former East Dulwich councillor - how can I help?

[hibbs]

Ha ha...of course, you know me MM I would never go out if there was a chance I would miss vital info on recycling.

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> Have you been waiting in?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I take it all back, re pilot scheme, apparently it hasn't started yet.

Email received:

Thank you for your email. I have submitted a request for a kitchen caddy to be sent to you, and you will receive this before the scheme goes live in October.

Your reference number for this request is xxxxxxx.

You will receive a letter the week before the scheme begins advising you of your collection day, and you will also receive a calendar ...

[James Barber]

Please see latest Dulwich Park Friends newsletter.

[James Barber]

Latest on proposed new street trees in East Dulwich ward - see attached.

Any thoughts let me know.

[Norfolkvillas]

Hi there, I notice that there are quite a few yellow spots on Whateley Road but it would be great to have some more trees after Whateley turns into Underhill, specifically at or near the corner of Friern and Underhill Roads. Thanks!

[Gimme]

James,

As you probably know, the traffic jams down LL to Goose Green roundabout and up Grove Vale can be attrocious, particularly in the morning.

Simple solution....get the pelican crossing at ED Station changed from on demand to timed. I was on a bus this week which sat in traffic as 3 people in the space of 2 minutes pressed the button and halted the traffic. Only one or two cars were getting through each time before another red man and the tailback snaked all the way down Grove Vale. This seems to be the single cause of the traffic jams (well, apart from there being too many cars on that stretch of road). If it can't be timed, what about on demand but timed i.e. once one green man has been displayed, there is a 2 or 3 minute interval to the next one.

And it probably wouldn't cost that much to implement...

Better traffic flow, less delays to buses, lower pollution levels on Grove Vale, smaller tailbacks on Lordship Lane, lots of happy people.

What do you think?

[Huguenot]

Believe it or not, traffic light management is a highly mathematical exercise and generally very tightly linked with activity at adjacent traffic lights.

If lights are frequently going red, it's more likely because the traffic is so tightly packed that the system has realised you wouldn't be going anywhere if the lights were green. Hence it might as well prioritise other pedestrian traffic.

The only advice I would offer a councillor would be to ensure that these lights are 'in the system' and not governed by the subjective views of those that encounter them ;-)

[Gimme]

You are probably right, it probably is more complex than one would imagine. However, it doesn't take a mathematician to see that there are huge tailbacks to ED station and then a clear run for the next 3/4 of a mile to Kings College Hospital. I do that journey every day and it is exactly as described.

[Marmora Man]

The only advice I would offer a councillor would be to ensure that these lights are 'in the system' and not governed by the subjective views of those that encounter them

Nor should the councillor be swayed by the distant views of an ex-pat either.

[louisiana]

Hi James

I'm getting fed up with the amount of junk coming through my letterbox.

As some local authorities do offer stickers and such for front doors, I decided to check out Southwark on this.

I have to say I found the 'junk mail pack' difficult to locate on the Southwark website. There was no link for sending off for this, and you had to kind of guess who to send a request to.

I then received the 'pack'. (I didn't actually want a pack - and there's no info on the website of what is in the pack.) I just wanted a sticker.

When I received the pack, I found it included a sticker which doesn't exactly conform to best practice.

Is this something that can be improved by:

1. Addressing what info should go on sticky labels, to make them most effective. Label design.

2. Addressing how this info is included in Southwark website content in terms of a call to action.

3. Addressing how these stickies are generally publicised and distributed.

Given that there are many of us who want to control junk mail (including unwanted free newspapers); and given that Southwark (and therefore we) have to pay for collection of all junk mail from households (recycling) and so would presumably wish to see the amount minimised, this would seem to be a win-win investment of a modicum of time.

What say you? Worth dicussing?

(I should say that I work in information design myself, so know something of what I am talking about when it comes to content and design of instructional sticky labels. The Southwark stickies really do fall short in a number of ways.)

[Moos]

James, could you please advise what the agreements are with the bin men and recycling men in Southwark? On our street, no-one puts bins out (are we supposed to?) so the guys have to come into the yards and get them, but they don't put them back. The guys don't look as though they have much time, they race through the streets, so I can understand that asking them to put bins back where they find them may mess up their timetable but the trouble is that bins left in the middle of the front yard path or skewed in the street make it very clear twice a week whether a house is empty during the day. Would it be possible to address this security concern?

[James Barber]

Hi louisiana,

Could you email me seperately so I can take your detaield suggestinos to my next meeting with the Director in charge of everything environment in Southwark Council.

Hi Gimme, Hugenot,

Typically once or twice a week I catch the no.40 bus and have'nt seen the problem described. Perhaps worth PM'ing me times so I can experience it as well.

It would be a shame to reduce pedestrian priority at a point with ostructive bridge posts that block views such that people cross without the pelican lights and don't get seen by people coming down the hill. Equally accelerating the numbers through to the Sainsburys' lights, etc and just moving the queue would seem pointless. Show me the problem then I'll happilly talk to council officers.

Hi amberwood,

Thanks for your suggestions. They might have ot wait until next year as we've had so many already.

[Gimme]

Hi James,

#185 bus at 8.10am this morning. Inched along in traffic. Lights went red in front then green. Two cars went through, then red again when someone pressed the pelican crossing button, putting the lights to red again. So two red lights within one minute. This is fairly typical from before 8am to 8.30am. Not sure about after that as I'm never there after 8.30am.

You are right, it is a balancing act but every morning there are long tailbacks down to Goose Green roundabout and along Grove Vale at rushhour, caused by the on demand pelican crossing. It would be wrong to cause additional danger to pedestrians by making the pelican crossing very infrequent. But there surely must be a balance that helps the traffic flow while giving pedestrians reasonable crossing access. How about giving pedestrians one crossing every 2 minutes when demanded or something... It is not as if it is the worlds busiest pedestrian crossing...

As Hugenot said, it is probably very mathematical so I'm sure someone at the council could apply themselves to the problem for 10 minutes and come up with the right answer.

What time do you go past on the bus?

[James Barber]

I'll try and make a point next week of hanging around for that time next week to experience it.

[cheerydisco]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned in this thread about traffic lights etc but I find - as a pedestrian and driver - that the whole goose green roundabout is a nightmare...

As it is - on school mornings there are children crossing ALL THE TIME and each zebra is in two parts. No sooner has one person got on to one bit then someone is on the other bit and the poor children must live in fear of the cars that do not stop for them but you can understand because half the time you cannot see the people for all the stationary cars. I have never seen SO many zebra crossing positioned SO close to a roundabout.. I have been there on foot waiting for cars to stop and have been there as a driver being Beeped to high heaven whilst I followed the rule and allowed people to cross.. in the end you just have to inch forward but it's a nightmare. I can only imagine it was put there to put people off any form of travel. Surely anything would be better and safer...

Perhaps the crossing that is at the base of goose green could easily be moved up-road where it might be of use to those using the leisure centre - ie allowing them to cross the road nearer the centre and park rather than opposite the pub. The crossing near the Scope shop could stay and perhaps the crossing on LL moved up a bit. Just spacing the crossing out will allow cars/people to SEE each other and so allow everyone to get a fair go on the road..

[James Barber]

Hi cheerdisco,

Goose Green roundabout defies transport planners theories in having far fewer collissions per pedestrian and vehicle movement that other styles of junctions. I think the tight small roundabout with zebra crossings makes everyone driver more slowly and with care to avoid scrapes.

Some years ago it was proposed to increase the size of the rounabout - about 10 years ago from memory - to increase traffic flow but it was acknowledged it would gobble up parts of Goose Green and potentially have more collissions. Popular opposition killed that idea.

Of more concern to me is that Lordship Lane and to lesser degree Grove Vale and east Dulwich Road are ribbons of collissions that we need to fix. In particular the junction of Lordship Lane with Northcross Road.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Perhaps the crossing that is at the base of goose green could easily be moved up-road where it might be of use to those using the leisure centre - ie allowing them to cross the road nearer the centre and park rather than opposite the pub. The crossing near the Scope shop could stay and perhaps the crossing on LL moved up a bit. Just spacing the crossing out will allow cars/people to SEE each other and so allow everyone to get a fair go on the road..

Have to say (as pedestrian and car user) that is actually a rather good suggestion - when I cut across the Green towards LL, I always try and cross the road at that point because the roundabout crossing (just on that arm) is a bit of a nightmare. I'm never quite sure as a pedestrian, that I'll get across safely because drivers, quite naturally, are looking ahead to see when they can get out. For some reason, I never get that feeling on the other crossings at the roundabout, perhaps I'm just strange.

[James Barber]

Hi Peckhamgatecrasher,

All the crossings are helpful for pedstrians. moving them wont aid any pedestrians and wont make much odds to vehicles using the roundabout as it wont be balanced anymore with pedesitrans breaking the traffic flow allowing other arms of traffic to go onto the roundabout. It's also horribly expensive to move crossings and we should spend any money on reducing collissions where they are actually occurring.

Apologies for grumpy coldy day.

Regards james.

[cheerydisco]

Fair call - if it stops collisions then I guess it stays...but I think that is because at the moment no car or person ever gets beyond 1 meter a minute travel time as we all inch forward in our terribly British " you go". "no after you" .. heaven forbid that we jump the queue way.

[James Barber]

BT Openreach have contacted me to talk about their superfast broadband - initially 40Mbs downstream and 10Mbs upstream.

The Dulwich exchange will have super fast broadband from March 2011.

I've done a little investigation and all exchanges serving Southwark will have been upgraded to superfast broadband by end of 2011 - back end loaded Sept-Dec. www.superfast-openreach.co.uk

(Bermondsey Sep'11, Beulah Hill Mar'11, Brixton Sep'11, Forst Hill Mar'11, Gipsy Hill Sep'11, New Cross Dec'10, Southwark/Borugh dec'11, Vauxhall/Kennington Oct'10, Walworth Dec'11). Not clear about Southbank but suspect it doesn't serve homes.

To make this work they are talking about Fibre To The Cabinet so we may see some BT digging but mostly cable pulling in the next 15 months across Southwark and in Dulwich during the next 6 months.

[James Barber]

Dulwich Infants - I've wrongly stated that this would increase by one class size permanently.

I should have stated it is likely o take bulge class Sept'11.

Apologies for my error.

[Gimme]

James Barber Wrote:

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> I'll try and make a point next week of hanging

> around for that time next week to experience it.

This cracked me up. Please tell me you were being sarcastic...

[a_m]

James,

Do you have any further information on the pilot rubbish collection scheme? I see you expressed concern about this pilot previously.

We received a letter saying we were in the scheme and I duly ordered one of the new food caddies about three weeks ago now, but it has not yet arrived. Unhelpfully the letter says that the new scheme starts "in October" and the person I spoke to on the phone when ordering the caddy could not give a specific date. So far no further letter confirming when the scheme starts, but I just hope they get the caddies and bags out there in time.

Do you know if there is a firm date set for when the scheme starts?

[James Barber]

A '6 month pilot' scheme involving 10,000 homes in Southwark starts on Monday 4 October. The pilot involves adding organic waste i.e. food to the weekly recycling collections via 240L, 23L and caddy brown bins and also biodegradeable plastic bags. For non recycling rubbish collections will become fortnightly. This is a big emotive change and frankly looks botched due to ridiculous timescales.

The concept is great - we all want to see great recycling but the execution for this pilot is very weak.

The pilot was announced about 6 weeks ago and it has been really difficult to get information. I've repeatedly requested a precise list of which properties are in the pilot and this si still not available.

Those homes in the pilot should have received a non addressed letter a month ago and another leaflet this week. Hopefully you didn?t miss it!

Only 'easy' properties are included - so we have a pilot designed to learn next to nothing as it doesn't attempt to try this extra recycling at properties with less space for extra bins.

Clearly many will be surprised come Monday with the letter and leaflet being lost in the general masses of junk mail/leaflets we all receive. To confirm if you?re in or out of the scheme you can call 020 7525 2000 - I was assured people could check this via the web but this is still not up and running.

East Dulwich ward street that have properties in the pilot are - Barry Road, Crebor Street, Dunstans Road, East Dulwich Road, Etherow Street, Friern Road, Norcroft Gardens and Upland Road.

For those that are in the scheme not all homes on a street are necessarily in the pilot - if council officers felt insufficient room to store a brown bin then you?re not included. So you can expect neighbouring properties to have either weekly or fortnightly ?residial ? rubbish collections - you?ll need to pay close attention!

If you have any problems please let me know and I?ll try and help.

PS. I've attached a photo of the 23L brown bin, the kitchen caddy and biodegradeable bags.

[James Barber]

Gallery Road is being competely rebuilt and reusrfaced and having kerbs added to both side starting Monday 11 October.

Expect severe disruption if you travel via Gallery Road. It will be much better afterwards. I've always thought it strange such a road without kerbs had a nursery school on it. Eitherway, these long held plans will finally come to fruition.

Any problems then contact the Conway manager Matt Joel 07919493040 else let me know.

james.