Peckham Rye trashed again

[Lee Scoresby]

Another Sunday evening, another landscape of trash left strewn across the Peckham Rye fields

These slots for sporting pitches must be booked with Southwark, and they must be highly coveted, surely. So I ask in this forum yet again: Why does Southwark not make return of a group the next week strictly conditional on cleaning up after themselves? Has any group ever been banned? Ever been warned? Has it even ever been mentioned?

May I suggest that people who are bothered, as I am, start collecting digital images of this filthy mess and emailing them to the tribunes of the people, as well as to the faceless-nameless ones who run the council . . . every day

This has been going on for years + years + years . . . pathetic, pathetic, pathetic

Lee Scoresby

[Ladygooner]

How about clearing up the mess instead of taking pictures? We all need to take responsibility for our community.

[intexasatthe moment]

Are you popping down there Ladygooner to clean up then ?

[bonniebird]

Take pictures, why should we clean up other peoples mess? I'm not adverse to picking up the odd bit of litter, but I'd rather report them than pick it up. Today on the right hand pitch at Colyton Rd entrance, 2 footballers one straight after the other crossed over the path to the last tree with the wooden fence around it on the oppiste side to where they were playing there game, opened there flies and urinated against the wooden frame in front of kids going by, a family with a little girl walking right towards the 2nd one, someone shouted out to him that there were toilets over there, he said yeah I know and carried on! I'm glad I haven't got children because I would not want them to see that in their park, disgusting.

[unlurked]

Report it to the parks dept EVERY time it happens. Tell Hamvas about it also and ask her to look into it (election coming up).

LGooner - pathetic.

[uncleglen]

Some woman with 2 children let her boy pee up the fence at the GP in LL and then they went into the docs where the toilet is!

[a fish]

Ladygooner Wrote:

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

> How about clearing up the mess instead of taking

> pictures? We all need to take responsibility for

> our community.

Seriously?

[Miacis]

Pitch at bel air left in a state too. So bad I took a photo. Would be easy to have a three strikes rule on this. Though bigger or more bins would help too

[lane lover]

Im with Ladygooner.

Whingeing on a forum and taking photos isnt going to get anything done.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 5 years, you might have noticed we are living in a pretty tough economic climate with cuts to many services.

I am sure picking up rubbish isnt on the top of the priority list for councils.

I would be more than happy to pick up the rubbish. We all need to do a little bit. I clean up mess in my own street, and I really dont mind helping out the community.

Or is this all a bit below the rest of us ?

[Vik]

There we go then, problem solved, Lane Lover is going to clear up the rubbish.

The perpetrators can just carry on dumping their rubbish, all's good in the hood.

[Lee Scoresby]

Dear me - the EDF can be fascinating - all the rich variety of human psychology on parade . . .

Let me follow other contributors in laying to rest some bizzarre misconceptions being touted here:

1. This is a 'forum' - that's what it says on the tin. Among other things, it's a chance (rare in modern society) to raise local problems, talk about how we feel about them, and consider solutions. So it's always intriguing when an authoritarian personality intervenes in a thread to tell us we're just "whinging". Such remarks betray a deep-rooted anger at, and anxiety about any form of 'dissent' or 'troublemaking'.

Rather, in reality, consider (as an example) how widespread dissatisfaction about how Fusion runs the local leisure centre, expressed in the EDF, has propelled local councillors at least to attempt to get this disgraceful rogue contractor to mend its ways. However imperfect, isn't that practical local democracy in action?

2. Photos can capture something like litter more precisely and concisely than words. And they are indisputable evidence, helping force the authorities to act.

3. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am always very keen to help others, and very supportive of neighbourliness. But I am highly suspicious of vague talk about "the community" in a huge city like London. Politicians are constantly doing it. In any case, there's a fundamental difference between being a good community member and a perennial unpaid janitor - a fool, basically, Ladygooner, with respect. This is not some one-off problem caused by time, nature or misfortune. It's a predicable endlessly-repeating anti-social offence caused by selfish people.

But, OK, let's think about the idea of a 'local community'. Most of these dirty sportspeople don't live near here, so (on top of their other deficiencies in consideration and respect for others) they are not invested in this neighbourhood - they just drive over here to kick a ball; they dump their rubbish, they don't care.

4. We are certainly paying for this behaviour, in the repeated pollution of a much-loved and used amenity. (And I am certainly fed up trying to walk my dogs while preventing them eating other people's abandoned fast food waste.) But lanelover, we are also actually paying council and other taxes now, for some bloke with a gulf buggy and a grabby-stick to pick it all up, over and over again. This is the malign circle: dozy old Southwark outsources the issue and forgets about it > the contractor is happy to be paid to solve this problem (however artificial and manmade) > the slobs are happy that their rubbish 'just disappears' so they can sling more next week. (Talk to these charlies and many of them tell you exactly this: "Whatever, they collect it, innit").

Because it (presumably) schedules these sporting groups, Southwark can exert considerable pressure on them. Let it belatedly begin doing so! It would cost little or nothing. And since the council has made such a song and dance for years about rangers and wardens, let's also see this presence on the ground resulting in prosecutions of those social gatherings who stroll away from their filth.

I don't "live under a rock" lane lover. Local authorities certainly have big tasks, and environmental cleanliness is one of them. Who can honestly say that Southwark never wastes our money? Stopping the slobs might actually SAVE money, or at least divert contractor manhours on the Rye to more useful projects.

Lee Scoresby

[James Barber]

I have asked the head of parks about this issue.

Whether people/groups booking have ot leave it in a tidy state.

If not when wil lthey have this added.

And if they do have this condition why it's no being enforced and how many people/groups are now banned from bookings due to the state they leave behind.

Many thanks for raising it. Suspect it's a generic Southwark parks issue.

[lameduck]

good for you Lee

why should any of us have to put up with this selfishness.

1 am fed up with others rubbish

the fly tippers who seem to dump near me, as it is quiet where i am.

and if any one out there likes cleaning

the graffitti tagging which appears in the morning on my vehicles

also the dirty bs who dont mind displaying themselves to me.

as they pee up anything they want to

THE PARENTS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE I have a son if he carried on like this

I WOULD KILL HIM

[Penguin68]

THE PARENTS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE I have a son if he carried on like this

I WOULD KILL HIM

Surely, if the parents are to be held responsible, and if you had a son that did that, then someone should be killing you? As you are responsible, and he has done that. Or am I missing soemthing here?

[Lee Scoresby]

Thanks Mr Barber for responding. But please follow it up vigorously, and get back to us. As Miacis says, three strikes and you're gone! would seem to be a good starting point.

I know individual councillors to be concerned and energetic people in a rather thankless job. But I am hardly alone in wondering how much power the present structure of local government gives our representatives against the inertia, self-interest and secret agendas of council officers. That Fusion remains a contractor of Southwark is a case in point.

Sports (etc) litter may well be a Southwark-wide issue but this is the EDF and Peckham Rye is what we're discussing. The trouble with that perspective is, it makes it too easy to say, well, that's just how it is, nothing to be done . . . Maybe instead, the Rye could LEAD THE WAY as a get-tough pilot?

lameduck, I hear what you say but I'm certainly not arguing for murdering anyone. What this really shows is the limits of any idea of 'community'. We can try to insist on the right thing in our own families but how does one do that in the world outside?

Finally, and I really do hesitate even to raise this, the baby elephant in the room is that some (SOME!) of the serious littering is done by groups who have come to live in Southwark, and evidently have no culture of public tidiness in the countries they came from. If immigration and identity were not such fraught and confused issues in the UK this could be addressed fairly straightforwardly, but there you go.

Lee Scoresby

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Picking up a stray piece of rubbish is completely different to going to the park every weekend and clearing up lots of rubbish . People do have a life/job and if people are making sure they do their bit for the environment by disposing of their rubbish whilst out and about why on earth should they then go and clear up other people's rubbish when they are at the park to relax ?!

Well at least Lane Lover and Ladygooner are going to be at Peckham Rye every weekend and clear up all the rubbish. Problem solved .

[alice]

ok like you say LS this is a forum blah blah... but youre baby elephant non fact based comments are extremely offensive

[tallulah71]

Well said Lee....

[Louisa]

I cannot understand how people can abuse a shared space. A public park is such a precious place in our inner city environment and for ignorant people to dump rubbish and abuse that is just not fair. I think community wardens should patrol the park and fine people on the spot for offensive behaviour whether that is littering, urinating or spitting dog poo etc. they should also have the authority to force people to pick up the rubbish they leave behind too. It's disgusting this should have to be done, whenever I am abroad I always note how clean other cities are compared to London.

Louisa.

[giggirl]

I also support a "three strikes and you're out" policy. It's a shared space and we all need to look after it. I use it twice a day to walk a dog so I guess I am there a lot. I delight in seeing the space used fully at the weekend for sports. But the bottom line is that any team that leaves rubbish gets a warning and if they don't clean up their act (pun intended) then they are banned. Just tell them to take their business elsewhere as we only want people who will respect the space. Alternatively, charge them for the cost of the clean-up the next time they want to book.

Someone has said there aren't enough bins on the Rye - yes there are. I've never once thought to myself, "oh I can't find a bin, I'll just leave this on the grass for someone else to deal with". Never - I find a bloody bin!

[giggirl]

And another thing - any team that pisses on the Rye should be banned outright. I have no wish to see a grown man with his tackle out in a public space in the afternoon. Disgusting. I have nothing but respect for the Parkies 'cos they do a great job. For the next few weeks it should be part of the booking procedure that people are told that there is a clamp-down on rubbish and anti-social behaviour so that teams are being monitored for how they leave the space.

[lameduck]

PENGUIN

Have you never heard of term of phrase?

and IF i had bought a child into this world who acted in such a way

I would also deserve such a fate for allowing him to behave so.

[AnotherPaul]

Warn them, then ban them.

Maybe we need a similar rule in here for those who insist on arguing?

[showboat]

Lameduck, do you actually have any children?

[Nigello]

I like the idea of pitching (!) in but when we're talking of a football field full of flotsam then it just doesn't compute. Sure - pick up the odd can or bottle near your house and put it in the nearest bin (which I do often) but rely on the council to get tough when there is serial abuse.