Past London Peak Cars?

Transport for London has done some strategic analysis of transport trends.

Most significant is that the population of London has expanded by ONE MILLION people in the last decade to 8.2 million people. I must admit I don’t remember being asked to vote on this – it’s not from new births.

During the decade the number of jobs has been static at 5 million – with a dip of 250,000 jobs from the recession that has now fully recovered and up 5.2%. This contrasts sharply with the population rise.

During the decade a sharp increase in trips by public transport and the proportion has rise from 30% in 1993 to 35% in 2001 to 43% in 2011. The flip side is private transport has fallen over the same period from 46%   to 43% in 2001 and 34% in 2011. Cycling use has risen from 1% to 2%. This is all in sharp contrast with the rest of the UK.

Are you using public transport or cycling more?

 

Judith Kerr Primary School consultation

The formal consultation phase 1 has been launched for the proposed Judith Kerr Primary School.

I would encourage East Dulwich residents to comment. They’re effectively asking whether we want the Judith Kerr Primary School in SE22.

With a shortage of primary school places of 75-80 places by 2016 in Dulwich and another 135 in the adjacent Southwakr area we have a coming crisis. Hosting the Judith Kerr school in Dulwich would really help address that coming shortage – along with one or possibly two Harris Federation Primary Schools.

The proposed Judith Kerr admissions code isnt ideal.  They’ve said after children with spciecla needs, looked after children and sibling that of the remainder places 50% would be allocated on distance from the school and the other 50% on a lottery basis. 100% of the remiqnder based on distance would make it much more integral to the community.

But please do respond to the online consultation

New Harris Primary School Application

I’m delighted to announce that we’ve achieved sufficient support for the Harris Federation to apply for a new two form entry East Dulwich Primary School.

The application has been submitted today.

Huge thanks to the 160 local families who  lent their support for this project. We needed 80 families with children due to start reception classes in 2014 or 2015 and 94 families have stepped forward. Another 66 supporters with younger children has also come forward.

We’ve also received lots of other support from residents. Thank you.

I’d also like to publicly say thank you to the Harris people who agreed to support our request on them to create a new school. Without finding such a successful and willing provider many local children would soon be stuck for reception places.

But the shortage of reception places by 2016 will reach 75-90 in Dulwich and up to another 135 for Peckham Rye and Nunhead areas.

It looks increasingly likely that the Judith Kerr Bilingual Primary school offering 50 places will be located in East Dulwich. But it isn’t certain and both schools together would still leave a gap of 115 reception places.

So we’re still campaigning for more support – so we can try and get the new East Dulwich Harris Primary school increased to three form entry (90 pupils).

If we obtain even further support we’ll ask Harris to apply for a second primary school in January 2014 to ensure all children have great schools places near to where they live.

If you support new primary schools in our area – please email me your support ASAP.

 

 

Heathrow nonsense

I was dismayed to see such stupid protestations from Conservative MP’s  who should know better and supposed business leaders. They’ve been demanding Heathrow have a third runway to magically solve all our economic woes.

First myth. Building a third runway with all the infrastructure would take at least 10 years and would only come on stream in two or three five year parliaments time. Not much economic magic about a ten plus year delay.

Second myth. That air pollution wouldn’t be a problem, that aircraft are so much cleaner. Most aircraft are flown for 40+ years. The current aircraft flying would be the ones to be used. Equally ground transport for passengers and staff would see NOx pollution causing further ill health to residents there let alone all the noise pollution. The World Health Organisation noise limits are already well and truly being breached across London.

What is truly astounding is the latest MP to call for this is Tim Yeo. He’s the chair of the parliamentary Climate Change select committee. Clearly a man in the wrong job.

The coalition agreement is quite clear. No third runway at Heathrow. I’d be saddened if the Conservatives renege on their commitment to this going into the 2015 elections. The Heathrow sound problem reaches across most of south London.

Catch 22 – a Southwark Tram

Since writing a blog about a Southwark Streetcar I’ve been approached by various parties to discuss how we can do this in Southwark.

The most promising is a Southwark SuperTram. This comes from a company that have been working on a Preston SuperTram where they’re only a planning application away from having all the permissions they need.

A Southwark SuperTram could cost £55M and connect London Bridge with Kings College & Maudsley hospitals close to Denmark Hill station.

Within a short walk of its route 130,000 Southwark and Lambeth residents live, let alone the thousands of businesses.

Why this route? Well with t he South London Line closing it would link two hospitals into London Bridge and Guys Hospital. It keeps all the route in Southwark minimising complications to Transport for London alone. Avoiding any need for compulsory purchasing would avoid the huge complications and costs of a Transport Works Act needing parliamentary approval.

When a Cross River Tram was proposed its costs ballooned to £1.5bn for around 20km so how come £55m for 7km? Revolutionary track deployed in concrete beams only 30cm deep – LR55. light overhead lines. Trams made from of the shelf components.

To build such a tram could be done with multiple teams at 400m per team per week. Several options for where to place the depot.

And the tram journey? 15 mins end to end running every 4 or 5 minutes.

So far all politicians like the idea of trams but want Trampower to prove somewhere else it can make trams happen. I’m hopeful that with encouragement Trampower will make their Preston scheme happen and then a Southwark Supertram becomes much more convincing for everyone.

For history buffs this is a picture of the last piece of tram track removed from Camberwell.

Last Camberwell tram track

 

 

 

 

 

 

What were our forefathers thinking.

Tram sanity

Britain is an expensive place to build public transport. We don’t do things cheaply. The Cross River Tram proposed for London under Transport for London rapidly rose from £200m to £1.5bn and unsurprisingly was killed as a consequence.

So I’m delighted to see some sanity around the costs of tram spending. Blackpool has recently completed a three year program costing £100m to rebuild 26km of tram lines, adding new signalling to 14 junctions, built a new tram depot and bought 16 new trams from Bombardier.

At that sort of saner pricing trams could have a huge revival. And this is just the start of making trams cheaper to build…

Peckham Rye station

I was delighted to hear that £10.6M will be spent making Peckham Rye station and the immediate area around it something we can all be proud of.

I helped ensure this was in the Lib Dem 2010 local election manifesto so it has always been a priority for me and my political group. So its good to know its become a local Labour priority. Roughly half the money will come from Transport for London and half from Southwark Council.

Creating a large open square to the front of the station, renovate the station, create a buzzing pleasant day time and most importantly evening destination. Currently things like the cinema are fine but really under used. Venturing out into the centre of Peckham for leisure doesn’t seem popular. I regularly take my family but it feels odd with so few people around. Changing this for a cafe culture and hopefully other attractions will be a real fillip for Peckham and more generally Southwark.

The only fly in this ointment is the proposed four year time scale. Christ that’s a long time to make it happen. I wish I was the project manager…

Planning Fears

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has just been published, with significant amendments negotiated by the Liberal Democrats in Government since the Draft NPPF was released for consultation last July.

I must admit to being horrified by the original proposals but happily surprised with the final outcome.

Those major Lib Dem inspired changes, since its controversial Draft version, are: 

– The controversial default ‘yes to development’ is no longer part of the Framework. This addresses a number of concerns that the NPPF as drafted may have led to a rash of quickly implemented, unsustainable development.

– The section on protecting the High Street has been strengthened, with a clear sequential test for retail development. This follows the work of Mary Portas, and her review on the future of High Street retail. 

– The “Brownfield First” principle has been clearly set out, as has the principle of “land of least environmental value”. These are crucial concessions to Lib Dem concerns about the potential effect of the Draft NPPF on future Greenfield development.

– The NPPF as published clarifies the balance that planners must strike between economic growth, environmental protection, and social concerns.

– “Core Principles” have been explicitly set out, including (at Lib Dem insistence) an emphasis on the sustainability of potential economic development.

– There will also be further flexibility in ‘change of use’ regulations, to reduce the need for commercial new build. 

– There will be a twelve-month ‘transition period’ for local authorities who do not yet possess an up-to-date Local Plan to have one put into place. The Planning Inspectorate will also offer increased support to those authorities updating their Local Plans to fit with the NPPF.

What do you think? Will the new planning landscape work?

Streetcar named Southwark

I came across the Portland Streetcar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail

They decided to implement a tram that is lighter than Light Rail. They’ve spent $130m (£110M) for 5km of streetcar. The spec involves digging down 30cm for new tracks rather than 45cm for light rail. They also largely use traffic signals which are cheaper than special track signalling and don’t involve central signalling boxes etc.
 
This seems the perfect solution for a new tram from Peckham to Waterloo station or even London Bridge (connecting with the shard) via Elephant&Castle. The cost is such that even Southwark could choose to borrow the money for this on its own or use planning gain but it takes some big imagination and political will. 
 

 
 
 

 

 

Buried in details

 Southwark doesn’t take a long-term view of its cemeteries and crematoria.

Southwark residents pay standard fee but non residents pay significantly more. But many Southwark residents and neighbouring borough residents live close to the border. We should have reciprocal arrangement with neighbouring boroughs to allow use of each others facilities at borough resident costs. This would give more options for Southwark residents to be buried or cremated closer to family etc and vice versa. It would also remove perverse situations where people across the road from a facility get charged significantly more than a family living several miles away but on the right side of the artificial borough boundaries.

Partnering with a body, such as Kemeal Manor, which has cemetery and crematoria capacity in outer SE London/NW Kent where many Southwark residents children have migrated away from Southwark would be useful and give Southwark extended families more options. Equally such graves would be cheaper as the land is less valuable and it would help conserve burial space within Southwark.

Saturday’s burials and cremations are apparently difficult to arrange with Southwark.

Cemeteries

Private cemeteries typically hold 25% of burial fees to maintain cemeteries into perpetuity i.e. endowed. Southwark solely funds maintenance from current burial revenues. Hence Nunhead cemetery, where many of my family are buried, is an overgrown wilderness.

Lots of infill is available in Southwark cemeteries. So actual capacity is significantly higher than currently reported.

Plot ownership – ideally this should occur when the funeral director is paid a la City of London. Currently families can be passed cemetery plot ownership having not paid the funeral director fees.

Muslim believers must be buried as indeed must some others faiths. So crucial we keep our cemetery capacity.

But we do need to increase the future number of burials Southwark can host. One method is to lift out a coffin, dig the hole deeper and then re-place the original coffin back down ‘lift&drop’. A new coffin can then be placed in the old coffin’s original position. Limiting this to graves over 100 years old alone would largely solve cemetery space – potentially we could reuse much of Nunhead cemetery which with an endowment policy in place would see a permanent improvement to Nunhead maintenance (NB. some of my relatives are buried there).

For the Camberwell cemetery where builders rubble etc problems have been experienced we should create vaulting which some cultures particularly favour and allows many more internments for the area available. This would require significant capital hence the attraction of external investment. 

Crematoria

Considerable funds have been spent on this site within the last year eighteen months but at no point have funeral directors been seriously consulted ie. the principal users representatives.

In the 1970’s around 14 cremations took place each day but now circa 4 a day anecdotally. So huge capacity available if run properly. Currently crematoria doesn’t flow maximising privacy for families and helping more cremations taking place per day reducing the price that needs to be charged. Talking to others and attending some cremations other crematoria have ½ hour slots and the buildings designed for cremation parties to flow through the crematoria.

Conclusions

We have no need to use Honor Oak Recreation site for more cemetery places. We should sell it to Lewisham with a covenant that it wont be used for anything other than sports and recreation. Lewisham then have to fund its maintenance and it is located in Lewisham.

One proviso is perhaps moving the fence 2m to allow a strip of several hundred burials.

Recommendations:

–     Ensure 25% of burial fees placed into long term maintenance endowment fund.

–     Form user group of funeral directors to ensure their regular feedback include the relevant cabinet member and relevant shadow cabinet member.

–     Lease our facilities on long leases e.g. 25 or 50 years so that the necessary capital funding can take place but include requirement for each cemetery and crematoria to achieve green flag status and public access. Include pricing requirements about inner long average pricing.

–     Seek partnerships for cemetery and crematoria capacity outside Southwark to be booked via Southwark e.g Kemeal Manor or similar that could have a Southwark section.

–     Start lift and shift policy for graves over 100 years old.

–     Promote cremation to help burial space go further.

 What do you think – tell me – james.barber@southwark.gov.uk