Lordship Lane pavements

[PandG]

Don't you think the pavements along Lordship Lane are now dangerous and an eyesore?

LB Lewisham are spending a fortune on the pavements on Sydenham High Street - is it time Southwark did ours?

[KidKruger]

pathetic how firms employed by the council can only make a pavement last 5-6 years before it fails. puddles collect in the depressions, it's a big con.

[BrandNewGuy]

Melbourne Grove outside the hairdessers is appalling - at least a dozen wobbly paving stones. Walking along there is like surfing. And yes, they only redid it a few years ago.

[DulwichFox]

I have brought this up before..

Pavement opposite Co-op..

Small paving stones. Uneven Trip hazard.

Council spends our Taxes on more important things..

Like painting Bollards pretty colours and carving Totem Poles.

DulwichFox

[a fish]

Surely anything that discourages cycling on the pavement can only be a good thing?

[BrandNewGuy]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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>

> Like painting Bollards pretty colours and carving

> Totem Poles.

>

> DulwichFox

You forgot the twinkly lights outside the station that need mending at huge expense

[unlurked]

You'll all be demanding the council spends it's money on firework displayr in Nov, Xmas tree lights in Dec etc etc. Never heard of austerity? Ring fencing. Try turning up at council meetings and asking for these 'essentials'!

[DulwichFox]

BrandNewGuy Wrote:

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> DulwichFox Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> >

> > Like painting Bollards pretty colours and

> carving

> > Totem Poles.

> >

> > DulwichFox

>

> You forgot the twinkly lights outside the station

> that need mending at huge expense

I was going to mention them. but was not sure who paid for them...

I know James Barber was ecstatic with them when they were first installed.

Foxy

[KoolBananas]

If you notice areas which are unsafe report it to the council!

From experience, other boroughs tend to respond rather quickly to such reports as they are keen to avoid potential court cases.

[Sue]

DulwichFox Wrote:

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> Council spends our Taxes on more important

> things..

>

> Like painting Bollards pretty colours and carving

> Totem Poles.

>

xxxxxxx

As someone told you not long ago on a different thread, Foxy, the two things come from totally different council budgets......

[DulwichFox]

Sue Wrote:

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> DulwichFox Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Council spends our Taxes on more important

> > things..

> >

> > Like painting Bollards pretty colours and

> carving

> > Totem Poles.

> >

>

> xxxxxxx

>

> As someone told you not long ago on a different

> thread, Foxy, the two things come from totally

> different council budgets......

They may come from different budgets.. BUT they get most of their money from Council Tax Payers.

They need to Prioritise their Budgets.... and put the money into the ones that benefit the community most.

Foxy.

[edhistory]

KidKruger Wrote:

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> pathetic how firms employed by the council can

> only make a pavement last 5-6 years before it

> fails. puddles collect in the depressions, it's a

> big con.

Does Southwark use more than one contractor?

John K

[Sue]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> They may come from different budgets.. BUT they

> get most of their money from Council Tax Payers.

>

> They need to Prioritise their Budgets.... and put

> the money into the ones that benefit the community

> most.

>

xxxxxxx

Don't think it works like that .....

[rch]

By a convenient coincidence, I offered to cover for James on the East Dulwich Environmental Audit just two days ago on Weds. This is a basic walkabout of hotspot areas with environmentally trained Community Wardens, Councillors, and interested residents, but it takes place during the day when the ED cllrs are at work, and I live on Melbourne Gr and I know the area well, so I volunteered.

We spent about 2 hours from 11am until around 1pm looking at every crack in the pavement on both sides of Lordship Lane, down Grove Vale into the bottom of Melbourne, with the Community Warden calling in repairs to the control room as we went along.

There was a Conways person fixing the bits of the pavement on Lordship that James had already ordered, but we called in every rocking slab and trip hazard that qualified for repair, including the section down at the end of Melbourne by the hairdressers (which has been fixed at least twice already but it keeps coming up).

Unfortunately the dips in the pavement don't qualify as trip hazards, even though the 'ponding' from the rain is pretty bad, so they will need a different budget to address. But I think we got most of the obvious problems (we just need to keep our eye on it to make sure the repair request is followed up).

I remember when Lordship was completely repaved over ten years ago (can't remember exact date), before I was a councillor... in my opinion it wasn't done very well to begin with, which is why we continue to have problems now. But I don't think Lordship will qualify for repaving any time soon... you'd probably have to use the tiny devolved ward budgets and redo it in sections, as I think to fix it properly it would have to get torn out completely and rebedded. The bit at the Goose Green end is the best but there are sections in the middle and up towards the police station that have been diabolical for years.

[KidKruger]

The Victorians built paths to last decades, we've thrown all that away and can barely manage half a decade.

Get some German workmen over to lay quality work.

[alice]

the 'different budget' referred to above is the Cleaner Greener safer budget which was created to allow hard to reach groups access to council funding - in theory tho what has happened is same old same old - middle classes creating projects for . friends

[rch]

Don't even get me started! The Yorkstone on Blackwater is still intact, I drool everytime I walk on them... but the Victorians didn't have telephone and broadband cables and gas pipes running under the pavements, this is what affects the choice of materials and permanency of the workmanship - it's a trade-off between stability and ease of access underneath.

[rch]

Hi Alice... no, wards have a tiny devolved highway budget as well. You could do it with CGS, but CGS is more for things like trees and the hanging baskets and public realm and community projects.

The CGS program has just been launched, you could try putting in a bid for a section of pavement if you wanted to, but I think the highways budget is more appropriate.

In Village ward we use devolved highway budget for sections of paving that probably wouldn't get funded out of the internal highway budget for ages. For instance, we're chipping away at resurfacing the tarmac paving along Dulwich Village from East Dulwich Grove up to the entrance of Dulwich Park, it's taking ages but we're getting there.

[alice]

thanks but you misunderstand me - I was referring to the way that cgs funding can be used by individuals to provide work that would not otherwise get commisioned and does not provide value for money. Its a pity that safety eg lighting, pavement surfaces etc cannot be prioritised.

[rch]

Maybe I didn't explain very well, I can see how it looks that way to you, but the lobbying for funding is very complex. Lighting and pavement funding comes from very large internal budgets, sometimes awarded from national budgets, which have very strict criteria and there is a lot of competition from the different wards to access chunks of it and projects are assessed and prioritised by internal engineers. For instance, we have a lighting priority list.

CGS is a tiny budget, subject to specific criteria, not usually enough to do a whole road or pavement, but can be used for one-off capital decorative embellishments that give a community identity, like the hanging baskets (actually I think ED use devolved revenue for hanging baskets, but we use CGS in Village for complicated reasons).

Some works might not look like good value for money, but might be really important to the community... in Village we are using CGS to renovate one of the lodges in Dulwich Park to bring it back into community use as it is deteriorating badly and about to be condemned and we haven't been able to get a budget from anywhere else. To some, this might seem a frivolous use of public money, but in Village we are very heritage-concious and value public spaces.

I really encourage you and other residents to submit a bid if you feel strongly about something.

[edhistory]

Why does F.M.Conway still get contracts?

John K

[rch]

Ah, hang on, I think I just realised what you meant... but technically CGS is a capital budget and not to be used by a group for providing "services". The CGS revenue budget is different, it's more for services, but can't be used for paving or lighting which is a capital expense. Sorry if this sounds contradictory. For instance, in Village, we used our devolved CGS revenue budget to continue the Lollipop school crossing guard services when the council ceased the internal funding.

[rch]

Hi John... there is a complicated bidding process which Conways is very successful at. From what I can tell from your posts, I think your problem with Conway is more with the managerial overseeing process.

[unlurked]

rch Wrote:

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> Hi John... there is a complicated bidding process

> which Conways is very successful at. From what I

> can tell from your posts, I think your problem

> with Conway is more with the managerial overseeing

> process.

Maybe CONways win "bids" because they have lots of permanant staff based in the town hall. How does a private company have staff in the town hall, surely thats unfair advantage/conflict of interest, rch? This also means that council tax payers are paying for a profit making private companys office space, paper, printing etc doesn't it?

[steveo]

Somebody authorised the paving of the entire length of Court Lane, which didn't need doing.

It took months and probably cost as much as a hospital

There should be a name and there should be shame.