Fire Deaths

The London Fire Brigade does an amazing job especially considering the severe cuts it has had over the last few years.

Across the UK 1979-2007 we’ve seen a huge reduction in fire deaths per million population of 69.5%. Since then it’s fallen even further. Truly amazing. Of western countries only Canada has seen a larger decrease. Brilliant performances from fire services. This has resulted from better building regulations, better work place regulations, changes to products to make things like sofas less flammable, fewer people smoking.

Despite that our absolute UK fire deaths per million was 7.6. The best is Switzerland with 2.0 fire deaths per million population followed closely by Austria at 2.6. Both countries have huge numbers of volunteer fire fighters. So across our UK 65 million population that means we have around 122 avoidable fire deaths each year.

In the UK we have a very high ratio of professional full time fire fighters. Many other countries have the reverse with volunteer fire fighters being the most numerous. Some have suggested that in such countries, where volunteers often start in their early teens, has created a culture in society that takes fire prevention much more seriously. To provide the same cover they have a factor more of volunteers so If something does happen the chances are a volunteer is at the scene of any incident much more quickly.

In the UK 2012 we had a ratio of one fire fighter, whether full-time (28,166) or part-time (11,703), to every 1,630 other citizens. In Austria its 1 volunteer to 27 citizens. The total spend is also less relying even on so many volunteer fire fighters.

Personally knowing someone who is a serving firefighter means you’re likely to be influenced positively towards fire prevention.
That raises interesting questions about fire risk awareness, and the effectiveness of using personal influence rather than investing as we have in the UK on broadcast media and educational programmes.

Should we become an Austria or Switzerland in our approach to Fire service and prevention to reduce fire deaths?

Ward of Nation

Terrorist attacks often leave children without parents and real economic struggle on top of all the emotional turmoil and pain.

France’s minister for the family, Laurence Rossignol, has encouraged the families of children who lost a parent in the 13 November attacks to request the status of “ward of the nation”, which dates back to World War One and could entitle the child to grants and subsidies for their education and early adult life. It;s a small compensation for their loss and the sacrifices they have given for their country.

Why don’t we do that in the UK?

This would send an incredibly strong message that we all society supports them.

 

Making Lordship Shops All Shops

20-22 Lordship Lane were originally shops with flats above them. For a very long time they’ve bene used as offices for one of Southwark’s Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT).

Since 2005 we’ve been asking what are the plans for these offices. Breaking up the line of shops with two non shops with blank frontages doesn’t help keep Lordship Lane vibrant.

I’ve now had a Freedom of Information response back. Previously I had Southwark Council officers saying they were awaiting Maudsley people to respond. I’ve Maudsley people saying thy’ve been waiting for Southwark Council officers. You could not make this up.

So I’ve now escalated this to the Chief Executive Of Southwark Council in the hope they can resolve this. If they can’t then I’ll use my last resort of a Councillor Call for Action. Yes, Minister have nothing on this!

Bizarre Housing Policies

I was shocked to receive the news via the 35% campaigning group that Southwark is one of the worst three boroughs in London for social rented housing delivery. Only 3% of the total homes delivered in 2014/15 across Southwark were affordable and -5% of the total delivered was social rented (it is a minus figure because more have been knocked down or sold off than have been built).
Across Southwark 170 fewer social rented homes were built that were sold or demolosihed but 1,914 private homes were built. So 97% of net new homes are private. But Southwark has a target of 35% of new homes beign social housing. Plus a separate target of build 11,000 social rented housing.
Brent, Cryodon, Haringey, Havering & Waltham Fore achieved more than 40% social housing. So why can’t Southwark?
Why aren’t Southwark Labour rejecting Planning Applications without sufficient social housing?
Having sat on numerous planning committees and seen Labour councillors vote en masse to grant permission for almost everything put before them I’m completely puzzled. People purporting to be socialists defending private developers from building social housing – truly bizarre.

Dulwich Park Disabled Parking Chaos

Dulwich Park is looking splendid from the Heritage Lottery grant 2004-6, ongoing support and such an active friends group.

Part of this was restricting cars from using the park, sometimes at speed, using it as a short cut. Whatever possessed people to allow this in the past. Disabled people are allowed to travel at 5mph in cars to park up. For those disabled residents it’s a chance to see such a lovely park.

But things aren’t going well. The park has disabled parking spots. For people who are disabled want to park and can walk a little way. For those that can’t they’re allowed to park anywhere on the circular drive. But of course this causes confusion. The disabled parking bays are understandably parked out of sight – intended for parked cars without any occupants remaining. But when disabled people park elsewhere complete strangers harangue them.

After several complaints I’ve asked if we can move a couple of disabled bays to have proper vistas of the park. This should make the whole experience for our disabled neighbours and residents that bit more relaxing. And also ensure able body people don’t get stressed trying to enforce disabled parking bays!

Fingers crossed we can make this happen.

Never Never Land Housing

Southwark Council was created in 1965 from smaller morel local council authorities. It embarked on a hugely ambitious council housing programme. It built massive estates such as the Heygate and Aylesbury estates. Southwark Council borrowed lots of money to build them. Huge amounts.

Sadly those estates haven’t stood the test of time. Engineers have advised they’re already beyond their useful life. The Heygate estate has been demolished. Southwark Labour plan a number of phases to demolish and replace the Aylesbury estate.

Those massive loans were taken under circumstances where central government paid the debt interest. Unsurprisingly Southwark Council didn’t pay back any of those loans. It kept rolling them over. Effectively an interest only mortgage where someone else paid the interest. we now have debt for estates demolished or planned to be demolished.

Several years ago council housing finance was changed. Interest is no longer paid for by central government.

It makes sense for Southwark to change how it treats housing loans. We should ensure that each year we pay some of the principal back of the loan. For non housing loans we legally have to have a Minimum Repayment Plan (MRP). This hasn’t completely stopped some housing loan principle being paid back but it’s been voluntary and ad hoc. So debt over the last three years has been brought down by £55M to around £400M. But we should decrease it further now that interest payments are paid from actual rents collected.

Eliminating £400M of housing debt would bring council rents down by a number of pound per week.

Southwark Civic Awards 2016

Today worthy recipients were awarded Southwark Civic Awards presented at Southwark Caethral this morning. Well done to them all:

Honorary Liberties of the Old Metropolitan Boroughs – Zara Abdalla, Nihaya Al-Othmani, Alan Chadborn, Diana Cochrane, FRank Gillman, Miranda Mercado Gregory, Paul Keefe, Marion and John Marcroft, Martin McCabe, Jamie Mehmet, Susan Parker, Dulwich and Herne Hill Safer Routes to School, Dulwich Hamlet Football Club Volunteers, Peckhamplex, Pembroke House,

The Mayor’s Special Award – Shaun Dellenty and Inclusion For All

The Honorary Freedom of Southwark – 343 (camberwell) Squadron Air Training Corps, Mr Sam King MBE, Jenny Agutter OBE, Sir Terence Conran FCSD

Well done to them all.

 

CO2 Target Reduction

The fight to save planet Earth from catastrophic climate change harming humans may have taken a step forward.

Dutch environmental groups have legally challenged their governments target for 14-17% reduction in emissions by 2020 compared to 1997 levels. The Urgenda case. The court has ruled that the Dutch government must cut the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by at least 25% within five years.

UK environmentalists are now looking for a suitable issue to legally challenge the UK government. Let’s hope…

London One Hour Bus Tickets Coming

Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London has made his first big transport announcement, one hour Hopper bus ticket.

This isn’t an original idea from the new London Mayor. Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon has been campaigning for this since 2009. This photo was taken in 2009 in tandem with this article in the Standard and the policy was in the 2012 and 2016 Lib Dem London manifesto.

Boris blithely dismissed it in the same way Cameron dismissed the raising of the tax threshold policy, saying it was too complicated and costly.

His successor has seen the sense in it and used Caroline’s idea in his manifesto.

Is this the start of more collegiate politics in London? Hopefully Sadiq will hopefully go further and also implement Lib Dem policy for half price travel for journeys on the transport network before 7:30 am.

Snail’s Pace Housing

Southwark Council needs to do much more to tackle the scandal of thousands of homes left empty in Southwark.

We face a local housing crisis with housing need rising all the time with the local population set to rise to 355,000 by 2025. The Council has sold or demolished 1,973 of its own homes but built just 65 since Labour took power in Southwark in May 2010. There are currently 13,000 people on the Council’s housing waiting list.

Southwark is reckoned to have around 2,050 empty private sector homes, including second homes and homes left empty as investment opportunities by overseas buyers. A large proportion have been left empty for more than six months.

Under powers brought in by Liberal Democrats in the last government, councils can now charge 150% council tax on any home empty for two years or more. The latest figures show that Southwark is charging just 611 of the empty homeowners in the borough.

At the last meeting of the council I urged the borough’s leaders to demand more powers to tackle empty homes. I am calling for Southwark to be able to charge at least 200% council tax on empty homes after a home is empty for a year. Scotland is allowed to do this so why not English councils. The aim would be to increase the private sector housing supply in Southwark for rent and sale.

The Council needs to do much more to bring these homes into use and make it less financially worthwhile to keep them empty. It is shameful that new homes are being built all the time but are then allowed to sit empty while overseas investors make a killing.

It is not enough to just rely on building new council homes given the snail’s pace so far. The Council needs to get tough on developers who say they cannot build the affordable homes they should. It also needs to fight for extra powers to charge more council tax on homeowners who leave their homes empty.

My Lib Dem colleagues and I will keep fighting residents’ corner and pushing the Council to increase the housing supply in Southwark.