. of the Year Award’ may be made where a nominee’s contribution is considered to be an outstanding example of a specific commitment, action or activity in the year of nomination. Some may be made in conjunction with Volunteer Centre Southwark and Community Action Southwark.

Eligibility

An individual whose unpaid voluntary activity is unrelated to, or additional to, the nominee’s current employment

A community group, organisation or business which is based in, and/or benefits the Southwark community.

Exclusions

Serving members of the Court of the Southwark Civic Association

Current elected members of Southwark Council

Employees of Southwark Council (unless for unpaid voluntary activity which is unrelated to or additional to current employment)

Previous Honorands of equal or greater Awards

 

 

Roundabout Repeated Mistakes

Transport for London with Southwark Council are consulting about changing to the northern Elephant & Castle roundabout.

They plan to remove the SE corner. It will mean everyone has to travel a lot further to get from A to B around this area. For the life of me, and it might mean my life as the roundabout is that dangerous, I can’t see how making cyclists travel through so much more traffic to get somewhere will be safer.

Overall it looks a terrible missed opportunity. Take a look for yourself and tell me what you think CONSULTATION.

What they should do is move the Faraday electric substation dimpled structure somewhere else and turn the whole thing into a proper traffic light junction. It would create much more new public space. Traffic light cross road junctions offer the most direct route. Segregated cycle paths become much simpler to install and for people to understand.

Instead TfL are making the same mistake as the Waterloo roundabout and the south side of Westminster bridge.

It’s as if they don’t want safe cycling or is it that a nice simple totally legible junction just isn’t challenging enough for them?

 

Lambeth Living ALMO Banished

Liberal Democrats vehemently opposed the creation of the Lambeth Living ALMO when Lambeth Labour first proposed it moving council tenants to this quango.

Labour politicians had set up a dodgy poll of tenants and leaseholders promising a whole raft of improvements and cost savings. They also told tenants that voting for the ALMO would guarantee heaps of money from a friendly Labour Government that would transform their dire living conditions. Even this was not persuasive to perceptive residents, more of whom voted “No” and “Don’t Know” to setting the organisation up than voted “Yes”. Yet Labour ignored that verdict and ploughed on. In the event, not one penny of the promised funds arrived until the Labour Government was ejected from office.

The best news for Labour was that the ALMO they’d created meant none of their raft of elected councillors nor their run of expensive cabinet members had any direct responsibility to their tenants – still less to leaseholders – for the catalogue of housing disasters that ensued.

The management of leasehold properties has been a disaster, with millions being lost through mismanagement and homeowners forced to pay through the nose through overpriced contracts, while tenants have suffered misery from a failing repair service. Lambeth LIving’s first chair was even forced to resign after being arrested on fraud allegations and later convicted.

After the 2010 general election, the new Coalition Government announced that Lambeth was to be awarded £100 million, the highest amount of Decent Homes cash in the UK. And the Government has made hundreds of millions more available to Lambeth by reforming housing finance. Labour then cynically claimed credit for these funds – refused to Lambeth over a decade from their Labour colleagues in Westminster – at the same time as attacking the very government which made them available.

So with the coalition government changes Lambeth Labour are able to save money by closing their ALMO disaster. About time it was banished to.

Labour Give Up on Bakerloo Line Extension

I was shocked to read the Southwark Council report about the Labour Councillors discretionary spending choices this year.

He plans to spend £30,000 on surveys about reopening Camberwell Station. Camberwell Station was closed along with Walworth Road and Borough Road stations during WWI. BUT they were doomed with the coming of the tram network which skimmed sufficient custom to ensure these stations were uneconomic. When the trams closed in the early 1950’s actual construction work had started to extend the Bakerloo line to Camberwell. But it soon stopped leaving a public transport void.

So choosing now, while purporting to campaign for the Bakerloo Line to be extended to Camberwell, to fund a survey for Camberwell train station to be reopened shows a lack of resolve to get the Bakerloo line extended. TfL will not support both. For over 100 years it has been an either or decision – train station or tram or tube.

I call on Southwark Labour party to use this discretionary spending to fund a study into extending the Bakerloo line to Camberwell and beyond.

IF they insist on funding this train station survey then please have the decency to state publicly you’ve given up on a branch of the Bakerloo line being extended to Camberwell so it can be debated.

Farcical Southwark Cycle Strategy

Tuesday evening Southwark Labour agreed their Southwark Cycling Strategy. It has a number of flaws. One of the most stark omissions being around ensuring cycle facilities stay open.

One of the key objectives from a cyclists perspective: “Objective 2.6 Maintain cycling infrstructure and surfaces as part of our maintenance work programmes”

While they were doing this officers under their direction were arranging the closure, announced in Southwark News on the Thursday, of the closure for 18 months starting 3 November of one of the most key pieces of existing cycle infrasdtructure in Southwark. So much for maintaining cycling infrstructure.

Churchyard Row is an integral part of the Elephant & Castle cycle bypass. It is also a key part of Cycle Superhighway no.7. An alternative via St.Mary’s Churchyard Gardens has been suggest.

Churchyard Row is one of the most cycled parts of Southwark by far. It is baffling why Churchyard Row is being closed. Southwark council states to enable building works by Mace on the adjacent site but I can not imagine they would allow a Red route or A or even B road to be totally closed for 18 months and this cycle route is the equivalent for cyclists.

Cyclists are clearly second class citizens to Southwark Labour.

Churchyard Row is an integral part of the E&C cycle bypass – the northern roundabout being the most dangerous junction in Southwark by far for cyclists and in the worst ten junctions for London. The proposed alternative will be significantly less desirable. It will deter some from cycling at all and push others away from the bypass and Cycle Superhighwat and into using the most dangerous junction in Southwark for cyclists.

On this basis I have formally objected to this Traffic Management Order. The likely changes in cyclists behaviour from the proposal and resulting risks weigh far out weigh any inconvenience for Mace building works. The alternative route is also not a road which I understand is a requirement under the 1984 Traffic Act.

I have asked Council officials to explain why they think cycling through the adjacent park is a legal alternative road?

On a personal note I am shocked that the same week Southwark’s Labour Cabinet approved its Cycling Strategy for Southwark it has agreed this closing of one of the most important cycling facilities in Southwark. Farcical at best.

Private Sector Licensing

Southwark Council at last has been exploring licensing private sector landlords.

Sadly this isn’t proposed so much to ensure better housing conditions and to resolve rogue landlords but rather to reduce anti-social behaviour (ASB).

The plan will add landlord licensing for all Homes in Multiple Occupation (HMO’s), single family homes in streets with ASB with Lordship Lane being a prime example.

To obtain a licence a landlord will need to meet specific standards, pay £60 per bedroom each year but importantly take steps to reduce or prevent ASB.

Do you have or have had anti-social behaviour problems from a privately rented home?
If so please get in touch – we may be able to extend these rules to your street.

David Laws Letter

Last year we formally launched our campaign for a new local secondary school. We’ve been so successful that over 750 families have signed up to give there support and two school providers have applied to open it – Haberdashers’ and Charter.

But the same thorny issue could potentially scupper the brilliant school we all want – a site.

The obvious site is the Dulwich Hospital site where more extensive replacement health facilities only need around a third of the site. The remaining two-thirds would be ideal for our secondary school.

But we’ve hit two snags. By far the largest is Southwark Council are refusing to re zone the site and no longer insist on lots of housing. The second snag is Southwark Council won’t zone a site for one of the two Harris primary schools for the area – we’ve even suggested sites to them.

Bizarrely Southwark Council are refusing to help. It means the land for the secondary school would cost far more than £64M. NO government is going to spend so much on land for a single school however much it is required and desired.

To try and break this deadlock Cllr Rosie Shimell and I have written to Minister of State David Laws. We’re asking for his help and advice to get Southwark Council to actually do something to make our secondary school financially viable to be built on the amount of space we all desire.

Letter to David Laws 17 October 2014

Southwark School Meals – update

Eighteen months ago I highlighted Southwark Labours appalling record of ensuring schools meals in Southwark are healthy had dramatically improved after shining a light of their terrible performance  with 32 schools having only 1-3 stars May 2012.

So how are things now?

Southwark Labour was so stung by their poor results they now keep a separate list  for schools – and by keeping school results away from the Foods Standards Agency website makes these hygiene rating less visible for parents.

Southwark state that Albion Primary School and Langbourne Primary School (now named Dulwich Woods) have only two stars when last reported as inspected 16/05/13 & 21/05/13 respectively. All four East Dulwich schools – Goodrich, Goose Green, Heber and St.Anthony’s still have five stars which is great news.

But overall only 8 schools in Southwark have 2 or 3 stars. But this is still 8 more schools too many.

When will Labour Southwark take school food hygiene seriously enough?

 

New Dulwich Police Base

Boris Johnson our conservative Mayor of London closure of East Dulwich Police station in June 2013 without a suitable replacement has been a disaster for local Policing.

By the local Police management own admission at a Dulwich Community Council meeting our local Police now spend a third of their time traveling to and from our areas from their base in Camberwell.

To solve this problem local East Dulwich councillors and Dulwich Lib Dems have been campaigning for a new base for Police enabling our Police to minimise time away form our ares. Ideally a Police base but any base that they can work from. WE also need such a base for the general public to be able to meet our police to report crimes and issues in privacy.

After working behind the scenes for nearly a year Cllr Rosie Shimell and myself have formally proposed that the Dulwich Library annexe be used for this purpose. We have found budgets we allocate that could fund this. I’m hopeful that Southwark Police and Council will agree to this solution to our dire need for a local touch down based for Dulwich Police and residents.

Do you agree we need such a base?