Penguin68

There is also I believe some evidence that students are choosing to go to universities, where they do, closer to home so as to avoid additional costs by living at home. Personally I think this is a mistake - being an undergraduate is a first chance for independence - but if economics and costs are making this so the demand for accommodation such as this will again be weakened.

It only counts as housing as regards the Southwark shortfall of affordable homes if it isn't student one room bedsits for short term rent!

People do of course use the station. And the South Circular is one of the last roads left open in SE22.

In an area which (thank goodness) is stuffed with good and acceptable restaurants (East, West and Central Dulwich) Belair would have to be a real destination - hence I suggested the need for a very high quality offering which would encourage visitors to go in search of it. A restaurant next to a station is a very different beast than a country house down a side street. I know about it because I live, and have lived for nearly 40 years, pretty close. And I have gone there on a number of occasions in its different guises. Sometimes with great enjoyment, other times less so. But for a site like that to work it must deliver its promise, which because of the nature and cost of the site will have to be both high-end and not very crowded, which means high prices and probably aiming for at least twice the covers occupation most nights and some lunches. Frankly, it can't live on local trade alone (because there are too many good alternatives) - so it has to build a rep for people to travel there, and again and again.

But the bulk of the build is for student accommodation, with just 'some' affordable housing which will, if history is anything to go by, become much less once the scheme is started. Southwark has, I believe, quite a number of empty properties which are not in use. The number of people on Southwark's waiting list is frankly irrelevant to this scheme, which won't touch the surface. This isn't 'new housing' which is visible, but commercially profitable student bedsits (at least, the developers hope it will be commercially profitable).

I had thought it was to the actor Gary Cady, but apologies if that is wrong. The 'problem' with it as a restaurant venue is that it is built, as it were, to offer a 'country house' experience, but it is in an area where there is no passing trade, but where, quite close, there is a plethora of good restaurants. It therefore does not have a compelling niche or offer. When it's the only posh game in town, driving out to a country house venue has obvious attractions, but not when you can readily choose many other offers relatively close. It would only work if it could get a ** or *** Michelin rep, but it's never been able to build that. Hence looking for wedding or more dubious gigs. It has offered good 'nights' (such as night-club style magic performances) but it can't keep up sufficient regularity to build a loyal customer base. Ideally it needs, perhaps, an excellent existing up-market restaurant brand to move there, but again its positioning away from good public transport (West Dulwich doesn't have enough trains) doesn't make a compelling offer in London.

Students don't pay council tax so they will be living on an area to which they make no contribution,other than probably quite low levels of profitability for local businesses and some VAT and possibly tobacco and alcohol duty. Those tax payments go to Central not local government.

Is this your department which is being criticised then?

I think it was rather that the works were destroying the existing under pavement installations which were then needing reinstatement. As this work doesn't seem to be described in the letter I received showing scheduling it wouldn't surprise me if the work was also a surprise to the utilities with under pavement infrastructure who are now rushing to recover the situation. Broadband fibre is easily run (or blown) from 'manhole' flexibility points and doesn't need additional works to allow that. I'm guessing existing copper is being recovered to create more space. So I don't think this is clever planning rather more than TFL works screwing up other utilities who are having to install e.g. new cable chambers because their existing ones have been compromised by the works.

Our current councillors follow a rather opposite course, in my view. They certainly don't respect the views of their electorate.

We receive (should receive) 20-30 items of post a week, some subscription magazines, catalogues and (about a third) normal business mail (personal mail is far less frequent, save over Christmas and birthdays). This tends to arrive in only two (more frequently one) delivery. Magazines are invariably late, often up to a week late. Not good for political weeklies. This has been my 'steady state' position following much worse frequency on the closure of the real ED Delivery Office, and of course Covid. There seems little point in complaining any longer - to anyone. There will be a sudden flurry of mail delivered, of course, in the few days after an MP intervention, and then it falls back into rubbish deliveries. It is a combination of senior management focus on high(er) value parcel and special delivery items (which I do get more regularly) which is a management decision, under-employment (vacancies) of posties and, I believe, extremely poor local management of what resources Royal Mail actually has in Peckham. I don't now believe it is curable. I do believe that no one in Royal Mail management gives a sh*t!

Maybe that just reflects the difficulties land ambulances now have to negotiate our streets.

If they were anticipating foreign students then they may well not be registered to vote! But certainly high student populations can even impact Parliamentary elections, let alone local ones. Wouldn't they be voting in one of the (very) few Southwark wards which have returned non-Labour councilors in the past? Hey ho. Democracy is so last century anyway - as they're finding in the former bastion of the free world. And in our local 'consultation' processes.

Mine was cleared as usual in Underhill. Were other bins cleared in your road or were they all missed? Is the problem to do with the route as a whole, or your bin being missed out on its own? Does it have the right stickers on it? If it is just your bin could you work from home next Tuesday or get someone to monitor why it's being missed if other bins on the route are being collected. The guys on my route seem pretty straight and generally helpful.

Despite the date (and the fact that starting up such a service would likely be illegal) an earlier post, in March, and thus presumably not date related, suggested problems with collection as well as delivery. I had thought to discount this whatever the seasonal intention of the OP.