Residents First

Livingstone and the Hammersmith Flyover

Letter to the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle

Dear Sir,
In an interview for the Sunday Times, on November 21st 1999, Ken Livingstone said:  "I hate cars. If I ever get any powers again I'd ban the lot." Perhaps he thought traffic jams were a good way to punish motorists. Certainly he more than anyone else owes us an apology for the poor maintenance of the Hammersmith Flyover over the last 50 years.

He can't be blamed for the original failure to waterproof it when it was built. It was a project that the Labour-run London County Council was responsible for - but that was before Livingstone was in charge. It was this design flaw that meant when the road was salted the steel cables gradually deteriorated. However for 13 years of the subsequent 50 years (five years as leader of the GLC and eight as Mayor of London) Livingstone had ultimate responsibility for maintaining the Hammersmith Flyover.

Whether due to neglect or his anti motorist ideology he failed. He should accept a substantial share of the blame for the misery, damage to the environment and the economy which the recent chronic delays have caused.

A4: Make a tunnel a reality

Cllr Lucy Ivimy's speech to the Council meeting on Wednesday evening

The Hammersmith flyover was a triumph of modern engineering when it and the A4 were built in 1961. Both hugely eased the flow westward of traffic along the then Great West Road. There had been a debate on the relative merits of flyover and tunnel beforehand – but tunnelling was then relatively far more costly than now. And great noble expanses of concrete were fashionable then.

In the 1960s – and of course the planning of this took place in the 1950s – traffic and car ownership were a small fraction of what they are now. The number of vehicles on the road must have gone up by at least fourfold. The damage of that traffic has gone up by more – a small amount of traffic on a road brings welcome life, a very large amount is utterly destructive.

Ravenscourt Park Ward does not have the shadow of the flyover hanging over it, but it has been slashed in two by the almighty roar of the A4. Walk along it and the poison of that road, the noise, the pollution and the dead dereliction that abuts it, is striking. When canvassing, it is difficult ever to find someone in at a property adjacent to it. When I have done so, I have heard a litany of ill health which I am very confident is caused in no small part by the air pollution and the stress of the constant traffic roar.

Top results for Special Needs education provision

Cllr Helen Binmore's speech to the Council Meeting on Wednesday evening

Mayor, I am delighted to second this motion, which once again demonstrates this Councils commitment to delivering a ‘Borough of Opportunity’ for ALL children in order to give them the very best start in life.

This Council prides itself upon our ‘Schools of Choice’ strategy, which aims to provide a top quality education for all children, including all those who attend our range of ‘Outstanding’ Special Schools that we’ve heard about tonight.

To give this some context, some 26% of the 17 000 children in our schools have some form of Special Educational Need, so this area is of real significance to many of our residents.

Therefore nearly 2 years ago Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh commissioned a review of S.E.N. provision in the borough to ensure that it was being delivered appropriately and to ensure that we deliver our manifesto pledge to make the statementing process less adversarial.

Relocate as much of the A4 route into a tunnel as possible

Cllr Nick Botterill's speech at the Council Meeting last night during the debate on the Hammersmith Flyover

I don’t want to have a stale reiteration of the facts as members who were at the public meeting on 14 January, or who have read the various press reports will be well aware by now of the sequence of events which unfolded.

After overall safety, the first and foremost consideration for this Council had to be about the adverse impact of closure on our borough’s residents and businesses. While the Christmas period meant that traffic was light for a number of days, it also meant that obtaining reliable information and communication with TfL was very difficult.

There were at first serious questions about how much TfL understood about the flyover structure. The leader of the opposition - always on the look out for imaginary smoking guns - has already told me that he believes there should have been more prior knowledge by engineers.

The facts however are that the flyover is 50 years old and is constructed in a way which is almost unique. Well before Christmas there had been extensive monitoring by TfL of the structure for some time and the very best engineering estimates available were that it would be 2 to 3 years before comprehensive remedial action was necessary although a programme of some preventative propping was in hand.

Go forward together to sunlit uplands and heartily endorse Boris

Cllr Nick Botterill's speech at the Council Meeting last night during the debate on the Mayor of London

I have known Boris for almost 30 years now and he is without doubt a class act. Ken Livingstone was not the first person to underestimate Boris; to label him as not serious and when that backfired to resort to cheap shots by saying he would make a mess of things; and then when duly defeated by Boris retreated into the gutter with smear and innuendo.

It’s ironic that as Boris’ stature has developed (reinforced by his record of success in London) and he grows taller, Ken Livingstone by contrast has plumbed the depths and has shrunk further. Putting it in a family context, Ken has metamorphosed from the happy uncle, cheeky chappy (who the kids want to play with) to the embarrassing cussed, sulky old granddad who everybody avoids.

It is a given in politics that you can never turn the clock back – but THAT is precisely what Livingstone wants to do. He thinks he can get away with presenting a range of inconsistencies and “impossible to deliver” policies to the voters and they will just meekly accept the bits they like and not worry too much about the obvious consequences which Livingstone fails to mention.

Recycling rate rises

An innovative project in Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) has helped recycling in some parts of the borough rise dramatically.

Between July and October, residents living in selected blocks of flats in the borough were encouraged to change the way they recycled their household waste. Hammersmith & Fulham Council introduced new recycling chutes and delivered re-useable bags to residents’ homes that they can use to carry recycling to and from new Smart Banks outside their flats.

Smart Banks were installed at 18 new locations, where previously there were limited recycling facilities or none at all, and about 20,000 properties were visited by recycling experts, who offered advice and gave out the reusable bags.

Boris's Budget Speech

Yesterday the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, presented his budget to the London Assembly.

His speech was as follows:

Good morning

This administration has been dedicated to delivering value for Londoners’ money, and to leading the city to a strong economic recovery.

You must remember that in the last four years we have not only been dealing with the deepest recession for 50 years.

We have had to overturn and reform a culture of waste in City Hall.

I might mention the £37,000 spent on first class tickets to Havana, the £10,000 spent on a subscription to the Morning Star.

New community hub opens on Edward Woods Estate

A brand new, state-of-the-art community hub is set to open on the Edward Woods Estate later this year.

Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council has spent £665,000 transforming formerly derelict pram sheds into office space so that they can be used by a number of the borough’s voluntary groups, charities and not-for-profit organisations.

The community hub will be split between the ground floors of the Edward Woods blocks of Stebbing, Norland, Poynter and Boxmoor Houses, with the Boxmoor facility likely to be used as the main base for the hub.

Cllr Joe Carlebach, cabinet member for community care, said:

Motions for the Council meeting tomorrow

SPECIAL MOTION NO. 1 – MAYOR FOR LONDON

Standing in the names of:
(i) Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh
(ii) Councillor Mark Loveday
“This Council notes the inappropriate and rambling personal attacks by Ken Livingstone on members of this Council at a public meeting at St Augustine's Church on 2 November 2011 that clearly demonstrate his unfitness to be the next Mayor for London or to represent the people of Hammersmith and Fulham.

This Council notes since 1 May 2008 Boris Johnson has delivered on his promises to:
• Beef up the police presence in the borough by increasing police numbers and cutting red tape at the Metropolitan Police Service
• Implement serious strategies on knife and gun crime and arm the police with handheld weapon scanners
• Crack down on the culture of casual disorder that leads to more serious crime, with live CCTV on buses and a community service scheme for young people who abuse free travel

Council set to build 25 new homes

Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council has signalled its return to house building by revealing exciting proposals to transform a derelict former health clinic in Shepherds Bush into two brand new one bedroom flats.

The clinic, at  Becklow Gardens, has been unused since 2006 and is one of seven sites across the borough where the council intends to construct a total of 25 new affordable properties.

The council announced last year that it would be establishing its own local housing company in order to directly provide new affordable homes for the first time in 30 years to help local residents get onto the property ladder and help create a Borough of Opportunity.

H&F has the fourth highest house prices in the UK, and the proposals, which are still subject to resident consultation and planning approval will give local people on low to middle incomes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get on the property ladder and own their own home at a discounted market rate.