Bike Hangers anyone?

[worldwiser]

I think the bike hangars, much as they're a great idea, were designed by the same person who designed the Southwark bins - to cause as much of a clash against the urban landscape as possible.

[edhistory]

This was in a recent nearby planning application:

[edhistory]

This was in a recent nearby planning application:

[bil]

?72 +VAT (but less if subsidised by the council) is too expensive. The charge in Lambeth is just over half the price at ?42 per space.

[Dulwich61]

Amusing confusion emerging in this thread between "hangar" and "hanger". Leads to two totally different lines of discussion.

[wulfhound]

rendelharris Wrote:

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> Porsche Cayennes and Range Rover Vogues

edcam Wrote:

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> These things are so ugly. There are many higher priorities.

YES.

[macutd]

I still think that resurfacing the roads and pavements should be a higher priority.

[first mate]

I thnk many of us do. We need to get basic infrastructure right before we start funding additional items. It is basic common sense. Problem is councillors and politicians feel they have nothing to gain from quietly sorting out the obvious and so things slide.

[rch]

I totally agree with you guys.

I was dismayed to hear ED councillors allocating ?30,000 in CGS underspend funds to bike hangars at Monday night's DCC meeting.

I can't tell from the disjointed public reports whether this is in addition to the approx ?25,000 allocated to bike hangars at the last DCC meeting or whether the ?25,000 was upped to ?30,000.

But this is definitely in addition to the approx ?50,000 of CGS, in total, which has been allocated to Melbourne Grove "traffic calming measures" in the southern part of the road which has an average speed of 19mph. BTW, the conversion of the existing speed cushions into speed humps has now been approved so an engineer is now being paid to work on the detailed design.

So I think we may be looking at almost ?100,000 of devolved public money in East Dulwich being spent on speed humps and bike hangars?

This is why I just want to scream when I hear the excuse of "budget cuts" being used to block works and services that the community is continuously campaigning for...

[edhistory]

Can these people be named?

[rch]

It wasn't specified at the meeting who had decided on the underspend allocations.

Normally, all three ward councillors have to agree on how the devolved CGS/ Neighbourhood Fund allocations are made. Otherwise, a majority agreement can be made if two councillors outvote one councillor on a decision - this is one reason why there are supposedly three ward councillors in each ward, so that there can't be a deadlock (although this will change next year when the ward boundaries change and some wards will only have two cllrs).

Back when I was a Village ward councillor, we had such a difficult time agreeing to devolved expenditure decisions, that we would often split the devolved funding three ways so that each councillor could at least implement some of the community projects that they felt strongly about.

What worries me now is that it appears that a lot of the community bids are disapproved, but councillors appear to be approving funding for their own bids. I've queried this and apparently this is acceptable, although I seem to remember that councillors couldn't make their own bids in the past, so the constitution must have changed.

Having said that, I always worked with a ward resident or a community group on funding projects as I believed this to be more inclusive. On the third hand, Village ward has more active and vocal community groups and RAs than East Dulwich, presumably because residents in East Dulwich have gotten so fed up...

[bargee99]

I am reluctant to get drawn back into this debate having expressed my opinion before. However, Jeremy Corbyn in today's PMQ's blames all of the recent tragedies on cuts to council grants. When we see such a gross waste of public money as these kind of schemes, when there are many more urgent priorities, simply because they are councillor's pet projects makes me mad. Council oversight of all building projects around the area have been complained about on this forum forever. Do we actually think more money would make them do their jobs any better or simply waste even more?

[edhistory]

> Council oversight of all building projects around the area have been complained about on this forum forever

This is why the Southwark Council employees need to be identified.

[rch]

Totally agree with you, Barg.

My experience as a company director, used to dealing with "budget cuts" and priorities, made me horrified at what I witnessed in local government management. I could go on about this for hours, and could give many shocking examples if it wasn't for ex-councillor confidentiality issues.

Identifying council employees doesn't help... I challenged many senior officers in my time (leading to actually the worsening of some issues), but the one overriding factor in local government is "employee rights"... gathering evidence to prove incompetence is extremely difficult and then an officer can't be sacked for doing a bad job - they have to be given second and third chances and an "opportunity" to be "retrained". This then becomes dis-incentivising for the better officers, who inevitably get fed up and leave.

One thing that would help is if the councillor position was reviewed and designated as a full time position with a salary that a human being can live on, as this would attract more competent and experienced candidates. It really is almost impossible for someone with a fulltime job and a family to be an effective councillor. The workload is meant to be shared between the three ward members, but this almost never happens.

In the meantime, we residents in East Dulwich need to figure out a way to be able to stick together... probably a discussion for another thread.

[edhistory]

Where are the documents on the Southwark Council web-site?

[rch]

It's a looong, complicated and patchy process, edhistory.

If you start with this link to all the recent DCC minutes and agenda reports, start by working your way through the March 25 and June 26th reports:-

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=176

Bear in mind, though, that the various ward recent underspend decisions were only made verbally so the written confirmation will only be buried in a public document a week before the next DCC meeting in Sept...

I can explain some of the references if needed (although there are other layers that are more cryptic unless one has been privy to background discussion), but I don't have much time to type at the moment.

[James Barber]

Hi bargee99,

With regards to the recent tragedy of Grenfell Tower I think the public inquiry will attribute many many causes to this. Changes in fire measures in 2005. It is hard to contemplate how a renovation of the tower spending ?8.6M or ?72,000 per flat was too little.

Added to that the vandalism of dry and wet risers, vandalised fire doors making the only fire escape stair case impassable to so many, not reporting the original fire for 35mins after it took hold, large quantities of combustible materials placed in hallway lobbies. As well as the now obvious cladding system.

Local bugets. All three East Dulwich councillors agreed to reallocate funds to a study of a proposed new zebra crossing on Whatelely Road, planning enforcement along Lordship lane, new BikeHangars.

On the last point. If we help encourage more people to cycle and drive a little less then our road surfaces will last a little longer.

With regards to those pavement and road surfaces. We have ?33,333 of devolved budget to fix these locally. We've been waiting since March to allowed to allocate these funds - the administration is dragging its feet letting us do this. But I'd welcome everyone's suggestions. Lordship Lane - but in a way where businesses don't have to close for any time losing revenue as they're struggling to cope with the new business rates.

[first mate]

James,

Sounds like less is being spent on pavements than bike hangars which is crazy. ?33 k is not going to mend many pavements is it?

[worldwiser]

Another completely wasteful visit by Conway this morning. Huge trucks and plant came down to Crawthew Grove to fix two potholes. Why didn't they fix the 21 other potholes at the same time? Presumably so they can charge more money to the council for inevitably having to return to do the rest of the work. What a total a complete waste of everyone's time and money.

[edhistory]

Who is the Southwark Council employee who authorises payment of F.M.Conway invoices?

[rch]

I haven't seen this myself but, from past experience, it's sounds like these were emergency "interim" repairs.

Basically, Highway Legislation specifies that potholes of a certain depth are "Health and Safety" hazards and must be addressed immediately, even if just as a temporary measure. I can't remember the depth offhand (been awhile since I've done this)... I think footpaths are 2 inches, roads might be 4 inches?

So a schedule will be made for temporary repairs (usually a plug of tarmac) to be done in severals roads in an area, which is why the truck is so big as it will be driving up and down roads in an entire area bunging in tarmac plugs all day. It's actually more cost-effective to do emergency repairs like this and then schedule more formal repairs for an area later on, as they are different crews using different materials.

If you haven't been given tarmac plugs, but had squares cut in and backfilled, then tarmaced, then it will be a proper H&S permanent repair with the smaller potholes scheduled to be done later.

The next stage will be for the proper permanent repairs to be done on all the potholes in the road... there will be a schedule somewhere of where the repairs are to be done. Bear in mind that permanent works can be delayed if another area is deemed to have greater issues developing (Dulwich is often bounced out of the queue).

So, the easiest thing to do is to track down the relevant council highway officer and explain what has happened and ask him for the date when the permanent repairs are due to be done on the whole road, then keep bugging him if the works get delayed.

It used to be possible to call the department directly, but now everything has gone online, so you may have to email [email protected] or there may be a direct address for [email protected]

Otherwise call 020 7525 2000 and hang on until you can talk to a customer service person who can explain the best way to proceed.

Because I'm a geek, I'll have a look next time I'm down there...

[bargee99]

Hi James,

It was the comments about Grenfell Tower by Corbyn and McDonnell that made me revisit this thread. As you point out the changes to fire measures were started in 2005 under a large majority Labour Government now conveniently forgotten. Again I agree with you that an expenditure of ?72,000 per flat is a large expenditure and hardly scrimping. The terrible results are possibly caused by mismanagement or simply by incompetence but most definitely not austerity. The behaviour of K & C council now is simply beyond belief.

Back to the topic of local budgets. Many of us think that the cost of the bike hangers is simply too high. ?50,000 to hang up 60 bikes in the street! As a sole carer for a 94 year old parent I simply want her to be able to walk on the pavements safely. Come on mate, to suggest that these bikes will make any difference to the wear and tear of the roads is a stretch by anyone?s imagination.

I feel your pain about local budgets and their restrictions. I worked for 40 years in Medical Research in a London University before retiring a few years ago. Many years back we wanted to purchase an expensive piece of equipment. We offered to manage our budget for a couple of years to be able to afford it the same as any good household would. We were told very firmly that was not an option and if we underspent this year our budget the following year would be cut because we obviously didn?t need it all. For the equipment we needed we would have to apply for a special grant and hope for the best. The spend it or lose it policy still seems dominant in all walks of public finance even now. How can that encourage responsible spending? Surely this needs a massive shakeup?

About 10 or 12 years ago, time gets a bit distorted once you retire, the University decided that all departments needed a business manager. The business manager then decided they needed an accounts manager. The accounts manager decided they needed a grant manager. Most higher echelons of promotion in the public sector require a person to be managing other people as part of the job description. Hence the creation of this pyramid scheme of employing people. This I also believe to be endemic to all walks of the public sector. Maybe this explains my cynicism of public services actually being run for the benefit of the public and not the staff. Not much encouragement either when the very top staff of universities, health services, government departments, MP?s and councils all seem to have found the money tree for pay rises of 20% or more over recent years.

[rch]

My understanding is that all the devolved underspend is gone now, Barge. Allocations voted for by cllrs and formally confirmed at the June 26th DCC meeting.

Spare resources are being spent and locked down because the ward boundary changes are due to formally be implemented by next May 2018, with the phasing process starting in October.

We're not even going to be called East Dulwich ward anymore, we'll be designated as Goose Green ward, yuck.

I totally share your view of local government protocol... one sees so much money being wasted on "infrastructure" and internal "priorities" that the actual public only gets leftover breadcrumbs.

This is why I keep talking about us leaving the union and becoming the Peoples Republic of Dulwich... Dexit?

In the interim, it's worth exploring how much we can circumvent obstacles via the Dulwich Society, as per the other thread.

[bargee99]

Hi Robin,

Dexit. I like it. Let's sign up Wolfie Smith. Wolfie's revolutionary Tooting Popular Front can't touch East Dulwich or is that Goose Green? As you say. Yuuk.

[edhistory]

bargee99 Wrote:

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> Back to the topic of local budgets. Many of us

> think that the cost of the bike hangers is simply

> too high. ?50,000 to hang up 60 bikes in the

> street!

But have you seen the "I Love West Dulwich" banners soon to be replicated (with different designs) in North Cross Road?