Dulwich Walking & Cycling Network

The Dulwich Society Traffic & Transport Group have initiated the idea of a new walking & cycling network. This concept has been endorsed by the Dulwich Safe Route to School group – local schools coming together to discuss common problems that get in the way of pupils, teachers and parents walking and cycling to local schools.

To help formulate where to concentrate on starting this network they’ve created a travel survey.

If you take kids to school locally please do fill it in:

http://dulwichsaferoutes.wordpress.com

or email Dulwichsaferoutesinfo@gmail.com

I think its a great idea which the Dulwich Estates have so far indicated they’d like to support.

Important concept that many don’t walk or cycle as its not pleasant. But making it pleasant will increase numbers walking and cycling reducing car use, making it more etc etc.

Latest crime stats

The latest crime stats by ward are available from the Metropolitan Police.

It shows East Dulwich is the safest ward in Southwark. The 108th out of 624 wards in London – so well and truly top quartile – but for the 243 inner London ward East Dulwich is the joint 7th safest ward.

I’m delighted that all the effort my ward councillors and I and resources we’ve allocated and put into crime fighting along with the dedication and expertise of the East Dulwich Police Safer Neighbourhood Team have paid even more dividends.

But how can we reduce crime further through prevention?

One-way streets

Southwark Council has a rolling programme to review all one-way streets to ensure they are truly required. On one-way streets people drive much father making it at best unpleasant for cycling and walking and at worst much more dangerous. It also creates very long detours making it attractive for some to cycle on pavements or the wrong way.

I used to live on Tabard Street which had a crazy one-way gyratory. It took several years to persuaded Transport For London to remove it but boy what a step improvement for the area. Still marked on maps as major road even though very little goes down it.

Closer to home in East Dulwich this review should cover Crawthew, Etherow and Henslowe as well as finalising the cycle contraflow on Spurling Road.

The contraflow cycle path on Rye Lane is taking an eternity but what a great change that will see.

If you have any views on one-way streets please let me know.

Heber School and election night

Assuming election day on 6 May will include both local and nation elections then Heber School and Heber Road will have lots election activities. Not just as a result of Heber School being a Polling Station from 7am-10pm. But also after 10pm it will receive all voting boxes for College, East Dulwich and Village wards. All the votes will be checked that they’re in the correct box and verify the correct number in the box compared to voters who turned up to vote. So lots of activities, mostly in the school hall, from 10pm to circa midnight to 1am.

The Dulwich and West Norwood parliamentary votes will then be shipped to Lambeth for counting.

For local elections votes will be shipped to the Peckham Academy for counting the following day from 1pm.

I’m hopeful that this wont cause any disruption or noise for residents. I’ve asked election officers to write to residents to warn them of this.

Recycling in Southwark parks.

The Dulwich Park Pavilion cafe have come up with a great question – why can’t park visitors recycle rubbish when they visit Dulwich park?

After investigating Southwark parks are maintained by Quadron who collect all rubbish from parks and take to Southwark rubbish contractors Veolia. So absolutely no reason why Quadron couldn’t keep generall rubbish in one type of bag and comingled recycling in another type of bag.

Veolia and Quadron just need to advise the ideal contianers for this and the Village ward councillors just need to fund via the cleaner, Greener, Safer funding the bid made by the Pavilion Cafe so that a dozen recycling bins can be bought (around £3,000).

Fingers crossed they do.

Missing 50,000 residents

One of my councillor colleagues testified to the London Regional Parliamennts Select Committee regarding the 2011 census. The MPs heard a unified message from Newham, Southwark and Westminster councils about how hard it is to count residents.

Each resident attracts roughly £600 of funding from central government.

Currently central government believes 270,000 residents are residents in Southwark. Southwark currently has 320,000 people registered with GPs. That means roughly £30M of central government grants are not being made to Southwark.

It seems unlikely as planned the 2011 Census will close any of that gap. Worringly it could well open it up further.

Keeping East Dulwich special – shops

As local councillors we’re absolutely committed to keeping East Dulwich special – one of the main reasons I became a councillor. It’s clear from residents responding to our Keep East Dulwich Special surveys that one key characteristic of our area is the preponderance of small local independent shops and businesses. None of us want Lordship Lane to become a ‘clone’ high street with repetitions of all the same shops from national chains. We all want a balance and don’t want more of our local shops to become estate agents, bars or restaurants. As a councillor I’ve helped ensure that we have legally enforceable policies so that at least half of retail units remain exactly that, retail units. But we’d really welcome your thoughts on whether 50% is the right balance.

Perhaps it should be 60%?

However, this policy doesn’t enable councillors to decide which shop is owned by whom, or stop a particular shop being sold from one retailer to another. So the recent Sainsbury’s Local opening near Dulwich Library has caused consternation for many residents. This particular site is a tricky balance between creating something to attract more shoppers, not killing the local small shops but in fact generating more business from residents who previously drove elsewhere for all their shopping.

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

Car clubs in East Dulwich

Southwark Council is negotiating with which preferred Car CLub supplie rshould have 85 dedicated car clubs parking spaces around Southwark.

Car clubs are a great concept and have shown that each car club car replaces 8-15 private cars. Most private cars sit parked up 95%+ of their lives. Also, car club members tend to increase their thinking about travel and use publci transport more.

To accelerate this the East Dulwich councillors allocated £10,000 for extra Car Club spaces in East Dulwich. These spaces have been proposed no casework feedback about parking issues AND to ensure that generally an East Dulwich resident will have car club space within 200m of their home.

The next step is to finalise the Car Club and then the road markings process will happen across Southwark. 

Keeping East Dulwich special

What do you think would keep and help make East Dulwich even more special?

 For your local Lib Dem councillors, protecting and nurturing the unique character of our local community has been at the core of everything we have done over the last four years. It remains the driving force behind everything we do. Keeping East Dulwich special is a cause we are constantly fighting for, and it is a promise we are determined to keep.

We’veall witnessed first hand the remarkable transformation of our area, and Southwark generally. Southwark now has the fastest improving schools in the country, some of the cleanest and safest streets in London. Most striking of all has been the evolution of the thriving hub of our community: Read the rest of this entry. Read the rest of this entry.