Neighbourhoods that can kill

Reading the latest New Scientist 16 January 2010,  article about collaborative research between sociologists and biologists looking at two neighbourhoods in Chicago comparing populations from Clearing (well to do area) with Englewood (very poor crime ridden area). Suggests that residents of Englewood are contantly under  stress and being on the alert and in a heightened state of readiness with high levels of cortisol. That this means such residents are much more prone to malignant breast cancers  at +68%. That standard anti cancers drugs don’t work.

Suggests that social isolation and fear of crime cause an overload of stress hormones that actually change human cell biology and that social interventions may be the best way to fight such cancers.

Reported that others have hints of stress and social deprivation causing greater diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Similarly research into prostate cancers has found that prognosis is worse for black men without the support of social networks from families or friends.

What does this mean for Southwark with its very deprived areas? Do we have such social isolation to cause such terrible illness?

Friern Road bus stands

The bus stands at the junction of Friern Road with Lordship Lane represent the terminal points for the number 12 and 40 bus routes and any buses from routes 176, 185, etc that are turned around earlier. Over the last ten years bus numbers have increased – all great stuff.

BUT this terminus has no facilities. No toilets for bus drivers. This means when desperate the bus drivers have had to ‘go’ wherever they can. This has spilled into anti social problems for the residents in Rycott Path and Friern Road. To such a degree that the Police are involved.

Transport for London obtained planning permission 2007 for a drivers toilet to be installed. I’ve finally tracked down the hold-up. EDF power lines. Council officers have agreed to waive the normal notice periods and try geeing up EDF a major supplier to Southwark Council.

Hopefully within the next eight weeks the toilet can be installed and the area become just a little bit more civilised.

Bus routes 12 & 37 review

The East Dulwich councillors have been asked to give feedback on local bus services.

We’ve said that generally the lack of bus stop real time information on when buses are expected is suppressing bus passenger demand. Improving this would have the biggest impact on improving custom and the customers experience of any measure that could be taken.

Expressed a niggle is that the onboard information systems are not aligned between bus routes. Some bus routes call the junction of Barry Road with Lordship Lane ‘the Plough’ others call it ‘Dulwich Library’. Ideally London Buses would be organised to agree a common naming convention. Frankly it makes London Buses look at best disorganised. Clearly with the frequent name changes of ‘the Plough’ public house in recent years it would seem safer to align on’ Dulwich Library’. Suspect other examples abound.

The bus stands at the southern end of Friern Road need to have toilet facilities for bus drivers. Currently bus drivers through no fault of their own get caught short with very anti social consequences. Planning permission was given November 2008 for a toilet cabin opposite 391 Friern Road but nothing built yet.

Specifically we’ve also highlighted,

Number 12. When can we have non bendy buses. Presume this is already planned.

Number 37. This bus route seems especially prone to buses bunching. The regulation of bus frequency needs greater emphasis to avoid gaps in service.

Number 68/X68/468. Having an express bus stop at Camberwell and Herne Hill would really help speed East Dulwich residents to get near the area more quickly even though they’d then need to change buses to reach East Dulwich.

What do you think could be improved about the no.12 & 37 bus routes through East Dulwich?

Passive drinking

The World Health Organisation has produced a draft global strategy on problems caused by alcohol.

It was a roundabout way for me to read the UK government’s chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, chapter of his 2008 annual report covering “passive drinking”, the damage that heavy drinkers wreak on others. To illustrate the extent of the problem in the UK, he reported that in 2008, there were 125,000 “alcohol-related instances of domestic violence”, that an estimated 6000 babies are born annually with fetal alcohol syndrome and that in 2006, 7000 people were injured and 560 killed as a result of drink-driving, not including the drivers.

The term passive drinking is new to me. But blimey that 125,000 would equate to around 30 instances of domestic violence every year in East Dulwich ward alone.

Southwark – 10th most overflown London borough

Every year we have around 155,100 Heathrow flights and 9,900 London City Airport  flights going over Southwark at less than 8,000 where noise becomes increasingly disturbing.

Every day in my house I can tell when 6am is reached as a torrent of flights start overflying us.

Around 4am several flights come over and about 1 in 5 chance every day my 7 year old will be woken. Boy, does that spoli his school day with tiredness. And we have double glazing.

Fingers crossed this Labour government stops standing out by being the only political party in favour of a 3rd Heathrow runway.

Fingers crossed the Tories and Labour stop supporting a 50% increase in flights at London City Airport. I sometimes fly on business from this airport and I really don’t wont it to expand.

NICE alcohol

Talking to East Dulwich Police the majority of Violence Against the Person – people hitting other people and worse – is behind closed doors and usually alcohol related…. 

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended as part of its latest advisory document on public health that each alcohol unit should have a minimum price.

NICE says “Making alcohol less affordable appears to be the most effective way of reducing alcohol-related harm. There is sufficient evidence (within the published literature and from the economic analysis) to justify the introduction of a minimum price per unit. The evidence suggests that young people who drink and people who drink harmful amounts of alcohol tend to choose cheaper drinks. Establishing a minimum price per unit would limit the ability of these groups to ‘trade down’ to cheaper products. A minimum price per unit (unlike a tax increase) would prevent retailers from passing on any increase to producers, or absorbing it themselves, so it would prevent them from selling alcohol below cost price.”

This contrasts nicely with a survey of 10,000 teenagers by Prof Mark Bells from Liverpool John Mores University showing that alcohol is so cheap kids can get plastered on pocket money – 17p an alcohol unit or £1.36 for a 2 litre bottle of very strong cider.

Contradicting this is ASDA supermarket executive Paul Kelly & Sainsbury’s Nick Grant to a Commons Health Select Committee.

It will be interesting to see if the supermarket chiefs win over peer reviewed scientific research.

Will NICE be nobbled by the Department of Health. Sadly my money is on those supermarket drinks promotions selling at ridiculous prices winning at an ever greater cost to society of drunken behaviour.

Bus information

Transport for London has just announced we’re two years away from 2,500 bus stops having the Coundown  replacement. No information what bus stops in East Dulwich will keep Countdown and IF any new ones will get it.

My day job is in telecommunications. It should be a really quick easy project to roll out countdown to every bus stop and all bus routes. Imagine how many people would choose to use bus more often if bus stops clearly showed when the next bus would be along. Combined with GLA Asssembly Member Caroline Pidgeon 1 hour bus ticket campaign we’d see a step increasein bus use.

Instead what will be offered is the ability to look on the internet or text via mobile phones. Frankly ridiculous stunt that a tiny minority will find it useful.

Primary school admissions

This year Primary School admissions has been painful. Quite out of the blue we had unhappy parents. 120 appeals, 8 upheld.

I’ve asked council officers how many cases councillors and MP’s referred to them for help.

They’ve told me:

Labour 13 – councillors 5, Harriet Harman MP 3, Tessa Jowell MP 5.

Liberal Democrats 35 –  councillors 14, Simon Hughes MP 21.

Convervative 1.

Total 46.

East Dulwich Primary school places

Last night a meeting of the councils Overview and Scurtiny Committee met at the East Dulwich Community Centre to discuss the problems parents faced with this years primary schools admissions process.

Disappointing that barely a handful of parents could attend plus a handful of headteachers and school governors. However, the room was full of councillors and council officers. Really thought provoking presentation from Terry Parkin the lead officer accountable for admissions. Lots of searching questions that brought out lots of other facts.

Some unfortunate weird comments and wild accusations from Cllr Aubyn Graham. He seemed very confused.

Main points I took from the scrutiny:

– Idea of having quite a few pre prepared buldge class options and then activating them depending on parent demand. This de risks any future pupil predictions being wrong while the economy is in such turmoil.

– More assurance that the GLA stats people now understand what went wrong this year after 15 years of unblemished near spot on pupil predictions.

– Amazing to hear that Southwark created an extra 45 reception places and still has 17% spares places in less fashionable schools such as the excellent Bessemer Grange. Lambeth and Lewisham had to create 150 extra emergency reception places each, Richmond 210, Enfield a whopping 22 classes totalling 660 reception places. This was shocking and really put into context how well Southwark had coped.

– £30M being pumped in Southwark Primary schools to physically make them better by Southwark Council and £25M from central government.

– Southwark schools close to being in top quartile for performance but time lag from when a schools performance soars to when publicly recognised for this.

– That across Southwark175 and in greater Dulwich area 22 kids go ‘missing’ each year. They just don’t show up at the schools places they’ve accepted. It costs the council £100,000 each year chasing these down to ensure they are in a school somewhere and are safe. What a waste caused by tiny number of selfish parents.

– That the admissions department has enough officers for a normal year but this abnormal year they were overwhelmed with worried parents. These officers will be increased by three as admissions numbers are bulging for the next 5-6 years.

If you’re an East Dulwich parent and couldn’t make it last night please do feed in your thoughts and observations.