Friends of Dulwich Square

[Metallic]

Being as how this group managed to lift ?3000 of council grant to run a two day festival at what I still call the junction, during the actual Dulwich Festival, maybe they would like to say who they are?

The day after this grant was approved along with ?6000 for the Dulwich Festival, I and many others received a begging tweet from the council leader saying they needed funds for "Laptops for Learning" for students and children in Southwark. So far raised ?100,000, need another ?50k. 2,500 children in Southwark are at risk of falling behind at school, which is why they need the laptops.

How I wish Southwark could have paid all that money they gave out the other night on people that really need help!

[KidKruger]

We can't have all the money going to the little people.

[alice]

You are right Metallic.

[smooch]

Absolutely!!!!

[Abe_froeman]

It's shameful.

I don't see how a festival there in the middle of the road can pass a health and safety review either, with hundreds of cyclists passing through that junction every hour.

Unless they are actually going to close the road? The MAMILs will hate that.

They already get very angry about anyone who says the roads are closed now (ROAD OPEN signs etc...)

[alice]

There are already plans to ?green? the square. The cyclists stuff was just a ruse for this. Contact your councillors.

[slarti b]

@Abe F

I assume that, legally, the junction is still a road since I can still cycle through there ( though the pedestrians keep getting in the way) and our Councillors insist that the road is not closed, it is just filtered.

However, if so it can be closed for a special event subject to applying for a temporary traffic order from Southwark, see https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/traffic-orders-licensing-strategies-and-regulation/road-closures-for-events. The applicant has to pay Southwark's costs which come to ?2,451, though the costs can be waived for a "community event"

So either:

a) the majority of that ?3,000 grant will be paid to Southwark to cover the council's costs

or

b) The Councillors are going to persuade Council officers to waive the fee since it is for a "Community Event", which would effectively increase their grant to ?5,451.

My guess is the applicants are expecting b). If so,given only ?3,000 has been approved I wonder if that is allowed?

[alice]

Just reread my post. Sounds like a conspiracy theory.

FofDJunction did have the services of one of the U.K.?s top licensing lawyers for the last attempt at blocking a road. (Last summer) that should help.

[Metallic]

No one has come forward, shy little petals. Bet that two or three of them, base Court Lane and Gilkes Crescent dwellers, just can't believe their luck at all that funding.

[alice]

I have put forward the suggestion that gilkes and Carlton should reopen as complementary one way roads with proper cycle lanes.

[Iloveeastdulwich]

Lived here all my life, where on earth is Dulwich square! Is it another newly made up pompous name?

[Metallic]

Iloveeastdulwich Wrote:

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> Lived here all my life, where on earth is Dulwich

> square! Is it another newly made up pompous name?

By Harold George and the graveyard.

[heartblock]

I?m glad the poor, deprived, ethnically diverse population are having this money spent on them...meanwhile Southwark Council trying to remove the small amount of green space for these very rich, mainly white, executives and highly paid professionals in Priory Court with Infill" ... a euphemism for the taking of estate play areas, gardens, tenants halls and other estate property. These places are intrinsic parts of estates. They were never meant to be built on. Petition change.org/priorycourt

[Metallic]

Indeed heartblock. The integrity of all councillors is called in to question when you consider how Leo Pollak has behaved towards the residents of Priory Court. I say this as so many of the powerful councillors are sad he has had to resign from being Cabinet Member for Housing. When I read about this in the Southwark News it got me wondering about what else he has been up to - or any of the councillors for that matter.

Anyway as long as the citizens of Dulwich get an extra scratch at the Festival I suppose it doesn't matter about profligate waste of council funds going down the drain.

[slarti b]

Metallic Wrote:

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> No one has come forward, shy little petals. Bet that two or three of them, base Court Lane ...

I understand that a couple of the most vocal advocates of the junction closure, keen supporters of Friends of Dulwich

Junction (sorry square), have taken the opportunity to sell their house in Court Lane. No doubt they benfited from all that traffic being displaced onto EDG and Lordship Lane to get a better price...

[exdulwicher]

The goings on in "Dulwich Square" annoy me to the extent that I rarely use it now. Coming back into Dulwich from South Circular direction I'll cut off and go through Dulwich Park in preference to getting to DS and encountering a load of ballroom dancers or carol singers or whatever version of "street art" is going on that week.

Anyway as long as the citizens of Dulwich get an extra scratch at the Festival I suppose it doesn't matter about profligate waste of council funds going down the drain.

Much as I agree with your point about the junction, it'll be part of the council arts & community fund (or whatever Southwark call it). All councils have them, it's part of their civic / community duties. It's not a case of if you don't spend it here, you can divert it to another budget there so no-one is really "losing out". It can't be spent on fixing potholes or repairing a broken streetlight.

However, I agree entirely with the points you made about the junction.

[legalalien]

It's actually part of the Neighbourhoods Fund. (Info here https://www.southwark.gov.uk/engagement-and-consultations/grants-and-funding/neighbourhoods-fund-2021).

The decision notice isn't published yet so can't double check which of the other projects may have been partly funded rather than funded in full - the ?3k could possibly have been used to top up other projects. Alternatively, the DV ward could have picked up a bigger share of the Dulwich Festival funding this year, which would have freed up the ?3k for projects who had applied to the Dulwich Hill and Dulwich Wood and Goose Green wards. So I don't buy the "we had no choice but to fund" argument.

The bigger point is why there weren't a bigger range of applications for funding in the DV ward and I see this as a failure by the local councillors - as Labour councillors in particular I would expect them to be more active in encouraging a wider range of community groups to apply.

Which is a small part of my larger concern about the council's "selective engagement" generally (and the decision, as I understand it,to reduce the mandatory number of ward meetings this year from 6 to 2, and to allow both the "south multiward" meetings, where residents do not get a voice, to count as those 2).

While on the subject, just to raise awareness, there is a Democracy Fund of ?20k available to fund events for discussion of local issues. Last year's funding was "repurposed" for a charity Xmas project (as large group meetings weren't possible last year), but applications for this year open on 1 April on a rolling basis. I do wonder whether they might be asked to fund publicity for on online meeting to discuss LTN concerns, or an actual meeting once regulations permit.

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s92338/Report%20-%20Repurposing%20Democracy%20Fund.pdf

PS : it's now academic but if the Democracy Fund can be repurposed by an executive decision by the Leader, I would imagine the same is true of the Neighbourhood Fund - I don't think it's like CIL funding which has a specific statutory basis. I personally would have been happy to give the Dulwich Festival a miss this year and use the funding for something else - but I guess we all have our own priorities...

[Spartacus]

Random thought of the day

Two options if this event is going ahead

1. Organise a boycott of it so that it isn't a success

2. Organise a protest to occur at the same time to highlight the pollution the road closures are causing elsewhere

Either work against it (option 1) or use it to your own advantage (option 2)

Viva la Revolution

[legalalien]

Or, if there?s no road closure and a plan to direct bicycles around the edge in some yet unspecified way, arrange a mass cycling protest on a circuit through the junction... this space is actually supposed to be part of the Quietway after all :)

[Metallic]

legalalien, great job.

I'm not very impressed by failing to be open about anything, by anyone, when things happen/are planned to happen, where we live and travel. Good example - a knife incident in my road which everyone knew about but the police would not comment on other than to say it happened. "Don't worry! The kind of people who were involved are not like all of you.............." kind of message. So an anonymous group are awarded ?3000 by councillors who seem to enjoy the fact our whole community has been split, and are actively encouraging one side against the other.

Good luck at the 2022 elections you two. I'm certainly not voting for you because you are failing to represent ALL your Ward.

[nxjen]

As with the failed series of cultural events last summer, I suspect that it is commercial interests that are driving this proposed festival.

[Penguin68]

I suspect that it is commercial interests that are driving this proposed festival.

There is nothing, per se wrong with commercial interests, IMHO, but if it is I would be worried that they are getting council funding on top of that. Indeed that would be quite improper. A council funded event which does then include commercial partners to provide additional funding (by e.g. paying for food concessions) is a different issue, but these should not be 'behind' such an event.

[marigolds]

Hi Alice, could you share a link to this? They'll be grazing sheep!

[Bicknell]

so @legalalien do you know if people can ask to see details of who is behind this project? the councillors must know so isnt this public information?also if something depends on whether or not they get a license, what happens to the money if the license is refused?

[4321]

We should ask our local Marxist cllr James Ashworth-McClintock (slumming it now as James McAsh) if he knows anything about this scheme to help house prices in the Village.