madger

Happy ending, the rescue charity which rehomed Kiki has confirmed she Bast been reunited with her new family (who are buying a tracking device!). They were very shaken. Amazing work by Liam of Dawgs pet sitting who had managed to get her to a local vet before she escaped again, and all the amazing people who searched for her.

Hoping for sightings and please do post here if there are any. And if anyone sees her, please do try to get hold of her. Battersea are in touch with the owner so they are the best people to call but we have people on a local dog owners group who might be able to jump in a car to get her and keep her until her owner can get to her.

Very obviously has scarred skin, a rescue from abroad, medium size apparently

Please circulate: a very poorly looking dog, who is called Kiki, a rescue from abroad, skin in terrible condition, looks very obviously poorly, is on the run in east Dulwich. She was found earlier on Dulwich Park, taken by a kind person on a local dog owners whatsapp group to a vet, owner located, but has slipped her collar when the kindly person was putting her back in his van after the vets visit. This has just happened. Lordship Lane and headed towards Lycott Grove. Please circulate and reply here if you find her? I can post on the WhatsApp group if anyone sees her. Please try to catch her if you see her. Just spoken to Battersea dogs home. They have had a call from the owner reporting her missing. Please call Battersea if you find her and try to keep her safe. Battersea and the owner are in touch.

I just wanted to highly recommend Critter Solutions. I had a determined, and large, rodent which had managed to burrow through, extraordinarily, from the neighbouring house into my kitchen, where it made itself comfortable beneath my kitchen units, occasionally trying to break through the plinth into the room. Without going into all the gruesome details, and there are some, Roger and his son were just amazing. Roger was kind, and offered practical advice and assistance. Unlike many of the big commercial companies, he did not immediately charge a standard set fee and didn't immediately just go for the poison option (explaining that it would make my kitchen unbearable over christmas, which I hadn't thought about, stupidly). Much as I love animals, this one could not stay in my house. And it was determined to do just that. So he instead laid traps and - again - without sharing the fairly gruesome details, that approach contained the problem until my builder could come and remove the units, and seal up the hole(s) with mesh and cement, before putting them all back again. It was a fairly queasy few weeks, a battle between me and the rat, and Roger's calm, experienced and practical approach made it bearable. He has decades of experience, and I can't recommend them highly enough. After about 8 hours of cleaning, I now feel I can use the drawers and cupboards again which had been particularly favoured by my house guest. What a lovely Christmas story this is; I didn't intend to share quite so many details! Though have withheld the worst. But, in short, if you find yourself reduced to a quivering wreck and all your sugar is being eaten by a distant relative of my own, lately departed, rodent, then Roger is your man.

John has just done his third job for me; once again carried out with consummate skill, turned up when he said he would, a pleasure to have around, and did a brilliant job, yet again. Highly recommended.

Hello, has anyone else found that insurers are turning them down in this area for home insurance due to higher numbers of subsidence claims in the area? I have more cracks than usual but don?t think it?s subsidence, ?just? super dry summers on clay and sodden winters. Be great to hear other people?s experiences recently and how they dealt with it.

yes, John did some brilliant plastering for me a couple of years back too. He was easy to have around, a nice guy, and beautiful work.

This is so useful, thank you! I am looking into a rear extension so wouldn't have the difficulties of purchasing any additional parts of the building so it looks like the bit where you had to get their 'licence to alter' took about 6 months?

Thank you so much to both contributors, hugely appreciated!

Hello, I wondered if anyone could give me some advice? Has anyone whose actual Freeholder is Southwark managed to build a rear extension to their flat? I just wondered if anyone had managed it or encountered extra difficulties and what Southwark's attitude towards them generally is. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Hello, we are a small block in East Dulwich and last night someone got in to our communal area and slashed all our bike tyres. Has anyone else had anything similar happen recently? Just trying to work out if it's a one off incident of casual vandalism or part of a trend?

I was very sad to hear this. He was a wonderful book seller and it?s a wonderful shop. So glad it will continue. I?ll miss his presence on the Lane. With all sympathy to his loved ones.

Apologies ED Boost, it just seemed very coincidental timing! I speak with such passion in favour of local businesses because I?ve lived here since 1999 and use, and love, the local businesses all the time. I?m puzzled by your perception that many people don?t realise how hard it is to run a shop here. That?s precisely the discussion we?re having! That?s precisely why I wrote at length about the economic impact a City backed large chain has upon local businesses who struggle to pay their ever increasing rents. The landlords put up their rents when they see they may be able to attract chains with the sort of corporate expenditure impossible for smaller businesses to afford. So dedicated local traders do all the hard work to establish varied local shops and businesses, but are then undercut by huge investment entities trading as chains which then move into an area off the back of the local traders? success and determination. And then the usual spiral, which I outlined in my previous post, ensues. Local business owners deserve more Council support and the whole rates system needs reforming as high street traders have been hit hard while internet vendors escape the increases. We all use internet shopping, but what about the elderly, the isolated, people who need and value local shops for easy to obtain services? Not to mention the local community forged between the traders and people who use their shops and restaurants. I agree absolutely that it?s extremely hard to run a shop. That?s why I think we have to be clear about the hard economic reality of a chain?s business model, and its impact upon local services. Unless local people can afford to establish and run local businesses then retail is placed solely in the hands of gigantic investment companies who fund the major chains, or individuals with independent income who can afford to set up an independent shop paying inflated rents and rates. That in turn impacts on social mobility, and means families who have lived and traded in an area for decades can no longer afford to stay and trade and are pushed out, fracturing a deeply established community and leaving enterprise and business available solely to the rich. That is a pretty sad state of affairs.

I totally agree chains aren?t always bad news, not at all. They can offer really good value. I don?t necessarily think pizza express?s pizzas (they vary their prices according to location) do offer better value compared to Olivelli?s (a ?micro? chain) or Il Mirto or even Franca Manca, which is perhaps so successful because it does a pizza for about ?8. Which is great! Pizza Express generally charges between ?11.50 and ?14 for a pizza in Dulwich Village which is not as affordable. If a place is born out of real passion for food I don?t mind paying more on occasion, if i?m able, but I do baulk at paying on average ?13 for a pizza from a restaurant which functions primarily as a corporate investment tool and drives up surrounding rents. So while PE markets itself as an affordable neighbourhood eatery, in reality it?s not particularly affordable, in relative terms, and has a palpably negative impact on local businesses, which I think is a sad combination.

I see this is your first post on the forum, ED Boost! And extremely fond of pizza express, it seems?! 😉. Well, vested interest or no, I absolutely agree with your point about rents being so high. Which is why a pizza express, one of the few chains still able to afford sky high rents (unlike Jamie?s etc which have been closing branches) will lead to neighbouring rent rises and obliteration of the lovely long term traders on the Lane, except the ones who own their Freehold. That seems a shame. Change and progress are different entities. A proliferation of chains leads to exponential increase in rents, leads to failure of local businesses, leads to the same boom/bust cycle in commercial property portfolios happening all over the country, reflected in homogenous high streets, or empty ones. That?s why when Sugar closed on the roundabout, it?s being replaced by another charity shop. I get stuff from charity shops, and it?s great that those worthy causes are receiving income from them, but i?m sad to see it wasn?t taken on as a shop paying staff wages and offering something different. And we now have so many of them. So whether this economic micro climate of heated growth is progress, or simply change, is based, I suppose, on whether you prefer to see holistic sustainable growth in an area over the long term, or a sudden explosion of inflated rents and City backed business ventures with a focus on investor dividends.

I think the sad thing is that once landlords push all their rents up to amounts that only really big chains backed by corporate hedge funds can afford, then no-one can afford to have a small local business. Even successful ?micro chains? which were born from a real passion can?t afford rents at those levels. I like variety, I like balance, but it?s a shame greed has such a detrimental impact on local business people with good ideas. If anything, these chains are the product of gentrification. The Lane has always been full of local businesses and if that now changes because big investors want to make a quick buck, we will lose diversity. Chains are a bit like Japanese knotweed; pretty and innocuous looking, but ruthlessly suppressing all other growth.

Apparently it will be both, with premises extended behind...

The pizza express bit is the word amongst a few local shop owners, not confirmed but apparently very likely.

I supppse to build on your point if it?s such a polluted wasteland, why is it any more suitable for people?s homes?!

Hello, As ever I know people will have different opinions about this ( ! ) but for anyone else who feels the balance between retail and restaurants is tipping too far in the direction of restaurants, the planning application to turn the old Londis into a restaurant closes on the 18th May. It's a really key retail site and it's hard to see why we need another restaurant.. https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_STHWR_DCAPR_9577108

Haha, I pity anyone brave enough to start a new business who is exposed to the fierce gales of the EDF! ;-) This looks lovely, really nice to see someone opening up a new business.? Looks like they've done it beautifully and look forward to trying it.

Really sad that a local business is having to close, the Cookshop on Lordship Lane, because of a huge rent rise applied by their landlord, Parkhill Properties. It seems really important to keep genuinely local businesses on Lordship Lane, not least because the high street is still quite unique in London in retaining so many independent shops. I often go to Peckham if I need something from one of the chains and I like the variety of shopping the whole area provides, using the local shops on Lordship Lane for convenience, choice and the pleasure of chatting with the fantastic dedicated shop owners and staff. I think they give such a fantastic backbone to the area, and are one of the things I love most about this area since moving here in 1999. I can't imagine any local businesses being able to afford the astronimical rent rises being imposed by this company. Does anyone have any ideas about what can be done to protect them?

rupert james Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I suspect if the traffic has stopped you do not > wait in line behind these stopped vehicles but > edge dangerously up the inside path. Rupert James why are you being so combative? It's a bit bullying! This guy is making perfectly sensible statements of fact and there's no need for you to be so passive aggressive and make mean assumptions about him. I don't understand why there's so much of that on this forum... People taking snide pops at strangers under the cloak of anonymity, when mostly people are just trying to have an engaging, constructive conversation. It's not funny enough to be banter, it just seems like an excuse to vent some frustration on anyone.

I's just like to gently point out that Cllr Barber has no obligation to post helpful things like this on the website, he does it, I can only imagine, to let people know so that the local community can take action if they wish! And people can be quite aggressive under cover of anonymity, which is a pity. I just thought it was a shame, Richard Tudor, that you were criticising what was actually supposed to be a helpful action. You can easily sign up to the list to attend these Community Council meetings, so maybe you could do that so you can find out in advance if there are things you're interested in, that might be less frustrating. 10 metres does seem a bit excessive, given that East Dulwich ward is mostly small offshoot streets, and the local shops rely on people being able to park. It's always a balance, it seems, between stopping parking becoming too dominant, encouraging pedestrians and cyclists, and allowing the shops to have good passing trade.