former East Dulwich councillor - how can I help?

[fredricketts]

Hi James, Thank you for your reply, I was thinking more on the lines of

Getting a noxious piece of legislation changed, so residents can have more direct

Knowledge and information as to what is happening in their ares.

Like petitioning T Jowel or who ever. What ever it takes.

[skyblue]

James thanks for the reply.

So please can you confirm what the coed choice is for kids east of lordship lane?

Many thanks.

ps if there is no choice- do you think we need one? (as relates to should we have a choice, and if so, should we have a new co-ed school.)

p.p.s what is projected to happen when the bulge classes reach secondary age. do we have enough school places for kids in this area?

[the-e-dealer]

Answers

1. Yes

2. They will wait until the problem arises.

[James Barber]

Hi skyblue,

The ED local non religious Southwark school co-ed choices are Kingsdale and The Charter.

I'm afraid I don't have forecasts about secondary school places but can only assume the experienced and further forecast bulge in primary school numbers will continue and affect secondary school places. For the dulwich area this has been 60-75 children per year and looks to continue.

The ED Harris Boys Academy has added 120 secondary school places. So I can see extra pressure for places but in our part of Southwark what felt a brave contentious decision about the ED Harris Boys appears to have been crucial to avoiding shortages locally.

Does this answer your questions and concerns?

[skyblue]

James,

Sorry but no it doesn't.

You have already said that Charter will contract. Therefore our kids will not get in.

And if Kingsdale is the local school for east dulwich then why are our kids not given any better chance of admission than kids from Wandsworth? The Wandsworth kids have their own local schools no doubt.

There is a massive increase in the number of kids in the area. Harris was supposed to be a co-ed but because of parents' objections circa 2002 there is no chance of that. I support the boys school but even that isn't going to be enough in a few years....

A new school on the Dulwich Hospital site?

[James Barber]

Hi skyblue,

If you email me I'll obtain forecasts for secondary school places for you.

[the-e-dealer]

I think we all see them.

[James Barber]

Hi the-e-dealer,

From quite a few PM's and other posts from skyblue that she is looking for specific information related to her circumstances which are location dependent. So yes, I would always post general infromation as I have it but absolutely no I will not post information specific to a resident or someone who has asked for help.

[fredricketts]

Posted by: fredricketts Today, 12:41PM

Hi James, Thank you for your reply, I was thinking more on the lines of

Getting a noxious piece of legislation changed, so residents can have more direct

Knowledge and information as to what is happening in their ares.

Like petitioning T Jowel or who ever. What ever it takes.

[the-e-dealer]

Jowell isnt in Charge any More -its James lot the Torie Cons.

[skyblue]

James, I will pm you re our location thank you.

However there is a generic community interest in this too. As to the admission policies of schools as they affect children east of east dulwich and specifically what is going to happen now that we are entering the bulge years for secondary schools.

Charter and Kingsdale are out, Aske's is going to be out. It is a major, growing concern. I note from the Lib Dem survey for the hospital that there is no proposals for a secondary school on the East Dulwich site. Could you say why?

last year the greatest % of kids who got none of their schools on the first round in Southwark where in this area and this year I can't see it being any better.

[fredricketts]

The schools have not been any better in the last 40 years

I had the same trouble with my children in the 1960s

[intexasatthe moment]

Fred I have to agree with you ,we had the same problems 10 years ago and sadly we're still suffering from the negative effects of a poor secondary school experience .

I know lots of people will take the view that if there's enough parental support /input that the child will thrive in any school environment but this isn't always the case .

It's still not possible for every child to go to a good local school - especially if you want a co-ed environment .

[fredricketts]

This is one of the reasons we have a lost generation.

Why most of the under 24s are all out of work.

[James Barber]

Hi fred, ITATM,

When local secondary schools have open days do go along. I've visited them all and they are streets ahead of my 1970/80's comp experience in Essex. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

[James Barber]

Just heard Grove Vale library is reducing its hours from 33 pw to 25pw.

I met with the heado f libraries and suggested a number of measuresto save enough money to avoid any cut in hours to make the ?98,000 saving stated as required.

[fredricketts]

Thank you james,

Perhaps you could let me know the next opening day.

Should be intersting.

[James Barber]

The council have issued plans to radically change Goose Green roundabout - see attached.

I recall a past public meeting where the Labour councillor Nick Dolezal tried to persuade local East Dulwich residents that we would prefer traffic lights or a radically changed roundabout so more cars and lorries could pass through our area more quickly every day. He also revealed that Goose Green roundabout defies highway planners by having an unprecedented low collission rate.

The attached plans are the current attempt by council officers to make more road space to speed up traffic at Goose Green. The fig leaf of an excuse is lorry damage to the roundabout brick wall. Very occasionally a lorry will hit such a roundabout but if the council never repairs it it will look much worse. And the council hasn't repaired the roundabout for nearly two years now. Apparently its to dangerous to repair the brick work - but not so dangerous they can;t remove all of the roundabout brick work, shrink the roundabout by 6 feet and resurface the road - hypocrites comes to mind.

Do you think Goose Green roundabout should be changed?

[intexasatthe moment]

It looks like the proposal is to retain the roundabout and tree but reduce the overall size .

I think that's probably ok ,though I admit I'm not very good a visualising things from plans .

[AbDabs]

James Barber Wrote:

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

He also revealed that

> Goose Green roundabout defies highway planners by

> having an unprecedented low collission rate.

Uh, if it's so safe, why would they want to change it? Isn't doing something that might make it more dangerous opening the council up to legal proceedings if there's an accident with the new profile?

The odd lorry will always take things a bit too tight, it doesn't matter where the wall is. If they make the roundabout smaller, they'll just have faster cars going past when they want to repair the damage.

[Penguin68]

The arc of the roundabout opposite Spurling Road is often damaged - it is a narrow passage for large lorries/ buses to negotiate - I suspect, as is stated, that the plan to reduce the diameter will avoid constant repair bills for that. James' 'very occasionally' is actually, in my experience, about 4 times a year or more.

Additionally this will allow more readily two streams of traffic in that corner, one continuing down Lordship Lane, and frequently halted currently by road works and in future by crossing points, the other exiting East Dulwich Road to continue up Grove Vale towards Dog Kennel Hill. Recently that has become a real bottleneck (and yes, oh anti-car folk, that is an issue as stationary and queueing traffic adds to localised pollution).

On balance, I am thus in favour of this. Traffic passing through ED more quickly will reduce pollution associated with idleing engines - there is absolutely nothing to suggest (pace Mr Barber's comment) that this will lead to more traffic absolutely, just more of the traffic we already have not caught in queues of traffic.

I find it interesting that Mr Barber sees it as beneficial for ED to have stationary traffic puffing out exhaust fumes near schools, and for local people and visitors to be inconvenienced - there is here no trade-off (one person's good is another's dismay) - but strong evidence of a clear anti-car (and indeed anti any form of mechanised transport) bias. An attitude of 'if it's good for drivers, it must be bad' does't wash - and 'if it helps people visiting or passing through ED it must be bad' doesn't either. 'Local Roads for Local People' - we live in East Dulwich, not Royston Vasey.

[Penguin68]

He also revealed that Goose Green roundabout defies highway planners by having an unprecedented low collission rate.

The roundabout area is (and will be after any change) very small, with feeder roads close to each other and with traffic which is anyway generally slower moving (because of the volume of traffic and the road widths and crossings approaching the roundabout - these aren't being changed). I would be very surprised if circulating speeds around the roundabout go above what is now (for daytime) their normal (relatively slow) maximum, what will be changed is that this maximum will be more frequently achieved. As pedestrian crossings do not look as if they are being altered, approaching these causes vehicles to slow/ stop anyway, outwith entry to a roundabout, so speed into the roundabout is normally already reduced - what this may encourage is a better (but by no means actually fast) speed through and out of the roundabout. The slight widening of the roadways will tend to avoid scrapes going round the circuit. Any changes will not stop (or encourage) idiots and drunks of course, that requires education. The increased width should benefit (slightly) cyclists, giving them more road.

Overall I would suggest that the positive 'good' collision rate is a function of the overall size and layout of the circuit, with traffic entering always slowly and with good visibility and awareness of other users - it's just too small to get any speed up anyway, which means traffic has much more chance of (time for) taking avoiding action where danger threatens.

[eddie]

Councillor Barber

As you so blatantly use this forum for your own political ends and never shrink to have a dig at your political opponents, perhaps it might be better if your actually found out how many times the roundabout was damaged and repaired while the Lib Dems were in power and what has happened under the current administration, rather than your statement that the council has not repaired the roundabout for 2 years. As a driver I have seen the brickwork on the roundabout smashed up on many occasions and subsequently fixed. This scheme sounds sensible if it reduces maintenance costs and reduces pollution, something that may not have seen obvious to the previous council administration.

[James Barber]

Hi ITATM,

Yes, the current proposals are to keep the tree but reduce the overal diameter by 1.5m and giving that space to vehicle lanes. It will make the rounabout quicker to negotiate and increase capacity. This would make it less safe to all users.

Hi eddie,

No repairs to the roundabout have been undertaken in the last 18months. The South Camberwell ward and East Dulwich ward councillors have proposed that we use some of our Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding to repair it. We've been blocked from doing this as the council wants to change the roundabout. It will look like we're on an industrial estate, increase capacity and vehicle speeds. It will as a result have more collisions and collisions of greater severity where people are injured.

The proposed changes would cost ?30,000-50,000.

If this plays out as it did a decade ago. The next step will be for officers to say then perhaps we keep the roundabout the same size much make the lanes bigger by taking some of the Goose Green land. Then we all say no to that. Then they suggest traffic lgihts as happened a decade ago. A big public meeting. All to avoid repairing a few bricks a couple of times a year which can't costs more than a couple of thousans pounds a year. So a payback period of 15-25 years.

Hi Penguin68,

I agree. The very high levels of traffic using it have highway engineers baffled by the very low collision rate. The rounabout diameter is a key aspect of really slowing vehicles down. I fear changing a largely winning configuration worrying and believe it will result in more collisions for all users.

Hi AbDabs,

I find it puzzling as well. The last time this proposal was made the councillor leading the meeting had probably the hardest time I've ever seen at the Southwark Council public meeting.

[the-e-dealer]

Funny to see this issue come up yet again. Last Time ISTR it was London Transport who were worried about their buses getting stuck. Then Some chap had a fatal heart attack while driving down Grove Vale. The Roundabout stopped his car from ploughing into pedestrians on Lordship Lane. It needs a medal not a haircut.