Demo about lollipop people in East Dulwich (27th June)

[dulwichmum]

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[dulwichmum]

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[Marmora Man]

Three points:

1. Agree entirely this should be in the East Dulwich area.

2. The child that was killed and the one that was injured - were the accidents in any way attributable to a lack of a lollipop person? If not this is redundant information. Shroud waving is always a poor argument.

3. What is wrong with parents escorting their children to school - that's what my wife and I did 15 years ago, and what a number of parents do in my local ED area - altho' there is a lollipop person also on duty at the local school. Which is a doubling up of care.

I work in healthcare - many are opposing the "cuts" there using shroud waving tactics - without considering how the service could be improved or responsibility shifted to individuals and patients, many of whom would relish taking control of their own life and care.

I believe the safety of children is a parental responsibility - achieved by personal supervision, appropriate training and, eventually, a gradual handover of responsibility from parent to child at an appropriate age. This may seem harsh - but, as older readers will be aware, I don't think government or the state should be made responsible for areas that are more properly the responsibility of an individual or family.

[Moos]

Dulwichmum, I didn't move it but I'm guessing it got moved because it's not ED specific but affects all of Southwark.

Why not 'report this message' and ask for it to be moved back? Seems as though you have a good case.

Not sure why there's a duplicate thread in the Family Room, though.

[Administrator]

dulwichmum Wrote:

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> Why has this thread ended up in the Lounge?

Your title was in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and didn't say what it was about so was moved.

> What has happened to this forum?

Not a lot

> This is a serious issue - and this topic does not belong in The Lounge.

Agreed, you should have made the title relevant so we didn't move it to the Lounge.

> There was a child killed on the way to school on

> Peckham Rye last year and another seriously

> injured when hit by a bus near Brockwell Park.

> This is a thread about a demonstration tomorrow.

I am aware of the children killed and I am now aware that this is about a demo tomorrow.

> No wonder no-one comes on this forum any more.

5,300 visitors here yesterday, you must mean be referring to the West Dulwich forum.

I've made the title more appropriate and moved it back to the ED issues section. Good luck with the demonstration.

[dulwichmum]

-- moved topic --

[PeckhamRose]

Will this affect me getting to Brixton on the 37 for an 11.00am meeting with a client?

If so I'll leave earlier.

[dulwichmum]

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[david_carnell]

Oh you pompous, self agrandising arse.

The forum suited you just fine when you could launch a semblance of half a career out of it, didn't it?! Then it was all sweetness and light. But if someone so much as dared prick your bubble of hype, listen to you scweam and scweam.

The reason no one visits your blog anymore is staring you in the face. Forum traffic is just fine.

And here's an idea - all the fuck you private schools in the village can stick their hands in their pockets and cough up some community cash for their own goddamn lollipop person saving the rest of us some money.

[katie1997]

I'd like to wish good luck to the lollipop demo tomorrow. Seems like they are going for easy targets though I do agree that people could volunteer on a rota for once a month if they feel spurned into action and want to put the children's safety first and foremost (whilst still campaigning for the retention of the service).

and dulwichmum, don't take it personally that your thread was moved. Some kind person tried to reunite the forgetful residents of Crystal Palace Rd with their cutlery and plates following a Big Lunch event. That thread was moved to the Lounge and swiftly disappeared. Mind you, how many places have a free local forum to remind them they have left their bone handled Sheffield cutlery from Aunt Agatha at Eric and Maude's next door? :))

There's also been a thread or two about the ED servicemen and women who served in the Great War moved to the Lounge.

Perhaps those threads didn't have clear titles to make it evident they should stay in this section or something...but anyway, this place seems a tad untidier since SeanMac (RIP) left *sob*

Fair enough though, its a free resource.

[Administrator]

I do a sweep of the forum a few times a day where I tidy the place up. I move posts based purely on the title because I don't have time to read the 500+ daily posts to make sure the content is correct e.g. a title saying "servicemen in 1864" goes in the Lounge, a title saying "East Dulwich servicemen need help" gets moved to the ED issues/gossip section.

It's a small amount of effort to make the title relevant, it helps us keep the forum cleaner, working smoothly and easier to use for everyone else. It's a shame that some users think they should their own rules and have a go at those that help them.

[Jeremy]

DM going way over the top there, threads get moved every day, sometimes admin may be overzealous or get it wrong... it's not personal.

Anyway, the problem is that every single spending cut is bound to annoy or inconvenience people to some extent. Katie's volunteer idea seems sensible, surely amongst all these schools you mention, there must be enough parents who can give up an hour a month.

[Penguin68]

Part of the earlier thread on this forum suggested that until there was 'proof' that drivers stopped at traffic lights (we are talking about the removal of lollipop people from already controlled crossings) then they should remain. No one is talking, as I understand it, about removing lollipop people from crossings whee they are the only safe-crossing resource. I would ask what proof dulwichmum has that people do not stop at traffic lights. Certainly, at the time of day that the lollipop people are operating a substantial amount of traffic is drivers taking kids to school, so they are likely to be sensitive to children crossing.

My experience of the crossing at the Townley Road intersection with Lordship Lane is that the belt-and-braces approach of lollipop and traffic light was completely pointless - the lollipop person (sensibly) worked with the lights, but that isn't a light at other times that I have noticed people 'jumping'. It used to annoy me to see this when my daughter (who was lightly struck by a car once crossing the road to school, but suffered no serious injury, just shock) had to cross that road to her school with no crossing support whatsoever. That was somewhere which now does have support, (eventually) but is a crossing directly opposite school gates on a busy road.

I wonder, she hasn't declared this, whether dulwichmum has children who would be effected by this proposal herself?

[Sheepdog]

Surely the hard done by motorists who have suffered unnecessary journey disruptions at the hands of lollipop personell rushing into the middle of the road as soon as a child hoves into view should have their say at this demonstration. as a taxpayer, and motorist, I have no problem at all with a reduction in lollipop men/ladies.

[ratty]

Sheepdog Wrote:

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> Surely the hard done by motorists who have

> suffered unnecessary journey disruptions at the

> hands of lollipop personell rushing into the

> middle of the road as soon as a child hoves into

> view should have their say at this demonstration.

> as a taxpayer, and motorist, I have no problem at

> all with a reduction in lollipop men/ladies.

1/10

[Otta]

Indeed, a poor attempt. David, you're pretty harsh to DM, although I can see your point. I'm surprised at you suggesting the schools should fund something that the council really shouldn't be cutting, especially not to save a pittance, which this effectively is.

[EDmummy]

Lollipop lady on sick leave at corner of CP Road and Heber, child in collision with car yesterday. Just prior to this incident a car was backing from Heber Rd to CP Road at exactly the spot where the lollipop lady should have been and where many children cross. Missed me and my boys by half a metre.

Is it true that the council proposal is to only remove lollipop people from controlled crossings or is it all of them? Can someone confirm?

With regard to the lollipop people working outside Jags and Alleyns, I would have thought the schools could provide a contribution towards the cost.

[david_carnell]

I'm merely suggesting that I think it's a cheek for private schools anywhere to make use of council funded provisions. They aren't shy of a few bob, they can fund their own lollipop person and save the rest of us some money. If you opt out of the state sector don't come crying when the state doesn't provide services for you.

I do, of course, have sympathy with the state primary schools in the village that are also affected. And I agree that if Southwark council was more effective in collecting its council tax (as highlighted by the Evening Standard this week) then vital services could be saved.

And I don't think I was harsh at all. The women has flounced more times than Elton. It's pathetic.

[aspidistra]

David, I think it is the state infants and primaries in the Village that are the main beneficiaries, and would be the main losers. By secondary age, kids can look after themselves. (I walked 3 miles along country lanes without footpaths by the age of 9, and so did many others I know.)

Agreed that any crossings attached to private schools should be paid for by them. After all, they charge people (e.g. a local charity) squillions for using their premises.

[katie1997]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> DM going way over the top there, threads get moved

> every day, sometimes admin may be overzealous or

> get it wrong... it's not personal.

>

> Anyway, the problem is that every single spending

> cut is bound to annoy or inconvenience people to

> some extent. Katie's volunteer idea seems

> sensible, surely amongst all these schools you

> mention, there must be enough parents who can give

> up an hour a month.

Oh dear Jeremy, sorry I have to confess it wasn't my idea. It was from reading some of the more constructive posts on the other thread on this subject that seems to have, erm, been moved.

[trinity]

I'm not sure that using volunteers would actually save any money. Presumably they would need to attend a training course, be crb checked etc. By the time you do that for the 20 or so volunteers needed it would probably cost something similar to employing 1 'real' lollipop person.

My children and I regularly use both crossings. Both crossings are dangerous. In both cars queue to turn right but because of the volume of traffic they can't do this until the lights have changed against them. That means that, at both junctions cars are 'legitimately' driving over the pedestrian phase of the lights. The children see the green man and think it's safe to cross. It is not because the cars that were queuing are now moving. This is the point when the lollipop people save the children from accidents - by either stopping the children or the traffic. Without their intervention children are much more likely to start crossing on the green man when it is just not safe to do so.

[david_carnell]

aspidistra Wrote:

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> David, I think it is the state infants and

> primaries in the Village that are the main

> beneficiaries, and would be the main losers. By

> secondary age, kids can look after themselves. (I

> walked 3 miles along country lanes without

> footpaths by the age of 9, and so did many others

> I know.)

>

> Agreed that any crossings attached to private

> schools should be paid for by them. After all,

> they charge people (e.g. a local charity)

> squillions for using their premises.

Apidistra - I agree with both your points entirely. I was basing my assumption on the original rant by DulwichMum that included the darling cherubs attending "Dulwich Village Infants, The Hamlet School, Bessemer Grange, JAPS pre prep, JAPS middle school, JAGS, Alleyns Junior School, Alleyns School and The Charter School". My reckoning makes half of those private.

If the children attending those schools are making use of council-funded lollipop people then I think there is another issue at play - those schools could and should make a financial commitment to the community by funding their own or contributing towards the councils costs. I don't think that is wildly unfair.

[Marmora Man]

If the children attending those schools are making use of council-funded lollipop people then I think there is another issue at play - those schools could and should make a financial commitment to the community by funding their own or contributing towards the councils costs. I don't think that is wildly unfair.

My, right of centre, libertarian instincts would support fully this approach.

[Penguin68]

It is of course true that the families who send children to private schools are not rate/ council tax payers, nor do they pay taxes to fund state education for others, nor indeed do their children in any way deserve to live. Or have I (and others) got this wrong?

Are lollipop people there to protect state educated children only, or to protect children who live locally, the children of council tax payers, for instance?

Perhaps lollipop people should be checking whether the childfen crossing are bona-fide state educated scions of council tax payers, and if not pushing them in front of oncoming vehicles.

To put it another way again) - are lollipop people about protecting local childen crossing roads, or they are about protecting enrolled state school pupils - are they the servants of the public or the schools?

[StraferJack]

well, if lollipop people are being cut it's a moot point who they are meant to serve