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MrsTP, forgive my failure to grasp your logic here. Would they be allowed to disappear upstairs to the bedrooms with the same sex when young teenagers? Could teenagers orientated differently, have any bearing on the way you'd advise the motorbirds to plan their "play"rooms?

In my front yard I easily set up two 'dalek' bins, 1 for current filling whilst the other, full, is undisturbed for a few months letting its brandling worms do the magic. The vegetable/tealeaf type [never meat or fish] waste goes in layers with shredded brown cardboard boxes, occasionally lawn mowings, and spent peat from flower pots. We don't get problem odours, rats or flies. The reason I prefer these bins is their lids. Southwark Council were virtually giving them away last time I looked - ?10 each. I think it is a much more sustainable system than the brown wheelie bin/collection method which relies on Council lorries. In a short season we've sufficient material not to need to buy potting compost.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes I hope, after you have read this, you can join in a countrywide effort to get millions of trees growing. Even from our back yards and doorsteps it is possible to tend a few young trees ready for the moment the countryside "upstream" needs them. Some probably grow from seeds already, in your flower borders and you were going to weed them out & throw them away - just pot them on. Another year or two and this human care will prove more important than any EU subsidies or government grants.

You are at liberty to take it down and recycle the materials. The post can be sawn up for firewood or DIY. The flat signboard material is excellent stuff, use limited only by your imagination. It cuts with a stanley knife. eg hallway splashback behind row of wellie boots bird boxes packing/backing material eg for collage, mirror or framed pictures.

Topical radio item [Today, BBC news] about the paved paradise-put-up-a-parking-lot problem, Sue. It had a great interview with one Sheffield university professor - recommended. You can listen again or read =>here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25676973

When you say "people" Sue I have not actually got an image of what percentage. The fashion for decking has faded a bit now as many homeowners don't want to risk sheltering urban foxes. Garden design DOES allow people eco-friendly surfaces other than lawns. Mowers & strimmers guzzle fuel & create noise pollution & in London especially it's a problem that lawns waste water with sprinklers. A couple of alternatives, apart from the surfaces mentioned on that RHS website: low-growing grasses + wildflowers, only snipped once per season (usually end of August to allow seedheads to distribute) - these are fantastic for biodiversity, take 2 or 3 years to grow into true beauty, don't need watering either. gravel - dry-garden plants will grow in this; troublefree. Rounded not sharp edged stones for walking bare foot - - gravel is often spread on permeable fabric to obviate weedkiller sprays. Good.

Dear Sue useful info here =>http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=738 this is the sort of thing to coax garden concreters towards. When there is car crime I can understand people wanting to park within the household boundaries. Landlords and their agents need persuading as the drabbest front yards are designed for "low maintenance" for "the tenants". A grant was made available in one London district if paved areas were converted to permeable surfaces, I think that project has finished now. But it did help, a lot.

Oh thank heavens

Thanks Forumites. The passive approach, awaiting for instance the Wildlife Trust & Southwark Council's responses, definitely requires supplementing - eg by circulating information. The internet's ideal for this purpose. One of the nicest ways readers could express their liking for my posts, is by widening the number of people who start taking direct care of the environment, wherever we live. Whether by joining in EDF discussions & working out what small housekeeping or gardening changes we can make, or by starting greener-street improvement groups, or by deepening natural history knowledge and making sure children acquire outdoor play and observation skills, I'm not fussy. This marks a turn away from hierarchical, evidently dysfunctional ways power gets tiered in Council Chambers which always tends towards another round of "Ain't It Awful". This more active approach has massive potential for problem solving. I do believe the best biodiversity changes are brought about with a minumum of regulation. They rely upon individuals resolving to belong in their locales and to walk, vote, and restore, wisely wherever the Earth presents opportunities. In the context of Council spending cuts, we can expect staff such as Tree Officers to need all the help they can get, even to have their numbers drastically cut.

[Article refers to USA.] Urban planners are increasingly expected now to show awareness of biodiversity. Adequate research into trees' friendliness to wildlife is crucial, for townscapes to remain healthy and vibrant for a broad range of species. Here in the UK it means that Councils mustn't make arrangements with industrial-scale horticultural tree nurseries who often supply street 'Ornamentals' which support only one or two 'pests'. It means we must insist on consultation and collaboration with organisations whose extra knowledge, eg of birds and invertebrates can help local Tree Officers. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/06/us-cities-urban-wildlife#comment-30572080

They're buried on average 4 deep, because this Cem has been in use for such a long time. I didn't believe it at first either, then it affected the feeling of walking through. On line you can research some of its more chaotic past. ED local-specific topic just for now is the cost & quality of recent Council 'works', and whether they answer our genuine needs.

Have taken a set of pics to illustrate. If anyone needs this material to help with a campaign please let me know. But my original comment reflects a sense that Southwark Council is being ripped off by its contractors. I think the bills need scrutiny. And East Dulwich residents need to stick up for this much-loved woodland space too - not necessarily by doing nothing at all to it, BTW. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Genuinely democratic planning could achieve BOTH the civilised conditions for folk to bury loved ones and not find gravesites afloat every winter, AND unspoilt quietly managed woodland area for remembrance after scattering ashes. It shouldn't be a matter of either/or. We need not buy into arguments that ED already has plenty of designated nature reserves nearby, eg One Tree Hill, Sydenham Woods, etc, suggesting that therefore it's permissible to bulldoze and dormitorify this one. Wildlife needs (& surely Council HQs already know this) green corridors that creatures can easily travel across. Without such pathways their territories become islands, stranded in the middle of urban development. Here they suffer loss of genetic strength and soon die out. The Cemetery is included on the Green Chain network, reflecting this corridor idea. Recording such animals, birds and invertebrates as we do see, with dates/ times/ exact location, especially butterflies and their food plants, can help protect this land adequately. The Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Butterfly Conservation groups are all keen to offer support rather than endless criticism to the London Councils, who have a huge task to perform.

yes, and from Southwark Council's website "By 1984, 300,000 burials had been carried out at the cemetery. Camberwell New Cemetery was founded in 1901 in order to provide more space. The majority of burials now take place in this cemetery."

I feel it would be reasonable to ask for all those ancient stones to be gathered up for a long-lasting structure which is part of the memorial site, eg a properly assembled drystone wall (lovely for biodiversity) and a paved walkway, showing all the fragmented lettering. Just to remind us that 300,000 people are already sleeping here.

I agree about the habitat aspect Clare. Sorry to say though that old monuments & headstones usually topple as time, soft soil and encroaching plants dictate. Unless families continue to spend money on masonry repairs. Also not to put too fine a point on it but as decomposition takes place there s always subsidence & coffins collapse - and the clay soil will shift. This is why some mourners wait for a year or two before having a gravestone installed. To my way of thinking we have here another good reason for choosing cremation, in all built-up areas short of wild green space. Elsewhere in the world there are traditions of 'ossuaries', for taking care of ancestral bones respectfully and still allowing for graveyards to be used and re-used over centuries.

Gatwick for Queasijet. Take a 197 bus with your Oystercard, from outside the Horniman Museum for 50 minutes to Addison Road E. Croydon for the railway station, then approx ?5 on-the-spot ticket to Gatwick in a clean, fast, frequent train service.

Masses of Council [i.e.taxpayers'] money was allocated last year, to upgrade the Camberwell Old Cemetery site. We have been over this several times already in the EDF, but I feel now is a good moment for an itemised bill which all of us can see. It is remarkable: 1. how ineffective the new drainage works are proving to be. Few of the unevennesses around the gravesides - which groundsmen have orders to strim continuously in the summer 'in case people trip up', thus wrecking the grass's value for biodiversity - have been cured. 2. how ugly tarmac looks on the roadways, how brutally the lopping of trees and shrubs was carried out. 3. that NO recycling of mixed materials such as plastic and spent bouquets, grass cuttings, glass and other waste has been organised. The big bins are destined for landfill. People, we are all paying a premium rate for this. We are neither too stupid to learn how to sort waste, nor to ask for floral tributes to be made with 100% biodegradable materials. I wonder where ratepayers draw a line between 'value for money' from Southwark Council's own gardeners, choices of engineers and landscaping firms and tree surgeons, and 'hopeless London clay' which might never be really suitable for burial grounds anyway. In future as the UK contends with weather extremes like this, will families be happy to see memorials reduced to these present conditions? It will soon be far more peaceful and conducive to dignity to scatter ashes in thriving, gently managed woodland. We appreciate that burial is a requirement in some religions. It looks as though this method of laying the dead to rest needs thorough reassessment in relation to this site. Is Southwark planning merely to raze the rest of its greenery, and dump fresh, expensive new topsoil and commercial mono-culture turf wherever the existing graves fall out of their time lapse? This is what was achieved with the 2,000 new plots of last winter's industry - acres as soul-less and municipal as dormitories.

Especially if you use plastic money + a ticket machine to buy rail travel, you'll be glad you watched this! Programme also has stories about email, telephone and street-gambling con artists. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/secrets-of-pickpockets-shoplifters-scammers/4od#3629024

Lulu Too, The name of your dud window-fitting company, can soon be mud, unless they get their team into gear to correct this defective work. The customer paid for it in good faith. The slow deterioration of the building's fabric as a result of their poor workmanship, will be MUCH more expensive for them as a liability, than them coming round and fixing the mistakes they made. I think they are relying on you not feeling energetic/empowered enough to pursue them. Believe me, the combined wrath of the EDF can be summoned....

Our houses are taking some new extremes: ++ heat ++ in summer, which really bakes up the pointing (= mortar between bricks, chimney pots, and windowframes). The bricks and slates facing south can get as hot as a furnace. Then ++ rain ++ , accompanied by strong gales hits horizontally, finding any crevices at all, wherever they are on the windward side. Sharp frosts cause droplets left in the cracks to become ice, which being bulkier than water, loosens then breaks steadily more mortar away. Soon creates deterioration indoors, so it needs attending to, and not on the cheap, or the building won't be cured.

Mogs, I appreciate there is a romance associated with Agas and Rayburns. It's usually followed by the break-up, which sees us all heave a sigh of relief as the bloody thing goes out of the house. Wondering whether your extension would be better served by a wood-burning stove.... but mankind has got to curb its fire addiction PDQ. Woodsmoke is a polluter, make no mistake. We are in a Clean Air zone too. Everything eco-friendly you can design & build, will benefit yourselves & future generations. You want the extension to be toastie - get it built to top specs for insulation and have controllable, luxurious underfloor heating. You want real flames - light a candle or two in the evening. You want to cook - choose an ordinary, modest, practical hob and oven. Your house's present system of central heating and bath water can remain in place, yes?

Interesting article about Christmas Tree waste http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/03/christmas-tree-recycling-london

No, that can't be 'six billion' !! Must mean 6 million. Still an awful lot of trees to grow, acres to spray, petrol to cut down and transport, then throw out. Consider a container grown alternative next year, one you keep in the garden and repot steadily over several years, up to the max size before planting out. (There's more info in another thread on this, now in 'ED Trades and Businesses' - someone was complaining about bad ones.)

Are you sure? Can you provide us with a reference?

The Aga / Rayburn mystique is based on ignoring a huge environmental cost. First - making the thing in an iron foundry [vastly wasteful] Second - transporting it [it weighs a ton] Third - whatever fuel it uses. [Always lots, don't be fooled!] Some have only a titchy little firebox, forcing housekeeper to guage whether you can have a bath OR cook something. The smaller fireboxes require smaller logs and all solid fuel, wood or coal (not wood for an Aga) has to be dried for one year, so you'll need a shed. There is little point in taking a range out of a kitchen if it's still working OK, but they do need new spare parts from time to time. 2nd hand and 'vintage' market is unreliable. Not enough plumbers & heating engineers care to do up these antique ones. They like installing the lucrative oil-fired or Gas new kind best. How expensive in ??? is running your Aga or Rayburn really going to be in the coming decades? How costly in ice-melt and so forth, to the Planet? They were designed for year-round warmth, in colder climates than London's, and before we had to concern ourselves with climate change.