Human Capital

Energy company SSE have just published a report, the first report in the UK, where they’ve commissioned PWC to calculate the value of their ‘human capital’. They’ve calculated it to be £3.4bn.

The calculations are based on assessing the expected lifetime earning of each SSE employee based other skills and qualifications and then factored of how long each employee was likely to stay with SSE. With nearly 20,000 employees these predictions based on averages make sense. In fact they calculated the average ‘human capital’ at £173,000 per head.

A really nice finding was that each apprentices generated £4.29 for all apprentice types, £7.65 for technical apprentices, for every one pound spent.

I wonder what the human capital for the whole of Southwark would be?

New London Lorries

I’m really chuffed to see that the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) campaign for a new lorry design they started two years ago to minimise crashes with cyclists is coming good.

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Construction lorries are involved in around 75% of all cyclists deaths in London each year. The cabs of these lorries are high, they have turning movements that many aren’t used to and they weigh so much that if they do run you down you are literally squished. A very dear friend had this happen over and she died.

So LCC came up with a concept from their lorry expert Charlie Lloyd ideas with a much lower cab. This gives much great vision and fewer dead zones where the lorry driver hasn’t a clue what s going on. But with a lower profile it reduces drag for the lorry saving fuel. And fuel is major expense for companies running any commercial vehicles.

Mercedes have just launched a new line incorporating these ideas. I hope it becomes the new standard that other lorry manufactures adopt and literally many lives will be saved…

actual design

Save Southwark Woods

We have the ridiculous situation where our graveyards don’t have sinking funds to pay for their upkeep. So we have to have new burials to fund their maintenance.

But new burials – and Southwark Labour are planning for 4,500 new burial plots – mean that what have become nature enclaves for residents to seek refuge from frenetic lives have to have that atmosphere destroyed. Bad for these 100 acres of woodland and residents.

An alternative would be to buy commercial burial plots for Southwark residents just 5 miles away. Kemnal Park is a no brainer. Also to make cremation cheaper to encourage more to use this service.

The Southwark Labour councillor responsible has said he wants poor relatives to be able to visit their deceased love ones. But for most Southwark residents our Southwark graveyards are several miles away tucked into the very SE corner of the borough. Not many live round the corner.

We can then concentrate on making our historic cemeteries into much more loved nature reserves.

If you agree please sign the petition – we need to make the lives of the living better in Southwark.

 

East Dulwich Neighbourhood Fund Allocations

This year Arpil’15-Mar’16 we have £30,000, + some underspend from last year, of revenue to spend in East Dulwich ward – Neighbourhood Fund.

We allocated the following – if you’d like to understand more about these projects please get in touch. If you have any great idea for how to improve East Dulwich please let us know we still have £31,365 to spend on local projects.

Name of Group: Name of Project: Funding awarded £]:
Bangladeshi Welfare Association Asian Elders Lunch Club £4,000
Crystal Palace Road Big Lunch 2015 Crystal Place Road Big Lunch £500
Dulwich Helpline and Southwark Churches Care Communities Reducing Social Isolation for Older People in the Dulwich Community Council Area £1,421
Dulwich Milan Association Eid and Christmas Event £970
East Dulwich Community Centre Association Open Day £640
Girl Guiding UK – Southwark District Southwark Guides Carnival Camp weekend £334
St Anthony`s Road Safety Action Group Road Safety Feasibility Study for St Anthony’s RC Primary School £5,000
St. Anthony’s Road Safety Action Group Safe Crossing Patrol for St. Anthony’s RC Primary School £5,000
Southwark Explorers Club Southwark Pensioners’ Club £1,500
The Vale Residents Association Physic gardening £1,900

Noise Leads To Obesity

Swedish scientists have found what appears a link before road and jet noise and obesity.

Apparently living near a busy noisy road or under a noisy flight path can cause obesity. The mechanism isn’t clear yet but this could partly explain why poorer people suffer from obesity – they generally can’t afford to live on quieter streets.

One suggested mechanism for this is that noise exposure could be an important physiological stressor increasing cortisol production. High levels of cortisol have a role in depositing fat around the middle of the body.

Apparently all noise production – whether motor vehicles trains or aircraft have this impact but aircraft noise was found to have the highest association with increase weight.

Short term I hop this will be the final nail in the Heathrow airport expansion. On so many levels and now this it shouldn’t proceed. But it also suggests Gatwick shouldn’t happen which is almost as bad an idea as Heathrow.

But medium to longer-term we need to make where we all live so much quieter.

How do you think this can be achieved?

Aircraft noise – steeper landing and takeoffs would cut noise, banning the noises aircrafts, working internationally on a replacement for Chapter 3.

Train noise – ends diesel trains coming into London, noise baffle walls along noisy train routes and end noisy platform PA’s that can be hard outside stations.

Traffic noise – get more people cycling and walking, make the London low emissions zone low pollution AND a low noise zone. Add noise pollution cameras along our busier roads to enforce this.

 

Local Train Air Pollution

Southwark and Lambeth being inner London boroughs suffers from some of the worst air pollution in London and the UK. Without significant changes in the way we live and work we will never meet EU air quality standards that we’ve been breaching since 2010. In fact the UK Supreme Court has told the UK government it must draw up plans to meet them by the end of this year.

Even with such plans many south London residents will needlessly die while we await these plans to be implemented.

Where does this air pollution come from?

The worst offenders are diesel engines – they produce Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and particulates – that’s from diesel engines in buses, taxis, lorries, cars and trains.

Buses and taxis are something Transport for London control and can directly influence. Lorries and cars can partly be controlled by Transport for London through the congestion charging zone and low emissions zones but also UK and European regulations around taxation and design standards.

The last remaining diesel train services into London Bridge rail station come from the Hurst Green to Uckfield railway line. But we also have diesel trains serving Exeter and Salisbury into Waterloo station. Air pollution doesn’t follow political boundaries so on most days that Waterloo air pollution gets blown across Lambeth and Southwark.

So what can we do about it?

We can all support the electrification of the Hurst Green-Uckfield train line so they no longer have diesel trains coming into London Bridge. The coalition government asked for this to be studied and £100,000 to do this was allocated in the last coalition budget.

To help things along please sign this petition.

To end diesels trains coming into Waterloo please email wessexroutestudy@networkrail.co.uk asking them if they will help London meets its Air Pollution legal requirement by ending diesel trains into London Waterloo.

Protecting Our Most Vulnerable Children

I was shocked to hear that Lambeth Council has been judged as “inadequate” about how our children in care are looked after. Things like taking an average of 1,081 days – very nearly 3 years – versus the UK average of 453 days for Lambeth children in care to be adopted. it describes across the board failures. Lambeth has lamely stated it has started to address the issues – but the report effectively contradicts these. Only 3 years ago the service was rated as “outstanding” so an incredible deteriation of this crucial service for our most vulnerable children.

Lambeth Council has vowed to fix the problem within one year. As important is creating mechanisms where such a service can’t implode again.

How does this compare with Southwark. They were also last inspected in 2008. Southwark was rated as “good”. Hopefully Southwark will be shortly inspected to reassure us that we don’t have a systemic SE London issue across more than just Lambeth Council.

Children only get one chance at a decent childhood. Councils and their councillors must ensure they’re are decent childhoods. Lambeth is very nearly a one party state. So Labour councillors must sort this problem out quickly without fear or favour.

Dulwich & West Norwood – my local priorities

If elected as your MP this Thursday my local priorities – above and beyond the Lib Dem national manifesto are:

  • Helping solve the local schools crisis through opening new schools, building in the right places. I have already ensured an extra 3,100 primary and secondary schools places locally. But we need at least another 1,500 school places.
  • Saving local libraries. Lambeth Council is planning to close 5 libraries and downsize two others. We have shown through building new libraries such as John Harvard Library that if you build better libraries more people use them more. I’ve persuaded developers to give us a brand new Grove Vale Library in 2016. I will work to persuade Lambeth Labour to reverse these avoidable cuts.
  • Creating more apprenticeships and jobs. Local unemployment claiming benefits has fallen to 3.5% but the UK average is 2.5%. Apprenticeships have more than doubled under the coalition government – they’re a Lib Dem priority – but we can all do better at creating them helping to ensure lower unemployment and higher incomes over the longer-term.

 

My MP Contract

If elected as your Dulwich & West Norwood I will always:

  • Hear the people: I will use e-polls to proactively listen to constituents’ opinions on parliamentary votes.
  • Respect the people: Provide 100% transparency on all resources (financial or other) received and spent.
  • Trust the people: Poll constituents on key parliamentary decisions – and vote accordingly.
  • Hold 150 advice surgeries a year, spread across our local area.
  • Have a constituency office in the constituency.
  • Not have a second job. Working for you will be enough.

GOOD LUCK – Gipsy Hill Federation New Secondary School Application

In the last Labour government over 250,000 schools places were removed from the system. They must have thought this a sensible plan. But it has contributed to the massive shortage of school places building up since 2009/10.

Locally I have initiated and led new free school campaign that bring an extra 3,100 school places to Dulwich & West Norwood. Not a free school in the area has not had lots of local Lib Dem involvement. Some of these have been directly opposed by Labour councils.

But we still have a looming shortage of secondary school places in West Norwood/Gipsy Hill area. That’s why I support the Gipsy Hill Federation of primary schools to create a new secondary school. They made an earlier application that didn’t succeed. They’re about to submit their second application – GOOD LUCK. We’re all rooting for you to succeed and bring outstanding secondary school places to the area.