The Dulwich Society

Getting Around Dulwich

Saturday 12th January. Time: 2.30pm.

The meeting’s aim is to discuss how to move forward and make our area a better place to live. Local MP Helen Hayes, Southwark Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport Management, & Air Quality, Richard Livingstone, plus Village Ward Councillors and an expert on the health effects of traffic related air pollution will be speaking. The Agenda is:

National & London Context
Southwark Council’s current policies
Potential Dulwich impacts - CPZs & low Traffic Neighbourhoods
Health effects of traffic related air pollution
School streets initiative at Bessemer Grange
Questions
Next Steps

Time: 2.30pm. Saturday 12th January
Getting Around Dulwich - Towards a healthier, safer & more active future
Location: Methodist Hall, Half Moon Lane

College Road and Dulwich Common junction

Potential delays to works at College Road & Dulwich Common junction. TfL are funding and managing these works and they will apparently involve completely shutting College Road (north) for two weeks, together with a series of short-term overnight closure of the South Circular. It now appears that TfL are waiting on the completion of the planned Thames water works at the junction of Lordship Lane & Dulwich Common before starting. TfL won’t allow that section of Lordship Lane to be dug up at the same time as College Road (north) is shut because of the potential major traffic disruption. Our Councillors are extremely frustrated with Thames Water about their delayed works but no date for them to start has yet been confirmed.

Village Shops

The Proud Sow is open and trading. There are no further updates on ‘Simply Fresh’ (though its licence has been granted), or the rumoured Yoga Studio going in the former Park Motors building. The Sari Project, currently in the former Audi Showroom, will remain until April.. The Estate tells us that it is actively looking for tenants but that the empty units will need refitting first. As always there are rumours as to potential occupiers - including a make-up shop and a national coffee shop chain. On the plus side, Hotpod Yoga will be opening their fifth studio in London in one of the new units in the Croxted Road shops and there is a sign in the window about an alcohol licence application for the Dulwich Bazaar restaurant next to Tescos.

Dulwich Hamlet Football Club

The club returned to its Champion Hill ground on Boxing Day with a match against Eastbourne. The team won 2-1 in front of a large home crowd of over. There are also reports that Dulwich Hamlet’s landlord, Meadow, will submit a planning application for a new stadium shortly. In a statement issued just before Christmas the developer said that the revised proposal will have capacity for 4,000 fans and include 230 new homes, without impinging on any Metropolitan Open Land. The council has also now agreed a new lease for the AstroTurf pitch on Greendale.

Potential Station improvements at West Dulwich and Denmark Hill

West Dulwich is one of 22 South-eastern stations nominated for step-free access. The Department for Transport will consider the nominations it has received from operators across the country, together with individual submissions from stakeholders and passengers, before making a final decision on which stations will receive funding under the scheme.

At Denmark Hill, a new passenger one-way system has been launched to reduce the level of congestion at the station. The new system will require passengers to access the platform by the old footbridge, and exit the platform by the new footbridge. Network Rail are looking at plans to build a second station entrance on Windsor Walk but this won’t be open until 2020 at the earliest.

Grafton Dance Centre

The Grafton Dance Centre in Village Way is looking for local support for a Southwark blue plaque to commemorate Bob Burgess and Doreen Freemen, one of the leading ball-room dance partnerships of the 1950 and 60s, and who ran a dance school at the site from 1972-2001. Voting is at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or there are voting slips at libraries.

Letter from Helen Hayes MP re Royal Mail service failure in the SE22 postcode area

Ms Moyà Greene
Chief Executive
Royal Mail Group plc
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0HQ

20th September 2018

Dear Ms Greene

Urgent Royal Mail service failure, SE22 postcode area

I am writing to you on behalf of thousands of my constituents living in the SE 22 postcode area who are suffering as a consequence Of serious service failures by Royal Mail.

As you will be aware, in the face of fierce opposition from the local community, you recently closed the SE22 delivery office on Silvester Road, requiring customers from SE22 to travel to Highshore Road in Peckham in order to collect parcels and registered post. SE22 deliveries are also now being made from Highshore Road. The closure has resulted in serious service failures for SE22 customers, including very long queues at Highshore Road, with some customers having to wait as long as an hour - and many giving up on the attempt; and staff shortages resulting in the Highshore Road office failing to open on time. In addition, my constituents across the SE22 postcode area are reporting that deliveries have become erratic and infrequent and. Have received reports that local managers have told commercial customers that delivery delays are a result of staff shortages.

Concerns about the impact that closing the SE22 delivery office would have on Royal Mail services were raised with you on many occasions prior to the closure, including repeated calls for Royal Mail to establish a replacement collection facility in the SE22 area. These calls were ignored, and it appears that your organisation has utterly filed to put in place arrangements to ensure the continuation of reliable high-quality service for SE22 customers following the closure. Staff at the Highshore Road report that no additional staff have been allocated to the collection desks from the former SE22 office to service the additional workload from a whole postcode area.

The current service failures are critical, and cannot be allowed to continue. Please could you provide urgent confirmation of the immediate steps you are taking to address the staff shortages and service failures at Highshore Road and across the SE22 postcode area. Further, I ask once again, that you reconsider the request that I have made on many occasions for a new collection facility to be established in the SE22 area to ensure that my constituents do not have to face long journeys and lengthy queues to collect their post. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Helen Hayes MP