London Low Emission Zone

Ken Livingstone has given the go-ahead for a London-wide Low Emission Zone designed to cut harmful emissions from the most polluting lorries, coaches and buses. Unfortunately this will put additional pressure on delivery vehicles and small businesses.

The important issue is to get London traffic moving again, as congested traffic is polluting traffic and with all the pinch points on the roads and artificial road width restrictions, London's traffic speeds are now down to 2.9mph in the Strand (TfL figures)

The new European Directive will also place additional restrictions on businesses in London.

However the even greater problem for our local businesses, is that overseas vehicles will effectively be exempt from this additional charge, so whilst UK business are penalised, our European neighbours can escape these additional charges.

local elections

Congratulations to all our successful candidates. I was delighted to see that we won control in Woking after all the hard work put in by the candidates, it was a pleasure to help them.
On election day I also canvassed with Ian Rowley in Marylebone and had the fun of meeting Barbara Windsor - just as glamorous as she is on the film sets. Then later in the evening I went up to Abbey Road to help Lindsay Hall, who again had a great success - Labour into third place in both these elections.

Having seen how confusing the election results were in Scotland, I would remind everyone that we also have a confusing system in London next year with the Mayoral elections, so we need to ensure that our voters know how important it will be to vote.

Crime too close to home

Late at night an intruder tied to break into our home with a brick. I was down in the kitchen making a bed time drink. I called out – perhaps screamed would be a better word, as I did not know where the sound had come from. However happily my family slept on, in spite of the sound of crashing glass.
I woke my poor husband and we checked the house. Someone had thrown a brick through the dining room window, but fortunately the glass was so thick and the noise so loud, the intruder had not got in, or “gained access” as the police would say.

I called the local police station immediately, but of course, as those of you who have been a victim of crime well know, you get passed from “control room” to local area or whatever and by the time you have spelt your name and address and details several times, any intruder would have got away….

However the police were very efficient and came and checked whether there was still someone hiding nearby, although as it was dark and the middle of the night, it would be difficult to be sure, and they covered up the window with bin bags, whilst we waited for the scenes of crime officer to come. He took one look at the brick and said that was not much good to him, and could find no other evidence.
The police called me back at 5.00am to give me the crime reference number and check that I was all right. Most conscientious, although I could do with a bit more sleep! Anyway we have now toughened the glass, so hopefully we will have a better nights rest.