Boris Johnson has called for fracking in London, despite concerns about the environmental impact. London Assembly Labour Group Environment spokesperson Murad Qureshi said Boris should focus on reducing the demand for energy and promote “cleaner, greener sources of energy”.

In a letter to the Times newspaper, Boris Johnson wrote: “It is time for maximum boldness in energy supply. I fully support the Government’s drive for nuclear power, and if reserves of shale can be exploited in London we should leave no stone unturned, or unfracked, in the cause of keeping the lights on.” 

Northdown Energy Limited are currently the only company within the M25 to hold licenses to explore for conventional oil and gas around the Croydon area. Current regulations allow them to explore for shale gas as well. 

London Assembly Labour Group Environment spokesperson Murad Qureshi AM said:

“Boris is calling for fracking in London yet he has failed in reducing energy inefficiency through his RE:FIT and RE:NEW programmes. If these had been successful they would have been good for the environment and saved people money. He missed targets he set on domestic insulation, carbon emissions and electric cars.  

“Since Boris became mayor in 2008 the gap between London’s total carbon-reduction targets and actual reductions has widened significantly each year. Boris loves to jump on bandwagons and this is just his latest one – Londoners need a Mayor who considers their needs first ahead of commercial companies looking to make a quick profit at the potential, and as yet unknown, cost to the environment. 

“Fracking pads are large, lit at all times for safety reasons, noisy and dusty. If they were to go ahead in London, where does the mayor think a drilling rig can be accommodated? Boris should be promoting cleaner, greener sources of energy instead of ways to make Londoners lives harder.” 

Ends

 Notes

 Murad Qureshi is a city-wide member of the London Assembly.

Figures released today by Transport for London show the number of vulnerable road users seriously injured in London’s has risen for the second consecutive year. Londonwide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi calls on the Mayor of London Boris Johnson to focus on bringing down the number of serious incidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. 

The figures releases today show serious incidents in Westminster involving vulnerable road users increased in 2012 since 2011:

Serious cyclist injuries rose by 19% per cent

Serious motorcyclist casualties rose by 13% per cent

 London wide Labour Assembly Member Murad Qureshi said:

“The Mayor must introduce targets to bring down the rise of serious casualties on London’s roads. In Westminster, there has been a 19% increase in serious incidents involving cyclists and this is not acceptable. 

“Boris has taken his eye off the ball and the result has been an increase in injuries to the most vulnerable road users. His policy of smoothing car traffic in London has been at the expense of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. If we are determined to encourage more people to cycle and walk then the Mayor must improve public safety on red routes which run through high streets and shopping areas such as the West End. 

“The Mayor’s priority needs to be making London’s roads as safe as possible, and he should be paying the most attention to TfL’s red routes which pose a greater threat to pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.” 

Ends 

Notes

1. Murad Qureshi AM is a Labour London wide Assembly Member.
2. Transport for London’s Casualties in Greater London during 2012 can be found here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/casualties-in-greater-london-2012.pdf

Official emissions figures released today show the poorest parts of London suffer with the highest levels of pollution. London Assembly Labour Group Environment spokesperson Murad Qureshi has called on the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to take urgent action to tackle poor air quality in London’s poorest areas. 

London has failed to meet the legal requirements for lowering emissions along with Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham. The Supreme Court ruled last month that Britain was in breach of EU law on NO2 emissions from exhausts. London continues to have the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) of any capital city in Europe and the government could be subject to fines if it does not act.

The worst roads for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) tonnes per kilometre in 2012 include:

• Oxford Street (7^th)
• Grosvenor Place (12^th)
• Knightsbridge, Piccadilly (13^th)
• Victoria Street (19^th)

The worst roads for dangerous airborne particles (PM2.5) tonnes per kilometre in 2012 include:

• Park Lane (5^th)
• Buckingham Palace Road (7^th)
• Bridge Street (11^th)

Labour Group Environment spokesperson Murad Qureshi said:

“When it comes to air pollution Boris has his head stuck firmly in the sand. 

Poor air quality is London’s silent killer, causing over 4,000 premature deaths each year, with as much as eight per cent of deaths in some London boroughs due to poor air quality. In the face of this crisis, the Mayor has consistently dithered and kicked action into the future for the next Mayor to deliver. 

“Earlier this year he announced a policy for introducing an Ultra Low Emissions Zone in central London in 2020. Not only would this be too little too late, in reality he has been unable to provide any details of this policy because he had not undertaken a feasibility study of his own announcement. This is grandiose – yet hollow – rhetoric. 

“The Mayor’s new buses will be on the capital’s roads soon, however there will only be 600 of these new buses out of a fleet of over 8,000 and they won’t actually be any cleaner than the current generation of hybrid buses. Boris needs to prioritise putting greener buses on the routes with the highest pollution levels and bring forward the Ultra Low Emission Zone.” 

Ends 

Notes

1. Murad Qureshi is a London Assembly Member and Labour Group spokesperson on the environment.
2. Top 20 worst roads for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) tonnes per kilometre in 2012 can be found here: http://cleanairinlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/CAL-242-Top-20-worst-NO2-tonnes-per-km-in-2012_Final-draft-230613.pdf
3. Top 20 worst roads for dangerous airborne particles (PM2.5) tonnes per kilometre in 2012 can be found here: http://cleanairinlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/CAL-242-Top-20-worst-PM2.5-tonnes-per-km-in-2012_Final-draft-230613.pdf

Campaigning with Maria Eagle MP & Manuel Cortes

The East Coast is yours – its owned by the Government on behalf of all tax payers. So that every pound that is made by East Coast is returned to us!

Thats is over £800 million will have been returned to the government by end of this financial year.

But the coalition government now plan to sell it off – putting money from your fares straight into the hands of shareholders. This is a dogmatic privatisation decision by the coalition government to poush ahead with something that is unnecessary and financial irresponsible.

Lets keep the East Coast in public hands ensuring that money from the fares continues to be reinvested to improve the service.

Last week’s Plenary was about The London Finance Commission recommendations and analysis; l took the opportunity to ask Prof Tony Travers why a Mansion Tax of sorts was not an idea propagated by the Commission, particularly in light of the example of New York which has such a scheme for properties over £2 million at half a per cent per annum? I suggested this could be an idea hypothecated for the building of much needed social housing in London, so essentially a force for good.

Such a scheme should be relatively simple to administer in London as most of the stock of properties worth in excess of £2 million are probably in the main, located in London boroughs like the City of Westminster & the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.  These boroughs already hand over a precept of their council tax over to the Mayor to the tune of around £310 per household and therefore, it could simply operate as an extension of this process.

In my view, one of the strongest merits of a mansion tax is that it would go some way towards rebalancing the gross inequality of the council tax regime.  The broad banding of property valuations is the fundamental flaw with the council tax.  It means that a large family home in the centre of town occupied by a family over a long period of time, having benefited from property inflation, but where the children have flown the nest, find themselves paying the same amount of council tax as that of multi-billionaires like Lakshmi Niwas Mittal & Abramovich! This is unfair and a London Mansion Tax could be organised in such a way that only those at the top of the tree are asked to pay.

I think the London Finance Commission has missed an opportunity to give some beef to the idea of a Mansion Tax, if not at a national level, most certainly in a London context.

At last months MQT, l questioned the Mayor about the impact of his fire cuts for Central London.

At the outset l was challenged by the chair of London Fire Brigade James Cleverly AM questioned about how in every 2 minutes the intensity of a  fire can quadruple.  As he attempted to heckle me, I told him that l found it surprising that he didn’t know this as chair of the Fire Authority of London!

I strongly suggest he reads the attached article by a scientist at the Fire Research Station of the exponential curve fo fires in commerical premises of how a fires intensity can double in two minutes. Its a long standing principle that holds as well for domestic fires.

Eventually l informed the Mayor that both the City of Westminster & Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea uanismously agreed motions against the fire cuts in their boroughs. This involves losing both Westminster & Knightsbridge fire stations and an engine at Chelsea Fire Station. This was of course before the London Fire Brigade released details of increased response times for loca wards in London. The statistics reveal that 41 local wards in London will noe fall outside of target response times, due to the Mayor’s decision to cut 12 fire stations, 18 fire engines and 520 firefighters. The wards include Abbey Road, Churchill, Tachbrook, Vincent Square, Warwick and West End in the City of Westminster.

In Warwick the increase is from4.34 to 7.16 minutes; Vincent Square the increase will be 3.54 to 6.14 minutes and Tachbrook increase from 4.29 minutes to 6.33. These increases are all more then 2 minutes. These might not sound alot but a fire as stated already can quadruple in intensity every two minutes. These increases are truly scandalous and no wonder they didn’t release this information sooner.

The public consultations meetings for the respective two boroughs are both next week as outlined below;

 1. Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea public consultation of draft London Safety Plan 5, 10th of June commencing at  7.00pm at Kensington Small Hall, Hornton Street, W8 7NX

 2. City of Westminster, public consultation of draft London Safety Plan 5, 11th June commencing at 7.00pm at Parker Morris Hall, The Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BU

I strongly recommend residents of both the borough of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea turn up and show their concerns that the Mayor could take such risks with their lives.

At a public meeting in Churchill Gardens Estate last week, we heard first hand how the Lupus Street Crown Post Office (PO) would effect the local community if closed.

The residents of Pimlico would face a 20 minutes’ walk to the nearest alternative post offices in Vauxhall Bridge Road and Ebury Street with no direct bus links. This when the queues at Vauxhall Bridge Road post office are already regularly stretched outside on the pavement. Furthermore the Post Office in Vauxhall Bridge Road does not have access for disabled customers with wheelchairs and the Post Office representatives could not say how much it would cost to do the works.

We also heard from local small businesses as Lupus Street traders use the Post Office banking facilities and if the post office were to close, local businesses would lose this important business facility, as well as having to carry cash some distance to banks elsewhere. Also experience elsewhere shows that when post offices close down surrounding local businesses suffer badly, leading to more empty shops.  It was also established that the use of Lupus Street post office for Council-related transactions is the highest in Westminster and if the post office is closed residents will have nowhere where they can pay their rent and rates or renew their parking permit now that the Council has closed all its One Stop shops.

We had some Post Office representatives as well at the meeting saying that Lupus Street Post Office loses £100,000 a year and  that for every £1 of income it costs the post office £1.84 (although statistics provided by the CWU suggest that the figure is £1.33). Illustrating well the folly in separating the Royal Mail from the Post Office counter service. Nowhere else in the world has this been done where its normal practise for the counters to be subsidied by the delivery operations.  

As my colleague Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg has said, they will be no “passport to Pimlico” for residents if Lupus Street Post office closes as the neighbourhood would lose one of the essential services from the PO counters, the check & send Identity & Passport Service! 

So watch this space, as local residents show us the “Passport to Pimlico” spirit as its acknowledged the PO is the hub of the community.

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Last week l was happy to host the initial findings of Hounslow’s council consultation on the expansion of Heathrow at City Hall.  The consultation “Make Some Noise over Heathrow” was launched on the 15th of April and closed on the 16th of May. The survey was undertaken through a questionaire sent to every household in the borough along with an online form.  

It found residents overwhelmingly against an expanded airport, but also against its closure. As 72 per cent of residents said they are against expansion and also 64 per cent said they did not want to see a new hub airport built if it meant losing Heathrow.  So the Mayor should take note of these initial findings from Hounslow as he stills pursues “Boris Island” in the Thames Estuary.

He should also acknowledge Hounslow is the borough most affected by Heathrow in terms of noise and the economy and the finding reflect this well. Its certainly the borough most affected by noise from the airport, lying directly under both main apprach paths from East to West, and also by noise on easterly take-offs.

Qualititively the results of Hounslow consultation are also more signficant as its ask its residents 11 questions in all rather then the two in the referendums undertaken in neighbouring West London boroughs of Hillingdon & Richmond.  So for example it tells us an overwhelming majority, some 83 per cent, were in favour of night flight bans between 11pm and 7am.  And a even higher percentage of 94 per cent wanted better noise insulation for schools and residents living under the flight path.

Interestingly it also found that air pollution and high levels of pollution was an issue for 70 per cent of  residents. Something for both the Council & the London Assembly to take note off and act on their behalf.

So its clear to me that Hounslow residents don’t want a bigger Heathrow but a better one.

Public meetings for fire service cuts in London

The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority is holding two public consultations in Kensington and Westminster next week to discuss proposal to close Knightsbridge and 11 other fire stations, cut 18 fire engines and lose 520 firefighters. The public meetings are taking place on 10 June in Kensington and 11 June in Westminster and London wide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi is urging residents to attend.

The Draft Fifth London Safety Plan was launched at the beginning of March. Residents can also contribute to the consultation through the Fire Authority website, where more details are available: http://london-fire.gov.uk/lsp5 until 17 June.

The London Fire Brigade released details recently of increased response times for local wards in London. The statistics reveal that 41 local wards in London will now fall outside of the target response time, due to the Mayor’s decision to cut 12 fire stations, 18 fire engines and 520 firefighters. The wards include Brompton in Kensington & Chelsea which will see an increase from 4.37mins to 6.27mins – an increase of 1.50mins.

Westminster will see increases in response times in Abbey Road (5.58 – 6.36) 38secs increase; Churchill (5.27-6.51) 1.24mins increase; Tachbrook (4.29-6.33) 2.04mins increase; Vincent Square (3.54-6.14) 2.20mins increase; Warwick (4.34-7.16) 2.42mins increase; and West End (5.44-6.16) 32secs increase.

Labour London wide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi said:

“It is vital that residents take part in this consultation about the proposal to close Knightsbridge fire station in Kensington and Chelsea, which will affect response times in much of central London and make sure that their voice is heard. We believe that the Mayor is cutting too far, too fast and is hitting the frontline.

“The increases in response times show how flawed the Mayor’s Draft Fire Plan is.  The borough response times in the London Safety Plan hide these ward increases, which are disgraceful. These figures clearly show that the Mayor has been misleading Londoners, his cuts will mean that people across our city will have to wait significantly longer for a fire engine to arrive in the event of an emergency.

“We are deeply concerned that the cuts will jeopardise the safety and security of Londoners, all for the dubious benefit of a penny a day off the Council Tax. But we want to hear from Londoners about their views during this consultation and what they think. I strongly urge residents to attend the meetings and I look forward to seeing them there.”

Ends

Notes

1. Murad Qureshi is a London wide Assembly Member.
2. The consultation on the Draft Fifth London Safety Plan ends at 5pm on 17 June 2013. Members of the public can have their say by visiting www.london-fire.gov.uk/lsp5, calling 0800 9888 569, by writing to the London Fire Brigade at 169 Union Street, London, SE1 0LL or by attending public meetings in London Boroughs, details of which will soon be available.
3. The fire stations listed for closure are: Belsize in Camden; Bow in Tower Hamlets; Clapham in Lambeth; Clerkenwell in Islington; Downham in Lewisham; Kingsland in Hackney; Knightsbridge in Kensington & Chelsea; New Cross in Lewisham; Silvertown in Newham; Southwark; Westminster; and Woolwich in Greenwich.
4. The following stations will lose one of their two fire engines: Chelsea, Chingford, Hayes, Leyton, Leytonstone, Peckham and Whitechapel.
5. A ward breakdown can be found here: http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/Documents/ward-impacts.pdf
   1. Kensington and Chelsea’s public meeting is on Monday, 10 June, 7-9pm in the Kensington Small Hall, Hornton Street, W8 7NX.

Westminster’s public meeting is on Tuesday, 11 June 7-9pm at the Paker Morris Hall, The Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith St, London SW1P 3BU.

Are bus services in London up to scratch? 

 The London Assembly has launched an in-depth investigation into bus services in London as passenger numbers rise and investment into bus services has flat-lined. London wide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi AM wants residents in Westminster to share their experiences of bus travel in London to improve and strengthen the service offered by Transport for London.

London’s population grew by one million between 2001 and 2011 and is expected to continue to rise at the same rate over the next 10 years. TfL saw an estimated 49.5million journeys made between 28 April and 4 May on London buses, half of all bus journeys made in the rest of England combined.

London wide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi AM said:

“Transport for London recently celebrated a record-breaking week for the number of bus journeys made in one week yet the Mayor is already considering slashing the annual bus subsidy. Investment to improve and expand bus services has flat-lined under Boris and as London’s population is growing at a rate equivalent to two full buses each day, we need to find out how Londoners will travel around the capital and what their opinions of bus services are.

“Residents can share their good and bad experiences by filling in a short survey on bus services in London. We need bus users help to ensure the London Assembly puts forward strong recommendations to the Mayor on how we can make bus services in London suit the needs of the people that use them.

“TfL’s business plan does not provide for expansion of the bus network, and unless plans are secured to deal with extra passengers, London buses run the risk of entering a period of decline.”

Ends

Notes

1. Murad Qureshi AM is a Labour London wide Assembly Member.
2. Details of bus services in London survey and public meeting can be found here: http://www.london.gov.uk/get-involved/events/bus-services-in-london-public-meeting
3. A public meeting will be held on 6 June at City Hall