With the revelations of the #panamapapers, whats the Mayor of London, got to say about money-laundering in London? 

Well you can see from the video link above his verbal response to my questioning on the matter but only last month l asked where he was in stopping money laundering in London. It sounds to me he’s backtracking on the matter, from the response l got below;

Stopping Money Laundering in London

Question No: 2016/1207

Murad Qureshi

Is it not time for estate agents to run checks on the buyers of properties, as they are legally obliged to do with sellers, at least at the top end of the housing market in Central London?

Written response from the Mayor

Responsibility for anti-money laundering activities has recently been transferred from the Office for Fair Trading to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. HMRC are now enforcing the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, which require estate agents to take adequate measures to verify the identity of customers and beneficial owners. Failure to comply can result in a criminal record or an unlimited fine.

The Government has also said it will launch a consultation on how to stop entities in offshore tax havens from owning property in the UK anonymously.

I trust and hope he is not going to backtrack on the matter, with the release of the #panamapapers and its links with money laundering in London.

At Mayors Question Time (MQT) on the 17th of June last year, so shown above l got the following response from the Mayor when l raised concerns about tube noise from residents who lived near Baker Street tube station ” We are going to have a 24 hour Tube but we cannot be rattling people’s teacups at 3.00am and so we will sort it out “. So it was clear that he would deal with tube noise issue before launching the 24 hour tube service in localities like Baker Street. 

Coming now to the end of his term, l thought l should raise the Baker Street Tube noise issue again in written form this time and l got the following response, after quoting what he had said and asking whether he was satisfied that TfL had addressed these concerns  before the night service begins? 

The written response is as follows:

” TfL works to prevent noise and vibration issues through regular maintenance and improvement work. It has a robust process of investigating any noise or vibration complaints and will carry out remedial work to manage and mitigate the issues as required, including on lines that operate Night Tube. This is happening across the network.

TfL undertook planned maintenance on the Jubilee line in the Baker Street area in August 2015, and grinding of ‘rough’ rail in this section in February 2016. Both of these actions have resulted in incremental decreases in noise.

TfL will continue to engage with the local community over any concerns and regularly monitor the condition of rail and track condition to manage appropriate levels of noise in the lead up to Night Tube becoming operational, and once the service has begun ”

It’s clear to me that his officials have got to him and given this rather bureaucratic response. As a result l thought l needed to get the issue more attention and managed to get into the ES under the header Boris Johnson must tackle tube noise before rising in 24 hour service. Surely this should have been sorted by now almost 10 months since l raised it with him directly but it clear it has not been undermost in his mind when delivering the 24 hour tube service as part of his legacy to London. So watch this space for any further developments? 

Notices like those above have been put up in Tube stations telling Londoners about the Mayoral and London Assembly elections on the 5th of May. What they won’t realise is that the whole of strategic London government has shut down to observe purdah as well.  

Now purdah is the borrowed British political term ( from the Indian sub-continent ) used for the period before elections to make sure the political systems do not influence the outcome of the elections themselves. But the problem l have with it is that it comes so early with these GLA elections, in this instance well before the Easter break, that it appears just an excuse for officers to put their feet up with a cuppa for over six weeks before an elections.

Its stops us doing our work representing Londoners, while Monitoring Officers tell us we can’t use resources to political ends as public meetings at City Hall come to a complete stand still. Major demonstrations in London are constrained as these may unduly influence the election result and we can’t even twitter photos of site visits! 

Now why should this happen much earlier than for local or general elections?  Lords knows but the legislation is plainly wrong here, as l’m not sure City Hall has as much influence as say local councils in the lead-up to General Elections. Indeed City Hall shut up shop much sooner than local councils like City of Westminster before last years General Elections!!! So while l carefully go about doing my job, l do wonder if purdah has not gone mad at the GLA. 

With extensive courage of LOBO’s in the last week ( ES, Independent & FT ) or so, particularly the exposure that UK Councils have up and down the country, lets not forget its another scandal the financial sector has inflicted on its customers.

Like Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) miss-selling by the B5, the LOBO’s (Lender Option Borrower Option’s) is really the miss-selling of derivatives to clients like Councils for whom trading in derivatives is illegal.

The miss-selling of LOBOs (Lender Option Borrower Option) to local authorities is not dissimilar to the Big 5 miss-selling of PPI to their customers as clearly derivatives use are buried in them which are “ultra vires” or illegal for local government to invest in on behalf of their residents. This is illustrated well in the case against Hammersmith & Fulham in 1989. So just like PPI miss-selling, LA’s caught up in it should be compensated fully by those who sold them these financial products without  highlighting what it involved.

Unfortunately the LOBOs scandal can be added to the many other scandals we have had in the financial sector recently like the bail-out of RBS, Libor fixing, PPI compensation by big 5 for miss-selling to customers, to name but a few. It just adds to further calls for structural reform of the financial sector in the UK immediately. 

Over 90% of residents recently surveyed in the Marylebone area say they are disturbed by noise and vibrations from the Tube, with some experiencing both. The results also found that 87% of local residents surveyed are either “very concerned” or “a little bit concerned” that introduction of the Night Tube would make noise disturbance worse.

I launched the survey after being contacted by a number of residents in the Baker Street area whose lives are being disrupted by increasing noise and vibration from tube trains running under their homes.  Local residents responding to my survey reported pictures shifting on walls, rattling windows and even shaking beds caused by vibrations from the underground, with one respondent saying:

“Even though being on the top fifth floor, over the past year the noise has become more noticeable. Due to the late running of the service I have to wear ear plugs to get to sleep. It is going to be an absolute nightmare when night service is introduced.”

The survey results come after an internal TfL risk assessment for Night Tube, obtained by the Times newspaper via a Freedom of Information request, revealed residents living near to tube tracks or stations are likely to face significant increases in noise disturbance when the Night Tube is introduced. The risk assessment stated that the nuisance noise could result in a “reduction in quality of life of residents through disturbed sleep” and even “threats of suicide.”

TfL should use the delayed introduction of the Night Tube to repair all the identified sections of track and should set up a ‘noise-busters’ team to ensure noisy sections of track are quickly identified in future and prioritised for replacement or maintenance.

The survey results clearly show the extent of the problem. This isn’t just a bit of noise effecting residents on the ground floor every now and then. This is a constant and significant disruption even for people living five storeys above the tracks. Many residents said that the noise and vibration has increased in the past couple of years and it’s a real worry that TfL can’t get this sorted.

Marylebone residents desperately need some respite from these continuous disturbances. Setting up a noise-busters team to respond to complaints and quickly identify and fix noisy sections of Night Tube tracks would go a long way to making life better for Londoners living near tube lines.”

You can read the full survey results here:  Tube noise survey results

The Mayor’s bridging legacy begins with him stopping the works order on the Thames Tideway bridge as one of the first acts he did when becoming Mayor in May 2008. And ends with him now pushing through the controversial Garden Bridge before his departure, fast racked when we have 12 other River crossing proposals which TfL are working on. Eight of which are for pedestrian & cyclists and the remaining 4 for road traffic crossings. 

The irony with the Thames bridge from Thamesmead to Beckton ( Gallions Reach ), – something that he has come round too see that London needs – would have been built and finished by now, but for him chopping it at the outset of his term.  Of course planning Inspectorate decision would have needed to be overturned but that would not have been insurmountable for the Mayor keen on the proposal.

Now Boris Johnson, ends his time as Mayor of London with the folly of the Garden Bridge. Given that TfL are working on as many as 12 river crossing proposals as illustrated with diagram above, he must explain why and how he fast tracked it ahead of the other proposals? Particularly ahead of those that open up new homes in opportunity areas near the new crossings like those proposed by Terry Farrell in East London like the Lower Thames Crossing & at Belvedere. If there is not an adequate explanation then Joanna Lumley really has pulled the wool over the Mayor’s and TfL eyes! 

WITH up to 260 proposals for towers in London it’s important more than ever to highlight the impact on the skyline to Londoners from proposals like that at Paddington.

Not since the Westway went crashing through the heart of Paddington in the 1960s has a proposal like the Paddington Tower, a 72-storey residential tower designed by Renzo Piano, otherwise know to local people as the Pole, cast such a shadow over the area.

With the disparaging remarks about Paddington itself made by the developers, as a place people only pass through or go to the hospital, we all knew the soul of Paddington was at stake and that’s why it been fought, tooth and nail since.

So immediately in the new year, I set down and wrote my letter of objection to the planners at the council and set about finding out the involvement of the Mayor of London with the developers of the Paddington Pole.

The initial programming lent itself to a mayoral call-in – before his departure – even if the council had thrown it out at its planning meeting in early March.

Indeed this is precisely what the mayor is going to do with another major development proposal in Bishopgate’s Goodyard, E2 where it has been turned down by the local councils but called in.

And, so far, most of those schemes that he has called in have been passed by him. So you can see the danger here quite clearly of the powers vested in an executive Mayor of London, particular one like Boris Johnson willing to curry favour with global property developers.

In my objection letter, I stated the proposal represented poor urban design, will have a negative impact on light and shadow in neighbourhoods near it, and fails to take advantage of potential transport connectivity and public spaces. I was particularly exercised by how the skyline in Paddington had already been dealt with poorly if you look at the towers around the Marylebone flyover and critically needed oversight for such an important location. It is, after all, the western gateway into central London.

In the first set of responses to my written questions I wrote to the mayor, the responses told me that his office had meetings with the developers of the Pole but not the council, while being very cagey about whether it had met with government officials about the Pole. Given the intrigue of the involvement of Downing Street in Uber’s expansion into London’s taxi business, it certainly gave us food for thought about how London government actual works.

Of the many hundreds of letters of objection, I thought that our local visionary architect for London, Sir Terry Farrell’s was particularly devastating for the developers. Tall buildings often provide lower densities than alternative forms of design. This is because the high prices fetched for these units dictate that they are extraordinarily spacious, meaning the number of actual homes in a given tower is surprisingly low. The Paddington Pole proposal offered 330 flats in 72 storeys, that is around 4.5 flats per floor. Whereas the alternative and previous scheme for the site by Farrell Associates offered a low-rise development of 10 to 18 storeys, high-density development delivering 600-700 flats. So, in short, you do not need to build up to achieve higher densities.

The skyline of London has become a major issue for this year’s GLA election in May and the Paddington Pole shows other Londoners that you don’t need to “build-up”.

It illustrates well how tall buildings often provide lower densities than alternative forms of design. It also shows how the community, through residents’ associations and organisations such as the South East Bayswater Residents’ Association can work towards making sure local views are heard loud and clear by the planners.

I am sure that when the council heard that 26,000 leaflets objecting to the proposal were about to hit the streets of west London, they realised well the storm that was brewing. Not surprisingly soon after hearing of it, the proposal had been withdrawn by the developers.

We, of course, cannot drop our guard with the counter proposals for a shorter Paddington Pole by the developers and other tower proposals along the Edgware Road yet to get planning approval. Such monuments to speculative super luxury residential developments just won’t do. As we all know Paddington deserves much better.

This blog was published in the West End Extra recently.

Soon after the Mayor of London came out for leaving the Europe Union (EU) on Sunday, l had an opportunity to ask him about it all in environmental context – his toxic air legacy to Londoners.

As you can see above his indifference to the thought that you need the EU for transnational environmental problems like toxic air and carbon emissions. Something his father Stanley Johnson was keen to argue on Radio 4 Today programme on Monday morning. Its a pity his son isn’t listening to him but l certainly did and soon after joined the Environmentalists for Europe Group.

Fruit & veg pitch in Liverpool St Station immediate outside the tube barriers

Have you ever wondered why we don’t have more fruit & veg stalls in the London Tube system?  Well l do every time l go through Liverpool Street tube station and see one of the few around (as the above photo shows) and l’m grateful for it. As l eat a bit of fruit instead of the sweets and crisps offered in the convenient shops!!! This must be healthier for users of our tube systems? 

As a result l’ve asked the Mayor a few questions on this front, keen to see more pitches available for the sale of fruit & veg at our tube stations. In the first response l am told that we have 36 vending pitches with only 3 selling fruit and vegetables ( East Finchley, Finchley Road & Liverpool St ).  In my second response l am told that TfL wants to double them over the nest year or so, but its dealt with by a case by case basis subject to the operation needs of each station. 

Well lets hope these extra pitches do materialise from TfL in the near future. For example, it would be good to see one at Edgware Rd (Circle) tube station. Finally l hope barrow boys & girls get a look in when these new pitches become available and the big boys don’t get them for other uses.  Please find the links to registering with TfL for these new pitches at the final response l got from the Mayor.