They don't even know which post offices they're closing!

I've just heard that the Post Office branch in Fulham Road, which the Post Office claims in its closure consultation notices is "in your area" as an alternative if they shut the Lower Richmond Road and Putney Bridge Road branches - is also being closed.

London Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone is already seeking a judicial review of the Post Office's consultation on the grounds that it is of insufficient length (among other arguments) - so, if correct, the fact that the Post Office are also publishing incorrect information and don't even seem to know which branches they're attempting to close can only strengthen this case.

A quick update: I received over 140 response cards today alone, so thank you so much to everyone who has replied so far. If you've yet to send your card back please do so; and if you live outside the area we delivered them to but still want to register your views, you can do so online.

Just go to www.stuartking.net/postoffice if you want to protest the closure of the Lower Richmond Road branch, or www.stuartking.net/post for the Putney Bridge Road branch. Or why not sign both petitions?!

UPDATE 29.02.2008: The Post Office is in fact closing the Fulham Road branch at the "Putney" end of Fulham Road - the one near the junction with Fulham Palace Road; the branch referred to in their closures paper is staying open but this is the Parson's Green branch right up near Fulham Library.

Will Wimbledon be ready in time?

Many Putney residents don't realise that the constituency extends right down to the very edge of the All England Tennis Club. The winding streets like Victoria Drive, Princes Way and Queensmere Road certainly feel a long way from the Putney riverside - both literally and in terms of the local concerns residents raise with me.

The home of Wimbledon tennis is even more prominent on the horizon at the moment because the site is currently overrun with cranes as the Club races to fit a retractable roof on Centre Court in time for the championships in late June - you can just make it out in this photo taken from Winterfold Close.

Given the clockwork efficiency that, rain allowing, the Wimbledon Tennis Championships are renowned for, I'm sure they'll complete the work on time, but for the moment, they make an impressive image with only seventeen weeks or so before Wimbledon 2008 commences.

Out and about on the Portinscale Estate

This weekend my campaign team and I were talking to residents of the Portinscale estate: Askill Drive, Buttermere Drive, Portinscale Road and part of Keswick Road, just behind East Putney Station.

We got a really good response, although residents had lots of transport concerns - especially about accessibility to local stations. We'd already delivered The Putney Paper to this estate so residents were aware of the planned improvements to Putney Station, which will include a passenger lift; and similar renovations to Southfields tube station because it's one of the 2012 Olympics Stations.

Unfortunately East Putney Station, which had been scheduled for the same sort of accessibilty improvements, appears to have been a victim of the collapse of Metronet: the private company with the contract to overhaul much of the tube network that went bust last year. It's still too early to say when East Putney will now get the work, but obviously I'm pushing Transport for London hard.

Our Post Office campaign gets going

This weekend local volunteers delivered letters, posters and campaign response cards to around 4,000 homes (and 6,000+ residents) in Putney that will be affected by The Post Office's plans to close two of their branches.

If you've been out and about in Putney Bridge Road and Lower Richmond Road over the past couple of days, maybe you'll have seen that we've enlisted the support of lots of local businesses who are also displaying our "Don't K.O. our P.O." posters.

I was able to visit both local branches this weekend. Outrageously, the Post Office forced the Postmaster in Putney Bridge Road to sign a document promising not to help those of us fighting to keep his branch open: and while I'm not sure what they could do if he reneged on that promise (shut him down? - oh no, been there, done that!) being an honourable man he is abiding by his word.

That hasn't stopped us though. The Post Office thinks that just delivering four or five boxes of their "consultation" leaflets to the branches affected meets their obligation towards giving the community a reasonable say. It does not. That's why it's so important that, if you value the service your local Post Office branch provides, you write to The Post Office expressing your views; you sign my petition; you display a poster and you encourage your friends, neighbours, work colleagues and anyone else you can think of to do the same.

What's becoming clear is that The Post Office is not basing its decision on any in-depth analysis of the local economic and geographical circumstances of each branch they're proposing to close. In fact, their closure plan is so random I wonder whether they just stuck pins in a map blindfolded.

The response to my campaign has already been impressive. I'll keep you informed regularly here, but if you haven't registered your views yet please do so at:

Lower Richmond Road Post Office: www.stuartking.net/postoffice
Putney Bridge Road Post Office: www.stuartking.net/post

Marking the contribution women made in our World Wars

A couple of years ago, the Government launched a badge that all military veterans could wear with pride as a small way of marking their sacrifice for our country.

Now, the scheme has been expanded to include the Women's Land Army and Women's Timber Corps who worked on the Home Front providing food and wood during the First and Second World Wars while many of the men who had been the agricultural labour force were away fighting.

During World War I as many as 260,000 women were enlisted as farm labourers as part of the Women's Land Army - and in retrospect this was almost as significant an event in advancing the equal treatment and respect of women as the Suffrage Movement that gained ground in the 1910s and 1920s.

I fully share the views of Environment Secretary Hilary Benn who, when launching the scheme at the end of last month said: "It is absolutely right that we at last recognise the selfless efforts these women made to support the nation through the dark days of World War I and II. This badge is a fitting way to pay tribute to their determination, courage and spirit in the face of adversity. I hope that as many eligible women as possible will apply for one."

Application forms are now available for anyone who believes that they may be eligible for a badge. If you or a member of your family would like to apply, you can download an application form here, or by writing to:

Dermot McInerney
DEFRA
5E Millbank c/o 17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR

or by phoning the DEFRA helpline on 08459 33 55 77. You or your family member just need to provide date of birth, approximate dates of service and the location at which they were stationed.

Whitelands Park parking fiasco

Yet more parking absurdity from Wandsworth Council: when they granted planning permission for the huge Whitelands Park development in West Hill, the Council allowed developers Crest Nicholson to build over 100 homes without a single parking space for the residents.

Last year I exposed how the Council has banned residents of the SW15H development behind East Putney station from being eligible for residents parking permits, even though the developer of SW15H has refused to give them any off-street parking space either - effectively leaving them in limbo.

This parking saga is about to rear up and bite the council where it hurts, though. That's because in a fortnight a new parking system comes into force on Whitelands whereby only those who have designated spaces will be able to park, pushing everyone without them, and their visitors - potentially 200 extra cars - onto Sutherland Grove and surrounding streets. This in turn will create huge parking problems for residents and their visitors here.

And if residents then demand a controlled parking zone, will the council again try to ban Whitelands residents without off-street parking spaces of their own from being eligible for parking permits? I bet they will.

The Conservative Council stands accused on several fronts. Why did they allow Crest Nicholson to build over 100 homes with no off-street parking? Where residents of these new developments are banned by developers from using the off site carparking, why does the council persist in their policy of banning residents from being able to apply for residents' parking permits? Why have they not obliged Crest Nicholson to honour all the terms of their planning permission? And why do they regard key workers as second class citizens? A large number of West Hill residents - and I - are demanding answers.

A new park for the Wandle area?

A consultation has been launched over plans to create a park that will be one of the largest in the world along the Wandle valley. The plan would join together all the open spaces along the river to create one seamless parkland environment for almost the entire length of the Wandle from Sutton to the Thames.

This project, which would create a park several times larger in total area than either Hyde Park or New York's Central Park, is a collaborative venture led by the Mayor for London and the environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London. I'm a big fan of Groundwork - it's high time Wandsworth had it's own Groundwork and their involvement lends this project significant credibility. The local boroughs the Wandle runs through are also partners.

You can find out a little more about the plans and have your say at http://www.wandlevalleypark.org.uk/. The site also contains a history of the Wandle and other facts and figures about the Wandle Valley.

Save Putney Bridge Road Post Office campaign now live

I've now set up campaign pages to help residents living near the Putney Bridge Road Post Office, also threatened with closure. This is the second Putney branch the Post Office is seeking to close, after they announced plans to close the one in Lower Richmond Road yesterday.

So, if you want to support the campaign to save Putney Bridge Road post office, please click here.

And a reminder that if you want to support the campaign to save Lower Richmond Road post office, please click here.



Of course, you're very welcome to support both campaigns - the more responses, the stronger our case! And if you intend to respond directly to the consultation, do please copy me into your letter, as it will help strengthen our collective voice. The consultation address to write to can be found on the campaign pages above; to copy me in, e-mail me at stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk, or write to me at Putney Labour Party, 35 Felsham Road, SW15 1AY.

Don't K.O. our P.O.

I learnt late yesterday afternoon that plans have been published to close two of our local Post Office branches in Lower Richmond Road, on the corner of Erpingham Road AND in Putney Bridge Road, near Oxford Road.

Anyone who's been around in Putney for more than five minutes will know that Lower Richmond Road has already lost a post office, a few years ago, and this plan will remove any proximity to postal services for a community relatively isolated, bordered on three sides by Putney Common, the river Thames and the mainline railway.

That's why it's frankly laughable for The Post Office to claim that "in the area" are no less than five other branches: one in Barnes, two in Fulham and the others in Upper Richmond Road: a good half an hour's walk or two bus journeys just to get there.



I'm not someone who believes that post offices deserve to be kept open by some divine right. The public is subsidising the Post Office to the tune of £3 million a week because of the losses they are making. Where, in the past there have been duplicate services in close proximity and branches that are hardly used, it is right that Royal Mail considers their future. But these branches are not duplicates - they're busy and popular - and perhaps most significantly of all the area they serve is a genuine community that values their post offices.

Those are the reasons I've launched the campaign to save the Lower Richmond Road Post Office - you can find out more at www.stuartking.net/postoffice. If you're in the area surrounding the Lower Richmond Road or Putney Bridge Road post offices you'll be hearing from me soon with ways to get involved and help stop this K.O. of our P.O. - but I'd welcome your support where ever you live and whichever political party you vote for: this isn't a party political issue.

We have until 2nd April to make our views known about the closure plans: as well as signing my online petition you can also write direct to Anita Turner, Network Development Manager, Post Office Ltd, FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM or email consultation@postoffice.co.uk. If you could copy me in to your submission this will help strengthen our collective voice against these plans.

Dangerous dogs success

I'm pleased to be able to report some success for the work the West Putney Safer Neighbourhoods team and I have put into tackling the dangerous dog problem on the Dover House estate documented here.

Following the attack on The Pleasance last October, the Police worked hard to identify several addresses in the area that possibly housed dangerous dogs. After obtaining search warrants under section 5 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and each of these homes was called upon by the Safer Neighbourhood Team and the Police Dog Support Unit.

At one of these addresses, aPitbull type dog was seized by police and the owner prosecuted under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. If someone is found to be in possession of an illegal dog or allows their dog to be dangerously out of control then not only may they be committing offences, but they may be in breach of their tenancy agreements with Wandsworth Council.

It's important that this work has been done to reassure residents and - more importantly - get action on this issue which is so worrying to so many.

Inner Park Road

After our campaign session in Horne Way, we went off to do some work in Inner Park Road, in the Wimbledon Parkside part of the constituency.

This was a photo we took just as the sun was setting from the top of one of the blocks in Chobham Gardens, which is part of the Argyle estate at the south end of Inner Park Road.



You can see the green spire of St Paul's church to the top of the picture on the right, the blocks of Tilford Gardens and Limpsfield Avenue in the middle, the curved form of Roundacre below it and, at the foot of the picture, some of the grand houses at the southern end of Inner Park Road, opposite Chobham Gardens.

Out and about in Horne Way

My campaign team and I, along with local London Assembly candidate Councillor Leonie Cooper, were in Horne Way - also known as the Ranelagh Estate - just beside Putney Common earlier today. This is a pleasant estate of nine 1930s blocks, nestled alongside Beverley Brook at the end of Sefton Street.

But it could be even better with a little more care and attention from the Council. We spoke to almost 100 residents in just a couple of hours. Several residents had complaints about outstanding repairs, problems with rats (given the proximity to the Brook), and no-one had ever seen their Conservative councillors - who include the Leader of the Council - on the estate.

Some residents were also really concerned about the plans by Richmond's Liberal Democrat-run Council to sell off a huge chunk of next-door Barn Elms playing fields when we told them about it. And some residents were also very keen to get the ball rolling on the redevelopment of Putney Hospital, so that they can benefit from excellent NHS healthcare on their doorstep once again.

I have recently been in touch with the office of the Minister responsible for sorting out the legal technicalities that have been delaying the work to the Hospital, and hope to be able to report progress soon. I want work to be able to commence later this year so we get these new health facilities we all deserve.

More issues added

We've now added several more "issues" links to the side bar of the news section where you can click to read all the stories I've added on a particular subject such as crime or housing, or more specific issues like the river Wandle or Wandsworth Museum.

We've also sorted stories by council ward, so it's easier for you to find stories about your local area if you know which ward you live in.

And the constituency map page has also been updated with my January stories and activities, to round off this update on updates!

Southfields' Olympic lift

One of the Conservatives' campaign pledges at the last general election was that, if they won Putney, Southfields station and the District Line in general would receive a massive overhaul: a longer platform to accommodate longer trains, air conditioned trains, more trains and a more accessible station.

Of these, the only one they have even tried to claim they have delivered on is the last: a more accessible station - because Southfields is going to get a passenger lift in the next few years. I believe in giving credit where it's due; even to Putney's Conservative MP if and when she is personally responsible for improvements to local facilities as she has claimed in respect of the Southfields Station lift.

So when I met recently with the Transport for London official responsible for District Line services I was really surprised to discover that, contrary to Tory claims, the reason Southfields is getting a lift is solely because it's an Olympic Station: the Tennis Olympics take place at the All England Club, just down the road. As I say, I'm more than happy to credit Justine Greening with winning the lift for Southfields Station - all she has to do is tell us about the decisive role she played in winning the 2012 Olympics for London!

Until then let's give credit where credit's due - to the team led by Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone and Lord Coe - without whom the Conservatives would not even be able to attempt to mislead residents they had delivered any improvements to Southfields Station.

The sell-off and sell-out of Barn Elms

Barn Elms is a local treasure. It provides acres of school playing fields and other recreational facilities right on the edge of our borough, just across Beverley Brook.

Now, Liberal Democrat-run Richmond Council is planning to sell-off a sizeable chunk of the site - which would include the athletics track - to a private developer for a luxury sports centre most of us will never be able to afford.

By now, I'd have thought politicians of all colours would have understood that the consequence of selling off playing fields is unfit children and worsening obesity. That self-evident truth is clearly lost on Richmond Liberal Democrats.

Before joining my current Sunday league football side based in Roehampton Vale, I played for Fulham Compton Old Boys which was based on Putney Common just behind Barn Elms - so I'm not just sounding off about this issue - I've directly benefited from this local open space for sport.
As someone heavily involved in politics, I come across so many examples of the Liberal Democrats hypocrisy over issues like this. Just google "Liberal Democrat playing field sell off" and you'll get a tirade of examples of Lib Dems campaigning to defend playing fields - it was even a manifesto pledge of theirs - and just as many examples of Lib Dem councils selling them off. Richmond is just the latest.

Of course, it's easy to be against sell-off. Successive councils have evidently struggled to generate revenue from Barn Elms, which is no doubt a substantial drain on council tax. Equally, councils have shown time and time again that they are not the best entrepreneurs around - ill equiped to market themselves or their assets to the maximum and often excluded from applying for grants from outside sources to help finance them.

In such circumstances, I'd like serious consideration given to creating a trust or conservatorship for Barn Elms - to protect this precious land from the short-termist instincts of councillors and establish an organisation solely responsible for and interested in the protection, preservation and success of Barn Elms.

New edition of The Putney Paper - hot off the presses

We've just taken delivery of the new edition of The Putney Paper - copies of which should start arriving through doors across the constituency in the next days and weeks.

Because it's such an important issue locally, we've devoted this edition to transport. Our headline story is the long-overdue revamp of Putney mainline station - something Labour has been campaigning on for years and years (it was one of the demands of my Save Putney High Street campaign, for example).

Inside, I set out my views on Heathrow expansion - the editorial I've written can be read here - and the paper goes on to ask important questions about just how opposed to Heathrow the Conservatives really are.

I also champion my Putney4AirTrack campaign: the proposal to provide a Waterloo to Heathrow service running through Putney: an infrastructure project that should go ahead regardless of the decision on Heathrow expansion.

And elsewhere in the paper I report on Southfields' station's Olympic lift - the fact that the station is finally getting a passenger lift because it is an Olympics Station for 2012 (and not, as some Conservatives are dishonestly claiming, a result of anything they've achieved!), and on the latest bus performance indicators.

Plus a round-up of all the local news from around the constituency and your chance to have a say.

You can read the online edition of The Putney Paper here.

Policing and politics

With the important elections for London's Mayor and Assembly on 1st May rapidly approaching, my latest Parliamentary report for the local putneysw15 website focuses on the critical issue of crime and policing locally. It's a subject I've written regularly about on this website too.

You can read my Parliamentary report here.

"You're all the same" is a criticism often made of politicians. Well, in this election, that can't be said. There are huge differences between Labour's Ken Livingstone and the Tories.

With Labour, Putney has just about recovered from the huge loss of police the last Conservative government inflicted upon us. That Michael Howard, the former Home Secretary responsible for sacking so many of our policemen and women came to Putney the day after the 2005 general election to quit was ironic - it's just a shame he didn't manage an apology for his disastrous policy.

Now Putney has 40 Police Community Support Officers - it had zero under the Conservatives - and crime is down: Putney is one of the safest parts of London. And, if re-elected, Ken will employ another 1,000 police officers over the next four years.

I'll be talking more about the other massive dividing lines in the forthcoming London elections over the coming weeks.

Downing Street reception

Last month I was invited by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to 10 Downing Street along with 16 year old Southfields resident Xavier Attwell.

The reception was for the Prime Minister to meet teenagers from around the country to find out their priorities as they approach A-levels, apprenticeships or the world of work.

It's a well-documented problem that younger people are much less likely to vote and feel engaged by our political process than older people. And the problem has become much worse in recent years. While very few teenagers like Xavier get to meet the Prime Minister personally and tell him what they think, these events do at least keep the government listening to the concerns and aspirations of the next generation of citizens.

Locally, I also take the views of younger constituents seriously. I send all 18 year olds in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields a congratulatory card on their birthday, along with a survey seeking their views, which they can also fill out online. Last Autumn I took the chance of talking to sixth formers at Putney High School about local political issues and how I got involved in politics - and I'm hoping to set up similar visits with the other secondary schools in the constituency shortly.

The Tories' "affordable" housing scam

Two examples of how Wandsworth Council and their developer friends are making a laughing stock of affordable housing targets have come to light this week.

The first is that the Conservative definition of an affordable home is £250,000 for the tiniest one bedroom flat on the Riverside Quarter development just past Wandsworth Park.
As usual with Wandsworth Conservatives, they've refused to build a single affordable home for rent as part of this huge scheme while the proportion of so-called affordable homes here is barely 15%, despite requirements to make 50% of these huge developments affordable.

Now the Council will say that anyone interested in their poky quarter-of-a-million pound flats (which have all been bunged close to the railway line - the Tories don't believe ordinary Wandsworth residents deserve riverside views) only has to buy a minimum 25% share of that - and for some a £62,500 mortgage is more attainable than one for £250,000.

But that's not the end of the costs. Because while you're repaying that £62,500 mortgage (that's an outgoing of roughly £450 a month) you also have to pay rent on the 75% you don't own - so add another £260 a month to that total. Plus, these are serviced blocks - so add the service charges on top.

And then, if that wasn't crippling enough, I was contacted just today by a resident of the 'affordable' section of Castle Court, which is part of the Brewhouse Lane development by Putney Bridge. For the privilege of being able to park off-street (which she has to, because the council has disqualified residents of these developments from owning a residents' parking permit) her landlord, St George, is demanding the outrageous sum of £12,000!

All this adds up to totally unaffordable 'affordable' housing. It's nothing short of a scandal that whilst our local housing crisis grows ever worse the Conservatives block affordable homes, have the front to claim a £250,000 flat is affordable, and allow their developer chums to fleece those local families.

AirTrack

Today, I'm launching my Putney4AirTrack campaign.

AirTrack is a proposal for a rail service between Heathrow and Waterloo. The beauty of the idea is that 96% of the track for this service already exists so it's an incredibly affordable infrastructure scheme - all that's required is for a spur of just 4km between Staines and Heathrow itself to be built.

The plan is for AirTrack services to run every 10 minutes in both directions; with end-to-end rail journeys of between 35 and 45 minutes. The service is forecast to reduce car journeys by 5,000 in the morning rush hour alone.

It's such a great scheme that it really is surprising that it hasn't been done already. The concern is that AirTrack appears to being linked with development of a third runway at Heathrow - but there really is no reason it has to be: AirTrack is a stand-alone viable scheme that will provide a vital south-of-the-river service to complement and relieve the Piccadilly Line.

The other big issue for us locally is that at present, the service isn't planned to stop at Putney: the nearest station to us will be Clapham Junction. Obviously, it's important for the service to get to and from Heathrow quickly, but Putney is the largest population area between Clapham Junction and Staines, with a large number of Heathrow users.

To support my Putney4AirTrack campaign, click here.

For a larger version of the AirTrack map above, click here.

And for more on the AirTrack proposal, click here.

Website readership grows again in January

Thank you to the 1,735 of you who visited this website in January - a 59% increase on December, which in turn had been the biggest month for the site to date.

The 1,735 unique visitors checked out my site 2,958 times and looked at 14,472 pages. We welcomed visitors from as far afield as Israel, Australia, Germany and Sweden.

At the top of last month's most-viewed was my plan for tackling dangerous dogs, and why I think the council's got it wrong with their ideas on this menace.

There was also a lot of interest in my coverage of the secondary school league tables, and I was pleased that my reprint of an article I wrote three years ago for the Wandsworth Borough News on English Heritage Blue Plaques also received a lot of visits.

Thank you also to everyone who took the time to complete one of my residents' surveys - we have now set up three surveys: one on constituency-wide issues, another on the areas's housing crisis and a third on local transport priorities, which you can use to let me have your views on these important local issues. And of course you can try your hand at my infamous Putney general knowledge quiz - to date no-one has scored 100%!





So, thank you once again for your interest in my website and with your help I hope February will be another month of widening readership.

London elections website launched

Labour's team for the London Assembly have launched their election website for the vote on 01 May.

You can find out more about Labour's candidate for our patch, Councillor Leonie Cooper, our achievements in London over the past eight years, and our plans for the next four if you choose to return us to power. There are also links to Ken Livingstone's mayoral campaign website and much more.

The website address is http://www.glalabour.com/

Interns

This Spring my campaign is fortunate to have the help of two interns from the United States. Corinna Byrum and Lauren Kuhl, both aged 20 are based at my campaign centre in the heart of Putney.

Corinna who's from California and Lauren, from Connecticut, are both studying politics and, although they've only been with us a few days, have helped take my campaign up a notch or two.

When they're not working hard on the campaign both are taking courses in British politics, government and key policy issues facing the country.

And they also get time to see a lot of England: between them they've already been to Stone Henge, Bath, Salisbury, Camden Town, Spitalfields, BBC Television Centre, Notting Hill and Kensington Gardens - Corinna's even had the pleasure of watching Fulham take on Aston Villa at Craven Cottage on Saturday!

Alas, their time in Britain ends in mid April - so they won't get to experience the London elections in May for which they'll be working so hard for. But at least both have signed up to take part in the US elections primary for overseas voters (which happens Tuesday) so they won't miss out on that.

Wandsworth Museum Obituary

The borough's amenity societies: the Balham, Battersea, Putney and Wandsworth Societies, the Wandsworth Historical Society, the Friends of Wandsworth Museum and the Wandsworth Museum Action Group have joined forces to write an obituary of the museum that the Tory Council - backed by Putney's Conservative MP - closed on New Year's Day.

You can read the obituary on the putneysw15 website here - it gives a very effective picture of the resources the borough has lost with the closure, as well as the breadth of support the Museum had throughout the community.

Out and about in Upper Richmond Road

My campaign team and I spent some of yesterday campaigning in the area around Upper Richmond Road. I thought I'd share a couple of the photos we took of Putney: both are from the top of Ormonde Court, one of the apartment blocks on Upper Richmond Road.



In the foreground are the backs of houses in Norroy Road - in the very bottom right is the railway line. In the background, centre-right, is Putney Wharf Tower. You can't see it on the low resolution picture above, but if you click on it you'll get a higher resolution version in which the London Eye is visible almost in the centre.



...And this one is of Putney looking west - again, the back of Norroy Road in the foreground, the trees of Putney Common on the far left. And if you click on the photo above, you should be able to make out the arch of the new Wembley Stadium in the distance.

As you can see from the sky, and will know if you were out yesterday too, while it was a bit nippy it was an otherwise lovely day, and good to be busy in the constituency.

Oh, and if you're someone who we contacted yesterday - or even if you aren't - do please take five minutes to complete my online residents' survey.

Putney stays safe

December saw very little change in our crime figures - Putney remains one of the safest parts of London with very much safer streets in almost every part of the constituency than anywhere else in the borough or capital.

Crime fell again in Roehampton, Southfields, West Hill and West Putney - in the case of Southfields markedly, suggesting that November's much higher figures were a blip. West Hill and West Putney wards have a crime rate almost half that of the London average: a remarkable figure and testament to the work of the local Police Community Support teams that are making such a difference to our patch.

But I'm getting really concerned about the level of theft and mugging in Putney town centre, which is behind the high Thamesfield crime figures.

Three years ago the Tory Council had the opportunity of introducing town centre patrollers to Putney - the Government had funded them in Clapham Junction and Tooting town centres with the result that street crime fell by a third. But instead of seizing the chance to make Putney High Street safer, the Council refused to find the funds to employ them (an amount equivalent to about 5p per week on council tax) - and worse still, sacked the ones in Clapham Junction and Tooting.

Correcting this situation and bringing town centre patrollers to Putney is one of the ten points in my Save Putney High Street campaign. Please complete my Save Putney High Street survey and give me your views on how to cut crime in the town centre, and on other aspects of the problems blighting the area.

Here are the crime figures for December by ward, with comparisons for the whole borough and Greater London:




And here, as usual, is the previous month's table for comparison:

Biofuels

I wrote last week about rising food prices and their impact on poorer households. In that post I criticised biofuels as creating more problems than they solve.

I'll talk a bit more about why biofuels aren't a green solution in a minute, but also last week - entirely coincidentally - the House of Commons Environment Select Committee came out in favour of axing EU biofuels targets; if for slightly different reasons.

Their concern is not only that the target can't be met, but also about land use - because utilising land for biofuel production is one of the main causes of deforestation (which I discussed here during the Bali Climate Change Summit last year); especially in rain-forest countries like Brazil.

The Environment Committee is also looking at how green bio-fuels really are. Whenever someone supporting nuclear power makes the point that nuclear emits no carbon dioxide the anti-nuclear lobby rushes counters that a substantial amount of carbon is emitted in the construction of nuclear power plants.

Fair point. But the same is true of biofuel - and unlike nuclear, it's an ongoing cost: because the energy output is in the actual production of the fuel as well as the construction of the processing plants. Almost as much fuel is used to create biofuel than is created.

How is that sustainable? And the only reason it is vaguely affordable is the vast, market-warping subsidies bunged to the bio-fuel industry. Without them, biofuel would be uneconomic, fields that have been dedicated to producing crops for fuel would be returned to use for food production and cereals and bread would begin falling in price again.

We need to remember the distinction between power and fuel, because power can run computers, light streets, boil kettles and cook meals, but it can't drive cars or operate central heating. For that we need liquid or gas fuels. One day, we may have nuclear-cell driven cars; we already have natural gas and hydrogen-fueled vehicles as well as those powered by batteries charged with green electricity, but bio-fuels aren't the solution - apologies to anyone who's just bought a Prius or other hybrid powered car!

Here's how the BBC reported the MPs' report calling for a scrapping of EU biofuels targets.