Uninsured

This week it was revealed that 65 people are injured by uninsured drivers every week. 15 people were killed, 307 seriously injured, 3,085 injured during 2010. by uninsured drivers. That is an awful lot of people lives wrecked.

People willing to drive while uninsured (compared to insured drivers) are:

  • Ten times more likely to have been convicted of drink driving
  • Six times more likely to have been convicted of driving a non-road worthy vehicle
  • Three times more likely to have been convicted of driving without due care and attention

On average every insured driver is paying £30 more each year to cover the costs of the uninsured.

The last league table I could find from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau showed two Southwark postcodes as the 2nd and 10th worst in the country for having uninsured drivers – Peckham SE15 has 4.33 x the UK average level of uninsured drivers and Camberwell SE5 has 3.75 x the UK average level of uninsured drivers.

Police and insurers have estimated uninsured drivers as between 1 and 5 million people. Truly astounding.

So how many live in East Dulwich?

20mph near residential completion

The most recent Dulwich Community Council meeting agreed to Lib Dem demands by making the following East Dulwich streets 20mph speed limits – Ashbourne, Bassano, Blackwater, Chesterfield and Matham Grove with sinusoidal road humps.
Plus the following roads 20mph speed limits with no road humps – Crystal Palace Road, Goodrich, Heber, Jennings, Landcroft, Landells, Pellatt, Rodwell, Silvester, Thompson and Whateley.

Overall 82% of consultation responses supported the proposals with 16% opposing them.

These 20mph speed limit streets will then only leave 5 streets out of the 65 East Dulwich ward streets with limits greater than 20mph – Barry
Road, East Dulwich Road, East Dulwich Road, Grove Vale, Lordship Lane. Barry Road is a B road and the others A roads making it a tad more compliex to get a sensible 20mph speed limit on them.

They should all be made 20mph speed limit streets but this is fab progress.

I’d like to thank all the residents who have prodded for this and the consultation respondents – but especially the residents of Matham Grove and their petition that crystallized this being one of my priorities for our very limited Cleaner, Greener, Safer money.

20mph for Grove Vale and Lordship Lane

I’ve just obtained a weeks worth of speed data for Grove Vale and Lordship Lane:

Grove Vale westbound vehicle mean average speed of 22.8mph,  85 percentile 27.7mph, total of 73642 vehicles.

Grove Vale eastbound vehicle mean average speed of 21.2mph, 85 percentile 24.6mph, 68540.

Lordship Lane (by Ashbourne Grove ) north bound vehicle mean average of 21.5mph, 85 percentile 27.3mph, 52036.

Lordship Lane (by Ashbourne Grove ) south bound vehicle mean average 19.9mph, 85 percentile 25.3mph, 51419.

To place 20mph speed limits on roads requires 85 percent of all existing traffic to be travelling at speeds of 24mph or lower. BUT both roads have planned measures to reduce speeds by several mph and having a 20mph speed limit lowers speeds by around 2mph.

So I’ll be pushing for 20mph speed limits. At the very least in the short term finding the minimum required to make this happen.

Do you agree?

Grove Vale – road changes

I’ve been banging my head against the Labour administrations brick wall since Autumn 2010 about the changes they’d proposed for Grove Vale – needlessly expensive speed tables and lack of clarity about parking.

A local 800 signature petition was taken to the Labour cabinet and the petition organisers reported to me they felt snubbed by the Cabinet member accountable for transport Cllr Barrie Hargrove.

Clearly this feeling has finally penetrated Southwark Labour party as the recent meeting with traders on the 2nd the council leader attended and agreed to all the traders concerns.

So why did we have to go through such heartache and pain and wasted council resources?

Three reasons from where I sit.

1. Cllrs Peter John and Verinocia Ward in South Camberwell are not interested in such schemes leaving it to officers.

2. Said councillors and Cllr Barrie Hargrove ignored concerns from me representing the East Dulwich councillors.

3. That although Cllr Stephen Govier in South Camberwell is interested in such issues and reiterated my concerns having been turfed out of the Labour party anything he says cllr Peter John and co seem to want ot do the opposite.

Problably more fundamentally we also seem to have a constitutional gap in that such big schemes are not presented to Community Councils for local perspectives and input – the cabinet member has carte blanche andwe get the sort of pickles that Grove Vale proved to be. I wonder how many rubbish decisions are being taken as a result of bypassing community councils?

Barry Mason

I was shocked and appalled first thing Friday 3 June to hear of Barry Mason drowning in Spain while on holiday.  Its taken several days for the news to sink in.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_30755.shtml

I knew Barry through my long standing support of Southwark Cyclists. Before Barry took over as chair I chaired it. I remember his first coming to a meeting all bursting with enthusiam and energy. He hasn’t stop that enthusiam once. He went onto re energise the Dunwich Dynamo bigger and better than ever and more recently save Surrey Docks Farm in his own inimateable way – even getting arrested in the process.

Barry you were definately one in a million. I can’t imagine the cycling scene in London and Southwark without you. 

I’m sure I’m not alone in being determined to give all the projects he was so passionate about more support to try and ensure they don’t fold or collapse with the shock of his death. I’ll be at Southwark Cyclists monthly meeting this Wednesday.

Carbon based parking charges

Southwark Council has been consulting via the community council on charging for parking permits based on the vehicles carbon emissions.

Overall it will see more than 25% increase in charges.

Option 1 – straight increase in charges from £99.30 to £125 – ouch.

Option 2 – increase the charge from £99.30 to one of 6 bands between £30->£225 but overall an average charge of slightly over £125.

At the Dulwich Community Council the councillors and audience opted for Option 2  of the two options. The surplus on running the parking revenue account is used for things like lolly pop ladies, teaching kids how to cross roads. Useful stuff.

But it now transpires that the council are slashing it spending on lolly pop men and women. The average lolly pop person has seen a drop in salary of £200pcm. With many at cancelled being cancelled.

It seem perverse to have a huge steep increase in charges while at the same time slashing services. it must be that Labour don’t belief in lolly pop men and women and the value they bring.

Avoidable injuries amongst Southwark children will occur and frankly it is a disgraceful decision. Apart from the cruelty of this in pure costs to our local society the total costs of these injuries will out-way the savings. And the savings aren’t necessary because of the huge rise in parking permit fees.

New Lordship Lane crossing – step nearer

Earlier this week Cllr Jonathan Mitchell and I met with council traffic officers and a representative of the South Southwark Business Association about two proposed new crossings of Lordship Lane. Please see attached draft plans of what they might look like.

http://jamesbarber.mycouncillor.org.uk/files/2011/04/LL1.pdf

The first is across lordship Lane adjacent to its junction with East Dulwich Grove. This should have the benefit of giving people the chance to turn right across  Lane into EDG as well as cross LL. It will take out approximately 1 non morning peak car parking space. I asked whether a full ‘entry treatment’ could also be installed as part of this making walking along Lordship Lane clearer to everyone so people walking don’t have to dodge vehicles.

The second is a crossing where the Coop is. On the eastern side the kerb would be built out. This reduces the distance to cross so reduces the time vehicles are stopped and minimises parking to be lost – a win win. Due to TfL Buses we can’t do this on the left hand side. This would overall take out around 6-9 car parking spaces – 3 on the eastern side permanently and 6 on the western side outside of the bus lane times of working.

Talking to officers its believed these lost car parking spaces can be made up for by having a very close look at existing yellow lines on LL and the roads leading of off it and replacing with 30 minutes parking with no return in 2 hours ie. the same restrictions as those lost.

Overall these changes would very nearly complete all the changes residents highlighted in a walking audit undertaken in conujunction with Living Streets 4 years ago.

Please do take a look and let me know what you think.

Snowfighting

To fight snow falls salt is an integral weapon in Southwark councils arsenal. To ensure salt can be spread it needs to be kept dry else is goes lumpy and cakes. Uncovered salt also leaches away causing environmental problems.

The 40thSnowfighters handbook states “Salt piles must be covered on an impermeable pad. Salt users usually prefer permanent structures on asphalt pads with proper drainage. Temporary waterproof coverings can be effective if tended carefully. Covering salt also helps avoid loss of material through leaching and caking. Also, salt without cakes and lumps spreads with no difficulty.”

When asked, Southwark officers have always assured me that Southwarks salt supply is kept under covers. So I paid a visit to Southwarks salt. Its located at the junction of Latona Road  with Haymerle Road.

Any attempt to us this salt will be at best problematic. In fact much will need to be thrown away and replaced. I also found this salt store uncovered 3 months ago when nearly empty when I last checked. I had assumed wrongly that as operational they’d just forgotten to replace the cover. Sadly I was wrong and its an ongoing problem of salt mismanagement by Southwark.

Ideally salt would be kept in a salt barn. I’ve previously asked and the administration whether they would consider installing a salt barn (£200,000 capital) and they have stated that  they wont build a salt barn as they claimed no need as they kept the salt covered with tarpaulins and tyres.

IF the Lib Dems were running the council we would build a proper salt store to avoid council officers failing to keep salt covered, ensure we had quality salt available to keep Southwark streets clear and avoid the recent winter salt rationing that left so many of our streets in a parlous state.

East Dulwich street lighting modernisation

You told us in 2006 you wanted better lighting on the streets of East Dulwich because you said it would make you feel safer and reduce crime.

So your local Lib Dem candidates made an election promise to modernise all East Dulwich ward street lighting.

We have made sure that 62 of East Dulwich’s 65 streets now have modernised street lighting. The final three will be modernised in the next 4 weeks with replacement lamp posts taking 8-12 weeks to complete.

Friern Road – ALL 34 street lights will be upgraded to Cosmo bright white light and 1 structurally unsound lamp post will be replaced. Total cost £21,222.88.

Crystal Palace Road – Of the 44 lamp posts, 25 lamp posts will be upgraded to Cosmo bright white light, 7 SOX lighting heads which produce a dim yellow light will be upgraded to SON which produce a strong white light with yellow tinge and the other existing SON street lights will be left in place. Total cost £18,802.39

Dunstans Road – 11 SOX producing dim yellow light will be upgraded to SON strong white light. Total cost £3,374.12

Barry Road – 4 structurally unsound lamp posts will be replaced and their SON lighting heads reused. Total cost £6,600.61.

We’re really pleased we’ve delivered this last remaining outstanding election pledge. We have delivered all our other 2006 election promises.

One last note of thanks for all the officers who over the years have made this all possible.

Grit on?

Friday and two very conflicting views on whether London and Southwark had enough grit and salt.

We had the Mayor of London stating London has “prodigious quantities of grit”. Great news. But Labour Southwark Cllr for gritting Barrie Hargrove stated “We urge residents to look out for themselves” while stating “With current low stocks of grit we are being forced to reduce operations”. This reduction has already seen shopping high street such as Lordship Lane left unsalted or gritted.

In fact the first bout of snow had side roads and pavements left un salted or gritted so reducing the salting and gritting operations further beggars belief.

Last winter 80 hand propelled gritters were bought when the Lib Dems ran Southwark Council. But this winter has seen them languishing as salt is tightly rationed across the borough. If you live outside Southwark main through routes have been kept open. Mean while the borough is a complete ice rink for those that actually live here. Good luck out there. Keep safe.