Glemham

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scrawford Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It?s ridiculous to conflate any increase or > decrease in cycling with the Dulwich Village or > Melbourne Grove LTN. As a cyclist I will use > normal roads, cycle highways, or cycle lanes. The > issue is the increase or decrease in car traffic > on surrounding streets. As a cyclist the LTNs have > made other roads much more dangerous for me, as > stopped traffic is much more dangerous and also > polluting to cycle through than free flowing > traffic. Thank you scrawford for making this point, as a cyclist, which cuts through all the hot air on this thread and, for me, sums up the opposition to LTNs.

The traffic situation on roads in and around the impermeable Dulwich Village junction is about to get very interesting. The new owners of the old SG Smith site in the middle of the Village have given the Dulwich Society notice of their intention to start work on September 6, the first day of the new school term for many local children. Aquinna Homes are to develop the site for 10 large family homes and 2 apartments complete with underground car parking. This raises some interesting points: 1. Southwark Council has presumably agreed a Construction Management Plan with the developers. Where will all the construction traffic, which for a start will involve removing huge amounts of earth for the underground parking, access the site and where will it be parked? In Gilkes Crescent, ?Dulwich Square?, Calton Avenue?..? 2. How will the CMP give protection to all the schoolchildren, pedestrians, residents and cyclists who will be using the pavements and roads immediately adjacent to the site every day? 3. Why is Southwark Council, by presumably agreeing to the car parking, encouraging car ownership when its avowed policy is to discourage residents from using or indeed owning a car? The Dulwich Estate sold this site four years ago for ?5.25 million at a time when the Trustees were looking for a replacement site for their Almshouses. They should have built new flats for their residents and local people wanting to downsize to an affordable home. Most of the proceeds from the sale went to three of their beneficiaries: the already wealthy independent schools.

What can we do? Well one thing is to stop the building of 12 large houses with underground car parking on the old SG Smith site in the middle of Dulwich Village. It has just been announced that McCulloch Builders who paid the Dulwich Estate ?5.25million for the site a few years ago and left it looking like a WWII bomb site, have now sold it on to Aquinna Homes who intend to carry out the original plan, which has planning permission from Southwark, to build 12 large expensive homes complete with underground car parking. How does encouraging residents to own cars fit with the Council?s policy of LTNs, particularly in the area that has become the focus of so much community dispute? The site would have been the perfect place for the new Almshouses which the Estate has been trying to relocate for over 80 years, plus some reasonably priced retirement flats. The construction will entail removing the old fuel tanks and tons of earth to make way for the underground car parking. When this plan was first put forward someone estimated that it would involve 1,000 lorry loads to remove the earth. Which roads will bear the brunt of this and all the other construction traffic? On their website Aquinna describe the development as ? 12 family homes in a semi-rural idyll - a conservation village with fabulous schools? and plan for them to be available from Summer next year...........

A couple of months ago I watched a large SUV park in my road ( which serves as an overspill car park for Alleyn?s School) and the driver get out, take a small bike from the boot, and then follow behind as a small uniformed boy ?cycled? on the pavement to a nearby private Junior School. No doubt the boy is one of the statistics showing the increase in the number of children cycling to school.

Replying to mfcjoe If you vote for the Tories you are supporting LTNs because most of the money for them comes from the Department of Transport. Andrew Giiligan was cycling ?Czar? when Johnson was Mayor, and now ensconced in the Cabinet Office is pursuing an even more radical cycling agenda.

Allegedly the Dulwich Estate still receives ?100,000 a year from Stonegate who hold the lease. So is it any surprise that the Estate seems to be uninterested in doing anything about the eyesore. On their website page outlining their values and aims they declare that ?we strive to achieve a standard of quality that creates an exceptional neighbourhood?.........thedulwichestate.org.uk.But equally the Council seems reluctant to find a way around the impasse with a solution that will benefit the local community.

At last in this thread the spark of an intelligent solution. Better public transport - whatever form it takes - both within, and connecting this area to a world beyond, Dulwich. Thanks rch for the prompt. For example; many people travel to and from Beckenham and Bromley for work, schools and shopping. Relatively easy by car but it takes two bus journeys from East Dulwich to Beckenham and beyond. How possible would it be to persuade TfL to make a new route, perhaps with some of the buses being ?express? ones, to encourage less car use? There are undoubtedly other areas which would benefit from this kind of rethink about use of local public transport. Crowdfunding could help in getting some thinking outside of this particular box. If only a few short years ago Southwark had accepted an alternative, crowd-funded plan for the Dulwich Village Junction ................

With you on your view of the local Labour Party Metallic. I never thought I would see the day when a Labour council is so enthusiastic about enforcing a policy from an extreme right wing, populist Tory government. Andrew Gilligan, once Mayor Johnson?s Cycling ?Tsar? and now ensconced in 10 Downing Street together with the rest of Dom?s Disrupters, is continuing the crusade he started with cycling super highways and Quietways (remember those?) Unelected and unaccountable he will presumably not cease until he has created a cycling Jerusalem........

Such a sweet scene in Dovercourt Road this morning - a small child cycling down the pavement towards Alleyn?s. .........except moments before, he and his bike had been lifted out of a large Range Rover which his Dad had driven from who knows where and parked in this narrow residential road, no doubt to boost the idea that lots of children are travelling to school in a sustainable manner! Remind me again on what basis, during lockdown, the Council agreed to the extension to Alleyn?s Junior School.

Why does the management of the Crown and Greyhound allow their customers to ignore regulations designed to protect everyone? After all it?s the pubs that will be closed or subjected to a curfew if the regulations are tightened again this week.

Yes it is and they support it. But now the application has been removed from the agenda and will not be considered. A new date is to be fixed.

We had a similar problem in our road two years ago. A woman in her forties was obviously sleeping in her car. It was a very hot summer and some of us were concerned for her health, and her vulnerability. A neighbour with experience in working with the homeless talked to her and found she was having family problems and was too scared to live with her family. Some people felt she should be left to get on with her life but others thought about how they would feel if their sister, mother of friend was living in similar circumstances. In the end she accepted a referral to adult social services, was found to be known to a mental health team and was rehoused.

If the Council agree to this application then they will be driving a coach and horses through their Our Healthy Streets proposals which are still subject to consultation. Unless Alleyn?s commits to only accepting children from the local area who will be able get to school without being driven, this expansion will add more cars to an area already at saturation point during term time. In the current COVID 19 situation it is likely that when the older children return to school their parents will, understandably, be reluctant for them to use public transport. As so many come from some distance this will no doubt lead to a rise in the numbers coming by car. At the very least the Council should consider adjourning this application until such time as it will be possible to know for certain just how pupils of all ages will be travelling to Alleyn?s (and other schools in the area)in future.

A month on from this message and there is still litter on the field much of it left behind by the groups who gather on the field after it has closed to meet and drink the night away disturbing residents who are mostly still observing the distancing rules. But litter is not all they and people who congregate during the day to play football in large groups or meet friends for a picnic leave behind. Residents have had to contend with visitors urinating against their fences, and have been clearing up excrement. Despite a notice asking people not to bring their dogs or ride their bikes as this is a playing field - the clue being in the title - it seems as with Dominic Cummings, there?s one rule for most of us and another for those who firmly believe it doesn?t apply to them.

There is a reason that the notice on the gate says no bikes and that is that Alleyn?s does not want people to cycle on this field, not even cute toddlers. The children living next to the field have been asked not to cycle at the weekends and have complied, so why not respect the request. Alleyn?s opened this field at the request of Southwark Council, and could easily close it again if it is misused, and then everybody would lose out especially those using it for exercise that they cannot otherwise get because they aren?t able to go out or don?t feel safe elsewhere. If thinking about NHS and care home staff working in dire conditions whilst others sun themselves all day is ?pretty hysterical? and ?relentlessly negative? then I?m guilty as charged.

Looking out on Alleyn?s field during the week was like watching a promotional video for a holiday camp. Children cycling, teenagers skateboarding on the tennis courts, people sunbathing......meanwhile in hospitals and care homes not very far away.......

As a resident living next to the field and in contact with the Bursar?s office at Alleyn?s there seems to be no reason why the field has been locked this weekend.The school is looking into what happened as I write. Unless they are residents the people in the field have no doubt climbed over the railings. I think that Alleyn?s wouldn?t want that to become a habit!

Alleyn's have just announced that their field will be open until 8 pm in the evening to allow people to exercise (not sunbathe) after work. A new notice will be going up which will make it clear that no cycling is allowed on the field. People are still sitting in groups and when approached have the ready reply that they are "in the same household".If you do use the field for exercise please respect the privacy of residents whose houses back on to the field some of whom are recovering from having had the virus, and others who have been deemed vulnerable. As I write this the police have arrived to remind people of the government guidelines. When they were here on Friday I overheard a WPO telling a sunbather who was arguing with her -"I don't have a garden". A reminder that the police also have a difficult job to do and live with the same restrictions as the rest of us.

Residents are trying to monitor the use of the field as Alleyn's have not provided any security. Police say it is private land so they can't act although we did have a police presence on Friday moving people on who were sunbathing and kids skateboarding on tennis courts with a radio playing. Why do some people think the govt crisis regulations don't apply to them. If Alleyn's decide to close the field because of problems then everyone will lose out.

Alleyn's have now put a notice on the gate into the field giving the opening hours of 7 am to 5 pm and asking that people keep to the social distancing rules of 2 metres apart and not allowing dogs as small children use this field. It has been really shocking to see in recent days that some people think it'd OK to let their dogs run free on a playing field!

I am fortunate to live next to Alleyn's playing field and whilst residents support the opening of the field to the public we would ask users to respect the regulations which the Bursar sent to residents last week: I would wish to emphasise some specifics related to this period of unencumbered use of our grounds. 1. The tarmac hard courts. We are hardly using these tennis/netball courts at the moment, because they have deteriorated in a number of ways. The fencing around them is in poor repair and some of the uprights are no longer safe. The retaining wall at the bottom end is in an unsafe condition. We would advise casual users to avoid these areas, and we cannot accept responsibility for any injury or damage caused to those that ignore this advice. 2. Please do not allow pets onto the site. These are playing fields and a forest school area, used by children aged from 4 to 18 years old. Their health could be severely damaged through accidental contact with, for example, dog faeces. 3. Please do not abuse the facilities, cause damage, allow graffiti or leave litter. If we find casual users involved in any of these, we will have no choice but remove the benefit of access to the space.

I had a similar experience a few months ago when on the pretence of looking at my gutters two guys removed a tile from my side roof - impossible to see from below - and then told me they could fix the hole they had 'discovered' for ?1500! I didn't take them up on their kind offer and later found a reputable builder/roofer to look at the damage. He discovered that they had removed a tile, but on inspecting this part of my roof said that there were in fact a lot of problems, which then took four men several days to put right. So in the end the scammers did me a favour!

Have just emailed my local councillors with this very question. Why can?t Southwark see that if they provide explanations for their policy changes it might go some way to reducing the criticisms.

Thank you James for posting this. It would be helpful to get this information from current councillors for the areas affected. I agree that there is likely to be a knock-on effect on parking in residential roads close to the parks particularly at weekends which CPZs don?t cover.