Face Fear

New Scientist has reported a fascinating study.

The theory is that people who recognise fear in people are less likely to be violent towards them. Very disappointingly anti bullying programmes and monitoring young offenders have not been found to be effective.

Birmingham University researchers divided a group of 50 boys convicted of a crime. One half were a control group. The other half completed 7-9 hours of computer based traning to better recognise facial expressions. This training resulted in significant improvements in the boys involved ability to recognise fear, anger and sadness.

This transferred into significantly less violent and severe crimes afterwards than the control group. Clearly this was only a small study but the implications are massive if further research confirms this initial finding.

Hopefully it wont be long before this experiment is scaled up to confirm the initial findings. It a real effect it could one day see a profound reduction in Southwark violent crime…

Dulwich Park Disabled Parking Chaos

Dulwich Park is looking splendid from the Heritage Lottery grant 2004-6, ongoing support and such an active friends group.

Part of this was restricting cars from using the park, sometimes at speed, using it as a short cut. Whatever possessed people to allow this in the past. Disabled people are allowed to travel at 5mph in cars to park up. For those disabled residents it’s a chance to see such a lovely park.

But things aren’t going well. The park has disabled parking spots. For people who are disabled want to park and can walk a little way. For those that can’t they’re allowed to park anywhere on the circular drive. But of course this causes confusion. The disabled parking bays are understandably parked out of sight – intended for parked cars without any occupants remaining. But when disabled people park elsewhere complete strangers harangue them.

After several complaints I’ve asked if we can move a couple of disabled bays to have proper vistas of the park. This should make the whole experience for our disabled neighbours and residents that bit more relaxing. And also ensure able body people don’t get stressed trying to enforce disabled parking bays!

Fingers crossed we can make this happen.

Never Never Land Housing

Southwark Council was created in 1965 from smaller morel local council authorities. It embarked on a hugely ambitious council housing programme. It built massive estates such as the Heygate and Aylesbury estates. Southwark Council borrowed lots of money to build them. Huge amounts.

Sadly those estates haven’t stood the test of time. Engineers have advised they’re already beyond their useful life. The Heygate estate has been demolished. Southwark Labour plan a number of phases to demolish and replace the Aylesbury estate.

Those massive loans were taken under circumstances where central government paid the debt interest. Unsurprisingly Southwark Council didn’t pay back any of those loans. It kept rolling them over. Effectively an interest only mortgage where someone else paid the interest. we now have debt for estates demolished or planned to be demolished.

Several years ago council housing finance was changed. Interest is no longer paid for by central government.

It makes sense for Southwark to change how it treats housing loans. We should ensure that each year we pay some of the principal back of the loan. For non housing loans we legally have to have a Minimum Repayment Plan (MRP). This hasn’t completely stopped some housing loan principle being paid back but it’s been voluntary and ad hoc. So debt over the last three years has been brought down by £55M to around £400M. But we should decrease it further now that interest payments are paid from actual rents collected.

Eliminating £400M of housing debt would bring council rents down by a number of pound per week.

Southwark Civic Awards 2016

Today worthy recipients were awarded Southwark Civic Awards presented at Southwark Caethral this morning. Well done to them all:

Honorary Liberties of the Old Metropolitan Boroughs – Zara Abdalla, Nihaya Al-Othmani, Alan Chadborn, Diana Cochrane, FRank Gillman, Miranda Mercado Gregory, Paul Keefe, Marion and John Marcroft, Martin McCabe, Jamie Mehmet, Susan Parker, Dulwich and Herne Hill Safer Routes to School, Dulwich Hamlet Football Club Volunteers, Peckhamplex, Pembroke House,

The Mayor’s Special Award – Shaun Dellenty and Inclusion For All

The Honorary Freedom of Southwark – 343 (camberwell) Squadron Air Training Corps, Mr Sam King MBE, Jenny Agutter OBE, Sir Terence Conran FCSD

Well done to them all.

 

CO2 Target Reduction

The fight to save planet Earth from catastrophic climate change harming humans may have taken a step forward.

Dutch environmental groups have legally challenged their governments target for 14-17% reduction in emissions by 2020 compared to 1997 levels. The Urgenda case. The court has ruled that the Dutch government must cut the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by at least 25% within five years.

UK environmentalists are now looking for a suitable issue to legally challenge the UK government. Let’s hope…

London One Hour Bus Tickets Coming

Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London has made his first big transport announcement, one hour Hopper bus ticket.

This isn’t an original idea from the new London Mayor. Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon has been campaigning for this since 2009. This photo was taken in 2009 in tandem with this article in the Standard and the policy was in the 2012 and 2016 Lib Dem London manifesto.

Boris blithely dismissed it in the same way Cameron dismissed the raising of the tax threshold policy, saying it was too complicated and costly.

His successor has seen the sense in it and used Caroline’s idea in his manifesto.

Is this the start of more collegiate politics in London? Hopefully Sadiq will hopefully go further and also implement Lib Dem policy for half price travel for journeys on the transport network before 7:30 am.

Snail’s Pace Housing

Southwark Council needs to do much more to tackle the scandal of thousands of homes left empty in Southwark.

We face a local housing crisis with housing need rising all the time with the local population set to rise to 355,000 by 2025. The Council has sold or demolished 1,973 of its own homes but built just 65 since Labour took power in Southwark in May 2010. There are currently 13,000 people on the Council’s housing waiting list.

Southwark is reckoned to have around 2,050 empty private sector homes, including second homes and homes left empty as investment opportunities by overseas buyers. A large proportion have been left empty for more than six months.

Under powers brought in by Liberal Democrats in the last government, councils can now charge 150% council tax on any home empty for two years or more. The latest figures show that Southwark is charging just 611 of the empty homeowners in the borough.

At the last meeting of the council I urged the borough’s leaders to demand more powers to tackle empty homes. I am calling for Southwark to be able to charge at least 200% council tax on empty homes after a home is empty for a year. Scotland is allowed to do this so why not English councils. The aim would be to increase the private sector housing supply in Southwark for rent and sale.

The Council needs to do much more to bring these homes into use and make it less financially worthwhile to keep them empty. It is shameful that new homes are being built all the time but are then allowed to sit empty while overseas investors make a killing.

It is not enough to just rely on building new council homes given the snail’s pace so far. The Council needs to get tough on developers who say they cannot build the affordable homes they should. It also needs to fight for extra powers to charge more council tax on homeowners who leave their homes empty.

My Lib Dem colleagues and I will keep fighting residents’ corner and pushing the Council to increase the housing supply in Southwark.

Southwark By Elections

What a busy five years we’ve had outside of the normal elections.

Amazingly in the last five years we’ve had 9 by-elections. This is when a councillor resigns whether voluntarily or because they’ve committed a misdemeanour, or passing away. Eight of the nine have been completely avoidable. We’ve seen everything from a wife beater resigning, disquiet and resigning due to Labour housing policies, finding being a councillor hard work, the list goes on. And up to now they’ve all been Labour councillors. A weird record!

Sadly a Lib Dem councillor has now had to resign. In my personal opinion one of the best councillors from any political party – Lisa Rajan. This does make me sad. She is a principled, hard working councillor. But with 3 young children, working full-time and a husband now working weekdays in Manchester I completely understand being a councillor is that final straw too much.

Before becoming a councillor I was always cynical when politicians said they were standing down due to family pressures. Now with children and a family plus demanding day time job I finally get it.

So good luck Lisa for life after being a fab Southwark Councillor – you will be missed.

PS. Cllr Richard Livingstone thoughtfully reminded me that one of the nine Labour councillors passed away. Former Mayor Situ. Clearly this was tragic and even after five years his loss is keenly felt by many.

Extending North Cross Road Market

We’re very lucky that our local Saturday market on North Cross Road is proving so successful.

As a local councillor I applied and obtained funding for electric points along the pavement for market stalls. No more noisy minim electric generators. We’ve also ensured the road was renewed. We also sought the junction with Lordship Lane being upgraded and closed Saturdays. Getting marked pitches took several years but avoids stallholders setting up at crazy early hours disturbing everyone.

What we need to do now is end the farce that the market operates on Fridays as well and release the parking restrictions associated with this.

Asking residents about extending the market to the junction with Fellbrigg Road. Many a small majority are in favour BUT not from people living on North Cross Road.

I think a compromise of extending it to Archdale Road BUT turning the market stalls into the closed road would make the most sense. If would potentially keep noises more contained. But it would mean Nutfield Road would be fully closed at its junction with North Cross Road.

What do you think?

Golden Goodbyes

Southwark Labour amazingly have just introduced Golden Goodbyes for their cabinet councillors. This is the first council to ever introduce these extra payments.

So when a Labour cabinet councillor loses an election, resigns or is sacked they will now get a pay-off. The pay-off will be one month of extra Special Responsibility Allowance and an extra week for each year of service unto a maximum of 13 weeks. This payment will be up to £12,791 and even more for the Southwark Labour leader decides to step down.

My initial thoughts were of sympathy for someone who might lose their post suddenly. People have to live. But then I started to think why someone would suddenly lose such a post.

In no other job, let alone a calling such as being a councillor, do people receive a pay-off wen they resign. So why do Labour councillors expect it?

If resigning would cause financial hardship then that person should plan ahead. They could resign with a few months’ notice. That’s how normal people in normal jobs would do it.

There is also a real concern that ‘resignations’ cover a range of situations. Examples of recent resignations such as former Labour councillors Friary and Garfield involving police or legal action would certainly not be appropriate for these kind of payments. So Southwark Labour have decided the Standards Committee would confirm or deny these payments. This means Labour councillors have to tow the Labour party line or they’ll be blocked from these payments.

With regard to the proposal for payments for Cabinet Members who are sacked by the Leader, again I would ask why? As per normal jobs, wouldn’t the strong leader give someone three months’ notice. Give plenty of warning via regular 121’s. This would again lessen any problem of financial insecurity.

Lastly, if the Southwark Labour party group elects a new Cabinet Member, why can’t the elections take place over three months in advance of the council AGM when new post holders are confirmed? This would allow better planning and a ‘notice period’ effectively for those who didn’t make the grade losing their roles.

So, overall, I can’t fathom any justification for these proposals to award new payments to Cabinet members IF people manage the situation better and consider SRA post holders’ financial insecurity. Unless of course this is all a big ruse to Southwark Labour a tool to keep their councillors under control…