Sustainable Community Act – speed cameras

For some time I’ve been following this Act from its initial proposal onwards. It aims to give communities the opportunity to take back powers for things pointlessly decided by central government or its quango’s.

As part of this Act I applied to Southwark that its asks for Southwark to have its own Safer Camera Partnership – speed and red light running cameras. Effectively opt out of the London wide scheme. Full council agreed to approve this and it is now with the next filter organised by the Local Government Association. If they agreed it, then it is formally lodged with central government. They then decide whether to implement this change or not.

My idea relates to the fact that for several years no new cameras have been installed in Southwark by the London Camera Partnership.

The idea came from attending a Southwark Living Streets presentation where they showed that virtually all collisions on our roads occur on major roads and that the primary cause is speeding. They also explained that lots of research that such fast roads, such as the Old Kent Road, result in deprivation via ill health, injuries, noise, social dislocation (not knowing your neighbours).

Hopefully, I’ll get to present my case to the LGA soon.

What do you think – more cameras?

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.

Secret wheeler dealing

it appears that a secret deal has been hatched between Boris’s Transport for London and the Labour Government Department of Transport. Both parties wouldn’t fund the East london Line phase 2. They’ve agreed to slice and cut services. The South London Line linking London bridge via South Bermondsey, Peckham, Denmark Hill to Victoria will be removed. Services via Denmark Hill will be severely cut.

The bare faced cheek to then receive a Labour leaflet campaigning against these cuts that their own government hatched and agreed is exactly the sort of shabbiness that gives politicians a bad name.

By all means campaign but make it clear to the local Labour MP’s that you’re angry that their government is telling their Departmant of Transport to do this and that it must stop.

iBus

I understand Transport for London has announced iBus is present on all 8,000 London buses. This is the system that speaks the next bus stop and has indicator boards with the next bus stop stated. Useful. For East Dulwich different bus routes name the same bus stop differently. How kooky is that.

Apparently this system improve Countdown accuracy.  only trouble is Countdown isn’t as all bus stops.

When will we get Countdown at all London bus stops – especially those areas with no underground service that rely wholly or largely on bus services?


TfL seem to be pushing for people to receive such information by mobile phones or internet. What a narrow idea. How many people want to have to check the internet before leaving home for real time bus info or text a number on a bus stop, wait for a response and then make bus journey decisions by which time they’ve missed a second best bus choice but the best isn’t coming for some time.  it seems clear that people making such decisions don’t use buses.

Making Lordship Lane safer to cross

For most of us who live in East Dulwich, Lordship Lane defines our community.  Its importance to East Dulwich as a commercial, social and cultural centre is clear. But it also serves many other purposes too – as a bus route and a through route for traffic.

It is not surprising that everyone has a view about Lordship Lane.

Road safety is always top of the list when we ask people about how Lordship Lane could be improved – what has not always been clear is what should be done to improve the situation.

So we commissioned Living Streets to help us identify the problems on Lordship Lane. The Living Streets approach is simple but effective. They walk up and down the road with a group of local people and a clip board, identifying issues and talking about possible solutions.

This is exactly what a small gang of us did.  We identified loads of things that would improve the shopping experience on Lordship Lane.  But overwhelmingly, the one issue highlighted was that people shopping on Lordship Lane tend to walk up one side of the street or down the other. They rarely cross the street to reach a shop on the other side of the road and when they want to – they find it unpleasant, off-putting and down right dangerous.  That’s not just bad from a road safety point of view. By degrading our shopping experience it threatens the lifeblood of our local shops and encourages particularly the elderly and families to head for the safety of Sainsbury’s or White City. Better crossing points – especially outside Somerfield – was the number one way to improve things.

So that is what we have been working on and we have now got to the point where we have designed and consulted upon new crossings on Lordship Lane – at the Goose Green roundabout and outside Somerfield.

The initial results indicate that the plans are supported by over 80% of people who responded.

There is still some way to go – not least to persuade Transport for London that providing a safe crossing point won’t interfere too much with the bus timetables. I hope that in the end the road safety arguments and the need to promote our local shops in the current climate will win the day.

East London Line – phase 2

Today the phase two extension fo the East London Line to Clapham Junction was finally announced. This will create a route from Mile End to Calpham Junction via Canada Water, Peckham, Camberwell (Denmark Hill) to Clapham. great if you don’t want to get into central London. Unfortunately this is probably a sop to recompense for the closure of the South London Line which did link two parts of central London via Peckham and Camberwell/Denmark Hill. Getting the former and keeping latter would have seen a real transformation for South Londoners travel options. Recently trains via East Dulwich and North Dulwich to East Croydon, where users could change for a variety of services, were stopped.

So Southwark rail users find thing worse  in the short term. Longer term we instead get a kind of stasis – swapping the South London Line for East London Line phase 2.

The one thing that would change the game would be extending the Bakerloo line to Denmark Hill……

Heathrow – Government gives up on the environment

Today the Labour government announced a third runway at Heathrow. It has decided to sacrifice carbon emissions, noise pollution and the huge detrimental impacts on millions of residents in London and South-East England.

I often travel through London’s airports on business. I much more often use voice conference calls and video conference calls. If I have to travel my company pays the market price. I have all the flight connections from London I could need. I’m spoilt for choice and can time my flights out and return easily.

So why do we need to increase the number of flights from Heathrow from the current 480,000 flights to 720,000! 

But the majority of people using Heathrow and other airports are travelling for leisure. This is ridiculously cheap. Expanding Heathrow will make air travel even cheaper as its doesn’t pay for the noise pollution, carbon emissions it causes. Air travel also pays little tax compared to other forms of transport.

It will mean more flights flying over Southwark epseically Camberwell and East Dulwich. The Government hasn’t even announced an end to night flights as a tiny compromise.

More fundamentally why does a Labour government want to ensure air travel becomes cheaper and easier so that wealthier UK residents can travel abroad to spend money and create jobs abroad. We want this money spent in the UK creating jobs in the UK. Truly bizarre government policy.

Do you think air travel should be expanded or limited?

Should we encourage UK residents to spend money in the UK creating jobs or abroad?

Bendy buses

Bendy buses were introduced some years ago into London. In East dulwich we’ve had a number of problems – where they terminate in Lordhip Lane/Friern Road, toilets for bus drivers who in desperations have used front gardens much to everyone’s disgust, junctions have been widened to allow them to turn and for others to then speed, bus stops hugely extended

The Mayor of London has decided to retire bendy buses form the streets of London.

Has he budgeted to put everything back to ‘normal’?

  • All those junctions made tighter to stop speeding?
  • Bus stops shortened?
  • Kerb build outs shortened?
  • Bus stands shrunk back to sensible size?

I will find out.

Bakerloo tube extension to Denmark Hill

1952 the planned extension of the Baklerloo line from Elephant & Castle via the Walworth Road, Camberwell Green to Denmark Hill was cancelled. They extended the line about 1km ,contructed three ventilation tunnels and then stopped.

Recently London Mayor Boris Johnson has cancelled the Cross River Tram that would have run parallel to much of this Bakerloo Line extension but targetted towards Peckham.

The Bakerloo Line is the only tube line in London not running at capacity. Ideal for extending. Transport for London working with AMEC/Royal Bank of Scotland has just extended the Docklands Light Railway by 2.5km to Woolwich Arsenal contructing two stations and going under the River Thames for £180m.

The distance from the end of the Bakerloo Line to Denmark Hill is 2.5km.

The benefits to Camberwell, the Aylesbury estate and surrounding areas would amount to considerably more than £200m.

How can we make this happen?