Tessmo

Totally agree. Jon Relph from JKA Damp Proofing and Plastering came round to look at internal cracks in our walls (old cracks that had opened up during the heatwave), and damp in the corner of a bedroom (rainwater coming in from outside). He recommended a detailed course of action for both jobs, gave us a reasonable quote, and told us when he could start (we only had to wait a few weeks), and then he and his team completed everything with minimal disruption - always turned up on time, took great care to protect floors and furniture, and cleared up carefully at the end of each day. All skirting boards, dado rails, power sockets, etc fixed back - the only thing left to do is paint. Jon himself is friendly and kind and very knowledgeable about buildings (he specialises in damp proofing basements, but is happy to carry out work anywhere) 07713 187226

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Southwark is asking for feedback on the new junction layout. https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/quietway-7-dulwich-village-feedback/

Not quite the right web address, Glemham - information about the alternative crowd-funded design for the junction is at www.dulwichvillageforum.org.uk. Posts go back to November last year. The Dulwich Village Forum also asked a public question at Southwark Council's cabinet meeting on Tuesday - how would the council measure the success of their own junction design (the one that's being built now) against TfL's 'Healthy Streets for London' http://content.tfl.gov.uk/healthy-streets-for-london.pdf which prioritises walking and cycling. The answer was that the recommendations in 'Healthy Streets for London' would form part of the 'holistic review' of traffic in Dulwich, which is apparently going ahead while the junction is being built. If anyone has any more news on this, please post it up here.

Lee Garvey came round at very short notice (happened to be in the area), worked out why a pipe in the loft was leaking, went off and got the materials, and fixed the whole thing within the hour. They're going to come back and add a cowl on to the pipe outside when the weather's a bit better (too slippery on the roof at the moment with all the rain). Thank you, EDF, for the recommendation - and a big thank you to Lee Garvey, too.

Another recommendation for Steve the Spin Doctor 07921 777428. The spring in our Bosch dishwasher door suddenly snapped. Steve asked us to get the spare part (very easy online by typing in the model number), and fixed the door today. He also mended the electric spark on our gas hob by...er...showing us that we'd accidentally switched it off. Very efficient, very reasonable price, came on time, cleared up afterwards - definitely recommend him.

Not ironic @Sally Eva. Maybe you're right, and the way zebra crossings are used at Goose Green could be improved. it would be good to look at this. But the idea is to have a low-speed environment - a design that makes everyone slow down.

@ bawdy-nan Yes, completely agree. School start and finish times have to be part of the analysis. From my understanding of Southwark's current proposal, the number of schoolchildren/parents/buggies, etc that would be stopped hallway across the road - using the staggered crossings that were taken away at the Townley Road junction because they were so unpopular with parents and children - hadn't been measured. The number of children, and the times when they'd all be bunched up in the middle of the road waiting to cross, had apparently not been part of the analysis for the official proposal at all... Yes, agree with you. Children must come first.

@wolfhound Answering your earlier post, I don't think we're talking so much 'shared space' as 'low-speed environment'. Shared space, as far as I understand it, can mean no road markings and no separation of different kinds of traffic. In the alternative junction sketch, there's a cycle track. There are also zebra crossings, which work well at Goose Green - a busy junction with cars, cycles, pedestrians, vans, lorries and buses. Nothing will happen with any alternative design at this junction unless it is safer for pedestrians and cyclists than Southwark's current official proposal. It's primarily a junction that's part of the Quietway, so it's got to be safe for inexperienced cyclists otherwise it's not fit for purpose. 147 people have contributed to the Just Giving page, and it's just ?20 off its target of ?4,000. So a lot of people are behind finding a solution that's safer for pedestrians and cyclists than Southwark's official one. It's come out of a 'Pedestrians Must Come First' campaign that's primarily thinking of all the schoolchildren who use this junction, so no one - no one - wants a junction that doesn't put small pedestrians first. Any sketch for an alternative idea is just a starting point - something to nudge Southwark into thinking about different possibilities. Let's wait and see what the traffic consultants come up with. I'm not an expert, but I understand that there is a lot of data to show that there is better safety with low-speed environments than with traditional traffic lights, which encourage sudden spurts of speed. How about contacting www.dulwichvillageforum.org.uk? Your views as a parent and a cyclist would be really valuable.

I'm pretty sure there was no public support for road closures in the public consultation. (Mind you, two-thirds were against the design that became the official Southwark proposal...) The point of the alternative design, as far as I understand it, is to make traffic move slowly but continuously, which should mean much greater safety for cyclists and pedestrians. It all depends on the detail, but that's what the independent report is for.

Thanks @gardnergirl - good to see this link again. It's hard to imagine driver behaviour changing - but a clip like this shows how it's possible.

@Mugglesworth The Southwark cabinet member in charge of making Quietway 7 happen (from Elephant & Castle to Crystal Palace) has said that he will consider the community proposal for the junction, which should involve taking notice of the feasibility study. But you're right. We can't assume anything...

Hello wolfhound. Thoughtful reply, as ever. I'm not a technical expert, and Phil Jones Associates, who are doing the feasibility study for the design, are bound to have better answers. But the main point of the alternative proposal is that it's a low-speed environment. The problem with the official proposal from Southwark is that it encourages higher speeds through the junction - partly because of the change of priority, which makes it easy for cars to come fast down Calton Avenue, but also because everyone is segregated by their own separate light phase, which will encourage queueing cars to race through before/as the lights go red. The trend all over London is to move to lower speeds and more interaction between road-users, and we need a junction that makes it clear (through whatever design features are necessary) that cars give way to cyclists and pedestrians. (What's on the website is only a sketch and a starting point.) Yes, take your point about a zebras. But there are already two zebra crossings nearby, one of them used by very small children from the Infants school. You're right that drivers (and cyclists) don't always stop. But they don't always stop at red lights, either. So, again, we need to build a junction that makes cars slow down rather than speed up. The cycle lane round the whole junction could be extended to make the Quietway cycle path really clear, and there certainly could, should and ought to be 'tiger' crossings (with maybe a toucan crossing?) that allow both pedestrians and cyclists to have priority. Your last point is right, too. No way should a new design for a junction put in extra pedestrian crossing stages (especially at a junction where there are two schools with primary-aged children) just to increase capacity for cars.

Neighbouring Herne Hill - community action is live and well... http://www.hernehill.org.uk/news/herne-hill-cross-roads

It's hard to decide whether the final design of the new junction will be better or worse for cyclists and pedestrians because the lights still aren't right, and the new cycling features are still missing. From what I've heard, this is all down to TfL. Why the delay? Isn't safety at this junction important?

@mikeb Love your post. Thank you. At the very least, there could be a wooden bench so that we can sit and watch the coaches trying not to plough into all the waiting cyclists on East Dulwich Grove...

Well said @Woodwarde. I don't live on the doorstep either, but I do care about what the middle of Dulwich Village looks like, because I don't want the whole of London to look exactly the same. AND I care about how and when deliveries will be made AND I don't want the new store open 24/7. Since the S. G. Smith planning application was pushed through despite very vocal opposition to ever more huge and expensive houses (which the area does NOT need), I don't have any faith in the Dulwich Estate caring about anything other than maximising profits for its beneficiaries i.e. the already well-off independent schools. (It SHOULD care about the impact on the local community of its decisions, but it doesn't, and it's probably time we all got together and forced it to.) So I think it's up to us all, regardless of what the Dulwich Estate thinks, to say to Sainsbury's what we want and don't want in the middle of Dulwich Village. Which is worth looking after, for everyone's sake,

Sorry, edhistory, I don't know who the independent assessor is. Waiting to find out...when we finally see the interim safety audit...

Thank you, James Barber, for chasing the interim safety audit. I wonder about the delay, though. What 'finishing touches' do Southwark officers need to make to a report on junction safety written by an independent assessor?

Not sure about the joint traffic report, James Barber. But Charter School East Dulwich is certainly commissioning one, and I've heard they're going to put up the outline brief on the school website. Very important that the school talks to local residents about how it will discourage teachers from driving in. As everyone has said here, the pupils will all be walking.

The independent safety audit of the junction as it is now still hasn't been released by Southwark. This seems very strange.

@curmudgeon An independent safety study of the junction the way it is now is in existence. It questions the sharp turn from Townley to EDG. But the study hasn't yet been released by Southwark. There is still a delay on linking the lights to all the other junctions, and in adding the cycle features. It will probably be November before all this happens. As @Zebedee Tring says, it's sad that Southwark didn't listen to concerns about the sharp turn from Townley to EDG before they built it. It's also not ideal to have the junction lights and cycle features only half-finished for three months.

@bawdy-nan If you give Calton Avenue the priority, I'm pretty sure cars will behave will less consideration. At the moment, because Court Lane has the priority, people have to slow right down and, as you say, indicate, be very cautious and use eye contact. That's exactly how we want cars to behave at this difficult and congested junction. Yes, it can be improved. Definitely should be improved, I agree, for both cyclists and pedestrians. But it feels to me as if TfL engineers haven't given the complexity much thought. Will giving Calton Avenue the priority make it better or worse as a Quietway for less confident cyclists? How does it all link with Townley Road and the tailbacks and congestion that already exist on Calton Avenue?

@rch Here are the four TfL draft designs for the junction of Court Lane and Dulwich Village http://turneyandburbage.org.uk/2015/09/24/dulwich-village-junction-possible-redesigns-photos-of-drawings-for-discussion/ Southwark didn't want to circulate the draft designs more widely, so a resident took pictures on a mobile phone. Basically, they all give priority to Calton Avenue, and two of them make Court Lane one-way. (As far as I know, we weren't told how far up Court Lane the proposal for one-way traffic extends. Also, there had been no modelling as to where traffic would go e.g. up minor residential roads? on to Woodwarde Road?) There also seems to have been no attempt to link this junction to congestion or capacity at other junctions, particularly....Townley Road. There's discussion about all this on the Quietway thread, too.