Category: Schools and Education

A healthier, safer & active Dulwich

Slowly action is being taken to make Dulwich healthier and safer.  Southwark Council has a programme of work to do this and to learn more about it. A public meeting took place last week on Saturday 12 January – GETTING AROUND DULWICH – Towards a healthier, safer & more active future

The meeting discussed how to move forward and make Dulwich a better place to live. Southwark Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport Management & Air Quality, Richard Livingstone, plus Village Ward Councillors and experts on the health effects of traffic related air pollution took part.

The possibility of the Croxted Road Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) being extended was raised. This has yet to be consulted upon but a request has been made to Lambeth and Southwark from Residents in Croxted Road, who find it difficult to park near their houses, for the existing CPZ to be extended. At present it runs up to the petrol station from Norwood Road. The extension is likely to take it past the Turney Road junction. Lambeth and Southwark have to agree to run a consultation but it has not yet been confirmed nor whether Turney Road will be included in the consultation. The other roads that join with Croxted Road i.e. Guernsey and Hawarden Grove were included when the existing CPZ was created. How much any extension will impact on Turney is not known but there may be some displacement onto Turney on both Lambeth and Southwark sides.

Southwark is putting together its latest traffic plan now called a movement plan and the consultation is open until 18 February see: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/movement-plan/consultation/subpage.2018-11-01.3664391771/

The latest status of pollution for the local area can be found at http://www.londonair.org.uk/LondonAir/Default.aspx and there is a phone app.  The meeting highlighted that this invisible pollution is being found, through research, to be impacting on the elderly and young and it reduces lung capacity. It may account in part for the increase in asthma. It was stated that the level of pollution is higher when inside a car than outside.  When walking and cycling it is preferable to avoid busy streets and walk on the side away from the traffic. The amount of pollution at the height of children in buggies is reported as higher than for adults.

Comments made included parked cars/school coaches running their engines (which is illegal), the green screening of Schools or closing roads with Schools in them at  drop off and pick up times e.g. Bessemer Grange and the lack of bus services through the village. Many comments were made about the through traffic in Dulwich and the potential of electric cars to reduce pollution if not the number of cars.

Drivers in Southwark fined for leaving car engines running!

Drivers in Southwark face spot fines for leaving engines running in the street as new research highlights the link between vehicle emissions and premature death. This will be a great benefit for Dulwich Village schools as well as others where busy roads pass by and drivers routinely keep their engines running when stationary.

Drivers could be hit with £20 on-the-spot penalties for refusing to turn off engines when cars are stationary by the roadside. In some areas, residents are being asked to report motorists who leave engines running, including providing the registration number, colour and car model of repeat offenders.

As well as Southwark, measures have been adopted by Norwich, Wirral, Reading and Camden.

Research has found that people living near busy roads are at risk of developing dangerously swollen hearts.

A study by King’s College London projecting the impact of vehicle emissions on life expectancy estimates that the measures to cut car use and promote more active lifestyles would lead to a reduction in nitrogen dioxide levels of up to 25 per cent between 2013 and 2020. Children born in 2013 would be expected to gain seven weeks of life as a result of the measures to cut car use and promote more active lifestyles.

It is an offence under laws introduced in 1986 to leave a “vehicle engine running unnecessarily”. New powers were handed to councils under the road traffic regulations 2002 in England to issue fixed penalty notices of £20 if motorists refuse to turn off engines when asked by traffic wardens or police. It can increase to £40 if unpaid after 28 days. Similar powers were introduced in Scotland and Wales in 2003 but most councils have previously opted not to exercise them.

According to the RAC, idling engines can produce emission levels twice as high as those in motion and it welcomes a focus on idling engines, expecting drivers to be fined if they failed to turn off.

Westminster council in central London was one of the first to adopt the fines as part of a concerted campaign. Last year, the authority said that it wanted to get even tougher on drivers by issuing parking charge notices of £80 to those leaving engines running. Westminster allows people to report repeat offenders, using the authority website to log details of cars involved.

Let’s hope it makes an improvement in Dulwich.

For a fuller story see The Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drivers-face-20-on-the-spot-fine-for-leaving-their-motor-running-g396c99wd?shareToken=31846811fa77325bab70d24dce42286e

Fair Funding for all Schools

It looks like the Government’s cuts to our schools in Turney Road are going ahead.  This poster on Turney Road School announces a ‘Carnival Against the Cuts’ on Sunday 16 July.

This seems a strange time to be reducing education provision with rising school roles and a need for the country to become more productive and efficient.  Our schools are taking the plans seriously and are every worried.

Schools Worry as Government cuts funds

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Dulwich Hamlet Junior School in the centre of Dulwich Village had these signs and placards attached to its railings this morning.

The Government is cutting funding for schools in London.  According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the funding cuts particularly hit inner London schools. Already facing cash cuts of 2.5% per pupil before 2020, the further cuts amount to a 7% reduction for many schools.

The spending reductions come on top of a projected 6.5 per cent real terms cut for all schools between now and 2020, as a result of increasing pupil numbers, a rise in the minimum wage, the apprenticeship levy and higher employer contributions to national insurance and pensions. (Financial Times 22 March 2017)

The Dulwich Village primary schools are popular with our families.  Cutting their funds as we embark on new competitive world relationships is counter what would be expected.

Speeding cars, vans and trucks

Our worries about speeding vehicles in our roads is shared across the borough. Nationally dangerous driving is a big problem and has led to the introduction of the 20mph limit on local roads.

However drivers are having difficulties understanding the issue and continue to drive at higher speeds. Even in our roads, with their multiplicity of schools and nurseries and the many children and older residents, vehicles travel at dangerous speeds.

Southwark Police’s Safer Transport team has been running the Community Roadwatch speed monitoring campaign across the borough. Since launching the scheme at the beginning of this year there has been a lot of roads identified with speeding problems. For the team to cover the roads with speeding problems it needs volunteers to attend the events.

A recent operation carried out on East Dulwich Grove recorded 80 vehicles travelling at speeds over 26mph with one travelling at 71mph. Warning letters were issued to the drivers. A very mild sanction for dangerous driving!

The Roadwatch team needs volunteers for monitoring in Village ward (our ward), where a speeding problem has been identified. Anyone who could volunteer should contact Southwark’s ST team. The contact details are: STT.Southwark@met.police.uk.

 

See local Quietway 7 Consultation responses

We will be posting up responses to the Quietway 7 consultation on this page:

Dulwich Society Quietway Response

Letter from Co-heads of Dulwich Village Infants School

Response from children of Dulwich Village Hamlet School

Court Lane RA Dulwich Village Junction Survey

Court Lane Survey Monkey data on Dulwich Village Junction 19 March 2016

 

Why is there such controversy over the Judith Kerr school site?

Parents in Herne Hill have launched a petition urging planners to protect a playing field at Judith Kerr Primary School (JKPS), 62-68 Half Moon Lane from being sold off for development by the Dulwich Estate.  The Dulwich Estate has recently announced it would like to build sheltered housing for older residents on the site.

State school JKPS leases its buildings and grounds from The Dulwich Estate, an education charity that counts Dulwich College, Alleyn’s and James Allen’s Girls’ School among its beneficiaries. However, not all the land at the site is leased by the school and the lease terms specify that the green space not leased by the school can be sold and developed into residential housing at any time, subject to planning permission from Southwark Council.

James Roberts, a spokesman for the parents’ Green Space Campaign, said the group was urging the council to change the status of the field to “Open Space” in order to protect it.

The New Southwark Plan preferred option is to designate JKPS green space to ‘Other Open Space’. The petition asked respondees to register support to ensure the designation of ‘Other Open Space’ is approved.    Southwark Council are not yet in a position to say what the final outcome is likely to be as the consultation has just closed.

In the meantime, the Dulwich Estate has said it has submitted representations to the council concerning the land at 62-68 Half Moon Lane for possible use as subsidised sheltered housing for elderly people.  It also plans a public consultation exercise.   See The Dulwich Estate Statement about the Almshouses

What are the issues with the lease?

Further background (courtesy of the Dulwich Estate June 2015):

“….The establishment of a school in this location was not under the control of nor encouraged by the Estate.

The CfBT Schools Trust took an assignment of the building lease from King’s College London in the clear knowledge that the remaining term of the lease was relatively short. The Estate was approached with a view to securing a longer tenure in order that the School could obtain the substantial funding required to convert the premises for use as a school from the Education Funding Agency.

The agreement between CfBT Schools Trust and the Estate was reached in order to accommodate the Trust’s aim of securing the future of the School in the longer term. The Trust was well aware that in consideration for this, the area of the site to be occupied by the School going forward would not be the whole site. The Trust chose to establish a school in this location on the basis of this agreement, i.e. that the Estate would take back part of the original site…”

The lease from The Dulwich Estate stipulates that JKPS is not allowed to object to planning permission.  Therefore the JKPS Green Space Campaign was established to prevent the school from losing the playing field on behalf of the school, its children and the local community. The lease further restricts the school, CfBT and the school’s governing body from opposing the planning application(s).

 

 

Published: 26 Feb 2016