Closure of Melbourne Grove to through traffic - new petition

[Andrew1011]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> Blaming the electorate for "unnecessary angst"

> after telling the press "... I would want a

> barrier" before any evidence emerges of the

> necessity or utility of said barrier seems

> particularly arrogant.

Yes, but all's got to be forgiven because he is going to try to be less gung ho from now on (although clearly he's still going to continue to be patronising and treat his electorate like idiots).

People are beginning to see through him so I do think this will almost certainly be Cllr Barber's last term as a councillor for ED.

[Andrew1011]

ed_pete Wrote:

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> Andrew if you search the Southwark planning portal

> for application number 14/AP/4580, the Harris

> Primary School, application, you can see the

> Transport Assessment document produced in December

> 2014 by a firm called Transport Planning

> Associates. I'd attach it but the document is too

> large.

Is the planning process for a Harris primary on the old ED police station site complete?

[edhistory]

anoTher Wrote:

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> Oh dear me Grok, you are a very disillusioned

> person. I assume you live on MB and have young

> children? There is FYI no campaign outright for a

> barrier, simply a reduction in rat-running and

> speeding. If any of you could be bothered to

> communicate in a civil manner with those of us

> who've instigated the campaign you may begin to

> understand that we don't want a solution which

> will inconvenience surrounding areas, hence why

> many hours of doorstepping has been undertaken.

> Guys, it's not rocket science!

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?30,1573243

[Zebedee Tring]

Very illuminating to see anoTher in action on another thread. An example of "Kids Rule OK" to the exclusion of everyone else?

[James Barber]

Hi first mate,

Robin speaks at nearly all DCC meetings. Sometimes often. I don't think democracy is dead. I think Robin is finding it hard to adjust from being a councillor. And I deeply regret she felt unable to really go for being re elected in 2014. We sometimes disagree but I valued her then and still do now. She stood in a deputation with from memory five others and other councillors thought it important to hear from people we've never heard from before. We had heard from Robin at the 24 June about this very subject - to the degree she emailed an apology for ignoring the chair.

Hi Andrew1011,

Harris ED primary school has full planning permission, signed Section 106 by the Secretary of State and Southwark Council so will proceed rapidly. They will open September 2016 on this permanent site.

I recall the Chair of Charter governors saying they'd met with the local NHS and Educational Finance Agency and were jointly commissioning a full traffic study. Fingers crossed it's an origination and destination study and parking study. Both will need this for their anticipated planning applications.

Hi EDAus,

I had thought until seeing your post that if we'd all had the draft minutes of 24 June meeting - where it makes clear we're looking at a feasibility report to include options and any consultation should includes the surrounding streets including Townley Road this thread and other conversations would have gone differently. But hearing you received a letter late August saying funding for a study to close the road I'm not surprised things have kicked off as they did.

And yes when you asked to close your road I didn't support that as it would have pushed traffic onto other parallel roads but did ensure we used our limited CGS money against council officer advice to add full humps to your road. I still think that a good decision for Chesterfield and Ashbourne Groves.

Hi Abe_foreman,

You may be right. I have apologised. And I've since stated here that I would find it hard to see how a barrier at the northern end of Melbourne Grove would work without causing greater harm to people accessing the neighbouring and indeed Melbourne Grove.

Hi Grok,

Yes, I was delayed attending due to a family illness and ensuring I did my share. I have an extremely understanding family.

I thought I had my fair share of time asking questions/making comments. Six ward councillors directly affected. Whereas I'm the only councillor commenting on the forum.

And apologies to those who thought I was gurning. How embarrassing.

Going forward, we'll have a proposal for the study ToR. Will work on those until we capture hopefully all views without predetermining any outcome officers might recommend. As soon as I have final draft ToR I will ensure all parties have access and can comment.

[first mate]

Hi James, My response was not about Robin, more a realisation that whatever agenda you and. Labour have for the roads around here is going to be pushed through one way or another and that a majority petition request that traffic etc be looked at as a whole around ED has been more or less ignored by you and other councillors on the DCC. The feasibility study will, it seems, focus just on MG.

I am also disappointed to hear that majority view typified by DCC councillors as "hysterical". That is what I meant by democracy is dead in ED.

By the way, you still haven't answered my question about whether you were in favour of increased lengths of double yellows on Chesterfield when consulted on the matter by Southwark Council. As our/ my local rep I think you should tell me what your decision was.

[rch]

I wasn't going to say anything more on this, but I feel like I still need to correct disinformation.

I only apologised for the way I addressed a specific piece of disinformation that the June 24 deputation was presenting because I think the wording that I used was inappropriate and I was told that there was no audio recording so I couldn't prove what I had objected to, in order to justify my comments.

In retrospect, this whole mess has been exacerbated by disinformation because the council communication chains are so poor. This is demonstrated by cllrs not even being aware of the disconcerting literature that was being circulated to all of us while not being able to confirm the funding allocation wording... even three days before the Sept 9th meeting, an action group member was aggressively telling me on the street that the barrier was pretty much a done deal and that *I* was the ONLY person objecting to it. I personally spoke to around 40 people in Melbourne and many of them, who had signed the first petition, signed our anti-barrier petition because they were concerned with how their signatures were being represented.

And I'm not having a hard time adjusting to not being a councillor anymore - I have attended DCC meetings since before I was a councillor, it's one of the main reasons why I decided to become a councillor in the first place. But the DCC meetings aren't the open forum that they used to be, which is what I'm finding frustrating.

I found Grok's comments about me feeling like I expected special treatment useful because, from my perspective, I find that I'm regularly struggling to be allowed to speak or even ask a short question at all, which appears to be causing me to behave like a cow. So this is why I'm relieved that so many people witnessed the overt gagging machinations during the deputation, as it's all now out in the open.

But I genuinely think that the community council meetings are now as bad as council assembly and therefore attending them is pretty much pointless... what comes out of all of this from my perspective is that we really need to create a dynamic community forum where residents can be informed and issues can be openly discussed and debated.

[first mate]

Rch,

Worry not, it is pretty clear what is going on. The remark about you "adjusting" was patronising to say the least.

[intexasatthe moment]

Quite agree about the " I think Robin is finding it hard to adjust " How patronising .

I suspect DCC members are wary of letting someone with her past experience and knowledge of how things should work ,who to contact ,where to access information say very much .

[James Barber]

Robin,

I think you've made a useful point previously about the DCC agenda being too full. Which means the chair has to push things along and regularly people don't feel they've said everything they've wanted to.

It is a really tricky balance to get that right.

Apologies for any patronising. Not intended. Definitely a bad hair day.

Hi ITATM,

I don't think any one is wary. Robin has always made a point of being friendly to people of all parties. I genuinely think it's concern about someone not going via the chairperson and ensuring some level of parity between everyone contributing. Which tight agendas exacerbate.

Hi firstmate,

I'm baffled. I have no known agenda with Labour.

24 June we agreed a feasibility study of up to ?10,000 to look at if we can reduce volume and speeding of traffic along southern Melbourne Grove. We agreed it should be of the wider area and include Townley Road. Robin was instrumental in helping us reach that decision at that meeting. And yes that study we anticipate including as one of a number of potential options closing the road.

At no point have I every called anyone hysterical.

I made a point of thanking the deputation and all the hard work they'd done. I've found it valuable for helping balance up the wider views of the area and I believe I said that.

[rch]

I totally agree with mate and intexas, but I'm glad we're able to clear the air and we should move forwards.

BTW, James wasn't involved in the "hysterical" comment, but I'm glad that EDAus brought it up, as it's now become a frequently used council fob-off term.

One last comment... the problem on Melbourne isn't speed and volume, but from the June 24 briefing and the short comments that Matt Hill was allowed to make on Sept 9th leads me to suspect that the highways engineers understand exactly what's going on.

[first mate]

Rch,

You and those who have organised the majority deputation/ petition have a lot of local support. It is simply common sense.

More than anything, we need someone who understands the process and who can be trusted to represent the majority- think of yourself as our unofficial councillor elect.

[Penguin68]

we need someone who understands the process and who can be trusted to represent the majority- think of yourself as our unofficial councillor elect.

Unfortunately, despite perhaps in this instance representing a larger slice of those prepared to express an opinion - and doing a great deal more legwork on this case, Robin can only 'represent' at the margin, our real elected representatives (I am not in ED but an adjacent ward) actually have chosen a different (if apparently numerically smaller) camp to join - and it is they who can actually make (as opposed to plead the case for) decisions.

Sometimes democracy isn't, well, that democratic.

[James Barber]

Hi P68,

Robin was at the 24 June meeting when we refused to close Melbourne Grove but decided to fund a feasibility study looking at various options and area of impacted to cover the wider area to Townley Road - Robin even helped us reach that decision.

A second deputation campaigned for either cancelling the study or widening it to cover the area we'd already decided to cover at 24 June and have more options than just closing the road - which we had already agreed 24 June. Robin helped organise this petition.

Robin knows the processes. Knew the decision we'd taken 24 June. Knows the repeated opportunities to be consulted upon about this over the next 12 months.

As it happened the car crash of comms around this was helpfully explored with the deputation attending. But I'm puzzled why people are still fighting for a decision - to have various options and look at wider area impacts - that we took 24 June.

[first mate]

James,

Because those of us, that is over 300, who do not agree with that decision and feel that decisions are being made without proper consultation, feel it necessary to express our dissatisfaction at a process that is not working for the community. A decision may have been made on 24th but this does not make it the right decision, nor does it mean that the process by which that decision was made is right either.

The second deputation was much larger, does this not mean anything?

[Abe_froeman]

When you say "we refused to close Melbourne Grove" did you actually have the option to on 24 June?

It seems to me from the council officers comments published after that meeting that you couldn't have closed it, despite the fact you wanted to.

[rch]

Another correction... the problem was that I DIDN'T know what the decision the DCC took on the 24th June was because I had to leave early and we didn't get the confirmation of the precise wording in the minutes until just a week before the Sept 9th meeting when it was posted on the council website. All we could see was a request for funding for a barrier and more yellow lines in the supplemental agenda for June 24th.

In the meantime, the street was being leafletted at the end of August announcing the Sept 5th Play Event road closure (which was never consulted on as per the Play Event requirements, so we didn't even know about THAT until the traffic order came out on Fri, Aug 27th, just before the Bank Holiday) with the confirmation that,

"Second, as you may have heard, we've received some funding for a feasibility study into a barrier across Melbourne Grove. That will happen in the next few months."

We kept asking council officials, councillors, and even here on the forum what the funding for the feasibility study was allocated FOR, but no one would tell us so we assumed that the Melbourne Grove Traffic Action group has been successful in talking cllrs into allocating funding for a barrier study because that's what was being publicised.

Residents were literally stopping me in the street, asking me what was going on and how we could stop a barrier. Even people who had theoretically signed the "petition" for the barrier were concerned.

I also had to leave before the Sept 9th wording was agreed, so I technically STILL don't know what wording for the allocation of funding was agreed. I'm just pretty sure that it doesn't include research into a barrier option... and hopefully not a chicane, either, which will have the same knock-on effect.

Preferably, the engineers will be free to ascertain what the problem is and recommend solutions without being diverted by people who don't understand highway legislation!

[rch]

first mate... bear in mind that we actually held off until August 15th to start our anti-barrier petition because several of us kept trying to find out from the council exactly what was going on, because not even the pro-barrier petition that we saw had wording at the top confirming what residents were campaigning for.

The point is that we got 300 signatures over the Bank Holiday period when most people were away... but, had we started the petition at the beginning of July, we probably would have gotten twice, maybe three times, more signatures. I spent a lot of time talking to people directly, so I'm pretty clear on what the problem is... I also spent a lot of time talking to those members of the action group that I could find.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I would have clarified all this had I been allowed to speak at the Sept 9th deputation...

[Zebedee Tring]

What I cannot understand is why the wording of the 24 June decision wasn't available until early September. Surely at the very least a Council member could have insisted on this, particularly in the light of the controversial nature of the decision, even if the minutes hadn't been formally approved. If they couldn't have done this (which I very much doubt), local government has certainly changed since I worked in it.

[spider69]

Perhaps they know that nobody trusts their Cllrs anymore.

They know it's not viable but will try any whoch way to impose their own views.

300 against how may more out there that do not know this is going on.

E.g. Labours 20 mph imposition.

[first mate]

ZT, i think we both know the answer to that.

The rather crude attempts to undermine RCH make her even more credible and trustworthy, in stark opposition to the official reps.

[Andrew1011]

Zebedee Tring Wrote:

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> What I cannot understand is why the wording of the

> 24 June decision wasn't available until early

> September. Surely at the very least a Council

> member could have insisted on this, particularly

> in the light of the controversial nature of the

> decision, even if the minutes hadn't been

> formally approved. If they couldn't have done this

> (which I very much doubt), local government has

> certainly changed since I worked in it.

The political side of local government has always virtually closed down during August. There was a communication vacuum which Cllr Barber (and others) decided to fill by disseminating misinformation, spread via the front page of a local newspaper.

[rch]

Yes, it's true that local government virtually closes down in August, and the Southwark News article definitely didn't help, but bear in mind that we started asking for clarification the day after the June 24th deputation. If you go to the beginning of this thread, you'll see in James' post from June 25:-

"What we agree last night was to fund a study of the anticipated impacts of closing the road. Once we have that study we will decide how to proceed. Clearly something needs to be done which could range for closing a road to better traffic calming. But until the study is completed - I suspect they have all the data already for this study - we don't know whether a road closure will be thought practicable. Lots of research to suggest some traffic evaporation would occur with a road closure - likely most would use Lordship Lane as an alternative. Some Townley."

Even though this statement virtually contradicts the engineers' June 24 briefing which we finally accessed, we had no other channel of communication... none of the other councillors apparently corrected the belief that the funding was to study a road closure and neither did the chair of the DCC when I emailed him.

So, by mid-August, we felt that we had no choice but to launch an anti-barrier campaign in order to give the "silent majority" a voice.

[Zebedee Tring]

I still cannot understand why someone didn't obtain the Committee Secretary's version of what had happened. She after all was taking the minutes.

I was a Monitoring Officer until the late 1990s. The suggestion that a Councillor, or indeed any member of the public, would not have then been able to obtain chapter and verse of a controversial Committee decision would have been beyond belief.

[Andrew1011]

rch Wrote:

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> Even though this statement virtually contradicts

> the engineers' June 24 briefing which we finally

> accessed, we had no other channel of

> communication... none of the other councillors

> apparently corrected the belief that the funding

> was to study a road closure and neither did the

> chair of the DCC when I emailed him.

>

> So, by mid-August, we felt that we had no choice

> but to launch an anti-barrier campaign in order to

> give the "silent majority" a voice.

Agreed. And that's been my response to any suggestion to the contrary, or of 'hysteria'.