East Dulwich street lighting modernisation

You told us in 2006 you wanted better lighting on the streets of East Dulwich because you said it would make you feel safer and reduce crime.

So your local Lib Dem candidates made an election promise to modernise all East Dulwich ward street lighting.

We have made sure that 62 of East Dulwich’s 65 streets now have modernised street lighting. The final three will be modernised in the next 4 weeks with replacement lamp posts taking 8-12 weeks to complete.

Friern Road – ALL 34 street lights will be upgraded to Cosmo bright white light and 1 structurally unsound lamp post will be replaced. Total cost £21,222.88.

Crystal Palace Road – Of the 44 lamp posts, 25 lamp posts will be upgraded to Cosmo bright white light, 7 SOX lighting heads which produce a dim yellow light will be upgraded to SON which produce a strong white light with yellow tinge and the other existing SON street lights will be left in place. Total cost £18,802.39

Dunstans Road – 11 SOX producing dim yellow light will be upgraded to SON strong white light. Total cost £3,374.12

Barry Road – 4 structurally unsound lamp posts will be replaced and their SON lighting heads reused. Total cost £6,600.61.

We’re really pleased we’ve delivered this last remaining outstanding election pledge. We have delivered all our other 2006 election promises.

One last note of thanks for all the officers who over the years have made this all possible.

Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium is extra money for every school for each poor pupil they take next year under the government’s pupil premium scheme – one of the key four Liberal Democrat manifesto pledges

Schools will receive the money for every pupil in receipt of free school meals whose parents have an annual income of less than £16,000. The premium schools will receive is £430 for each child.

Head teachers will be encouraged to spend their premium on reducing class sizes or more one-to-one tuition. This should Read the rest of this entry.

Grove Vale library

The planning application for current Dulwich Garden Centre to be demolished and replaced by a new Grove Vale library (twice the current ones size), 20 flats and a shop has been submitted.

This is more attractive than the previous application easthetically. Unfortunately it has had to propose the library in a slightly less favourable position but it is proposed it will be bigger than the replacement one previously proposed.

So I’m rather excited by this.

Do take a look and let me know what you think:

http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeDocs&TheSystemkey=9538777

‘Leading Labour councillor quizzed by police over grooming child for sex’

Shocking that the circumstances around now former Cllr John Friary’s sacking on Wednesday as a cabinet member for Southwark Council and resignation on Thursday have been revealed as suggestions of grooming a child for sex. But he was, perhaps still is, a school governor and volunteers at an after school club. I hope it’s all a horrible mistake but I can’t imagine the Police not thinking their absolutely sure. Appalling.

Added to newly elected in May Labour Cllr Keadean Rhoden convicted of her second housing benefit fraud and forced to serve 200 hours community service.

Added to newly elected in May Labour Cllr Stephen Govier who has been suspended from the national Labour party under very mysterious circumstances. (Now clear it was for shooting someone in the head in California and his parole appears to have ended June 2005 within 5 years of his election in May 2010 which if he’d committed the offence in the UK, Channel Island or IoM would have exempted him from standing. technically he’s ok legally but morally clearly not and should never have been allowed to stand by Labour).

Added to Cllr Abdul Mohammed never correctly completing a Declarations of Interests form – and I’ve looked back to 2007 as far as record go back – which allows people to see if a councillor would benefit from any of the decision they’re involved with.

Could something fundamentally be wrong with Southwark Labour party?

To lose one Labour Councillor may be regarded as a misfortune for them, but to lose three looks like more than carelessness….It looks like complacency of the worst kind.

Grit on?

Friday and two very conflicting views on whether London and Southwark had enough grit and salt.

We had the Mayor of London stating London has “prodigious quantities of grit”. Great news. But Labour Southwark Cllr for gritting Barrie Hargrove stated “We urge residents to look out for themselves” while stating “With current low stocks of grit we are being forced to reduce operations”. This reduction has already seen shopping high street such as Lordship Lane left unsalted or gritted.

In fact the first bout of snow had side roads and pavements left un salted or gritted so reducing the salting and gritting operations further beggars belief.

Last winter 80 hand propelled gritters were bought when the Lib Dems ran Southwark Council. But this winter has seen them languishing as salt is tightly rationed across the borough. If you live outside Southwark main through routes have been kept open. Mean while the borough is a complete ice rink for those that actually live here. Good luck out there. Keep safe.

East Dulwich Key Stage 2 results

Well done to Goose Green School for such great results after a difficult few years. Talking to parents, teachers, officers I think they’re now on a roll.

The latest set of Key Stage 2 test results for Primary schools in our area and nearby and in order of higher results are:

School name,              % English, % Maths, % English & Maths, Value Added from age 7 to these tests.

Dulwich Hamlet Junior    93            91              89                 100.6

St.Anthony’s RC               90            90              86                 100.9

Goose Green                     82            85              79                  100.7

Heber                                 92            76              76                  100.5

Bessemer Grange            74             91              74                  102.3

St.Johns & St.Clements  85             73              73                  101.4

Goodrich                           82             76              71                  100.8

Southwark AVERAGE English & Maths 73%

National AVERAGE  English & Maths 73%

For a view of the all Southwark results.

Southwark building control

This year I’ve had two pieces of casework highlighting huge delays in getting building certificates at the completion of building work.

I’ve personally also had delays last year making me extra wary their might be an issue.

A formal response to a question I posed at full council assembly shows me that a very real problem does exist that no administration has been able to resolve – largely I suspect this service has never been picked up on any radar as failing.

For example this financial year 512 building certificates have been issued with the average certificate issued 42 days from the last officer visit. That in itself is huge delay. BUT the worst quartile had an average of 283 days delay for the certificate to be issued from the last visit. That’s 2/3rds of a year to get an A4 peice of paper – outrageous.

Just 37% of certificates were issued within the target 10 days.

I’ve followed up this question and spoken to the Labour councillor responsible Fiona Colley and hope to work with her to see a turn around of this service.

If you have any problems with this service please contact me so I can help.

Read the rest of this entry. Read the rest of this entry.

Why aren’t our pavements gritted?

Southwark Council has a Winter Service Plan. It appears to be unravelling.

Apart from the obvious main roads being gritted as per Southwarks gritting plan. And even this appears to be failing around the Forest Hill Road area according to local residents. Making it impossible for the no.63 bus to go further south than Peckham for fear of not being able to turn around.

What really bothers me is that the Winter Service Plan was enhanced when last year the Lib Dem executive councillor ensured 80 x Turbocaster 300 hand propelled grit spreaders were purchased but no one has seen any used this year.

e_cruiserturbocast300_01.jpg

Where are they hiding?

80 such gritting machines is enough to grit every pavement in Southwark in less than a day. We know from the weather forecasts that the snow and ice will stay for potentially another week. So gritting every pavement is critical to minimise the impacts of this bad weather on residents and to help keep everything running.

Have you seen one of these gritters – please let me know.

St.Francis park

St.Francis park is located just north of East Dulwich railway station. It’s the main pedestrian through route to get to and from the Sainsbury’s Dulwich store on Dog Kennel Hill.

When the planning applications was agreed to build on Metropolitan Open Land it was also agreed that Saisnbury’s had to provide and maintain a public open park.

Well they have but the maintenance is rock bottom and I suspect Sainsbury’s HQ don’t know how rough and ready this maintenance is.

So I’ve asked them. I’ve also asked when can they work towards achieving a Green Flag award for this park.

I await their initial response before deciding how to take this campaign forward. 

2011 Census

Next year the national UK wide census is taken – it happens every decade and is run locally by the local authority.

The 80% of Southwark Councils budget provided by central government is based on how many people the census finds. Other public bodies are also funded on the number of people found to be living here.

The last census was undertaken in 2001 when Labour ran the council and achieved the 8th worst census completion in the country. This is partly residents not joining in, partly not engaging residents, but equally it takes a well led and run census locally to make is successful at getting people to fill in the forms. The 2001 produced such dire results with such bad consequences in the funding Southwark Council received that more effort is being put into getting this one done better. A cross party scrutiny was undertaken last year to help ensure it is done better this time round with plenty of useful recommendations.

But is Labour led Southwark Council doing enough. What’s at stake is many tens of millions of pounds every year.