Galileo

I?m going to put my head above the parapet: yes we do. Parking near the station during the week is impossible and with 3 small children parking a few streets away and dragging them across busy roads is dangerous. Sorry to people who like the convenience of parking right by the station but I also like the convenience of parking within a reasonable distance of my house (not right outside, that is not what I?m talking about). If all these cars are for shoppers on Lordship Lane then I shouldn?t be able to park on a Saturday, but Saturdays are fine for parking, therefore I presume they are Mon-Fri commuters. Surely there is a distance for which a CPZ could be put in place that would deter people from driving to the station, and therefore not displace that parking to other roads? The roads around the station have a different stress to other roads in ED due to the station, so whilst a CPZ might not be appropriate in other areas, I believe it is right next to the station otherwise we are just a station car park to the benefit of neither the local residents nor the local businesses. Yes some of these people might be commuting to ED rather than through ED but if that?s the case why do they need to park right by the station? The simpler explanation is that the majority of cars parking right by the station are using that station.

I had a VBAC for my second, after EMCS with first. Kings were very supportive of VBAC. If you're at all interested in that then ask your midwife and she will arrange an appointment with a consultant midwife to chat through the option of VBAC v CS. Sorry if this is unwelcome advice,there may be a reason you've been advised to have elective CS but just thought I'd mention this in case it helps. Good luck with whichever method you end up with, healthy baby and healthy mummy are all that are required!

We are similarly looking for a local band for the 3 street parties held in our area (we're clubbing together to organise). Jacque if you get any good suggestions I would be really grateful if you could let me know. I will do likewise! Thanks Emiky

James Please can you update the community on what is happening with the Dulwich Hospital site. A van drove on late last night and tipped rubbish onto the site by the electricity sub-station. Kind regards

We're in a slightly different area so looking at different schools, but in the interests of knowledge sharing the only school open day dates I have found so far are Bessemer Grange which starts this Wednesday 21 September, then there are a couple of Wednesdays in October and Novembr and a final one in December. You need to book by calling the school office - details on line. Still waiting for the poster to go up outside Goose Green school which has been there in the past few years.

Hi Attribute I live on that stretch and didn't hear a thing, sorry. There is a Deliveroo station in the Solicitor's car park by the shops, their delivery men go up and down the road a lot, as do the Domino's delivery men, you could check with both those places. Il Mirto is closed for their summer holidays otherwise I'd suggest checking with their driver too. Sorry to hear about this.

Charlie Whilst I'm pleased to see you and Helen taking an interest I can't see that a survey is going to be sufficient. A survey shouldn't be required to check if we are unhappy that we effectively no longer have a train service given that the one train an hour will be full by the time it reaches here. Add to that the number of people who have so far emailed MPs on the two days this revised timetable has been clearly available to us (I checked Southern's website last week and it was not possible to wade through all the different permutations to work out what the service was going to be so I turned to National Rail which showed the current - non-emergency timetable). Imagine how many more emails will be received by the end of Monday. We need trains now, not in 3 months time when the results of the survey have been collated. Please, what can we do?

I think you're right. I just checked National Rail and it looks like the service is every hour on the half hour. When we moved here 3 years ago it was every 10 minutes. There isn't likely to be any point to those trains as they will be full before they get here. I feel like I must be missing something. Can someone else check it out too please. I must be being thick, this can't be right!

We went to Bathrooms at Source in Wandsworth/Earlsfield - a gentleman called Travis was really helpful. However we did get talked into one of those push close/open plugs in the centre of the bath and the kids are forever stepping or sitting on it and letting the water out - fine for adults but a bit of a pain with kids! If you want tiles there is a good collection of shops behind IKEA in Croydon, drive past the entrance over the roundabout and turn left at the next roundabout where you will see a tile shop on the corner and there's another couple next to it.

Hi Rosie We're on Melbourne Grove (North end - by the station). Along with Goose Green we're looking at Bessemer Grange (quite close as the crow flies - bit of a round the houses walk), and Belham and Bellenden schools in Peckham Rye though I suspect we're out of catchment for them. St Johns and St Clements in Peckham Rye has also been recommended but is a faith school so unlikely to be for us but we won't rule it out. Not sure about catchment for that one. Welcome to the area. It's lovely here!

Thanks BrandNewGuy I'm pleased to see them engaging with the community but surprised at the timing of the meeting - finishing at 7.30pm on a Tuesday is not of great help to those who work and commute. I've sent the email below pointing this out and hope to see a positive response. Dear Sirs I've just seen notice of the planning consultation meeting for the Dulwich Hospital Site to be help 4.30pm to 7.30pm 22 March. I live on Melbourne Grove backing on to the site. Myself and many other road residents attended the planning consultation meeting for the new school on the site and whilst there saw many other local residents in attendance. These meetings were held both on multiple days and also at more work friendly hours (they finished at 9pm) to engage better with the local community. I note that plans are to be available after the meeting in the hospital but the meeting is more important for engagement, rather than information, due to being able to discuss the plans with and ask questions of your representatives. I would be grateful if you could please consider extending the timing of your proposed meeting to make it more accessible to the local community.

James, you wrote "Risk at new school of 5-10% of pupils being driven/collected which would September 2016 equate to 6-12 cars am and pm expanding to ultimately possible 120 vehicles when school finished. So initially no problem. Bigger risk I suspect is staff driving to/from school." Initially no problem? Even 6 - 12 cars stopping for 1 minute each between say 8.15am and 8.45am (I've assumed those times) could cause havoc on Melbourne Grove North, which is already a very congested road. Today there has been no end of congestion on the road leading to lots of beeping that started at 8am...and that's just because of the increase in traffic because it's raining!!!

Anyone know what road they're on?

Fab advice, thanks everyone. I get to keep the cute elephants on your excellent advice! Really kind of you all to take the time to help, much appreciated.

Hi all So our toddler (2yrs 4 months) is to move into her first "big girl" bed at the end of the month because the baby (5 months) will be moving out of her bednest in my room and into the cot in the nursery. We have acquired a lovely Ikea toddler bed off the EDF (thank you!) and I then bought a single bedding set on sale from Debenhams because it has lots of cheerful elephants on it. However Hubs then queried (once the bedding had been delivered!) whether a single duvet might be a little large and don't we need a special toddler-sized duvet? So, should we go for a toddler sized duvet? Or should we get a normal single duvet and tuck the extra under the end of the bed to help keep the covers on at night? (The toddler is currently in a 6 - 18 month grobag because she's a tiddler and has only recently started wearing 18 - 24 month clothes). Is a toddler pillow worth it, or do we just get a normal one? Finally, any recommendations for duvets / pillows - haven't bought any new ones for ages and we've rather run out of money on maternity leave so need to make good "value" choices. Also, any tips for making the transition would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help.

You can download it as a free e-book. I tried it on my 2 year old last night and it was so long and she was already tired that she asked to sing her night night song and go into the cot before I had finished it. It basically weaves "you are feeling very sleepy" through the story ALOT. I kind of missed the fun books and thought it was too long, however we are lucky that my eldest is a fab sleeper (but don't get me started on her eating!) so probably not aimed at us, I was just trying it as I was intrigued!

We haven't yet started potty training but I've been following others' stories to steel myself! Someone on another forum suggested Asda value sanitary towels (apparently very cheap) stuck into nappy bags to bring down the cost of using the potette. Apparently only certain nappy bags will fit (from memory the yellow ones from Tesco, but I can't quite recall) so you might need a little research on that.

Hi Penguin68, just to say thanks for taking the time to respond properly on the CPZ point, I hadn't thought of it like that. Good to hear a different perspective.

Penguin68 I am just talking about the parking pressure around ED Station, I have no knowledge about how CPZs would work or be needed in other areas of ED, but here we have your exact problem, only without CPZs. You can't use your car to visit a business or friend on the other side of ED because when you get home again you can't park it anywhere near your house (and I love to use the bus but frequently can't get on them because of the buggy). Equally other people can't just pop to our neck of the woods other than for an hour if one of the short term spaces is available at the top of the road, because there are no parking spaces from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday - the rest of the time it's fine so it is obviously people parking up to use the station, not to use local services. A well thought-out CPZ around the station should free up parking spaces, enabling people to travel around ED, but not drive to the station to go to work.

The debate in our house tonight: what is wrong with a rat run? (btw I hereby declare an interest given 'our house' is on the Northern section of MG). Our conclusion: 1. roads are designed for an appropriate amount of traffic - motorways, A-roads, B-roads and residential roads parked up on both sides (as ours is, and the Southern end of MG is) 2. the mentality of a proportion of rat run users is that this is their "quickest route" which "avoids traffic or delays" then if they encounter residents using the residential road in a usual manner, eg. loading, unloading, reverse parking into an impossibly tight spot because a load of rail commuters have parked the entire road up for the whole day, having the door open whilst they put a child into a car seat, they get frustrated and impatient because their route is not as quick as they had planned (and really, thanks for the warning from the bloke who almost took my car door off and me with it last week as he screamed round the corner from EDG to MG North and then shouted at me to "mind my door" ... I was putting a child into a car seat at the time.) We're not 40+ year residents of the area (we're not even 40+) so I'm aware to some people we aren't entitled to an opinion on the state of the roads, but can I ask why people hate CPZs so much? We had them at my last place in Brixton and it was really good to be able to park and not have a load of people parking up all day to use the tube. I understand that people want to be able to park to use the local shops, visit the doctors, the library, the parks or to have tradespeople or friends visit them in their homes, but that could be achieved by having a 12-2 parking ticket requirement which would deter people from car-commuting to the train station thereby free-ing up spaces for those who want to use community services.

I've just had a call from a very concerned and sorry gentleman from FMConway to say an engineer is now onsite fixing the issue. It appears that the lights were moved back down Lordship Lane last week when North Cross Road was closed, and they did not move the lights back when then reopened North Cross Road. They have agreed to investigate how this could have happened as I explained they are very lucky they are not dealing with a dead or seriously injured infant. I hope the driver of the car sees this so she knows something is being done about it as I promised her I would get on to the council about it.

Thanks for the link BeadyBoo, I'm filing a report now.

BeadyBoo that makes me even more angry, they knew about the danger and have done nothing. Sue, I agree that drivers should look for people in the road, but when she turned the corner we (there was a handful of other people crossing, were stood at the side of the road waiting for the signal so she would have seen a clear road, as she then accelerated the green man came on, we all took a step forward instinctively and by this point she was in the middle of us. I've been thinking if it was our fault but at the time I got to the lights the road was clear, she would have come round the corner only a second before the lights changed as the corner is really close to the crossing. I don't think the driver did anything wrong. I know we should all be looking for cars / pedestrians and not relying solely on lights / signals but because the junction is so close to the crossing it's like the car came out of nowhere. It is a disgrace that they have left a crossing in that state. I really feel for the driver who was obviously very shaken by the ordeal.

My daughter and I just narrowly escaped being run over whilst crossing at the temporary lights. The poor driver turned round and came to find me to explain - she had turned left from North Cross Road which is in the middle of the roadworks and whilst the green man was telling us to cross there was nothing telling her to stop. Unfortunately she came to the pedestrian crossing just after the green man had come on so she found herself driving through a crowd of people missing my daughter's buggy by inches. She turned round to come and find me on the street to apologise and explain how it had happened. Poor lady was in tears and we were both in shock. I have reported this to the telephone number on the roadworks but this is just a 24 hour contact room so he said he'd pass it on to the Aouthwark team to look at. I've looked at the junction and I can't see anything to alert the drivers to the pedestrians when they are being shown the green man to cross. It might be that thet the temporary traffic lights on Lordship Lane are connected to the pedestrian crossing, but there's nothing on Northcroas Road. We are very lucky that this wasn't worse and I am fighting back the tears. Luckily my 4 month old has slept through the whole thing. I'm at the junction now, I wanted to check I wasn't missing something, but I'm not. Pedestrians are being told they can safely cross the road with NO indication to traffic that has just turned out of North Cross Road, only the temporary traffic lights on Lordship Lane go red, which are before the North Cross Road junction. Am I missing something?