£9.8M plan

Southwark Council has submitted its Local Implimentation Plan to Transport for London of how it wants to shape and change its highways and transport over the next three years. A £9.8M plan.

Two things solely proposed for the Dulwich Community Council area covering East Dulwich, Village and College wards. Spending £500,000 on public realm and speed reduction along Lordship Lane and Grove Vale. Spending £500,000 subsidising the number 42 bus being extended from Sunray Avenue to terminate at Sainsbury’s on Dog Kennel Hill during financial year 2011/12 & 2012/13. This bus extension subsidy does seem expensive.

Proposed schemes covering the whole of Southwark include – cycle training, travel awareness and promotion events, safe routes to school/travel plans, supporting sustianable infrastructure, speed reductions measures, surveying, eletric vehicle on street charging points.

What do you think is needed to improve Southwark roads?

Have we hit the mark?

Latest East Dulwich Crime stats

Latest East Dulwich crime stats taken from the mets Police  http://maps.met.police.uk/tables.htm show that in the last year August to August the crime rate has dropped such that East Dulwich has moved from 4th lowest crime rate  in Southwark to having the lowest crime rate in Southwark.

This is despite having 1/4 of Peckham Rye, 1/8 of Village and 1/8 of College wards most problematic areas counted against East Dulwich ward. So the real underlying story is even better than this.

It’s so improved that the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team have been straying outside East Dulwich to help out in Dulwich Park – which has seen a 37% decrease in robberies.

When I became a councillor this was one of my personal ojectives – to have the lowest crime rates in Southwark in East Dulwich. We started our campaign to become East dulwich councillors with a Crime Survey. the survey results helped us decide to target a lot of the resources we as councillors allocate. We’ve still more work to do. I want East Dulwich to be better compared to London as a whole. We’re currently just outside the best quarter for London.

How can we improve it further?

Primary School Places

This summer has seen problems with Primary school places in London as a whole and the Dulwich area. It’s believed that changes in London’s demographics, combined with the impact of the recession, have led to an extraordinary rise in demand for new reception places, leaving many schools with little or no capacity to take on new pupils.

Southwark purchases school population predictions, as do 25/33 London Boroughs, from the Greater London Authority and have done for a number of years. The models used appear suddenly wrong. The figures were revised by the GLA on 7 April, then 18 May and then 17 June. Each time upwards. This is unheard of.

But how has this impacted on how things have gone overall as only unhappy families contact local councillors. This was the first year East Dulwich families had reported problems.

For the Dulwich area and Southwark overall 304 and 2,370 applications respectively from Southwark residents on time with further 45 and 556 late applications. For the Dulwich area and Southwark 90% had schools offered and accepted within 1mile of home for on time applications. For late applications the percentages fell to 80%.

Of those who didn’t get a school within 1mile of home many were from choice – attending religious schools or the same school as siblings.

This appears a success but I dont’ yet know how many families had their first or second choice.  Once we have that information we’ll have a clearer idea how successful things have been overall.

BUT to make this happen in the Dulwich area an emergency extra class has been created at Goodrich. HUGE THANKS to Goodwich School.

Lots of efforts behind the scenes to work out is this a blip? how long if a blip? how to prepare for next year? how long would a new school take to build? is it necessary? where would you build one if necessary? government rules would probably result in a religious school and would an Islamic, CoE or Catholic school solve any problem? These questions if acted upon in series would normally take 7 years before a new school opens due to government rules and procedures.

What do you think has caused this blip and is it long lasting?

What do you think would solve the problem? 

Rubbish collections 6.15am

Since being elected May 2006 I’ve had several report each year about rubbish collections starting before 6am.

Rubbish trucks are only allowed out from their Manor Place depot (close to Walworth Road Elephant & Castle end) at 6am. Recycling lorries at 7am. It takes about 15 minutes to reach East Dulwich. So no rubbish collections are legitimately allowed before that time. We have had some very keen crews sending colleagues ahead to move wheelie bins into position from 5.30am. Again this is not acceptable.

Why 6am? Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark start refuse collections at 6am, Tower Hamlets at 6.30am and Lewisham 7am. Delaying Southwark collections by 1 hour, due to the extra traffic congestion starting an hour later, has been calculated at requiring an extra crew and dustcart at around £150,000->200,000 pa. In the current climate we wont be reallocating this amount of money from other areas to fund this.

If you ever experience rubbish collections or preperations starting before 6.15am please do get in touch with me. james.barber@southwark.gov.uk

42 bus route via Melbourne Grove

Some Melbourne Grove residents have contacted me asking about a 20mph letter we’ve delivered.

They’ve heard that Tory councillors from Dulwich Village have objected to Melbourne Grove having 20mph traffic calming and speed humps.

It is true that an attempt has been made by Dulwich Village Tories to stop speed humps and parking in the road instead of half on the pavements on Melbourne Grove between Grove Vale and East Dulwich Grove. They wish to extend the number 42 bus route via this part of Melbourne Grove to Sainsbury’s. Speed humps would need to be removed if the number 42 bus route was routed via Melbourne Grove and parking on the pavement would be ncessary. While supporting such an extension in principle via Lordship Lane the East Dulwich Libl Dem councillors are wholly opposed for any bus route to be rerouted or extended via Melbourne Grove or other residential side street. Equally, snubbing local shops on Lordship Lane would not be acceptable. Residents of Melbourne Grove suffered more than enough inconvenience when the number 37 bus route was routed via Melbourne Grove in the past.

When the public consultation takes place on whether Melbourne Grove residents support or don’t support speed humps it will also be their opportunity to tell us whether they want the number 42 buses routed down your street.

In the mean time please do tell us what you think – are we right to oppose buses down Melbourne Grove or Derwent Grove or Elsie Road?

Lordship Lane cleanliness

Lordship Lane has frankly been looking a little bit grubby. Unfortuantely we can’t afford to wash down all the streets every night as we’d all wish but can ensure we maximise our streets cleanliness.

Street cleaniness is measured by a company called Encams 3 times every year. Overall for Southwark last financial year (lower % good) we were litter 6%, dtritus 125, graffit 3% and flyposting 1%.

Following my enquiry Southwark’s Street Cleaning Inspector has confirmed for East Dulwich now litter 2.4%, detritus 22%, graffiti 0% and fly posting 0%.  So more attention in East Dulwich is now being made to clearing this detritus – all that organic material like leaf fall, etc.

If you see anything out of the ordinary regarding litter, graffit, fly posting, or leaf fall please do let me know or call 020 7525 2000 to report this problem yourself.

Increasing recycling from 21% to over 50%

Last night Southwarks main planning committee granted planning permission to a new Integrated Waste Management Centre on the Old Kent Road. The committee took over 4 hours to get the final decision right and sat until after 1am this morning.

This new facility should be completed in around 15 months time. It will provide enough recycling capacity enable an increase from 21% recycling now to over 50%.

Do you recycle everything possible?

Community Radio

While on holiday in Dorset came across a local community radio station serving Crewkerne called United Internet Radio. They’re starting as an internet radio station. In 2017 when FM analogue radio is converted to digital very local radio stations should be possible. They plan to have a very low powered transmitter/FM licence then.

Wouldn’t this be a great idea for East Dulwich.

If you’re interested in creating something similar let me know and I’ll see how we can support you.

East Dulwich Leisure Centre

In January the East Dulwich Lib Dem councillors supported the planning application for the £6.5M renovation of the East dulwich Leisure Centre but asked that the scheme should be rejected if as planned due to the buildings heritage the pool roof wasn’t insulated. The main planning committee added a condition that this should be assessed and if practical roof insulation included.

What a relief – we’ve just been told that although insulating the roof will add 4 weeks to the centres closure it can and will be insulated. So I’d like to apologise for the extra 4 weeks the pool will be closed but the reduced CO2 emissions will make this really worthwhile.


Ensuring maximum insulation, as per this condition, is crucial to Southwark Council helping fight global warming.
The £6.5M renovation will be fantastic and will once again become the truely great facility it once was.

1 hour bus tickets

Caroline Pidgeon a local Lib Dem Southwark councillor and also a Greater London Assembly member has come up with the great idea for 1 hour bus tickets. The idea is much like the tube where once you’re in the system you can change tube trains and lines as many times as you need. 1 hour bus tickets would mean you could change buses with no extra charge. For me this would mean catching the first bus in the direction I want to go rather than a bus that goes exactly where I need to go. It will reduce the overal time taken to get me from A to B. It would also mean people are penalised for living in areas that have poor bus choices.

Caroline has visited a number of boroughs across London to drum up support including Lambeth, Waltham Forest, islington, Brent, Westminster, Harrow, Hammersmith and Fulham with lots more visits planned.

If you support this idea please sign the petition through the online petition www.ourcampaign.org.uk/1hourbusticket . Reaction from Londoners has been extremely positive. We need as many signatures as possible to really persuade the Mayor of London to listen to our idea and get a better deal for London bus users.