first mate

Tuesday night, more fireworks and it is 11.33 pm, so an illegal display.

The idea that the park was "designed" for events like a 5-day music festival is misplaced, to say the least. Excerpt taken from Southwark Council website about the park: "Peckham Rye Park and Common is a Victorian park and historic common featuring ornamental gardens, flowing streams, woodland, and a lake. It provides a pleasant refuge for both the local community and wildlife. The garden is an area of tranquillity with sensory summer planting, a winter garden, bug towers, a beehive, a pond, raised beds for community fruit and vegetable growing and a shaded meadow area with a loggery and seating. The entry gates were specially commissioned and designed by Heather Burrell. This is a beautiful oasis of peace amid the bustle of city life. "

Naughty, Earl. You are changing what I said. I said "Cllr McAsh (not the whole council, though he is the Cabinet member for Streets inSouthwark) is on record as saying he would like to see (local) streets rid of all cars". He did not say he would like to get rid of all cars. At the time he was rather playing to the gallery and possibly said the above for effect. In response to a question about whether local interventions like LTNs were making life much more difficult for car-users by, for one, increasing journey times, McAsh responded by saying that was the whole point. On the other hand, McAsh also recently 'starred' in what looked rather like an advertorial for Lime Bikes, proclaiming the wonders of using e-bikes etc.. It does look a bit kinda 'cars bad versus e-bikes good'. Don't you think? Of course, as a user of both modes of transport I see the need for both.

Really? Cllr McAsh is on the record as saying he would like to see the streets rid of all cars and car usage is being made deliberately more difficult by various council road interventions in the hope of reducing car use. Posters like you seem to support that endeavour.

Talking only about Lordship Lane, I know of young people who have come a cropper because of uneven paving, cracks etc., and who suffered injuries requiring hospital treatment. I feel if money can be found for some of the recent projects we have seen locally involving pedestrian areas, then some basic upkeep of the high street pavement is surely possible. I do think Moovart makes a good point about tree planting and mature Plane trees. We want trees, imagine how the area would look without them, but they can cause damage to pavements.

I'm not sure that's true- as in 'no spare money'; I am not commenting on the rest of your statement. I believe Southwark has a sizeable fund of money accrued from parking fines and I also believe that can be reinvested into street upkeep...if the Council chooses to use it that way. They certainly found the dosh to reconfigure and landscape Dulwich Village junction (including use of expensive, imported Indian sandstone not found elsewhere). They also seem to have money to narrow roads and build out and landscape pavement- as in MGN LTN.

And here we go again. A nice booming bomb drop sounding explosion to kick things off. Can anyone really remember a time when we had fireworks every week from September on?

That's a lot of objectors. Hard to know how the Council can ignore this level of dissatisfaction or allow the two weekend extension that the event organisers are asking for. Let them look at doing one weekend on the Common (the usual site for all other events on Peckham Rye); leave the actual park to be used as a green space and haven over all of summer, as it should be.

The issue of visibility raised in the thread was only to do with cyclists at night. As a fellow cyclist, I certainly did not beep or yell at the Dulwich-Paragon-jersey-wearing cyclist. Nor did anyone else for that matter. On that occasion there was only one individual behaving badly and it wasn't the queue of car drivers.

Sorry PR, somehow I missed that. Do you think that without a licence that means the event cannot be extended then? If so, that would be fantastic news. I would also like to see it cut back to the original size before it was extended in terms of footprint, last year.

Next time I go that route I will take a very careful look at the cycle lane, along the stretch where the Dulwich Paragon club jersey wearing cyclist ran the red lights- I assume you will not find an excuse for that behaviour also? The cycle lane looked to me in good condition and wide enough at that point and that in part is why I found this cyclist's behaviour so odd. I will take a closer look next time I am there. Had he stopped at the red lights, as he should have, I'd be more inclined to think you have a point.

What is also surprising is the silence of Cllrs Hamvas and Mills. Have either of you any sense of where they stand on the issue? If We are the Fair no longer run the event, what do we know about the organisation that has taken over?

More fireworks tonight. Seriously, there are going to be large numbers of domestic pets that will require medication for half the year at this rate. Heaven knows what it is doing to wildlife.

In this case the road was not clear, there was a queue of cars, all I might add patiently and politely moving behind the cyclist who, as I said, slalomed in and out of the cycle lane, effectively keeping the whole queue of other traffic behind him for some distance. The cycle lane looked wide enough without loads of sharp detritus, that I could see, and also well surfaced- perhaps this was just the section closest to Crystal Palace, where I saw the cyclist. It could be the cycle lane is not as good at the Croydon end. Anyhow, this guy was not a great advert for 'good' cycling and sailing through a red light was, I guess, to be expected. It just came over as very entitled and somewhat inconsiderate display by someone wearing a Dulwich Paragon jersey.

Blah Blah, many of us are grateful to you for taking the first steps towards saving the park from further privatisation and exploitation. A truly valuable community service. I do hope Cllrs Hamvas and Mills can find the time to advocate for the future of the park, rather than seemingly view it as a useful events space for private hire money-spinner for a cash-strapped council.

Thanks for posting. Sounds like little will change then. I am not clear from the response if this will still go to debate or not. I hope it does.

I suspect Musk and his supporters may disagree.

Over the weekend, going towards Crystal Palace from Croydon, a cyclist wearing a Dulwich Paragon Club jersey was ahead of me. He veered repeatedly in and out of the cycle lane, one moment he was in it, then not, it was almost like he was doing a slalom run. There was no signalling as he suddenly pulled out in front of cars in order to move to the other side of the road. At the traffic lights on red, he just sailed through with no change in cycling speed. He had lights but no pedal reflectors. For a club cyclist, I thought this was a surprising display of poor cycling behaviour.

The problem there is that at the time the planning application went in for the M&S, the point was made many, many times by local residents that the rear entrance (on a residential street) was not wide enough or easy enough to access. Naturally this fell on deaf ears and council planning officers allowed themselves to be persuaded by planner computer generated modelling that large delivery lorries would be able to manoeuvre through the entrance and into the delivery area. With the passage of time what has come to pass is exactly what local residents anticipated and objected to; the M&S lorries hardly ever go into the delivery area, instead they park up on LL and on the residential side street (often blocking the footpath of the side street as they unload). To add to the problem, you have cars lining up on yellow lines to go to the car wash (often with engines running) and magically the increasingly plentiful council parking wardens never, ever catch them. I gather local residents are also fedup of M&S staff taking fag breaks on the street and dumping the ciggie butts on the pavement, once they are through.

Or we just assume that they were driving without 'due care and attention'- either way, without knowing what actually happened any view is speculative and based on assumption.

Well DKHB, if, as a number of you seem to be saying, very few shoppers in cars visit LL, why would the Council feel it necessary to go out of their way to facilitate them by creating lots of new paid for parking slots. It is the Council who said they had to balance the parking needs of shoppers with those of residents. Surely they would not say or do this without it being evidenced...would they?

Why do you think Southwark Council has justified the potential introduction of paid for parking slots on LL and ED residential streets with the rationale that it has to balance the needs of residents with visiting shoppers in cars? Do you think this was a decision based on no evidence at all? Were they lying or making it up? Were they just saying this to allay shopkeeper fears about loss of trade if a CPZ is brought in?

Indeed, yes my mistake 🤣 Weren't the regs reviewed and updated in 2017? So although bicycle lights are a legal requirement, it is a technicality that few really know or care about. It certainly tallies with the suggestion that more people are cycling at night without them.

The new planting areas are slowly filling with rubbish and weeds- not a great look. As I have said before, this is now a great cut through for delivery motorbikes and e-bikes and I would not say all adhere to 20mph or stay off the newly widened pedestrian areas. Cannot imagine what it will be like if and when the massive new student accommodation off Melbourne and the licensed shop go through. Further up towards Melbourne South a widened pavement area is full of bikes of various types and so badly designed that in heavy rain it floods and most cannot be walked through.

Can I just point out how this thread started. The OP was very clear this was about lights and clothing as a combination. The clothing bit was emphasised by other posters as a means to undermine the point. A cyclist without lights and wearing dark clothing (legalities aside) will be a tad more visible if they are wearing a reflective vest. I felt it was revealing that Malumbu indicated it was sort of okay and understandable if a cyclist occasionally forgot their lights and cycled in the dark without them (it was an, we've all been there sort of comment). As I understand it, cyclists are required to have the right sort of lights, at the right height and right lumens (helmet lights do not count) and you must have red rear reflectors on your pedals. Front white reflectors are advisable but not mandatory. Cyclists are required by law to have lights on between sunrise and sunset and if not may be pulled over and fined... I wonder how often that happens?