Southwark has recently consulted and then voted upon a series of bye-laws. This includes stopping cycling on a particularly narrow part of the Thames Path (not the Sustrans cycle route but the Thames walkway).  

I now read in the South London Press that Councillor Jenny Jones is threatening to defy this cycle ban.

There is a very honourable tradition of peaceful protest and civil disobedience in the UK which I wouldn’t wish to denegrate. From the Chartists to the 1990s road protests - it plays an important part in a free society.

But Jenny Jones has already had an opportunity to make her case on this issue. As I recall it she was at the Council meeting that discussed the bye-laws but didn’t make a stand against this measure. She neither spoke against it nor recorded a vote against it.  This seems strange for someone who is so incensed about the issue now.  I wonder what the explanation is.

Today, I have written to the Leader of the Council informing him of my intention to  resign my post of Executive Member for Regeneration on 22nd February in order to take up full time employment with a public affairs and communications firm.  I have greatly enjoyed my six years on the Council’s executive. It has been incredibly rewarding but also demanding on my growing family.  It is in the interests of my three young children that I have decided to resume my career in public affairs and so will be leaving the Executive.  Improving our area through local politics remains my passion and I will continue to work as hard as I can in East Dulwich.  The Liberal Democrats have an exciting agenda to deliver the much-needed new school, a refurbished Leisure centre, better street lighting and improvements to Lordship Lane. With James Barber and Jonathan Mitchell, I am determined to deliver on this agenda.

Huge congratulations to Anood on winnning the riverside by-election up in  the Bermondsey ward of Riverside.  She didn’t just win either but achieved a swing towards the Liberal Democrats. Usually, you’d expect a swing away from the party defending the seat as the opposition exploit a chance to campaign they might not normally have.

Right from the start of the campaign, Labour were bullish about the election and the Labour leader said the election would be fought on the council’s regeneration  policies. Bermondsey Spa is a key regeneration programme in the ward where hundreds of new affordable homes are being built - a key part of Anood’s appeal to the electorate.   Many new homes have been completed but there is still much work on going which brings disruption to everyday life.  To receive this endorsement during the process of change is a real boost.

The other area of policy disagreement was on the issue of how we spend planning gain - or section 106 - money. This is money given to the council by developers to lessen the impact of new developments and to ensure that in areas of growth we can provide the facilities that make for a sustainable community – like youth centres, or health facilities for example.

The Labour leader has argued that this money should be directed to areas that do not have such large developments.

 We argue that it is absolutely right that this money should be focused on small local projects providing the infrastructure required to support our growing communities and relieving pressure where that pressure exists – be it in Bermondsey, Walworth or Camberwell.  To suggest that money given in respect of a development in one area should be spent instead on unrelated projects somewhere else would be both unfair and illegal.

So the Labour leader has been caught out.  He invented an illegal policy of ‘redistributing’ money gained through section 106 from big development to fund his pet projects in his own patch in Camberwell. Back then, he was desperately trying to shore up support in his own backyard. The Riverside  by-election result shows that Labour’s idea of transferring this money out of the areas affected by development was deeply unpopular. 

I am pleased that they were not able to get away with saying contradictory things to different people in different parts of the borough. 

On Monday, I joined representatives of neighbouring boroughs to launch a major campaign to secure phase two of the East London Line extension.

Some prominent GLA members also attended, though, regretably not the Southwark and Lambeth representative.

The campaign calls for a commitment by government to funding Phase Two when they announce spending on transport projects in the Autumn.

You can support the campaign by signing up to www.southwark.gov.uk/transport/ellx

Phase two of the East London Line Extension will finally put Peckham on the tube map. This improvement to the transport infrastructure will accelerate the regeneration of Peckham and its approval will bring huge social and economic benefits to this part of south London.

Compared with the cost of projects like Crossrail, this project is cheap as chips – and it could still be built before the Olympics. This and the tram are Southwark’s top transport priorities. We now need the Mayor of London to put this at the top of his wish list so we have the best chance of persuading the Government to fund it in the Autumn.

The East London Line extension will extend and connect the existing line to destinations North and South on the traditional overland rail network.

Phase One will open in 2010, trains will travel South from New Cross Gate as far as West Croydon and Crystal Palace, and north from Shoreditch through Hoxton and Dalston, to Highbury & Islington.

Phase Two will extend the line South-west, through Peckham, Brixton, and Clapham to Clapham Junction. Phase Two is not yet funded, although the powers to build it have already been granted

Please help by signing the petition at www.southwark.gov.uk/transport/ellx

Liberal Democrats have succeeded in fighting off Labour’s worst plans for high density developments in
East Dulwich. 

As previously reported, we have been fighting off the Mayor’s plans for high density development coming to
East Dulwich.   The local Labour party said we were telling ‘porkpies’ but  recently, the Labour Government directed Southwark Council to designate our area as suitable for buildings up to seven stories high.  

The Lib Dem led Council refused to cave in to demands from Labour’s Ruth Kelly that high density developments should be allowed in
East Dulwich and recommended a legal challenge to the Government to force the Government to re-consider her decision. 

In a last minute climb down, the Government has now agreed an upper limit of four storeys – still one more than we wanted but a clear improvement on where we were just weeks ago.

We have secured the best deal we could for local people. The worst excesses of Labour high rise plans have been stopped. But I remain of the view that our case was sound and in a sane world we would have been able to come to our own conclusions without this ludicrous and politically motivated interference from politicians who should have more important things to do with their time.

***Sign the petition at http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/southwarkissuburban***

I have started a petition on the urban/suburban issue.  Click on the link above or below!

Please help by signing  the on-line petition and forwarding the link to your friends. http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/southwarkissuburban . 

The continued threat of large parts of Southwark being designated ‘urban’ by a combination of the Mayor and the Government has been a continuing feature of this blog. 

I reported that Labour’s Mayor has sought to impose an ‘urban’ planning designation on East Dulwich. Designating the area as ’suburban’ would mean that new developments would be 2-3 storeys high.  The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, objected to our proposed designation, arguing that the area should be categorised as ‘urban’ - meaning that 4-6 storey high buildings could be built.

That threat has now been realised. Ruth Kelly has written to Southwark Council directing us to change our main planning document so that East Dulwich,  Herne Hill, Rotherhithe and Nunhead are designated as urban.

So why might a Secrtary of State with so much to do and who has never visited Southwark to look atthese matters or has sought to speak to anyone at the Council about this think she knows. best. Why does she feel able to overturn the advice of her planning inspector. Why does she know better than the people who live here -  who have been consulted about this planning ndocument over a period of five years?

She has two reasons: 

1.She says if we do not will not meet our housing targets set out in the London Plan. But this contradicts the conclusion of her planning inspector who says we will meet our housing target ( and who spent months considering the evidence) She does not appear to have considered any new evidence that might explain why this position might have changed. 

2. She has had regard to the new definition of urban that Livingstone is seeking to push through in his new draft London Plan.  The draft London Plan is a ’material consideration’ but clearly it should not be given more weight than the actual plan which has legal status and has been consulted upon and agreed!

 The Council Leader Nick Stanton has already written to the Secretary of State seeking a meeting with her to persuade her to reverse this decision. Simon Hughes MP is also seeking a meeting.

The Secretary of State could reverse this decision if she wanted to.   She must be put under massive  pressure to do so. 

The campaign to stop the government closing the Maudsley Emergency Clinic has been gathering momentum since the announcement of its planned closure was made.

Last week’s Council meeting was dominated by the issue. The campaigners presented what I thought ws the best deputation I had heard in the council chamber. The steps of the town hall were packed with protesters before the meeting.  And the standrd of debate in the chanber even did justice to the importance of the issue. You can’t always say that.

All four parties on the council voted for a motion condemning the proposed closure.  All the borough’s MPs are also against the closure (although those with government jobs have gone quiet since the announcement was made).  I was left wondering what it says about out political system that one person in Whitehall can ignore that level of opposition.  The case argued by the Liberal Democrats for reforming the NHS to make it democratic and locally accountable is now surely overwhelming.    

Political Language is in the spotlight in this week’s Southwark News.  Last week, Cllr Danny McCarthy, who left the Lib Dems to join Labour just six months after the election, was described as a rat.  Intemperate, maybe. But no doubt he has called and been called worse.  Danny duly put pen to paper to complain about this outrageous use of language.  But his protests have been dented by the decision of his New Labour colleague, Andrew Pakes to compare the Council leader with the murdering dictator General Pinochet! Cllr Pakes learnt his politics in the National Union of Students …

Saturday’s Guardian had a front page story highlighting the stance taken by our MP, Tessa Jowell and others against the Labour Government health cuts. The piece pointed out that 13 Government ministers are campainging against their own Government’s cuts.

The local cut in question is the closure of the Maudsley Emergency Clinic which has now been confirmed .  Both Tessa Jowell and next door Southwark MP Harriet Harman have weighed in to save the hospital despite their status as Government ministers - in Tessa’s case sitting in the Cabinet.  The  arguments put forward by this influential pair have fallen on deaf years and the cuts are going ahead.

It use to be said that there are two types of MP. One type, epitomised by someone like Simon Hughes or on the government benches, Kate Hoey, is the independent-minded backbencher, free from the shackles of Government who will fight tirelessly for their constituents and make sure their voice is heard. The other, epitomised by Jowell is at the centre of the Government party,  they have less time for their constituency because of the ministerial job but we are told that the quiet influence at the heart of Government makes up for this.

 There are advantages to both types. But what of  the good folk of Dulwich and West Norwood who are represented by an MP who - famously - lives in North London, who pays visits to our area only rarely and who is now exposed as having a position of power which  apparently gives her no influence to achieve a positive outcome for her constituents.