Addicted to Bugging

phoneAmazingly the Met Police in 2011 requested access to 57,000 peoples phone and letters. This is the latest year Met released data.
That close to 1% of Londoners being phone bugged.
Its likely in 2012 with the Olympics the figure soared further.
Big Brother Watch had obtained these numbers from Freedom of Information enquiries.
They quote Scotland Yard as saying these were all “crucial” in solving cases “where there is an imminent life at risk”.
In 2009 51.000 such requests, 2010 56,000 requests.
Clearly the Scotland yard statements are ludicrous. So its likely one out of every 132 people you know is being bugged. It could be you…

How do we compare to other countries?
Other large European countries don’t snoop on their citizens anything like as much.
Spying on your own people is clearly addictive for Scotland Yard.

Council Housing Through Time

The Lib Dems were leading Southwark Council 2002-2010. Recently officers have been saying that we had a headline figure of 7,800 net properties removed from council ownership. This is shocking until you find out how they’ve composed those numbers.

5,363 Right To Buy – which was as a result of the then Labour Govt.

2,753 recorded as demolished but 1,100 were Heygate decants where the property hadn’t been demolished but is now being demolished under labour.


915 were built and bought, 134 Amos estate, 293 sold during the 8 years as beyond the economic repair by a council.

Taking all this into account we get a grand total of net 296 homes sold or demolished when the council was Lib Dem led or 37 a year.

It is selling and demolishing more. Partly because the government is making Right To Buy more attractive and partly because they’ve changed policies to lower the threshold at which they sell properties as uneconomic.

Disappointing Business Crash Liability

I’m really disappointed that Lib Dem Transport MP Norman Baker has announced that the coalition government will not change Crash Liability.

Crash liability in Europe is where the weakest party involved with a crash is assumed innocent until proven guilty. So a cyclist hitting a pedestrian would be  assumed guilty unless they prove their innocence. Equally a lorry crashing into a car would be assumed guilty.

The govt and UK car lobbyists argument is that everyone should be assumed innocent. But this results in the weaker road users going uncompensated for years if they received it at all. Both parties remain involved in litigation for many years. The only real beneficiaries of current system are lawyers.

But sharing the same insurance rules as Europe would mean one insurance regime dramatically increasing the competition and lowering prices. It would also see crashes being resolved years sooner.

 

Supporting Our Armed Forces

The Army kindly invited me to a presentation and evening. Sadly I can’t attend but it did lead to a dialogue about how Southwark Council and other local businesses and non profit organisations can support our armed forced.

It seems clear that Southwark should commit and sign up to the Armed Force Covenant – where the council commits tangible support to the armed forces
But that it should also encourage employees to join the territorial and reserve forces. Apart from supporting our nations defence it can help employees develop their skills more quickly than just through regular day time job training.

its clear from my communications that Southwark hasn’t yet made these commitments – I’ll plug away at both parties to make this happen.

Even More School Supporters

With your support we’ve increased the East Dulwich Free School demand figures:  

243 families supporting two new local free primary schools (previous update was 225) with the following potential pupil numbers:

2014: 78 children (70 at previous update)

2015: 67 children (63 at previous update)

All this extra support is being forwarded to the Department of Education to make the case for two new local Primary schools even more compelling. 

 

Police Retreat From Dulwich

I should make it clear I’m from Police families. Both grandfathers were serving Police officers. One a Chief Super who in retirement chaired NARPO, the other an armed MoD Police officer who guarded the first UK atomic weapons. My father was born in a Police station, uncle chaired magistrate benches and I’m proud to still have all their policing medals and badges.

So I attended Southwark Police commander John Sutherland meeting to talk about his plans feeling supportive. We were told 24 June is the go live date for the Met Police “Local Policing model” with 4 clusters of local police teams. It’s effectively turning the clock back 20year to “Sector Policing” where centralised officers react to problems and chase their tails. Then the hugely successful safer team model with dedicated local teams came along with local bobbies.  Instead of a Safer Neighbourhood Team based in East Dulwich of 7 officers dedicated to our we will have less than two officers based in Camberwell.

The cross party councillor consensus is that we’re unlikely to see Police officers coming to Dulwich. When they do they’ll be in minibuses for a few hours and then called away. We expect almost all resources to never leave the Camberwell area. We’re even concerned at the future 999 response times.

This Policing retreat from Dulwich is based on a number of flawed concepts:

1. Low crime wards. The borough commander declared our area low crime. We’re low crime for inner London but have a higher crime rate than the English average.
2. Travelling time. The borough commander said it would only take 15-20 minutes to get from Camberwell to Dulwich. But basing them in Camberwell will see that area prioritised over Dulwich. When they ‘come over the hill’ south to Dulwich without a base then the slightest desk work or break will involve officers travelling back to Camberwell.
3. Increased hours of coverage. Centralising the SNT’s means they’ll be a Police officer on duty for more hours of the week. But as we don’t’ expect them to ‘come over the hill’ we’ll see the current hours in Dulwich reduce to next to nothing.
4. Named sergeant, PC, PCSO. Each ward will have name sgt. PC and PCSO. But as they’ll be based miles away this feels irrelevant.

A proposed Dulwich Police based was repeatedly rejected by the Police. It was repeatedly explained that councillors were proposing to completely pay for a new base if it made operational sense and would be used.

When asked what the prediction for policing hours effort each area would see I was told no such analysis had been done. We were told he didn’t have the spare operational hours to staff front counters. No operational impact assessment has been made. We were told the decision making process taken was more art than science.

We proposed that he consider five clusters adding one based in East Dulwich.

If you agree we need an East Dulwich Police base then please urgently sign our petition – http://eepurl.com/sPKmf

Dodgy Letterboxes

I’m perplexed to see that new fire resitant front doors have been  installed with very low letterboxes e.g. Friern Road blocks 100 flats. GReat that theyre getting more fire safe front doors but if they’re messed up on part them have they messed up anything else.

I know from the Communication Workers Union (CWU) campaigns (I’m an ex.member) that they recommend letterboxes adhere to the British Standard and European Standard (EN13724) based on it. This is due to over 3,000 postal workers suffering injuries a year from low letterboxes. Indeed NHBC also recommend this.

As a CWU official and the cabinet member for housing I’m amazed Cllr Ian Wingfield has not ensured council officers are aware of these standards and ensure they’re followed?

The particular East Dulwich iteration of this problem is Friern Road blocks where they’ve all been install 500mm high but the recommended height is 700mm-1700mm high for individual letterboxes. This doesn’t sound important until you think of a postie day in day out having to deliver to such dodgy letterboxes. With 40,000 tenanted and 12,000 leasehold properties eventually that’s an awful lot of back ache that will be created.

Come on Ian please do both your jobs properly.

The Millennium Link or Connect 2 Partially Completed

Great news that the bridge is finally open. HOORAY.

Alastair Hanton, Michael Bridgeland and I originally proposed this in 1998. Please see attached graphic and map we used in our Southwark Cyclists report.The Millennium Link Graphic

It was meant to be a The Millennium Link a project linking northern Southwark to the Millennium Dome. We met so many people so many times – everyone from Network Rail, TfL, Southwark Council – officers and councillors, Southwark Police, Lewisham Police, British Transport Police, Sustrans….

Lots of hurdles. Walking the route to double check our assumption, site meetings with the great and good. Simon Hughes MP was very supportive. Things like arranging for the Blue Belle Railway to remove the redundant tracks – which were of a very old heritage railway design avoiding a major project costs while helping a charity.

Eventually Sustrans agreed to take it forward by which time it was 2002.

Not quite sure how so much of the project became side tracked linking Peckham to Rotherhithe but either way this off-road key link is in place and things can be added onto it.

I really recommend trying it and dreaming of what it will eventually lead onto.

And a particular well done to Alastair Hanton and his extreme long lasting tenacity – 15 years to make this project happen. I’m halfway through raising a family in the time it has taken.

But roll on the next phase…

GP Complaints and Praise – how to?

I’ve had a number of negative comments about local East Dulwich GP practices. I’m sure a number of complements are also out there.

Since 1 April 2013 to make complaints about NHS health care:

If you have a comment or a complaint about a GP, dentist, pharmacy or optician contact the London office of NHS England at england.contactus@nhs.net. You can also contact NHS England on 0300 311 22 33. There is more information available at http://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/complaint.

If you have a comment or complaint about a hospital, mental health or community trust please contact the respective organisation directly.

If you have a comment or complaint about any other local health service please contact NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group, via the South London Commissioning Support Unit at SLCSU.complaints@nhs.net or telephone 0800 456 1517

If you need support in making a complaint please contact VoiceAbility who provide NHS complaints advocacy at nhscomplaints@voiceability.org telephone 0300 330 5454, Textphone Number 0786 002 2939 or fax 0330 088 3762

More information on the website: http://www.southwarkccg.nhs.uk/GetInvolved/Pages/PALSandComplaints.aspx

Abstractions

Sadly the East Dulwich ward dedicated Safer Neighbourhood Team have’nt been so dedicated for some months now.

This table shows when the team members were sent away, or abstracted, to other non East Dulwich tasks:

October 2012 November 2012 December 2012
Sergeant

  • 1 x Royal Visit

PC

  • 1 x Local Demo.

PCSO

  • 3 x Op Oconto
 PC

  • 2 x Aid (Off Borough)
  • 1 x New Years Eve
  • 5 x Op Oconto
  • 2 x Op Dragonet

PCSO

  • 4 x Local Control Room
  • 3 x Op Dragonet
 Sergeant

  • 1 x Op Dragonet
  • 1 x Local Control Room
  • 1 x New Years Eve

PC

  • 2 x Op Dragonet
  • 2 x Local Demonstration

PCSO

  • 4 x Op Oconto
  • 3 x Training

So of the 20 shifts in October 4% lost out of the area, of 20 in November 14% lost and of the 19 in December 12% lost from East Dulwich. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t show annual leave.

What bothers me is that the trend is to spend decreasing amounts of time in Dulwich. The trend is almost identical in Village and College wards the other Dulwich wards.