A few months ago, I wrote here about such severe neglect of council properties in Avening Terrace, Brathway Road, Longstaff Crescent and Longstaff Road, that window frames were crumbling away to nothing.

Residents, who had tried and failed to get the Council's housing department to take their concerns seriously, asked me to get onto the case - and I was happy to take up their legitimate complaints with the housing department.

The council has now accepted that the windows are in an unacceptable state and need repair which is great news. Work is scheduled to start this Summer in good time for the onset of Winter.

Whenever I make progress on an issue I've covered on this site I add an update to the story. However, because posts are sorted chronoligically it's sometimes easy to lose track of where we've got to and how far we've come.

So over the next few weeks, as well as maintaining the daily news updates, I'll also be compiling issue threads, which you'll be able to access from the sidebar - so far I've added:

• The Newlands Hall campaign
• Dangerous dogs and
• Save Southside's local shops

I'll also eventually file stories by council ward, so you can read all about my work in your patch more easily. By building up these issue threads, I hope to demonstrate my track record of work on local problems.

Walking up Putney Hill, or along Upper Richmond Road, in between the ugly apartment blocks that have sprung up since the 1950s you can still catch glimpses of old Putney: the few surviving beautiful, imposing old houses that haven't been sold off and then demolished.

One such is the gothic lodge in Upper Richmond Road at the entrance to Putney Park Lane. I find it extraordinary that with all the evidence we have along this road and Putney Hill of the scars we have inflicted on the area with ugly, bland blocks of flats (not least right next door to this Lodge) anyone is contemplating continuing this damaging trend.

Unfortunately however, the chance of making a quick buck by demolishing our landmark historic buildings and replacing them with stack 'em up, pile 'em high monstrosities is evidently still a greater motivation.

It seems that something odd is going on here. On the face of it, the Council has a plain and simple duty: to review the planning application and reject it. Laudably the Council sought to list this Lodge. However, it is reported in this week's Wandsworth Guardian that the moment they tried the developers threatened a High Court case and the council promptly lost its nerve. Why? I'm not saying there weren't good reasons - but someone should tell us all what they were.

Either way, that change of heart is not relevant to the planning decision the council will soon have to make. There are countless justifications for turning this building down - if it is not listed, it should be a local building of merit. If it is not a building of merit, it is surely within a conservation area. Make the developers prove their case for demolition at a planning inquiry. Turn this application down - on the basis of strong planning grounds - and defy the philistine developers to appeal. I think they'll lose. If there's any justice in the world they should.

Over to you Wandsworth Council.

My place of work was on the route the Police marched along over their pay settlement grievances yesterday. I wrote about my complete support for the police getting their full pay settlement last month, here.

I was pleased to see Keith Vaz MP, the Labour Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee at the head of the march today - he has also tabled an "Early Day Motion" (EDM), which is a mechanism MPs have for making statements of support and testing the strength of feeling among their colleagues on the issue.

Any MP can sign an EDM, and I was pleased, on checking just now, that 220 MPs have so far signed up: 115 Labour, 50 Lib Dems, 38 Conservatives and 17 from the smaller parties.

As this shows, this isn't a party-political issue: there is a cross-party consensus that, plain and simple, the Government has made a big mistake not giving Police Officers their full pay-rise up front. But I was surprised not to see Putney Conservative MP Justine Greening on the list of MPs who have signed the EDM.

You may well be surprised that I'm in the position of chastising my Conservative opponent for not joining in the criticism of a Labour government - so am I! Maybe she believes the Police don't deserve a pay rise - in which case she should say so. But if she does, I'd urge her to add her name to the Early Day Motion - it's EDM 512. And I'd urge Putney people to email her asking her to do so as well.

You may have picked up on the outrageous treatment of long-time Putney residents by the management of the Queen Adelaide Pub in Putney Bridge Road just on the corner of Oakhill Road - it is after all front page in this week's Borough News and centre of debate on the putneysw15 discussion forum.

For years and years, a group of Putney residents - several of them personal friends of mine - have been part of a cricket team that plays on Wandsworth Park - and which has socialised at the Queen Adelaide following matches.

Now they have been banned by the pub manager who told them "they clearly weren't happy" drinking there! The absurd reason the pub claims for kicking them out is that they have been rowdy and abusive. This despite no complaints ever having been raised with them prior to their ban.

This isn't some rowdy gang of lager-louts; it is a group of young at heart, responsible, long-standing Putney residents. Of all the reasons they are no longer welcome there, improper behaviour is the most incredible. Far more likely that they no longer fit with the Pub's corporate image.

In recent years the Queen Adelaide seems to have lost its character after being made-over to pander towards a new luxury riverside development clientele. To be honest I'm surprised surprised the brewery - Young's - seems so relaxed by this story. It's time they realised the mistake this is before all their good will is lost through such clumsy public relations.

And the good news is that the cricket team has been taken in by the Bricklayer's Arms in Waterman Street - still a genuine local pub for Putney.

I welcome the drive by Wandsworth Primary Care Trust - the major NHS provider in our area, to offer free Chlamydia screening to 15-24s across the borough. But while GPs and pharmacies will be offering the tests, there is not a lead testing centre in the Putney area - they are all in Tooting and Battersea.

I've written to the PCT asking why Putney isn't getting the same priority as Battersea, Balham and Tooting - after all, while Queen Mary's isn't a full general hospital it could certainly be used as a centre for this screening drive - especially as the area surrounding Queen Mary's has the highest proportion of young people in the constituency.

Chlamydia is a common, curable, sexually transmitted infection caused by bacteria that often has no visible symptoms. If left untreated the infection can lead to serious health complications in men and women, not least infertility. Anyone who has unprotected sex could have the infection and not even realise it, so it's worth taking advantage of this free service.

To find out how to get a free Chlamydia test please contact the Chlamydia Screening Helpline on 0845 155 0042.

It is somewhat ironic that last Thursday's crash at Heathrow coincided with the meeting on the proposed airport expansion, which I attended along with several hundred other residents.

Someone at the meeting claimed that had we had runway alternation at Heathrow the plane would have crashed on London. I'm against runway alternation but this claim is wrong - it would just have crashed at the other end of the runway.

To argue that the potential risk of a crash - though a legitimate fear - is grounds alone to scrap Heathrow expansion is actually an argument that air travel shouldn't take place at all. I don't share that view.

However, there is an indirect argument which I think is far stronger.

The disruption caused by this accident, while inevitable, goes to whether a world class capital like London should rely so heavily on one major airport. If other regional airports - in particular Gatwick - were expanded to meet the capital's needs then on the rare occurence where accidents, or indeed fog or other extreme weather conditions force delays at Heathrow, far less inconvenience would ensue.

Of course, residents around Gatwick oppose expansion there too. The job of government is to make the best strategic decision. Thursday's accident doesn't change that one bit. Nor does it change the overwhelming economic, security and environmental arguments the government itself put forward when terminal 5 was approved: that Heathrow is big enough and busy enough already.

I wrote recently about the huge fuel price rises and the impact that is having on low income families in fuel poverty. But there are of course other demands on household budgets, the biggest being food. Like fuel, the price of groceries has been rising rapidly: food inflation rose by 6% last year, while overall inflation was just 2.1%. And the cost of food is, in all likelihood, going to keep rising, sharply.

There are four reasons for this. The cost of fuel is the first - because not only do crops have to be transported; they have to be planted, tended, fertilised and harvested. It is four times more expensive to farm now because of fuel rises.

Fuel is also the second reason: the huge growth of the bio-fuels market. Corn-based fuels like Ethanol are diverting a huge acreage of farmland away from producing food and towards producing fuel. This is why cereals are becoming so expensive - there is simply not enough arable production being used for food any more. This is a classic example of supposedly virtuous green alternatives creating far greater problems than they solve.

The third reason is the poor harvests we've had this year - the Summer floods in this country; the drought in Australia, the impact of El Nino on the caribbean and America to name a few. This was an unusually bad year, and things should get better in 2008.

The fourth is the growth of the Asian economies. As people grow richer, they eat more, and in particular they eat more meat. 1 kilo of beef requires 8 kilos of grain which requires up to 8 tonnes of water.

Fuel costs may fall and harvests will recover but the damaging drive for biofuels and the growth of China and India are not likely to disappear. It's why food prices are forecast to rise by up to 50% in the next ten years.

Some sanctimonious middle-class environmentalists who have never had to worry about choosing between keeping the family warm and feeding them say this is a good thing: that we have been spoilt and should pay the true cost of our food. While lots of food is wasted by British shoppers; it tends not to be those who have to budget tightly who end up throwing food out - but those for whom food costs aren't an issue.

Why am I blogging about this? Because government, sooner or later will have to intervene. The government measures inflation by including things like electrical goods that are, in fact, becoming signfiicantly cheaper. Because of this, the inflation measure - which in turn is the basis for pay settlements - is falling significantly behind the everyday costs ordinary people are experiencing. And that isn't sustainable. The government needs to start measuring real inflation accurately - not just so pay keeps pace, but also because a 6% inflation rate would demand action.

Many of us are either wealthy enough to not notice, or not care too much about this inflation. But the least affluent - especially those on fixed incomes - are being horribly squeezed and it's going unnoticed. They'll will be forced to buy even poorer quality, less nutritious food - or worse, be forced to go without.

This is a serious problem that only a Labour government can be expected to address.

The Government's announcement last week that it has decided to commission a new generation of nuclear power plants is one that I welcome.

To meet Britain's energy needs we do of course need to invest in renewable energy: I also welcome the plans for more offshore windfarms and (if the ecological issues can be overcome) the proposals for a tidal barrage across the river Severn.

Anyone who claims that you're either for the environment or pro-nuclear is being dishonest. Those who believe that the UK's entire energy contribution can be met from solar panels and wind turbines are mistaken, as prominent environmentalist George Monbiot who investigated this issue extensively has acknowledged.

Some have urged us to wait for carbon sequestration technology to be realised - yes, that will make a contribution when it arrives, but we're not there yet and we need to meet an energy gap that is just around the corner - 2015 is when our demand is forecast to outstrip supply. It's why the decision on nuclear is overdue: even on the most optimistic timescales the first new nuclear plant won't start working until 2019.

Some oppose nuclear on safety grounds; that despite far more coal miners or gas technicians being injured or killed in recent years. It has been over 20 years since Chernobyl: and that was a neglected, unsafe power station. British nuclear plants were built and maintained to far higher standards and technology has made new generation nuclear energy even safer still.

Others argue that the waste produced outweighs the benefits of zero-carbon emissions. I disagree, but even if sympathetic to that case, we can actually reprocess nuclear waste and get further energy from it. It's an expensive option, but no more so than most of the renewable alternatives.

We need a "basket" of energies to keep our country running: more renewables; combined heat and power plants which also help with our refuse problem and alongside these sources better home insulation, energy saving technology and more awareness of how much energy we each consume.

Roehampton Conservative Club in Treville Street has been closed by Police following a drug raid recently. You can read more about the background to the Conservative Club's drug problems here.

The closure of the Conservative Club means that the Roehampton area has now lost SIX pubs and clubs in very quick succession:

• The Maltese Cat in Aubyn Square
• The Earl Spencer in Roehampton Lane
• The Montague Arms in Medfield Street
• The Ranger in Cortis Road
• and The King's Head in Roehampton High Street

Just look at this table pulled off the internet:



Most of the closures are due to problems with drugs or repeated bad behaviour. I was heavily involved in sorting out problems with the King's Head in 2006 - it is now a derelict site, just like the Montague and the Conservative Club.

It cannot be beyond the capability of our breweries to run pubs in Roehampton well, and with due respect to the long-suffering community living around them. We can hardly promote responsible drinking if they can't demonstrate responsible management.

My January parliamentary report has been published on the putneysw15 website, which you can read here.

This report discusses:

• The closure of Wandsworth Museum
• The selection of Leonie Cooper as Labour's candidate for the London Assembly in May's elections
• My Save Southside's local shops campaign and how it links in with my long-running efforts to improve Putney High Street
• The extra £25 million for Wandsworth's NHS
• And our continuing-to-fall crime figures.
  

I've just received an email from the Area Manager of South West Trains confirming that Putney Station is to get some new cash-and-card ticket machines in March. This is the first of a series of improvements to Putney Station I've been campaigning for as part of my Save Putney High Street campaign.

The state of Putney Station is pretty dreadful; aside from being inaccessible and congested very little has been spent on the station by the operators, SWT, for years, so it has become shabby as well.

I think it was a mistake years ago to let-out so much of the station's floorspace to shops and takeaways - while I'm sure it's a nice little earner for SWT and Network Rail, it has meant that what's left of the station can't cope with rush-hour commuters surging in and out.

That mistake in turn led to another bad decision: to site two of the ticket dispensers outside the station, further congesting a very busy area where several buses stop and where the shops clutter up the pavement by setting out their goods. My Save Putney High Street plan proposed moving the ticket machines back inside and making the news kiosk again face out, which I suspect will also be better for their trade.

Because of the more radical improvements planned for Putney Station I'll write about soon, as well as getting a much needed revamp, there will be sufficient space created to achieve these goals. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with extra ticket vending machines, which is at least a first step in the right direction.

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for the Wandsworth Borough News about the local dignitaries who are remembered through English Heritage blue plaques in our borough.

I really enjoy investigating local history - in part it comes from living here for 37 years, but my degree was also in history. Anyway, here's the article, which I hope you find interesting.

What links the borough of Wandsworth to a former Prime Minister, a music hall artist, the dentist to Queen Victoria and an artic explorer? The answer is that all of them (David Lloyd George, Sir Harry Lauder, Sir Edwin Saunders and Edward Wilson) lived or worked in the borough, and have an English Heritage blue plaque outside the house in which they lived.

There are twenty-two English heritage blue plaques located within the borough of Wandsworth, out of a total of 456 throughout London.

2005 marked the centenary of the erection of the first blue plaque in Wandsworth, which was located at Holly Lodge, Wimbledon Park Road, in memory of author and novelist George Eliot, who lived “in sin” at the property with her lover, G H Lewes.

This selection of a figure of literary note seems apposite given that literary figures make up the largest group of recipients within the borough. These include the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (who lived at Trinity Road), Victorian adventure story writer G A Henty (Lavender Gardens) and poet Gerald Manley Hopkins (Manresa House, Roehampton).

Three plaques are dedicated to famous figures from the British music hall era –the comedian Gus Elen (Thurleigh Avenue), and Harry Tate and Sir Harry Lauder (both of Longley Road). During its heyday the music hall was the most popular form of entertainment for ordinary people, and its stars were the popstars of their day. Harry Tate’s funeral at the cemetery in Blackshaw Road, Tooting, was attended by over a thousand mourners.

Only two politicians have been commemorated – former Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Routh Road) and Battersea MP, and the first working class man to enter the British Cabinet, John Burns (Clapham Common North Side). Burns was elected as an independent MP in 1892 and served Battersea in Parliament until 1918.

Others who have been commemorated include the former President of Czechoslovakia, Dr Edwards Benes (Gwendolen Avenue), John Walter, founder of The Times newsapaper (Clapham Common North Side) and anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce (Broomwood Road). The most recent plaque to be erected in the borough was in 2000 in honour of the celebrated sculptor Charles Jagger, who lived and died in Albert Bridge Road.

The blue plaque scheme is a national programme run by English Heritage. To be eligible for a plaque, nominees must be worthy of national recognition, recognisable to the well-informed passer-by, and have been dead for twenty years or passed the centenary of their birth, whichever is the earlier.

As it has been five [now seven - ed.] years since the last plaque was erected in the borough, readers may wish to suggest other candidates suitable for nomination. There is surely a wealth of suitable nominees in this great borough of ours. Here is a full list of the 22 blue plaques in Wandsworth, with the Putney ones highlighted in colour:

• BATEMAN, H.M. (1887-1970),Cartoonist, lived here 1910-1914. 40 Nightingale Lane, Clapham South, SW12 Wandsworth 1997
• BENES, Dr Edward (1884-1948),President of Czechoslovakia, lived here. 26 Gwendolen Avenue, Putney, SW15 Wandsworth 1978
• BURNS, John (1858-1943),Statesman, lived here. 110 North Side, Clapham Common, SW4 Wandsworth 1950
• DOUGLAS, Norman (1868-1952),Writer, lived here. 63 Albany Mansions, Albert Bridge Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1980
• ELEN, Gus (1862-1940), Music Hall Comedian, lived here. 3 Thurleigh Avenue, Balham, SW12 Wandsworth 1979
• ELIOT, George Mary Ann Cross (1819-1880), Novelist, lived here. Holly Lodge, 31 Wimbledon Park Road, SW18 Wandsworth 1905
• HARDY, Thomas (1840-1928),Poet and Novelist, lived here 1878-1881. Plaque replaced by new one on same building in 1962. 172 Trinity Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1940
• HENTY, G.A. (George Alfred) (1832-1902), Author, lived here. 33 Lavender Gardens, SW11 Wandsworth 1953
• HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1844-1889),Poet, lived and studied in Manresa House. Gatepost at Manresa House, Holybourne Avenue, Roehampton, SW15 Wandsworth 1979
• JAGGER, Charles Sargeant (1885-1934),Sculptor, lived and died here. 67 Albert Bridge Road, Battersea, SW11 Wandsworth 2000
• KNEE, Fred (1868-1914),London Labour Party Pioneer and Housing Reformer, lived here. 24 Sugden Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1986
• LAUDER, Sir Harry (1870-1950),Music Hall Artist, lived here 1903-1911. 46 Longley Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1969
• LLOYD GEORGE, David, Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863-1945),Prime Minister, lived here Replacement for GLC plaque erected in 1967 3 Routh Road, Wandsworth Common, SW18 Wandsworth 1992
• O'CASEY, Sean (1880-1964),Playwright, lived here at flat No. 49 49 Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive, Battesea Park, SW11 Wandsworth 1993
• SAUNDERS, Sir Edwin (1814-1901),Dentist to Queen Victoria, lived and died here. Fairlawns, 89 Wimbledon Parkside, SW19 (Plaque on gate pier) Wandsworth 1997
• SPURGEON, Charles Haddon (1834-1892),Preacher, lived here. 99 Nightingale Lane, SW12 Wandsworth 1971
• SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles (1837-1909), Poet and his friend, Theodore WATTS-DUNTON (1832-1914), Poet, Novelist, Critic, lived and died here. 11 Putney Hill, SW15 Wandsworth 1926
• TATE, Harry (Ronald MacDonald Hutchison) (1872-1940),Musical Hall Comedian, lived here. 72 Longley Road, SW17 Wandsworth 1984
• THOMAS, Edward (1878-1917),Essayist and Poet, lived here. 61 Shelgate Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1949
• WALTER, John (1739-1812),Founder of 'The Times', lived here. 113 Clapham Common North Side, SW4 Wandsworth 1977
• WILBERFORCE, William (1759-1833).On the site behind this house stood until 1904 Broomwood House - formerly Broomfield - where William Wilberforce resided during the campaign against slavery which he successfully conducted in Parliament. 111 Broomwood Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1906
• WILSON, Edward Adrian (1872-1912),Antarctic Explorer and Naturalist, lived here. Battersea Vicarage, 42 Vicarage Crescent, SW11 Wandsworth 1935

It's interesting that the debate on school standards is now switching to the size of secondary schools, because for some time I've thought that the large intakes of secondary schools are a far more significant factor than what they are called or who funds them.

In this, the circumstantial evidence seems pretty conclusive: our primary schools, which typically educate between 100 and 300 pupils have come on leaps and bounds since 1997: reading, writing and mathematics scores are all significantly up, class sizes well down - and as I reported here, standards in Putney Primaries are high.

Something happens when kids get to Secondary School. What is the biggest factor likely to influence - and impede - progress? For me, it is the culture shock for 11 year olds overnight going from a school of 150 to one of possibly ten times that size. A secondary school must, by definition, be less personal, more daunting and surely a less effective learning environment.

The Conservatives are among the latest to come out against super-sized schools, but their opposition is confined to the very biggest schools of possibly 2,000 or more pupils. I agree with them that these are far too big. But unlike them, I think 500 is too large. I think we need secondary schools of broadly similar size to our primaries.

The argument against is that secondaries teach differently - with subject classes rather than year-group teaching. Such a system makes small secondary schools impractical. My response is that, with smaller secondary schools we'd have far more such institutions: twenty or thirty in an area like Putney rather than three or four as we have now.

One interesting idea is to organise these schools in a campus structure similar to Universities, with particular schools in a local cluster specialising in different aspects of the curriculum. This would also help prepare students for the second upheavel many of them will face: the transfer from secondary to further or higher education. But more importantly, it could almost be guaranteed that standards will rise and far, far fewer pupils will leave school without the basic skills and abilities they'll need to face life.

I've just got word of another dangerous dog attack - this time on the Putney Vale estate in Roehampton.

I'm glad to hear that the pensioner attacked is recovering, that the Police know who the owner and walker were of the dogs in question, and that legal action is proceeding against them.

Putney Vale is probably the most isolated community the constituency, tucked as it is right at the bottom of the Hill on the border with Kingston. Because of this, I'm concerned it gets overlooked: it's as important a part of Roehampton as the Alton estate, Village and Priory Lane area are and the Police, Dog Wardens and Safer Neighbourhood teams must give it the same level of service as any other part of the borough.

This attack again shows that ideas for licensing - be they the outrageous £500 fee the Council wants to fleece from dog owners- or notions that dogs above a certain weight be banned, are wide of the mark: his lady was attacked by small bull terriers, not Dobermans or Rottweillers.

The answer is a higher police and dog warden presence on our streets; one rule for all, not picking on council tenants as the Conservative council wants to - serious prison sentences and lifetime bans for dog owners who mistreat their pets; and much greater clarity on banned breeds because it's incredibly difficult to identify some permitted terrier types from "dangerous" ones.

Here's how the Wandsworth Guardian is reporting the incident.

Following last year's dangerous dog attack on the Dover House Estate, the Council last week announced it would evict tenants who own potentially dangerous dogs.

We all want action on dangerous dogs. But dogs are not dangerous by dint of their birth alone - they become so because they are mistreated or bred to fight.

The Council's rules will do nothing to weed out these owners, but they do threaten those with "potentially" - whatever that means - dangerous dogs that have never so much as snarled in anger or aggression before, and are properly controlled by responsible owners.

These rules will also only apply to council tenants. Homeowners and housing association tenants are exempt. So on the Dover House estate these measures will affect virtually no-one because the overwhelming majority of homes here have been sold-off by the council. And while a council tenant with a potentially dangerous dog may face eviction, their next door neighbour who is a leaseholder with a genuinely dangerous dog will remain untouched. Is that fair? Will it tackle the problem? No on both counts.

The Council's spin doctors will say at least they're doing something. But in this case, the council's guilty of doing something instead of doing something effective. Far better would be a doubling of the budget of their own dog warden service so they can patrol more widely, raise their profile and tackle the problem without picking on one particular section of the community.

I'm not a fan of ever more regulation and nanny-statism: we already have way too much of that. What we need is tougher action on criminals who mistreat their dogs, stronger action against the dog-fighting rings we all know exist in our borough and strong community policing.

Again, our Safer Neighbourhoods Police teams must play a crucial role, working with the dog warden service to achieve these goals. The objective: identifying those who can't control or are mistreating their dogs - and acting before events like those that took place in Putney Park Lane last October happen again.

The Secondary School league tables have been published today.

Putney has a mixed bag of results: almost half of the entire borough's secondary schools can be found here, with our three fee-paying selective independent schools - Putney High School on Putney Hill, Ibstock Place on Clarence Lane, and The Hall School in Putney Vale - unsurprisingly doing best.

There is a huge gap in achievement between these schools and the rest, which is why we must keep increasing investment in education - and making sure that investment brings results.

The Ashcroft Technology Academy off West Hill did best of the "State" schools, while John Paul II School in Victoria Drive posted some worryingly low results. Elliott School in Pullman Gardens did pretty well - the best of the entirely non-selective schools in the borough with Southfields Community College a little way behind.

Wandsworth Council doesn't do very well as an education authority: despite being one of the more affluent London boroughs our GCSE results are only on par with the national average, and lag badly behind comparable neighbouring boroughs like Hammersmith & Fulham.

No small reason for the gulf between ourselves and Hammersmith & Fulham is that Wandsworth Conservatives underfund education by £8 million a year, whereas our northern neighbour, at least until recently, spent the maximum it was allowed to on schooling. So while I congratulate our schools for the efforts they make while being massively underfunded by Wandsworth Council, to the Conservative Council I say: must try harder.

Click here for the league table, courtesy of the BBC. The green and pink shaded rows denote Putney schools; the cream ones are other Wandsworth secondaries. The interactive BBC tables are here. My analysis of the Primary League tables, published last month, can be found here.

The Evening Standard today reports how London house prices are continuing to soar despite the national slowdown; further widening the gap between the Capital and the rest of the country.

In Wandsworth, prices climbed 20% last year with the average price in the whole borough at £394,000 (remember, in Putney the average price is just shy of half a million), though price-rises have slowed-up this month.

I appreciate, as someone who has a mortgage myself that this is one of those issues where homeowners generally welcome price rises, but for those not on the housing ladder they're a massive - and growing - problem. I don't want to see a down-turn in prices - that will have major consequences in terms of negative-equity for anyone with a mortgage, and we don't want to return to the boom-and-bust days of the last Tory government when tens of thousands lost their homes.

The local housing market is affected by more than just lack of supply and excess demand. The impact of the ultra-rich at the top end of the market in Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster has caused major ripples through next-door boroughs like ours. The rapid demographic changes Wandsworth has experienced in little over 30 years have also worsened the housing problems, as life-long Putney families have been forced out of the area, unable to move to more appropriate accommodation anywhere close to home. And, as I noted before, the Council's aggressive selling-off of half their housing stock has been catastrophic for social mobility in Wandsworth.

The answer remains the same: a massive shift in local house-building priorities away from top-end riverside penthouses and towards affordable homes to rent and buy. Because Wandsworth remains a popular place to live we're likely to avoid a marked downturn in house prices - which is important; but that only places a greater urgency for more affordable housing.

And that's an urgency Putney's Conservative MP and councillors have proven they simply don't have.

Click here for a larger image of the property map in today's Evening Standard.

You may have caught the announcement by London's Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone of a "lightbulb" amnesty; but may not have picked up on the specific details of the scheme. So here they are.

The amnesty takes place from this Friday, 11th January, and runs through to Sunday 13th January.

All you have to do is take one or two of your existing traditional lightbulbs to any of London's 28 B&Q stores - the nearest to Putney is the one in Smugglers Way just by Wandsworth Bridge (click here for a map) - and in return you'll receive free energy-efficient replacements courtesy of British Gas.

Each energy-efficient light bulb can save you up to £7 a year off energy charges and up to £60 over the lifetime of the bulb. Energy-efficient bulbs last 12 times longer than traditional bulbs and use around 80 per cent less energy. Many households now use large numbers of bulbs meaning savings of over £100 a year are possible for those that switch to entirely energy efficient bulbs.

For more about the scheme visit www.london.gov.uk/lightbulbs, phone 0800 512 012 or text 'bulb' followed by your full postcode to 62967.

My campaign team recently tried to obtain accurate data from the Metropolitan Police Authority about Police numbers in London by borough.

Unfortunately, their website left a little to be desired - but I'm pleased to report that after highlighting the problems they've overhauled it and it will from now on provide monthly updates, which you can find here.

The good thing about this site is that there are lots of statistics bandied around about the Police by all parties - but these are the basic, unspun figures.

At the end of last November, Wandsworth had 583 Police Officers and 87 Community Support Officers (CSOs) - a total of 670.

In 1997, Wandsworth had 596 Police Officers and no CSOs (they are a Labour initiative since 2000).

The Conservatives claim that this proves Labour has cost the borough officers since we were first elected. Clearly untrue. But even excluding the CSO figure, the Tories' claim is wrong.

The base year for measuring Labour's record is not 1997 but 2000 - because an officer recruited the first day we took office in 1997 would not start work until they had three years of training under their belt - by which time police numbers locally had fallen to 568 thanks to the Conservatives.

So, we actually have fifteen more Police Officers than 2000 and that's before we even start adding in the 87 CSOs.

In fact, to get a true measure of how severely the last Conservative Government cut back on Police, just look at this: in 1993, Wandsworth had 693 Police Officers. So today, including our CSO units, Labour has just about - though still not quite - got our Policing level back to what it was 15 years ago. Never forget the mess Justine Greening's party left our country in.

There's a lot more to do - I want more CSOs and more Police Officers making our borough even safer than it is today. The Council could fund even more CSOs if it had the political will to do so: Ealing (also Conservative-run) has almost twice our number of CSOs despite being a similarly sized borough because their council invests in the Police.

Next time the Conservatives demand more Police, just remember the 125 Police officers they cost Wandsworth the last time they were in power, and the progress we've made correcting their appalling record since then.

Last week's double-digit fuel price rise by NPower - almost certain to be followed by similar increases by the other UK suppliers - is going to have a real impact on low-income households in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

Fuel poverty is when 10% or more of a household's income is devoted to paying fuel bills. There are, of course, other ways to measure fuel poverty - not least the pensioners whose homes go unheated because they can't make ends meet. So there are three measures I want to see our Labour Government take in response.

First, we need legislation to force all fuel providers to offer their very lowest fuel tariffs to everyone - not just those who pay by direct debit. The very poorest can't access such direct debit discounts because too often they don't have bank accounts. In fact, the poorest often end up paying the most because charges for electricity keys or coin-operated meters are usually the highest - and it isn't the billionaires of Chelsea who pay for their energy this way.

Second, I want the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) increased this year. Do you remember the arcane and pernicious way the Conservatives used to administer the WFP - when temperatures had to fall below a specified amount for so many days in succession before Pensioners were permitted to apply for a measly amount of financial help? The consequence of their cruelty was older people dying because they could not afford basic levels of heating for their homes.

I'm proud that Labour scrapped the Tories' miserly formula, made the WFP universal and significantly increased it so that today can be worth up to the equivalent of £6 a week on a pension. But in light of the extra costs of fuel it's again time to consider raising the Winter Fuel Payment. And we need to consider whether the WFP should be made to all households in fuel poverty, not just to pensioners.

And finally I think we need to start measuring how successfully our energy companies are developing Britain's fuel independence. Simply put, I don't want the UK relying on Russian gas or Middle-Eastern oil and more - and it's not good enough for our energy companies to wail that they are hostages to the whims of the magnates who control these supplies. We need to generate far more of our own energy.

If you are a pensioner and haven't yet received your Winter Fuel Payment for this year, or in the past call the Helpline on 08459 15 15 15. You can also use contact them online and download a claim form here.

This story in this week's Wandsworth Guardian raises real concerns about how serious the supposedly newly "green" Conservatives really are about recycling.

Throughout my time as a councillor constituents raised concerns about whether the recycling they took the effort to sort out (and remember the days when we had different coloured sacks for different recyclables, to be put out on different weeks?!) just ended up in landfill.

This story is in a different league because there isn't even the pretense that our recycling is going to the right place: recycling mixed in with refuse is going to end up in a landfill site and is contaminated (ie unusable) even if the council sought to claim it would at some later point be separated out.

This is an issue I spent a lot of time on as a councillor - I was Labour's environment spokesman on the council for eight years, and working with Labour colleagues from neighbouring boroughs brought pressure on Wandsworth to introduce the Orange sack scheme at a time when the Tories wanted to build a health-threat super-incinerator rather than invest in recycling.

I'm all for value-for-money services. But as was shown during the debacle over Wandsworth Museum, or the retendering of the street cleaning contract two years ago, or the retendering of the refuse contract just before that, the Council isn't interested in value any more; just in any old bargain-basement contractor regardless of quality. And the consequence is corners get cut.

No wonder Wandsworth lags behind on recycling.

Crime - particularly burglaries - fell in all six wards in the constituency in November, despite a slight rise in crime across the borough. Violent crime also fell in five of the six wards.

Roehampton continues to see falls in crime - the area is now not so far above the borough average and very much lower than the London-wide crime level which is far-removed from some of the coverage this community too often receives.

Unfortunately, crime rose noticeably in Southfields, though it should be remembered that as well as the affluence of the Southfields "grid", this ward stretches north to include the Southside shopping centre; so like Thamesfield, its figures are somewhat skewed because of crimes that occur in the town centre.

Again, one of the main reasons for Putney's continuing broadly excellent low crime figures is the constituency's forty Safer Neighbourhood Police Officers, who have been focussing on high-priority concerns like burglary, while their presence on the streets is clearly having an impact on violent crimes.

The importance of our Safer Neighbourhoods teams is heightened as we enter 2008 because in May you'll have the choice between re-electing the Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone, who created and has funded the Safer Neighbourhoods team; or the Conservatives and Lib Dems who voted against them, take every opportunity to attack them and are committed to axing them.

Below are the crime tables for each of the constituencies in November, with the October table underneath for comparison.

The news that Roehampton Recreation Club is to reopen next week after a £1.8 million refit is pleasing for those of us who have been campaigning for the Club to get the resources it deserves for years.

Given that the Recreation Club in Laverstoke Gardens, just behind Danebury Avenue, will provide a refurbished gymnasium, work-out studio and activity hall, along with a creche and weekend activities centre for local kids, it's now time to draw our successful campaign to a close, but not before reflecting on the herculean efforts it's taken to get this far.



This blog post from Labour's Roehampton council team in April 2005 shows how close we were to Conservative councillors breaking their word to refit the recreation club, and how long Labour has been campaigning on the issue - it was only through a high-profile effort led by Labour councillors in the town hall and local campaigners in the community - coupled with coverage from the Wandsworth Borough News, that showed the Conservatives that they could not wriggle out of their responsibility to Roehampton.

And since then Labour has been keeping up the pressure - we even featured the story in the last edition of The Putney Paper.

Roehampton Recreation Club will reopen on Wednesday 9th January; and during the following weekend (13th and 14th January) admission will be free - there'll also be goodie bags and balloons for kids. Click here for a map.

I'm pleased that the Wandsworth Guardian has today put the issue of local shops being driven from the Southside shopping centre on its front page, because the shape of our town centres is an issue close to my heart.

There is plenty wrong with Southside - if it wasn't there today no-one would, I suspect, suggest building something similar - it is very much a creation of the 1960s and 70s - but driving out the shops that make it different from any other shopping centre isn't going to fix what's wrong.

Millions have been invested into Southside in recent years - absolutely rightly - but it seems that the "bigger must be better" mentality that built the Arndale Centre in the first place still persists among managers and planners. They're wrong. The future of town centres, if we want them to retain any distinctiveness and what I call "soul" is through encouraging local businesses, not just pandering to the big brand names. We need a mix. Southside and the Council just don't seem to get this self-evident truth.

Here's the Guardian frontpage story in a larger version

You may have read that on Boxing Day a teenager was stabbed in Brandlehow Road, near Wandsworth Park. Our community has now become part of this worrying and unacceptable crime.

This is an issue that must be thoroughly debated in the run-up to May's Mayoral and Assembly elections, because the politicians who run the Metropolitan Police Authority - and are therefore accountable for the response to knife crime - are the Mayor and Assembly members.

One of the New Year priorities I'd like to see from the Police is far greater involvement in our schools and communities; something where our Safer Neighbourhoods teams have begun making an impact. It seems to me that one of the clearest reasons why we as a whole feel less safe on our streets despite crime actually falling markedly over the past ten years is because we no longer know our local police officers. SNTs are gradually changing that - and this is the underpinning of the continuing fall in crime I'll report on shortly with November's crime figures.

That's also a key election issue in May because the choice will be between Labour who have introduced dozens of SNT officers to Putney and the Conservatives who voted against them, attack them at every turn and will axe them if elected. Who says elections don't matter?

I had a letter on the housing crisis published recently in the Wandsworth Borough News and Wandsworth Guardian, following parliamentary debate about the Government's housing green paper. Here's what I wrote:

Last week Parliament debated one of the most important issues facing Londoners - the need to provide more affordable homes.

The shortage of affordable housing in Putney means that many couples, families and first-time buyers are priced out of living locally.

There are almost 9,000 Wandsworth residents on the council's waiting list, many of whom have no realistic prospect of being offered a home in the foreseeable future.
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And the amount of affordable homes to rent in the borough has been halved by council policies: from over 32,000 to less than 17,000.

The Government's Housing and Regeneration Bill is a step in the right direction, promising three million new homes by 2020 and 240,000 zero carbon homes built every year.


That is why it is so disappointing that Putney's Conservative MP Justine Greening voted against these plans to build more affordable homes.

But this should come as no surprise as there is no reference to housing problems on her website, and there is no record of Ms Greening ever raising local housing problems in Parliament. She has, however, found time for 10 parliamentary questions on tobacco smuggling and two on the problems of the Island of Sark.

By voting against the Bill, Ms Greening has voted against helping local families to stay in the area as their families grow; she has voted against more affordable homes and she has voted against ensuring the new homes built are low and zero carbon and environmentally-friendly.

I encourage your readers who share my priority for local housing to visit my website at http://www.stuartking.net/housingsurvey and share their housing views with me.

STUART KING
Labour parliamentary candidate for Putney

Despite the Christmas holidays, December set new highs for this website.

Over 1,000 unique visits were recorded - that's almost double the October figure and remarkable for what is a grass-roots political website (albeit the best-designed in the country!).

The 1,091 unique visitors visited almost 3,000 times - that's just under 3 visits per visitor, and viewed almost 14,500 pages - roughly 13 per visitor.

This blog and the constituency page which shows on a map what I've been up to around Putney, Roehampton and Southfields were the most popular sections - and the most viewed story was this post about continuing fly-tipping blight on the Lennox estate in Roehampton; ignored by its Conservative Councillors and MP for year after year.

Also popular was this report on Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten's frankly crazy idea that prisons should be abolished; and this post highlighting the boundary changes that will come into effect at the general election, shifting just over 1,000 Putney voters into next-door Battersea.

So, thank you very much for contributing to these impressive stats - and I hope the new look of the site continues its growth throughout 2008. You can help too - please tell your friends and neighbours about it and help me widen the reach and influence of the site around the constituency.

I'd like to wish everyone who has visited this website: the loyal following I appear to be building (given the latest visitor figures - more about this in the new year when they've been verified!); and everyone in Putney Roehampton and Southfields best wishes for 2008.

I'm delighted with the six months since I was selected:

• Forcing the council to think again - and at least consult residents - about the closure of Newlands Hall
• Finally delivering the long-overdue refitting of Roehampton Recreation Club: a Labour campaign going back six years
• Helping highlight the absurd and damaging plans to close Wandsworth Museum and West Hill Library
• Working with local Police to highlight the significant fall in crime in Putney - one of the safest constituencies in London
• Reassuring residents of the Dover House Estate after the dog attack in the Autumn
• Boosting take-up of the Child Trust Fund on the fifth anniversay of this important Labour initiative
• Fighting to make voting easier for Roehampton University students
• Stepping-up my campaign to pur some pride into Putney High Street
• Focussing as my top priority on the local housing crisis, in contrast to Putney's Tory MP who hasn't asked a single parliamentary quesion on the subject since she was elected
• And taking up hundreds of local concerns, problems and ideas picked up from getting out and about in the constituency, asking residents their views in surveys and petitions, and making sure everyone has the opportunity of contacting me not least through this website

...To list but a few. Bring on 2008 and a full year of campaigning for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields!