Rockets

Clearing citing the popularity of LTNs with people who live within them is no measure of their popularity nor does it warrant the misleading headline. The headline and stand first is slightly missing a key point don't you think and ever so slightly misleading...the editorial scrutiny process has always been weak at the Guardian but seems to be getting worse and worse. If a hyperactive 17 year old cub reporter had taken that copy to an editor the editor would have sent them away asking them to report the story and not try to create the story. As I said, another in a long-line of classic Peter Walker "exclusives". Whoever leaks these to him knows he will give them a very sympathetic myopic write-up.

Err no. I actually read the article rather than just the headline (heed my advice, Peter Walker's articles often tell a different story to his/or his sub-editor's headlines). The key is this paragraph here: A copy of the report seen by the Guardian said that polling carried out inside four sample LTNs for the DfT found that overall, twice as many local people supported them as opposed them. The key word phrases there being the polling carried out "inside" the LTNs. Most hyper-active 17 year olds could work out the issue with that....maybe Peter Walker hopes Guardian readers can't 😉

Ha ha....another classic myopic Peter Walker exclusive....government report suggests that LTNs are popular.....with people living within the LTNs....well no s+++ Sherlock.....my goodness me...

Yes and that's why it will be interesting to see the details of how the consultation results played out - last time the council tried to force a CPZ on the area they could only do it in the roads where they had "support" for it from residents (and some of that was generous use of support to say the least). I am deeply suspicious by lack of detail on the consultation results shared with the missive that they were reducing the area of the CPZ. Of course they have to get a CPZ in as that's the only way they can try to create parking pressure on neighbouring roads with the displacement caused by, for example, the teachers parking further away from the school - they also have to ensure they have places to patrol for that £12m contract they gave APCOA!!! 😉 The council clearly have taken a hell of a spanking from residents over the CPZ issue - amazing what happens when you are forced to run a fair and transparent consultation with a clear yes/no answer - perhaps we should all call for all of the previous consultations to be re-run and see how the council gets on with things like the DV junction/LTN consultation! They have just found out that their ability to cheat the system has come to an abrupt end. Power to the people!!! 😉

Human behaviour, especially that of a selfish nature, is often the very last thing to change...

Ha ha....proper analysis, and scratching beneath the surface is something the council and their fan-boys absolutely hate, so many are happy to slurp on the council Kool-Aid and take everything presented at face value! 😉

Clearly, despite the councils claims to the contrary in their decisions on the Dulwich Village CPZ, CPZs do nothing for school drop off issues with inconsiderate drop-off parking and unless you can stop people driving their children to school (with maybe school buses but look at the incessant moaning Clean Air Dulwich does about those at Alleyn's - you can never please some people) then inconsiderate drop-offs are going to have to be something we live with. School streets are great but invariably move the problem to the next closest street. Nigello is right, this issue impacts private and state schools in equal measure - to their point just go spend some time around Goodrich around drop off time!

I had the letter attached dropped through the door this morning and the council are going ahead with a much smaller CPZ zone following the consultation where, the council says: "some residents actively wanted controlled parking in their roads but the majority did not". Interesting that the council has not shared any detail from the consultation in the letter - usually they share the numbers and I think it will be worth looking at the responses for Calton and Townley to see if the CPZ has support on those roads (friends of ours on Calton suggested to us that they and their neighbours were against the measures). Perhaps now we can see why the council steadfastly refused to add "yes/no" questions to previous consultations as it seems once they do people are able to have their voices heard. Well done people of Dulwich - finally the council has had to listen to you (one wonders whether these results throw doubts on other consultations that were fudged by the council!

Lambeth are always doing u-turns on ill thought out traffic measures - remember the Loughborough Junction debacle? They must be wasting a fortune of tax-payers money on these schemes and you know no-one will be held accountable for the chaos they caused (in a not unsurprising "its not our fault" defence it's all Thames Water's fault apparently). The fact it is being withdrawn with immediate effect shows how bad it was. It's amazing no-one at the council considered the impact of the measures they were putting in. You have to question the professionalism of the people involved and whether they had any clue what they were doing. Too soon Lambeth Cyclists too soon...(clearly reading the room is not their forte) 😉

To be fair his TFL fare freeze (which is his, ahem, gift to Londoners ahead of the mayoral elections) is costing £123m which is probably a large chunk of the TFL element of the council tax rises.....

Parking permit charges need to go up to fund vanity projects like the DV junction redesign that the majority of people (who responded to the consultation) don't want but meantime things like cycle hangers and better street lighting needs to be Crowdfunded because the council "doesn't have any money"....go figure....

There is a dearth of good Sunday lunch pubs and any that are good for food (Crocked Well in Camberwell and Rosendale in West Dulwich etc) don't show the sport leaving you with a hotch-potch of options that aren't the best for food I am afraid. I have always found there is a strong correlation between showing sport and (lack of) quality food! The Actress used to be good for those (myself included) wanting to keep a sly-eye on the sport but only if you want pizza.....a strategically positioned table between the food and sport showing areas always used to work a treat (until someone in my family rumbled what I was doing! ;-))

Good news for the Deliveroo/Uber delivery riders. Bad news for the fire brigade Bad news for pedestrians Good news for those who think e-bikes need to be registered And given the reaction from them, clearly bad news for the UK bike/e-bike manufacturing industry that clearly isn't ready to support these new bigger e-bikes and/or sees market share erosion to them putting yet more pressure on the troubled bike manufacturing industry.

Despite the overwhelming opposition to the DV design proposals (close to 50% of all respondents responded "not at all" to the questions on whether the redesign would achieve it's stated aims) - and remember there was no "yes/no" mechanism on this consultation - the council appears to be forging ahead with them.....someone should probably remind the councillors that 82% of all of the respondents to the consultation said they live in Dulwich....will the council ever listen to their constituents, why bother to run consultations (each consultation is estimated to cost around £50,000) if they plan to ignore the input of residents.......? The council's report says: Instructs officers to proceed to the detailed design stage for the Dulwich Village Junction Improvements.

Clearly the overwhelming majority of respondents to the consultation do not support the proposed changes.....if the council don't take heed of the consultation results then they are incredibly blinkered/foolish... It will be very interesting to see how the council/their cheerleaders try to spin this...

Given the blanket stickering of all greens bins with messages that food waste now needs to go into the small brown caddy bins I wonder how long it will be before the council starts issuing fines for anyone with food waste in the green bin!

Can't be used....yet...I wonder if they know that with a Labour victory at the election the rules may change opening the floodgates for councils to raise funds by "any means necessary" and Southwark are getting their revenue grab in early with this and things (that the council considers a sign of wealth) like the brown bin charges - all of which are increasingly massively year-on-year.

They seem to have gone in all over the area - I saw some on East Dulwich Road, there are three sets on Barry Road and even some on Desenfans Road. I wonder if, finally, the council are trying to get a proper area-wide view of the impact of LTNs, especially given the placement of the strips suggests they are trying to ensure that the sub-10kmp/h non-recording issue is not a factor.

Here: https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s115170/Report GW3 Parking and Traffic Enforcement and associated services contract.pdf This is the report submitted to Southwark Cabinet meeting by Cllr McAsh and that was the trigger for the Cabinet agreement to extend and expand the APCOA contract. Some key snippets (the total contract is actually £12.5m with £2.5m to provide an extra 48 enforcement officers - which is why there are so many of them circling Lordship Lane all the time now). That cabinet approves the variation of the parking and traffic and associated services contract with APCOA Parking UK Ltd to utilise the available contract extension to extend the term of the contract for a period of three years from 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2027 in the sum of £4,150,611 p.a. and £12,451,833 across the three-year extension period. 2. That cabinet approves a variation of the existing contract with APCOA Parking UK Ltd for parking enforcement and associated services as outlined in paragraphs 10 to 11 in the sum of £2,578,309 p.a to provide an additional 48 civil enforcement officers (CEO) up to a total value of £9,668,660 for the period from 1 September 2023 to January to 31 May 2027 (three years and nine months - 45 months). Interestingly in the Southwark News article (https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/southwark/traffic-warden-contract-worth-11-5-million-branded-appalling-waste-of-money-after-southwark-councils-cpz-u-turn/) Cllr McAsh claims that this contract was not pre-empting the borough-wide CPZs yet in the document he submitted to cabinet last July it said (is he being economical with the truth to Southwark News?): The contract is based on enforcement of the whole borough albeit 32% of the borough does not have controlled parking. There is a need for additional civil enforcement officers to be deployed within the contract in order to provide the capacity to enforce the controlled parking zones that are to be implemented by August 2024. If you can spend over £12m on a parking enforcement contract (to ultimately raise more money from constituents) and then spend the suggested £50,000 on a single "consultation" for the failed DV junction redesign, then don't come pleading that you don't have the cash for cycle hangers and street lights.....it might be a good soundbite but when you scratch beneath the surface you realise something isn't adding up and that there might be more than just a little bit of spin/smoke screening going on from the council.....

This is a very good point - I wonder how council tax revenue has increased over the years due to the regeneration and gentrification in, mainly, the north and south of the borough. I do wonder whether Southwark's problem is not with funding but with spending. Remember the proposal they put in for Dulwich Village/Square that was going to cost something extortionate and was laughed out of the room for the ludicrous cost associated with it, How many times have they had to re-run consultations for various vanity projects (the aforementioned DV junction being one that has a lot of consultations linked to it) - none of this comes for free.

Is anyone happy they have spent £11m on a contract with APCOA for parking enforcement based on a CPZ rollout that they have since had to U-turn on - that doesn't seem to be a smart investment of tax-payers money? And then to claim they need crowd-funding to fund things like bike hangers and street lighting doesn't seem to be that smart - perhaps they are hoping the electorate have short memories....

There be a mayoral election coming....and clearly the Streatham LTN is an unmitigated disaster - propped up by the usual pro-LTN lobby groups working with councils (and the houses who live within the area and to the benefit of a small proportion of the local population) to try and force an ill-conceived plan that actually makes things worse and has a massively negative impact on public transport ....where have we seen that before.....? Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that new monitoring strips have been going in around the area - Lordship Lane, East Dulwich Grove, Barry Road? There is a new set on Lordship Lane near the Court Lane junction (another on Townley) - clearly the positioning of the ones on Lordship Lane suggests the council wants to conclude that traffic is increasing as they have been moved up the road from the Melford Road position when they were monitoring to prove traffic was down and the LTNs were working!

And I still can't work out why they need Crowdfunding for cycle hangers and street lights when the transport coffers are swelling with LTN fine money and have been showing surplus/profit growth for a while since they went in. The council might want to try and pin this all on central government but I do think scrutiny on some of their frivolous spending might also be required - they did, after all, pay APCOA £11.5m to police CPZs that aren't being installed now....bit hard to play the woe is us card when things like that have happened on your watch.....but hey, there's a mayoral/general election coming so I am sure we will lots more of this stuff from Labour run councils over the next few months.

Can anyone explain to me why Southwark needs money for cycle hangers and street lighting when they are getting millions of extra revenue for roads and infrastructure from the LTN cameras? They can buy that stuff with that money as it would be considered roads infrastructure would it not?

A, perhaps, timely reminder of what Cllr McAsh wrote about LTNs on his blog….has time, and his promotion within Southwark Labour, changed his view per chance?