Northcross Road market expansion?

For some time the East Dulwich councillors have been proposing an expansion to Northcross Road Market on Saturdays. It’s a success at 20 stalls and appears Northcross Road has plenty of space for more stalls.

We’re already arranging electric pop up points so the stalls will have electricity and they’ll no longer need to run minim generators but more stalls say 30 or even 40 would really make the market more successful.

Southwark council is now consulting on expanding the market. They’re proposing that it increases from 20 to 30 stalls but importantly this expansion would apply not just to Saturdays but also Mon-Fri and add an extra market day on Sundays.

We feel Sunday isn’t a good idea. It would mean residents don’t get a single day of peace or quiet and the inconveniences they currently suffer without complaining would increase and potentially become intolerable. Equally expanding Mon-Fri probably when the current stalls aren’t used is pointless and will increase local residents fears.

Whatever your view and whether residents, visitor, stallholder, or other local business please do respond to the consultation via: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/northcrossroadmarket

4 October – food recycling and fortnightly bin collections start

A pilot scheme involving 10,000 homes in Southwark starts on Monday 4 October. The pilot involves adding organic waste i.e. food to the weekly recycling collections via 240L, 23L and caddy brown bins and also biodegradeable plastic bags.

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Those homes in the pilot will have received a non addressed letter a month ago and another leaflet this week. Hopefully you didn’t miss it!

Clearly many will be surprised come Monday with the letter and leaflet being lost in the general masses of junk mail/leaflets we all receive. To confirm if you’re in or out of the scheme you can call 020 7525 2000 – I was assured people could check this via the web but this is still not up and running.

For those that are in the scheme not all homes on a street are necessarily in the pilot – if council officers felt insufficient room to store a brown bin then they’re not included. So you can expect neighbouring properties to have either weekly or fortnightly ‘residial ‘ rubbish collections – you’ll need to pay close attention!

If you have any problems please let me know and I’ll try and help.

Reporting potholes

Unitl now two easy ways to report pot holes in Southwark – 020 7525 2000 or environment@southwark.gov.uk

Now a third way for those with iPhones has been created. The CTC has just released an iPhone app which can be downloaded from the Apple iTUnes stoes called ‘Fill That Hole’.

I don’t yet have one of these prized iPhones but a friend showed this app to me.

Take a picture of the pot hole using the iPhone camera and complete a couple of details. The system knows where you are via GPS and reports it to the correct local authority.

If you have iPhone have a go.

BT Superfast broadband coming to Southwark.

BT Openreach have contacted me to talk about their superfast broadband – initially 40Mbs downstream and 10Mbs upstream.
The Dulwich exchange will have super fast broadband from March 2011.

I’ve done a little investigation and all exchanges serving Southwark will have been upgraded to superfast broadband by end of 2011 – back end loaded Sept-Dec 2011. www.superfast-openreach.co.uk

(Bermondsey Sep’11, Beulah Hill Mar’11, Brixton Sep’11, Forst Hill Mar’11, Gipsy Hill Sep’11, New Cross Dec’10, Southwark/Borugh dec’11, Vauxhall/Kennington Oct’10, Walworth Dec’11). Not clear about Southbank but suspect it doesn’t serve homes.

To make this work they are talking about Fibre To The Cabinet so we may see some BT digging but mostly cable pulling in the next 15 months across Southwark and in Dulwich during the next 6 months.

I’m super keen to support this. Any and all improvements to our broadband will reduce the need for many to travel. It helps people work from home – which reduces crime. So I’ve asked how Southwark Council can help this rollout happen and stick to its plans.

Fortnightly bin collections – trial starts October!

4 October a pilot starts to change the recycling and rubbish collections to 10,000 residential homes and flats – street properties.

Attached is the only information I’ve received so far on who and where it will affect.

Basic premise is recycling is still every week but organic matter will be also be collected. All other rubbish will be collected fortnightly. The dreaded fortnightly collections – this shouldn’t be an issue if the organic waste process and collections work well.

One unresolved issue was no disposal contract of the collected organic waste yet…this really worried me as the pilot will disintegrate if people find all their collection efforts are in vain. (Monday 27/9 contract in place to take the waste 50miles to Isle of Sheppey for disposal).

Until I find out a lot more please feel free to email me with any concerns or issues. We absolutely must increase the recycling rate but this pilot is very rushed without any consultation and has lots of potential to go wrong. So any problems please let me know right away so we can keep it working.

Disappointed that the pilot hasn’t included any blocks of flats as they’ll be the biggest challenge with most to learn as they don’t have front gardens to keep extra wheelie bins.

Dulwich Pool

The Dulwich Pool reopens this Friday 24 September 6.30am with adult swimming lanes.

Last week I popped in to take a pre opening peek with my ward colleagues Cllr Rosie Shimell and Cllr Jonathan Mitchell. it looked fab.

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It was 2005 and Cllr Richard Thomas and I were discussing with East Dulwich residents what did the area need. Renovating Dulwich Leasure Centre including its pool became one of our key 2006 manifesto pledges. It’s taken five months longer for phase 1 and will have taken 10 month for phase 2 (the gym) than we promised but I’m still chuffed to bits that its happened – huge project considering the building listed and has been kept largely open while the works have taken place.

Do pop along and see what all the fuss has been about this coming weekend and let me know if you like the changes….

Recycling rate and amount 2009/2010

The last full Southwark council year hasa just been reported to me – delayed due to Valuation Office Agency (VOA) not issuing figures of how many homes in Southwark.

The recycling rate (National Indicator 192) was 22.13%. Disappointing as the expected rate was 24%.

Amount of rubbish per home (NI191) 696.13Kg which is slightly down from the previous years amount of 703.61kg.  This has been delayed as Southwark has an extra 1,331 homes.

NI193 is the percentage sent to landfill 45.70%.

Saving local shops

Part of the Lib Dem / Conservative national coalition agreement has the following statement aimed at saving local shopping areas from big out of town shops:

“We will seek to ensure a level playing field between small and large retailers by enabling councils to take competition issues into account when drawing up their local plans to shape the direction and type of new retail development”

It’s amazing that this was required but the previous government hadn’t helped being these safeguards.

I’ve checked with council officers and they do plan to add this into the current Southwark documents – probably the employment and enterprise strategies. Hopefully taking such competition issues into account will become an integral part of the planning process for big schemes.

Southwark Council complaints praise

The Local Government Ombudsmans has just released their report on Southwark Councils performance for the last financial year April 2009 to March 2010. This was the last year of the Lib Dem led administration.

332 complaints received. Many were upheld. With a population of around 300,000 people all using a multitude of Southwark Council services things go wrong. That they weren’t resolved to a residents satisfaction or quickly enough is food for thought and action.

What I found reassuring that things were getting much better was that the turnaround of complaints by Southwark has dramatically improve.

paying bills

Some figures are out at how quick local councils and other government funded bodies are at paying its bills. This information has come from the Forum of Private Business.

I’m glad to say that all the efforts of Lib Dem Cllr Tim McNally when he was the cllr in charge of resources has been shown to have succeeded. Southwark Council pay 63% of bills within 10 days and 85% within 30 days. Lambeth Council 60% and 83% respectively and Lewisham 32% and 85%.

On average Southwark pays is invoices in 20 days, Lewisham 26 days and Lambeth 28 days. A week can be a very lung time for a business in the current climate. Well done Tim. Fingers crossed the new administration keep this performance up.

If you run a business facing payment difficulties then do contact the forum anonymously latepayment@fpb.org