Cyclists Death

As a councillor for East Dulwich and former chair of Southwark Cyclists I was horrified to hear of the tragic death of SE22 resident Chiara Giacomini last Wednesday.

The crash with a Veolia HGV happened on Thurlow Park Road near its junction with Gallery Road.

Cycling is incredibly safe but when it goes wrong with a lorry especially a HGV, waste or tipper lorry, it too often proves fatal. Our roads must be made safer and policing of all vehicles must stop being a low priority in London and the Dulwich area. Such HGVs have been involved in 53% of London cyclist deaths in the last four years, but they only account for 4% of traffic.

It will take an inordinate amount of time before the coroners rules on the this death but we must learn lessons from it.

 

 

Universal Free School Meals

This week Southwark Lib Dems confirmed they would protect universal free school meals in Southwark.

We have pledged to retain free universal school meals for all primary children when we win control of the council in next year’s local elections.

With the council’s programme of free school meals now being rolled out to all primary school years, Liberal Democrats say we would make sure school meals are protected from any cuts.

Liberal Democrat councillor colleagues also agreed we would look at going further than free school meals if we are running the council from 2014, looking at what other measures can be introduced to tackle childhood obesity, such as school breakfast clubs.

We would also initiate an independent review of the impact of free school meals to come up with an evidence-based analysis of their benefits. However the Liberal Democrat council group leader, Cllr Anood Al-Samerai, has given a “cast-iron guarantee” that universal school meals for primary school children will remain throughout the entire council administration period 2014-2018 with no cuts to entitlement or quality. She promised:

“Southwark Liberal Democrats are on the side of local parents who want the best for their children. That’s why we’ve pledged to protect universal free school meals if we win control of the council next year.”

“Despite money still being tight for councils, it would not be right to make cuts to school meals and I can give a cast-iron guarantee that the Liberal Democrats will not do so if residents vote for us to be in charge.”

“Instead, we will be looking at cutting back on the huge bills being run-up by Labour on non-essential things like catering, taxis and spin doctors to get the best possible value for Southwark taxpayers.”

 

Obesity Tide

Child obesity as with adult obesity has felt like a rising tidy. Very hard to hold the tide back that so often lead to poor health and reduce life chances.

But the U.S. despite the prevailing view we have of it all being fast food, fizzy drink etc has turned that tide. A new report from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found child obesity falling in 19 of 43 states from 2008-2011 in the poorest pre-school children. These are the children from the cohort most likely to be obese. Only three US states had an increase in child obesity. 

This compares really well with the period 2003-2008 when obesity increased in 24 states and decreased in 9.

Sadly in the UK we’re lagging behind. Child obesity is reported by the British Heart Foundation to have risen 1995-2011 from 11% to 17% of boys and 12% to 16% for girls. 

How do you think we can push back our UK tide of obesity?

East Dulwich Council Properties

Despite a slow start Southwark Council Housing plans to try accelerating the council program of making all council properties dry, warm and safe.  It is a very basic standard – but even thinly applied jam is still jam. This is partly made possible by a large government grant.

Instead of the following properties in small East Dulwch blocks being improved 2015/2016 they will now be improved 2014/2015:

– Crawthew Road

– Crystal Palace Road

– Friern Estate

– Halliwell Estate

Also those street council properties – often victorian properties purchased just after WWII – proposed to be improved are being brought forward from 2015/2016 to 2014/2015.

Do let me know if you’d like any furthers details.

 

Lordship Lane Council Scam

I’m shocked at the revelation that Southwark Council is fleasing Dulwich residents and visitors.

Southwark only enforce bus lane restrictions by issuing tickets to drivers wrongly in bus lanes at restricted time at five location. One of those locations is Lordship Lane.

for the last complete year of stats 2011/12 Southwark Council issued 1,176 bus lanes tickets of which 978 were for Lordship Lane alone. This cost £60,142 to residents.

Why is Southwark Labour picking on Dulwich drivers?

Do you also think this is outrageous?

Well done Southwark News for revealing this.

 

New East Dulwich Cinema

The Thomas Moore Hall (116A Lordship Lane) is owned by the local Roman Catholic church. In 2011 they closed it as a community centre and have been consulting their congregation and considering what to use this site for next. They’ve had one interested party obtain planning permission for a nursery. But their latest thinking is to have a cinema.

We think this is a great idea – do you?

Picturehouse Cinemas, who run the Ritzy in Brixton, are interested and so are Curzon Cinemas and Everyman. I’ve spoken to all three groups. A cinema again in East Dulwich, but especially on Lordship Lane, could give the area a real boost seeing more money spent locally. Clearly it needs to be sensitively done to avoid parking issues. It’s likely to be busiest when most shops are closed which should help.

Please do tell us if you do or don’t want a cinema in East Dulwich and why?

Fire Engine Response Times To Increase

London Mayor Boris Johnson has decided to drastically cut London Fire and Rescue Services  by 550 front firefighters and 10 firestations. This will enable him to reduce Chris part of council tax by around 7p per week per household. I expect most would prefer the reassurance of keeping those 550 firefighters and fire stations.

For East Dulwich it means espouse times going up from 6 min 30 seconds to 6 mins 37 seconds. We’re lucky that these cuts are unlikely to have a drastic impact. But the changes will reduce the depth of resources available which has to be of real concern to use all.

if you think these cuts aren’t right for London then email Boris and tell him.

£1,300 Increased Pupil Premium

Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has announced the biggest ever rise in the Pupil Premium for primary schools to help ensure that more pupils are able to achieve higher standards. It will now be £1,300 per pupil from April 2014 and based on qualifying pupil numbers in a school during January 2014.

The Pupil Premium provides schools with extra money to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will help whole classes move forward faster together.

It will be increased to £1,300 per eligible primary school pupil in 2014/15, up from £900 per child this year. That’s likely to be an extra £734,500 for primary schools in East Dulwich.

East Dulwich ward
Goodrich Community Primary School 302 £392,600
Goose Green Primary School 144 £187,200
Heber Primary School 74 £96,200
St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School 45 £58,500
Ward total 565 £734,500

Schools will be able to spend this money in ways that they feel helps their pupils best. Evidence shows some schools use it to hire extra staff, reading and maths classes for children who need extra support or provide appropriate IT facilities.

It should help ensure more local children are ready for senior school. All the evidence shows that if your child starts behind in secondary school, they stay behind. That is unacceptable. St

As part of the Lib Dems aim to build a fairer society, the Coalition Government is putting extra money into primary schools to help teachers support disadvantaged children. This has to be a good thing.

Payday Lending

Payday lending is a real concern of Lib Dem Vince Cable the Secretary of State leading the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

1 July a summit was held to review what the government is doing to sort the payday market mess inherited from when Labour were in power.

 

Government funded research by Bristol Universtiy and an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report are clear that Payday lending isnt functioning in consumer’s interests and widespread non-compliance and poor practice is present.

We’re lucky that so far East Dulwich hasnt attracted a Payday lending ‘shop’ . I’ve only had a terribly sad case where an East Duwlci resident has been fleeced by excessive charges. I’m sure we have others locally.

The government through the OFT has stepped in and sent compliance letter to each of the 50 leading payday lenders who make up 90%+ of the market. Of the 21 responses so far 6 have decided to leave the payday market.  The remaining lenders have 12 weeks from receipt of these letters to prove they comply with regulations.

The OFT have already revoked 3 licences and another has been surrendered.

The OFT has also referred the whole market to the Competition Commission citing fundatemnetla problems with the way this market operates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) starts regulating consumerscredit from April 2014 and has already committed to prioritising action in the Payday market.

The government is also concerned about how the market is advertising and commissioned research into this. 

Finally to provide a better alternative the government has comitted £38m to support Credit Unions and has been doing other regulatory work to support Credit Unions.

So we’re less than a year away from the Payday loan market being a much healthier market.

Have you suffered in East Dulwich from the excess of this industry?

Street Lighting

Southwark has a great street lighting team. They’ve very patiently walked all the streets of East Dulwich late at night explaining what we have technology and options for upgrading it. It helped me fulfil a 2006 election pledge in 2010 to make all East Dulwich have universal modern street lighting. It took five years of concerted effort to make this happen.

I remember trying to deliver named letters to residents before then and frankly it was near impossible on some streets to read the print.

The latest progress on the borough wide street lighting improvements is that electricity demand is still declining from efficiency saving while getting better more modern replacements. But with electricity price rises the overall bill has stayed flat at around £1M pa.

But Southwark still has 61 different types of street lights making up 36,821 different assets.

If you have any thoughts about street lighting please do get in touch…