East Dulwich Pavement and Road Repairs

[rch]

As per our previous discussions, I'm attempting to pick all your collective brains regarding pavement and road repairs so that we can campaign to have residents' repair priorities addressed.

There is going to be a useful presentation on the existing Highways Devolved Budget by Highway Engineers at the next Dulwich Community Council (DCC) meeting, so this will be a good time to have an open public discussion.

The meeting is taking place this Saturday afternoon, Sept 9th, from 1-3pm at the Dulwich Library (upstairs meeting room). There hasn't been much public notice, so I'm not sure if I can attend, but I/we can follow up with emails to the Highway Officer and DCC Chair (Andy Simmons). I have a funny feeling that the engineers are also following our EDF discussions (hi, guys!).

The areas at the top of my current request list is Lordship Lane pavements (particularly the high footfall areas along the main "Destination" shopping parade) and Chesterfield Grove pavements... these will almost certainly have to be done section by section over time for budgetary reasons. I took a couple of photos of Lordship after the most recent heavy rain to show some of the "ponding issues" that actually block pedestrian access, which I'll provide.

I'm also aware that Ashbourne Grove and a section of East Dulwich Grove also has the badly laid dysfunctional paving slabs used on Chesterfield (to replace the imperial slabs some time ago... can anyone remember the date?), so I'm going to flag those as well.

I'm aware that a section of Chesterfield (I think in front of 1-60 Chesterfield?) is going to be replaced in mid-September (it's now so bad that it's even showing up on the council's "algorithm" assessment system as needing replacement!).

Am happy to have detailed forum discussions on these issues (and am looking at tree replacement as well), also let me know if there are other areas that are bad and I'll try to walk around and have a look.

The Cleaner Greener Safer fund is also being launched at this meeting, so we can maybe look at topping up the Highways Budget with CGS if a specific section allocation needs a small top-up.

Here's a link to this Saturday's DCC agenda in case anyone wants to attend:-

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/g5847/Agenda%20frontsheet%20Saturday%2009-Sep-2017%2013.00%20Dulwich%20Community%20Council.pdf?T=0

[Abe_froeman]

I don;t know if its cheaper and therefore easier to fix periodically, but less robust, but the newish tarmac surface on the pavement of Crawthew Grove is very smooth and could be a good quick solution for LL.

[rch]

Interesting point, Abe, I'll go down and have a look at Crawthew.

One of the things I've noticed walking around is that two long-term tarmac pavements in Village ward have recently been upgraded to pavement slabs, but only on one side of the road - Aysgarth Road and Lytcott Grove.

I'm guessing that the new Highways protocol is based around all pavements being fit out with the same unified paving slabs across the borough.

The reason why Lordship is such a mess is that the imperial paving slabs got replaced quickly with metric slabs, but they were literally just switched over without any backfilling, etc. Later on, Chesterfield/Ashbourne/EDG were also refitted with metric slabs in order to comply with new regulations, but weird slabs were used as a temporary measure. It was intended to go back and refit properly, but this never happened as highway budgets were directed to higher profile areas.

I think the protocol is that paving must be replaced every 20 years, but sooner if there is a certain amount of sunken or broken slabs. There becomes a point where patched repairs over time are uneconomical... this is what the algorithm takes into account.

[rch]

Well, I made it to the DCC meeting on Saturday afterall and it was actually a really useful meeting.

For the first time, council Highway funding is being opened up for public residents' bids as part of the Cleaner Greener Safer fund.

The Devolved Highway Fund is set at ?76,190 per ward and is to cover bids for footways and carriageways resurfacing, traffic calming, dropped kerbs, trees, grass verges, and even cycle hangars.

This fund is in addition to the CGS fund (capital spending) which is set at ?89,524 per ward and ?30,000 per ward of Neighbourhood Fund (which covers revenue spending).

The bidding process is closes on October 23rd, there's more information here:-

http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/info/200256/cleaner_greener_safer

[rch]

I was pleased to be informed by the Chair (hi, Andy!) that the CGS amount for all the Dulwich wards is now the same as all wards across the borough (the deprivation index calculation has been dropped).

So now all we have to do is get residents to agree which highway improvements are top priority. The more residents who stick together, the more likely the relevant bids are to be approved.

Therefore, if anyone feels strongly about anything, let's have an open discussion, as many ward councillors are actually reading the forum, even if they don't post.

[Mick Mac]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> I don;t know if its cheaper and therefore easier

> to fix periodically, but less robust, but the

> newish tarmac surface on the pavement of Crawthew

> Grove is very smooth and could be a good quick

> solution for LL.

Tarmac ! I hope not.

Considering we have been waiting so long for pavement action, I'd hope we would have a proper paving upgrade.

Brockwell park entrance, and Dulwich Park entrance at Court Lane are good examples of where paving can transform an area

Considering LL is now a centre for outside eating and drinking its a big opportunity to rejuvenate the shop front to kerbside space - it may need a co ordinated approach between owners and council - I don't know

As an example of how it is causing problems, this Saturday about 11am, a little boy, fell off the side of his stabiliser bike a few yards in front of me on uneven slabs, and with his mum pushing a buggy with another baby, and therefore unable to help him quickly I, [ Hero :) ] had to pick him up quickly before he landed squarely in the puddle, but not without him getting quite wet, and this was on a sunny day.

Although a flat surface is what we need, something aesthetically pleasing would be a bonus, which will lift the area up a notch. And not tarmac please.

[rch]

Lordship Lane is now what's called a Destination Area, which means it has higher footfall and therefore higher priority for council funding improvements.

But a big part of the problem is that a lot of the issues are not properly documented, so it keeps falling down the council's internal funding priority list.

I asked the Highways Manager at the meeting to explain the "algorithm" which calculates how internal highway repair funds are prioritised and it's so complicated (consisting of the age of the installation and reported potholes, sinking, etc) that I met with him in the hallway after the meeting and gave him photos of the astonishing amount of rainwater ponding that I took in some locations after the last heavy rainstorm. (I would be interested to know where the puddle in your above account was, Mick Mac.)

Normally the new pavement installation will consist of the same predetermined slabs across relevant sections of footfall (in the case of Lordship, they will use the same granite slabs that were used in the section starting a North Cross a few years ago for continuity) and then tarmac or another type of material around the trees.

What we have been trying to do for years is to get the council to experiment with a material called KBI Flexipave, which looks like tarmac (although it's made with recycled tyres), but is permeable so it won't create puddles around the complicated tree roots. Here's a link to the KBI site:-

http://www.kbiuk.co.uk/

I actually got awarded a CGS grant for ?2000 last year to try a Flexipave experiment, but it's only enough funding to cover a small treepit... I've been going around in circles with the council for months to agree a treepit in Lordship Lane that we can try this material with.

So, I'm hoping that we can get a Devolved Highways bid approved to address sections of Lordship Lane in sequence until the entire parade is resurfaced in one form or another.

I'll try to post some of my photos at some point...

p.s. BTW, St Christophers has retarmacked it's private curtilage now, so all the potholes there are gone. When we did some paving schemes in Village ward a few years ago, we used council funding to contribute to half of the costs of repaving the private curtilage outside the shops in matching material for continuity along a parade, but this could get very expensive to do in Lordship. Might try to investigate...

[Mick Mac]

> (I would be interested to know where the puddle in your above account was, Mick Mac.)

I think it was approximately outside Boulangerie Jade / Oddonos

[rch]

Thanks Mick, I think I know where you mean... will try to photograph.

FYI, my understanding of the highways repair "algorithm" is that the number of resident complaints are taken into account in the calculations, so we all need to formally whinge more frequently!

[rch]

Here's a photo I took of the awful state of Lordship a couple weeks ago... this "puddle" runs between Bassano and Dudrich Mews on Lordship, where it's been impossible to walk down the pavement for years now.

You can see where the council has tarmacked a section of it, but even the new tarmac has dropped. It's tempting to blame the ponding on the trees, but there is a street light in the middle of it and even the road on the other side of the street light is flooded.

Yes, I'm sad... I'll shut up now!

[Abe_froeman]

That is shocking. The council can't even use their normal excuse that it's because of the shop forecourts.

[worldwiser]

Don't know how the section of Crawthew that was done got chosen. It was fine. The beginning section from the junction with LL to the corner is absolutely awful on both sides. In winter patches of ice build up all over the place because of successive poorly made utility repairs. Can this be added to the list?

[rch]

Yes, Abe... maybe you can now understand the frustration of having my CGS bid to repair sections of Lordship pavements refused in favour of cycle hangars. I even have more photos of other locations of sunken pavements... it's usually only the rocking paving stones that get "repaired".

Hi worldwiser... I keep meaning to go down and look at Crawthew, so yes, will add it to the list to flag, if nothing else.

From memory (someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), repairs to utility service bodges are the responsibility of the utility service, but it gets so patchy and time consuming for our highway engineers to re-re-re-enforce this in sections where there are multiple services that it tends to drop off the list. Conversely, it costs a lot of money for the council to go in and address the multiple utility service bodges in one section. So, let's see if the Devolved Highway Budget can be used in this way so that internal funds don't have to be used for something that the utility companies should be responsible for.

[rch]

Hi Mick Mac... is this the dropped pavement that formed the puddle that you were talking about?

[rch]

And worldwiser... I made it down to Crawthew, as well.

I've attached a photo of the south section starting from Lordship... you can definitely see how the multiple patches have sunk. They're only about a quarter to half an inch deep, which isn't technically a trip hazard (thereby not qualifying for replacement just yet), but you can see how the multiple patches retain the water and would freeze.

The good thing is that it's tarmac, which won't be too expensive to replace a whole section of.

I definitely think a bid should be put in for the whole section to be redone with the Devolved Highways Funding, but I suspect that it would be more likely to be approved if local Crawthew residents applied instead of me (I apply for so much stuff that my bids tend to get fobbed off).

Do you want to have a go at applying? Go to the link below and follow the instructions to bid... give the location and stress that the multiple patches freeze up, which aren't getting addressed. You might want to ask if it's better to replace the tarmac or even upgrade to paving slabs so that engineers could investigate and make an assessment.

What do you think? Do you want to give it a go applying yourself?? The deadline is Oct 23rd. Here's the link:-

http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/info/200256/cleaner_greener_safer

Let me know... I can try to help talk you through it if necessary. It would be really good if you could also get three or four other residents to back you up.

Power to the People!

[rch]

Hi again Mick Mac...

Okay, ignore everything I said above, as I walked by Jade/Oddono's again this morning and saw exactly what you were talking about!

I've attached a new photo.

I have now written to [email protected] myself with the photo, asking if this can be escalated as an urgent repair, as the ponding is actually blocking the whole pavement and this small section should be easy to address... I think it would help if you emailed them too, noting that you actually witnessed a child almost falling into the water. The more, the merrier.

I'm curious to see what will happen and how long it will take to get a repair done...

In the meantime, I'll keep putting together a Lordship list for a Devolved Highway Funding bid, but will try to escalate the more serious issues in the interim. If nothing else, our complaints should increase our algorithm calculations.

[worldwiser]

Hi rch, thanks for this. I'll take a look and see if my neighbours will lend their names too. Any particular 'keywords' I should highlight to be taken notice of?!

[rch]

Hi worldwiser, sorry about the delay in replying, life got insane again.

The best thing to do is stress that the tarmac pavement has been disintegrating for some time and is causing trips hazards and needs to be renewed from scratch.

It might have to be done in sections starting from the corner of Lordship, depending on budget availability. I seem to remember when the section in the middle of the road in front of the flats was done ages ago... I think it was decided to do that section first because of the number of residents in the flats (i.e. higher footfall) of which some were disabled.

Also, FYI, I talked to a Crawthew resident on the bus home from Sainsbury's one day and she said they would still like trees along there... I remember being told that the pavement was too narrow for trees, but I'm working on finding a smaller species for narrower pavement widths.

Have you put the bid in yet? I'm starting to work on my bids over the next week before the Oct 23rd deadline hits, so I'll be checking in more frequently...

[kibris]

I think we should cut all them trees down and have a nice long footway,as all them trees are pushing up the footway as can be seen in the photo and when you walk down LSL so we dont need anymore of them trees

[lavender27]

Thanks to Southwark Council for fixing the pavement outside St Christopher's Hospice , (if it was them) I blinked and missed the repairs, well done.

(my foot has healed,thanks)

[Mick Mac]

rch Wrote:

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> Hi again Mick Mac...

>

> Okay, ignore everything I said above, as I walked

> by Jade/Oddono's again this morning and saw

> exactly what you were talking about!

>

> I've attached a new photo.

>

>

IT SEEMS WE ARE FINALLY GETTING NEW PAVEMENTS ON LL ! WOOHOO - THANKS TO THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE