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.

Making Local Stations More Passenger Friendly

Calculations of local station passenger numbers show that East Dulwich and West Norwood are each handling over 2 million people using them each year. East Dulwich station in just one year has seen growth of 5% in passenger numbers and West Norwood 2% :

Station Name District or Unitary Authority Station Facility Owner 1314 Entries & Exits 1213 Entries & Exits
Brixton Lambeth Southeastern 942,548 896,848
Denmark Hill Southwark Southeastern 5,166,040 3,935,776
East Dulwich Southwark Southern 2,119,018 2,104,766
Gipsy Hill Lambeth Southern 1,992,136 1,943,522
Herne Hill Lambeth Southeastern 3,308,970 2,918,610
Loughborough Junction Lambeth First Capital Connect 1,386,290 1,182,914
North Dulwich Southwark Southern 869,276 839,378
Sydenham Hill Southwark Southeastern 643,928 585,176
Tulse Hill Lambeth Southern 2,442,126 2,145,064
West Dulwich Southwark Southeastern 1,025,312 949,754
West Norwood Lambeth Southern 2,118,260 2,073,698

Weirdly, neither have in station shops or caffe’s or newsagents. The journeys can be pretty tough these days and having concessions could improve people’s journey. Neither are that friendly. East Dulwich the platforms are really low compared to the train doors. The platforms aren’t well covered to keep passengers dry.

Would a concession selling coffee and snacks on the platforms facing into London make your journey a little more bearable?

Should we get the platforms raised at East Dulwich and more platform covered from the elements?

(Between all the above listed stations they now see 22 million people enter and leave shooting up 12.5% in just one year)

Bike Hangers Coming To East Dulwich

2013/14 several East Dulwich residents applied for Cleaner, greener, Safer Capital funding for secure Bike Hangers cycle parking in East Dulwich. An initiative pushed by Southwark Cyclists and one I whole heartedly support. Each hanger can store up to 6 adult bicycles taking the space of less than one car space. Ideal for streets with flats and people have little or no space to park a bicycle securely.

Bikehanger

 

 

 

 

 

Several were approved for funding – 30 Heber Road, 24 Matham Grove, 50 Ulverscroft Road.

Shortly residents are going to be consulted about them being deployed outside the homes of the applicants. I’ve asked that the Matham Grove one be moved from being proposed outside no.24 when the applicant lives at no.26. But apart from that I hope residents will fully support this cycle parking.

What do you think – for or against please let me know cllrjamesbarber@gmail.com and the relevant officer chris.durban@southwark.gov.uk ?

Would you like one outside your home to making owning and riding your bicycle easier?

 

 

 

Southwark New Parking Standard Chaos

Southwark Council have changed it’s planning rules around car and bicycle parking for new developments. The overall aim is to ensure better provision for cyclists and more sensible car parking levels.

All the speel within the documentation talks about more cycle parking and sensible car parking levels.

But then when you look at the details it clearly is worse in a number of places – while still saying it’s better. Not newspeak and parkingspeak

Come on Southwark correct these whoppers:

B1 offices cycle parking – described as “Double the number of spaces compared to FALP and increased provision compared to existing policy” short term cycle parking currently 1 space per 250m2. FALP stated as 1 per 500m2. New Southwark proposed 1 per 500m2.
So its now x2 worse than current parking levels.

B1 light industrial – this is x4 worse than current parking levels.

B2-B8 is x2 worse than current parking levels.

Do we think the following makes sense whatever FALP says:
D1 university/colleges long-term 1 space per 20 students. This expects 5% of students to cycle. But Southwarks short-term cycling targets are higher than this. In fact current rates of cycling are higher than this.
I would have thought D1 other was a more applicable standard?

Amazed at the new residential car parking standards for lower PTAL areas. Min of 1.5 car parking spaces. And no mention of spaces reserved for car club spaces.
Which areas are PTAL1, 2 and 3 ?
The description is the new Southwark standards are tougher than FALP but for PTAL 1 FALP says up to 2 spaces, whereas Southwark says min 1.5 to max of 2. Clearly worse than FALP.
Why haven’t we adopted FALP?

Fighting Silly Double Yellow Lines

Southwark Labour introduced new rules that all new dropped kerbs must have 2 metres (6’6″) of double yellow lines both sides of them.That means that the dropped kerb reduces on street parking by one car length and 2 x 2m = by another car length of parknig removed with each dropped kerb. Ouch!

Last night at the Dulwich Community Council we had 4 such dropped kerbs to approve. I persuaded the committee that this Southwark Labour Council rule is silly. That if we must have double yellow lines they should be abslutely minimised. I’m grateful that all three parties agreed we should recommend 0.5m of double yellow lines OR the decision comes back to the committee to be looked at again with an officer to explain the minutae of these rules.

Fingers crossed this is the first step to getting more sensible dropped kerb and double yellow lines policies in place.

NB: We used to have rules allowing white lines across dropped kerbs and the home owners could insist stranger parked cars moving or calling the Police. It also meant home owners could allow people to park across dropped kerbs. Pragmatic parking rules.

East Dulwich New Capital Projects

2002 Southwark Lib Dems initiated the Cleaner, Greener, Safer programme where each ward in Southwark gets a pot of capital money to allocate to new projects.

Last night we decided which projects to support in East Dulwich ward – ED CGS 15_16

Safer: Fencing between Dulwich library and St.Thomas Moore RC Church, Library Annexe opened as new space for Police surgeries and the like, More Crime Prevention, Norcroft Gardens fencing and lgihting.

Cleaner: Friern Road estate play area renewal, Goose Green School entrance, East Dulwich Community Centre new flooring.

Greener: Lots more trees locally, Physic GardenHeber School Upcycle Garden.

Our next funding decision will be our £25,000 of revenue funding in March. If you have any ideas to make the area better please let us know.

Chaotic Southwark Highway Renewals

Southwark Labour have just confirmed what roads and pavements they will renew over the next three financial years. It’s great they plan to spend more over the next three years but to fund this they plan to drastically reduce budgets in future years. Topically this remind me of GReek government finances.

But the decision has many duplications. For example they plan to renew 10% of footways on Dovercourt Road this coming financial year (FY) but then renew 100% of the footways in FY 17_18! Similar duplications for Aysgarth Road, Beauval Road, Casino Avenue, Copleston Road, Danecroft Road, Elmwood Road, Playfield Crescent, Wyneham Road.My favourite is replacing 75% of Tell Grove footwards in FY 2016/17 & then another 75% in FY 2017/18.

Grove Vale is called Grove Lane, some streets listed as in Dulwich are in SE1.

You could not make this up.

Perhaps their is a simple explanation. Eitherway do take a look at the currently signed off plans for road and pavement renewals in Southwark and those specific to the Dulwich area: Highway renewals

Needless to say I’veasked for the decisionto be repeated – in the Dulwich area alone we’ve spotted £147,000 of duplications. So for the whole of Southwark the errors are likely to be around £1M. Ouch!

School Admissions and Congestion

The biggest industry and businesses in the Dulwich area are in education. Not just the required schools for local children  – the 3 out of the 4 state secondary school or 11 infant and primary schools but also the private schools – 3 secondary schools and 5 infant and primary schools. (Kingsdale with it lottery admissions is no longer a genuinely local school).

These private schools and Kingsdale do attract many local children but they also have huge catchment areas. They support a private school bus network required to support such hugely expanded schools. And their expansion has been marked over the years.

I don’t blame the parents or children coming so far. We have great local schools but with so many now coming from so far it is contributing to serious local congestion.

The irony of those private schools being the core of a the Dulwich and Herne Hill Safe Route to School group while contributing so much to the congestion this worthy group wish to reduce won’t be lost on local residents. This group is now supporting measures to limit local junctions to try and reduce local congestion.

Southwark Council needs to find ways to reduce these attractive schools catchment areas and the congestion large catchment areas is causing.

I Southwark Council will use the planning process to impose new admissions conditions to further this aim.

This would be the route to minimising congestion and the harm and danger this causes local school pupils

Do you agree?

East Dulwich Highway Renewals

Every year we have a little devolved highway renewals money to allocate on East Dulwich ward.

This year we’ve decided to allocated our 2015/16 £38.095 on:

1. £24,843 on renewing the pavement along Lordship Lane eastern side going northwards from North Cross Road.

2. £13,252 remaining on repairing the pavement on Landells Road not repaied this financial year. The total cost would be £37,257 Goodrich Road to lordship lane along landells Road but we have to start somewhere.

Sadly we don’t have sufficient money £88,636 in our devolved pot to resurface Rodwell Road footways. Sorry.