former East Dulwich councillor - how can I help?

[geobz]

bargee99 Wrote:

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> Are those bike hangers really ?5000 each. That's

> more than the total value of the bikes in them!

> They can store 6 bikes each so that is ?830 per

> bike!!!! Unless of course you are putting high

> value racing bikes in them which would be stupid.

> Out of the total East Dulwich funds of approx ?50k

> we have ?15k spent on 3 bike stores (18 bikes) and

> another ?10k spent on cycling generally. That's

> half the total budget spent on cycling. Does

> anyone else ever get funds nowadays or are

> cyclists the only successful lobbying group.

Its free spending for them... Thats why Southwark is getting worse.

[Abe_froeman]

I would guess some of that cost is to pay the contractor to install the hangar. It's a lovely round number.

[edhistory]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> I would guess some of that cost is to pay the

> contractor to install the hangar. It's a lovely

> round number.

Will this be a F.M.Conway contract?

[rendelharris]

A quick search online reveals that bike hangars cost around ?2,600 plus VAT, so one does wonder where the other two grand gets soaked up.

[rch]

Abe, FYI, I got fed up and emailed the highways cabinet member whereupon the head of highways has responded declaring me a local stakeholder who will be consulted on the Melbourne Grove proposals once an engineer has been appointed (which indicates that progress on this is some way away).

So, I'll try to find a way to stay in touch with everyone... maybe we can start a new thread for open democratic discussion?

One of the things I wanted to ask an engineer about is whether there is enough clearance in the Melbourne/Chesterfield junction to implement a central pedestrian island if it looks like a build-out will get voted against because of loss of car parking, as happened in the 2009 consultation. If so, it might be useful for residents to have a choice between two options rather than the one option being rejected, thereby going back to square one yet again. It may not be possible, but I would at least like to speak to a professional to see if it is viable.

Ped islands are actually the best form of traffic calming (and more cost-effective as it would be cheaper than a build-out), while also providing a safe crossing space for pedestrians (which includes a lot of parents and schoolchildren on Melbourne)... this was part of the philosophy of the CGS bid that I submitted for Melbourne, which was rejected by councillors.

FYI, I also submitted CGS bids for pavement upgrades on Lordship, repairs to the Goose Green roundabout, trees, etc, but these were all also refused in favour of cycle hangars... although I did get funding in ED for a treepit experiment which could help to save our trees from being murdered by the new planting policies if it is successful.

Having observed how local democracy is evolving, it appears that it is really useful to form a residents group with a name (in the same way the elusive MGTAG has done), so I am genuinely thinking of creating the Peoples' Republic of Dulwich (PROD), as I have joked about in the past... what do you guys think??

I think local government in Dulwich needs a PROD...!

[bargee99]

Hi rch,

Sounds like something "Wolfie" Smith would have been proud of. Power to the people!

What do we do when every request for funds such as yours is being refused to provide for one minority of the populous with a loud, a very LOUD, voice. ?1700 is more than the average council tax for an entire Southwark household yet it is all being used to pay to save 2 bike owners (1/3 of a bike shelter) the bother of wheeling their bikes indoors. If the hall is crowded because of shared ownership wheel it out back to the garden.

[rch]

Thanks, barg! I used to sign off my posts with "Power to the People", so maybe that should become PROD's motto...

I don't have any specific opposition to cyclist funding, but I do think that devolved funding should address the needs of the greater number of residents in an area before it's directed towards specialist groups. There needs to be a balance.

It's looking more and more like we're going to have to find ways of raising funding separately for basic amenities in Dulwich...

[mynamehere]

I recognise that it is very hard to stay balanced and informed on line and in fact everywhere people air grievances and opinions.

Your conversation has nothing whatsoever to do with push bikes and the long over due infrastructure to support a growing population of all ages and sizes and types.

Bike lock ups are forever and are no different than parking spaces. Cyclists should not be always piggy in the middle to the chattering classes

[Nigello]

Cycling is good, safe cycling is better, but spending money on accommodations for bikes that are more expensive than the cycles themselves is not good.

Money spent on upgrades to roads, pavements, crossings, education that benefits as many people as possible - pedestrians, cyclists, passengers and drivers - is much better.

[bargee99]

Exactly my point Nigello. Thank You.

[James Barber]

Hi bargee99,

rich regularly has applications approved or she has applied for things others have also applied for and she kindly helps shape how the combined project happens. just a few weeks ago robin and I accepted her offer to give advice about which new street tree where. Offer gratefully accepted by me.

Cycle parking promotes people cycling which reduces car ownership and use. That benefits everyone. The extra cost is council officers consulting residents and the legal paperwork legally required to place a BikeHangar on the public highway. I suspect people would soon post how annoyed they were not being consulted or the law being broken.

Hi Nigello,

Even simple changes to the highway cost a lot more. Education has to be done repeatedly/annually so over time more expensive. A BikeHangar should last 20 years.

[bargee99]

Sorry James, I don't really think it matters what makes up the ?5k be it council officers time on top of the original cost or something else. It is still upsetting to me to spend ?850 per bike for a road storage facility when in most cases they can be taken indoors. I think there are much more urgent ways to spend our money in hard pressed times. I know we will never agree because if someone is ardent about biking they think whatever it costs of our money is OK. If they aren't avid bikers they will think it a waste of our money. Such is life.

[Burbage]

bargee99 Wrote:

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> It is

> still upsetting to me to spend ?850 per bike for a

> road storage facility when in most cases they can

> be taken indoors.

Perhaps, from your obviously privileged position, you're not aware that the majority (around 75%) of Southwark residents live in flats, have no access to a garden (even if it was safe to leave a bicycle outside), and cannot for safety reasons store anything in the hall. Moreover, more than half of flat-dwellers live above the ground floor, and most of those in flats that are not served by lifts.

In other words, it's as validly argued that most cars could be taken indoors, if the owners would only open the front windows up a bit, or at least be parked in the front garden. But most, for some reason, seem happy to rely on the implicit subsidy of a 'poorly-priced public resource', in the form of rent-free land (worth a lot more than ?850 a year at current parking rates), or the many other costs (notably air pollution, but also a craven dependence on vicious regimes, for which we sacrifice actual lives) that the self-entitled motorist prefers to ignore, imagining the rest of us somehow benefit from their ability to spend money they haven't earned on something they can't accommodate.

[alice]

most bike sheds ive seen are outside the terraced houses. Not by flats.

[bargee99]

Since this is the East Dulwich Forum where most of the properties are terraced houses and not flats then I don't consider your argument to be valid in a local discussion. I also believe most council flats have storage facilities for bikes anyway and don't need a ?5k bike shed. Spending the whole yearly rates of 3 hard working families to accommodate 6 bikes is in my opinion wasteful. That's only my privileged opinion of course. I'll just go and see if a car would fit through the front window.

[JoeLeg]

Have you seen how many of those terraced houses are actually divided up internally into flats around here? Quite a lot of them are.

I'm not an estate agent, nor have I conducted or read any survey of local properties, but I've lived round here all my life and I would be incredibly surprised if it were not the case that there were many more flats than 'whole houses', as it were.

[rendelharris]

In my experience most council flats don't have adequate storage spaces for bikes and the design of the flats themselves means there isn't really room inside either. Bike storage funding should, I think, be targeted at that sort of estate rather than on street bike hangars which in my opinion are often just saving middle class Victorian house/flat owners (like me) inconvenience rather than actually answering a real need. Mrs.H and I keep three bikes inside our one bed flat: with the wealth of clever storage options available nowadays they're not much of an encumbrance. I certainly wouldn't feel justified asking for scarce cycling funding to be spent on decluttering my hall.

James, you were recently offering motorcyclists ?500 of free ground anchors to lock their machines up, and good on you for that; secure bike storage sheds which can store three bikes can be had for less than that, wouldn't it be better to offer those rather than bike hangars, thereby providing storage for thirty bikes rather than half a dozen for the same price?

I'm all for money being spent on cycling infrastructure - I'd love to see funding diverted from supporting motor vehicles into cycling, the more the better - I just don't think bike hangars are necessarily the smartest way forward.

[James Barber]

Hi bargee99,

In East Dulwich ward we have 3,250 doors behind which we have 5,250 homes. So most properties in ED are not houses - we have huge proportion of subdivided houses. I know from delivering leaflets over time to all of them.

I'm afraid in most cases these bicycles can't be taken in doors - which is the point. We're also spending ?500 per motorbike on ground anchors to stop those being stolen as well. We've spent a lot of home free property marking kits to reduce burglaries as well. we've spent money on bolts to stop number plates from cars being stolen in the past when that was aa problem. If people could safely keep their bicycle outside then I'd probably agree with you.

Hi alice,

Many of those houses have been subdivided into flats. Or the houses hallways are too narrow to use and have bicycles.

Hi rendelharris,

Inconvenience results in lower bicycle ownership and less bicycle use.

Private bicycle sheds. Good suggestion. Let me check that out. Thank you.

[Abe_froeman]

Most of those houses (even the ones divided into flats)have front gardens in which those much lower cost and much more space efficient bike storage sheds could be placed, but that wouldn't achieve Southwark's aim of stopping people from owning a car.

[rendelharris]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> Most of those houses (even the ones divided into

> flats)have front gardens in which those much lower

> cost and much more space efficient bike storage

> sheds could be placed, but that wouldn't achieve

> Southwark's aim of stopping people from owning a

> car.

An aim I would thoroughly support, but actually there's no sign of that at all - not letting people do whatever they want whenever they want with their cars and trying to stop them owning them are two different things, you see.

[bargee99]

I think rendelharris strikes about the right balance for the bike parking issue.

I do wonder why the council has to pay for motor bike anchors in private front gardens rather than offer the installation at a charge. I realise that a large percentage of the flats are rented and the gardens are not owned by the occupiers but doesn't that complicate matters from a council perspective? I did try to think of a way to provide public secure parking for motor bikes within the proposed yellow lines to be available to all but doubt whether it will happen. I suppose it's down to how much council money an individual thinks should be spent on providing private rather than public facilities. I doubt whether we will all agree to the right balance for that one.

[ianr]

Since it's only property owners who can give permisison for the installation of a motor cycle anchor, isn't this ?500 going just to those who are relatively most well-off? The anchors I've seen advertised on the web seem to be in the ?50 region. What exactly is done for the additional ?450?

[Abe_froeman]

it is the stated aim of Southwark council to stop people owning cars altogether Rendel. That's part of their 'kerbside' program.

James Barber also effectively confirms that on this page: "Cycle parking ... reduces car ownership..."

[rendelharris]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> it is the stated aim of Southwark council to stop

> people owning cars altogether Rendel. That's part

> of their 'kerbside' program.

I've just skimmed the kerbside policy document Abe but oddly was unable to find anywhere where it stated an aim to stop people owning cars altogether. Could you kindly point me to the relevant text?

[James Barber]

Hi bargee99,

Every motorbike theft costs taxpayers significantly more than ?500 in Police time and effort. Southwark Council doesn't realise the savings of stopping such crimes but overall society and the tax payers does. It also has a great impact of reducing motorbike insurance premiums with time keeping more money in the hands f local residents.

We could offer to do it for a fee but the take up would be much lower and our local society as a whole would be poorer.

Hi ianr,

A number of instance landlords had to give approval. So no they're not just going to private individuals and families.

Hi Abe_froeman,

I don't believe I've ever done anything to block private car ownership. I've campaigning fiercely to stop needless double yellow line and for people to have the ability of cross overs without double yellow lines.

I would always encourage people to walk and cycle as much as possible though because it better for the environment, their health and saves money which tends to stay in the local economy - cars and petrol are not something we make locally!