Payback

Every year over 55,000 criminals are required to provide Community Payback ? carrying out over 6 million hours of unpaid physical work in the local community as punishment for the crimes they commited.

However, more often than not people don't know about the scheme or that they can have a say on what work offenders do. An Ipsos MORI poll published yesterday found:

* 74% have not heard of Community Payback in their local area;
* Only around 5% know that they can nominate ideas for Payback work;
* Top preferences for Community Payback were cleaning streets (57%) and removing graffiti (44%)

Offenders sentenced to between 40-300 hours of community service must do at least 6 hours a week and the Community Payback sentence must be completed within 1 year.

Wandsworth, sadly, did not sign up to be one of the pioneer areas for giving you a say in how offenders can pay back to your community; something especially regrettable as neighbouring Lambeth and Hammersmith & Fulham have signed up and their residents will be getting a say.

However, just because Wandsworth Conservatives do not see the value in such a scheme, doesn't mean you're denied a say. Just visit the London Probation Service website and nominate an idea.

It could be clearing up a derelict piece of wasteland; repainting a community centre; planting shrubs and flowers in a sheltered housing scheme or removing graffiti from a building - as well as general litter or dog fouling cleanups in areas the Conservative council seem to have forgotten about. And then get your neighbours to vote for your idea too -because the scheme with the most votes will be given first priority by the PayBack team, and so on down the list.

Do let me know what activities you recommend - email me at stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk - and I'll do my best to share your ideas with other local residents. Why not also email the Leader of the Council and Putney's Conservative MP and find out why they are not supporting this pioneering programme.

You can also find out more about the Community Payback scheme at direct.gov.uk/communitypayback.

Tileman House revised planning application

Just a quick note as a few residents have been in touch wondering whether they needed to write in again about Tileman House following the very minor revisions to the plan made by the developers recently.

You don't have to write in unless you want to: the original objections will still count. The only thing the changes do is push back decision day as the council is obliged to hold another consultation on the "new" plans.

If you do want to have your say on the revisions, however, email planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk citing the new application number 2009/0595.

Free swimming from 1st April

From Wednesday swimming will be free in Putney Leisure Centre for over 60s and under 16s thanks to Labour.

Free swimming is available everyday, at all times, to over 60s. Those aged 16 and under can also swim for free daily, outside school hours.

Over £600 million has been made available by the Government to fund this scheme: Wandsworth Tories decided that they wouldn't let it happen unless they didn't have to put in a penny, and the Conservatives nationally have failed to commit to free swimming if they're ever elected.

I learnt to swim in Putney Swimming Pool when I was growing up and it's great that from the start of the month every Wandsworth family will be able to enjoy free swimming thanks to Labour.

Petition in support of Ahmadi muslims

There is - and has been for many years - a large community of Ahmadi Muslims living in Southfields and West Hill. They have a Mosque in Gressenhall Road in Southfields, which boasts being London's first Mosque having been built in 1926.

The Ahmadiyya are a worldwide community with many members living in Pakistan. They are regularly the subject of persecution and, in an attempt to highlight this, members of their community have established a petition on the 10 Downing Street e-petition website. The terms of the petition are as follows:

"The Government of Pakistan is currently keen on moving towards becoming a truly democratic and secular state. It is keen on promoting religious tolerance and rights of minorities in order to remove religious extremism. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have faced for decades hatred and persecution in Pakistan.

We call upon the Prime Minister and Foreign Office to actively and urgently engage in mediating an end to the persecution suffered by Ahmadi Muslims in order to save thousands of innocent people including many children and women."

I have added my signature to the e-petition and encourage others to do likewise. At the time of writing this over 1,400 people have signalled their support. You can sign the petition online at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Ahmadi/


More information about the Ahmadiyya community can be found at http://www.alislam.org/

Real help to give everyone a fair chance in life

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February crime stats

February's crime figures again show good progress; crime down in most categories and in most parts of the constituency.

It's worth comparing the six Putney wards with the London average, because this contrast shows exactly why we are one of the safest parts of the capital:

• Burglaries are lower than the London average in five of six Putney wards
• Criminal damage is lower in four of the six
• Drugs offences are - much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Fraud and forgery offences are - again, much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Robbery is lower in five out of six wards
• Sexual offences are lower in four of the six
• Theft and handling is very much lower in every ward except Thamesfield than the rest of London
• Violent crime is lower in five of the six wards

And the substantial increase in Police and Community Support Officers Putney has recently benefited from should help make Putney, Roehampton and Southfields even safer.

Why I won't be sitting in darkness tomorrow night

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So it is with the planned "Earth Hour" by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) who want us all to turn off our lights for one hour on Saturday evening from 8.30pm.

This stunt underlines my concern about the disconnect between those who are so absolutely driven by the cause they believe in - climate change - to the point where their judgement is clouded and they actually damage themselves and their cause.

Let's be clear: sitting in the dark on Saturday night, waiting for the clocks to go forward is not going to save our planet. Nor is the attitude implicit in the thinking behind such a gimmick: that the only way to avert catastrophic climate change is for us, essentially, to return to the caves.

WWF is well intentioned but gimmicks like these fundamentally undermine their important cause because they associate it with unpopular, unpleasant and self-denying measures that people simply won't sign up to en masse.

Far more productive - because it's something that might prompt people to make changes for life, would be a campaign to turn off all equipment that's normally on standby that entire night.

If WWF can get business to turn off their lights on a Saturday evening - great - though surely business in the city could and should turn their lights off for more than an hour when they're closed? But those of us who are committed to tackling climate change seriously need to use better judgement about how to persuade people to engage with the issue in future.

If you want to find out more about WWF's earth hour, however, click here.

Wandsworth Police numbers pass 700

According to the (Conservative-run) Metropolitan Police Authority, Wandsworth now has a total of 706 Police and Community Support Officers.

That's higher than it was in 1993, before the then Conservative Government under Home Secretary Michael Howard started cutting police officer numbers massively: by the trough of their cuts, Police numbers in Wandsworth had been reduced to just 568.

It's taken a decade of Labour investment to get Police numbers back up but they now show that our borough has 603 officers plus an additional 102 Community Support Officers playing their vital role in our Safer Neighbourhood teams, on patrol in your street.

This is great news for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields and its why our area continues to be one of the safest in London.

QPR cookie

Jess is an intern who has been working in the office for a fortnight on work experience. Today is her last day and she has brought in home made cookies for everyone. What's more she has personalised each one. I was very happy with mine to the extent that I almost didn't want to eat it!

Police in the community

Regular visitors to my website will know of my longstanding support for both the concept and operation locally of police safer neighbourhood teams.

These teams of regular police officers and community support officers provide a visible uniformed presence on our streets and estates that both deter and detect crime. Without doubt they have been a phenomenal success not just here in Putney, Roehampton & Southfields, but right across London. Indeed, they are being rolled out across the country - everyone wants to see bobbies back on the beat and SNTs deliver that.

Sergeant Nigel Mussett leads West Hill's SNT, which has made tremendous inroads into tackling local concerns and crime hotpots in his ward - in particular tackling drugs issues on local estates and addressing a street disorder problem associated with a small number of unruly local pupils at the end of the school day.

Since SNTs have a very obvious and necessary community focus to their activity, it is not surprising that each team (we have six here) tries to engage directly with local residents through public meetings and ward panels. I attend as many of these as I can and recently popped along to a public meeting held by the West Hill team, one of the most successful of the 20 teams in the borough.

Five members of the police SNT were present, including Sgt Mussett, along with myself and a member of the council's housing department who were there as observers. Only four members of the public turned up. Sadly, this is not uncommon. I have attended Southfields ward meetings with as few as six people in attendance. The Roehampton SNT achieves a better turnout, with often as many as 20-25 members of the public present. And when I was a councillor in Tooting, we used to get similar numbers along to our meetings, although as councillors we worked hard to deliver this.

I think the police do a great job tackling crime, but they are still falling short of the mark when it comes to community consultation and engagement. I have some ideas how things could be improved, but I'd be interested to receive your ideas and suggestions as to how the police can get more local people to come along to these meetings. These meetings genuinely do determine the focus of activity for the SNTs, so local residents have every reason to get involved.

No mobiles on the tube

I'm quietly pleased that Transport for London has abandoned plans to extend mobile phone coverage to the depths of the underground network.

Underground journeys - especially in rush hour - are stressful enough, without fellow passengers' phones going off, the jostling to get them out of their pockets and then being subjected to their conversation.

Journeys on the underground can be souless experiences at the best of times; they'd be even worse if we had to listen to the often banal conversations overground travellers make. And that is without the irritating ringtones that we all seem to possess. The Underground is actually a rare respite from the always-on-call culture. It's quite nice to be able to have some time out from our phones and Blackberrys; that half hour or so when we can think about the day ahead or the day just gone.

So I welcome this as a small respite from the inexorable advance of technology into every aspect of our daily life.

Window dressing?

Yesterday I reported on how the Conservatives were commissioning a year long study into whether there's pollution in Putney High Street (somewhat akin to a study into whether there's water in the Thames, if you ask me) with the stated purpose of funding some "environmental theatre".

Today, they've unveiled their long awaited local economic stimulus. It is - wait for it - to pay landlords of empty shop units to display pretty pictures of the borough! I kid you not - in a news release boldly headlined "Council tackling vacant shops" they say:

"In Wandsworth Town Centre the council will offer grants of up to £1000 for vacant shops to install window dressings displaying attractive images of the local environment."

They go onto highlight another radical, decisive plan:

"The council is also investigating a pilot project in Tooting where a community mural could be painted on a bricked-up shopping parade."

Note: not to get the bricked-up shopping parade unbricked and back into use growing our local economy, but to make it look a little less bricked-up. This isn't action - it's (literally) window dressing.

The third and final intervention the Conservatives are pondering is to use shop front windows as "art exhibition spaces".

At least they'll have somewhere to perform their environmental theatre.

A polluted high street

One of the main reasons Putney High Street is an unpleasant shopping environment is the amount of traffic running through it, and the pollution that is created as a result.

The Council has just been given a government grant to measure the scale of this pollution over a year - and because the High Street is narrow and enclosed by relatively high buildings I expect the findings to be...well, less than healthy.

I support getting the hard facts to substantiate the fairly obvious truth that Putney High Street is congested and polluted - pollution which in turn leads to extra grime in the town centre. But the real question I ask of the council is: "And then what?"

And then what will they do once they have this evidence? All that the Councillor responsible for the environment has said it will do is encourage car drivers to test the fumes their vehicles omit and, bizarrely, fund "environmental theatre", whatever that might be. Neither will improve, let alone transform our town centre.

Yet again, given an opportunity to lead on a plan for Putney, the Conservatives duck it.

They have allowed our town centre to decay; their planning policies have failed to control traffic in Putney; and their failure to invest in the High Street, while our neighbours in Fulham, Kensington and Kingston have sorted out their town centres, is one of the key reasons why Putney is being hit harder by the recession.

So let's have the pollution monitoring. But let's also have a clear path along the lines I've been arguing for since 2005 to a cleaner, smarter, healthier and less congested Putney please.

Why people aren't worried about the NHS anymore

Today's Daily Telegraph leads with the fact that half of women breast cancer sufferers in England survive the disease. 60,000 women, and 40,000 men diagnosed with colorectal cancer every single year now beat the disease and go on to have the same life expectancy as someone who has escaped the disease.

Opinion polls nowadays show that the NHS doesn't rank very highly when people are asked about issues that concern them - and the reason for that is not because the NHS has stopped being close to our national heart. It is because a decade of Labour investment in health has stopped the rot of decaying hospitals, pensioners dying on trolleys in halls, outrageously long waits for treatment and chronic shortages of doctors and nurses; and is now making a real difference on major health threats like cancer.

Of course there's a lot that isn't right in the NHS: the shocking news about neglect in Stafford Hospital is one recent example, and there will always be individuals who get failed by the health service.

But these new cancer figures are really significant - as is the fact that it is the Telegraph; hardly a paper sympathetic to Labour, that has announced them. And as the Telegraph report goes on to say, the real cause for optimism is that there is so much scope for doing even better in years to come, because we still don't have the survival rates of some of our European neighbours.

The NHS is safe in Labour's hands - and the fact that people have stopped worrying about it is a measure of how significant a difference Labour in Government has made to health in England.

Tories hold emergency web-cabinet to discuss their tax u-turns

Inheritance Tax cut: Tories for it before they were against it...before they were for it again

Yesterday wasn't just Mother's Day; it was also the day the Tories' economic credibility disintegrated.

The one and only tax policy the Tories had plucked up the courage to announce was their cut in Inheritance Tax for the very richest 4% of people.

I wrote about it here just a couple of days ago.

Then, on Sunday morning, Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke announced that this one tax policy was "no longer a priority".

He added: "I don't think we are going around any longer saying this is something we are going to do the moment we take power."



Then, on Sunday evening, he was told to issue a statement saying, in effect: "err, yes it is, and I didn't really mean what I said earlier." And just to underline that, a Conservative Pary spokesman added: "People should be clear that the promise we made on inheritance tax is a promise we will keep. It will be in the manifesto."

In other words, they support the policy except when they oppose it, but actually they still support it. Thanks for the clarification.

When they're having a bad day, what more could a Conservative want than for Boris Johnson to leap into the mess?

Here he comes, criticising his own party for refusing to reverse the 45% income tax rate Labour will be introducing next year on those earning more than £150,000; something he absurdly called a "deterent on enterprise". Ken Clarke told us exactly what he thought of Boris's view on that: "plain wrong" is how he put it.



Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once famously said: "You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning." A quality the Conservative shadow cabinet has evidently not inherited.

Every time the spotlight falls on a Tory policy it crumbles into dust. Mrs Thatcher had a soundbite for that too: "Weak. Weak. Weak."

I couldn't agree more.

Real help to protect your neighbourhood

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Wally's in Putney High Street!

When Google launched their new - and quite unnerving - street-level views of our streets recently, they said that they'd planted "Wally", from the famouse "Where's Wally?" books somehere in the world.

Where should he turn up but Putney High Street, at the crossing opposite HMV and the entrance to the Putney Exchange!

It's good to know Putney High Street is still attracting the odd celebrity shopper!

To use the Google street-view device, visit Googlemaps, and once you've zoomed into the place you want to explore, drag the person icon from the controls in the top left of the screen onto the map.

Hat-tip to Wandsworth Guardian for the story.

Stuart vs the potholes round 27

I've tried to resist resurrecting my campaign to shame the Conservative Council into fixing Putney's potholed roads after last year's successes, but I'm getting so many complaints again that it's unavoidable.

The Conservatives have just announced that from the next financial year they're increasing the road repair budget by £1 million. Sounds great, doesn't it - except that this is the amount they chopped from it last year! And they weren't maintaining our roads competently even before the now-reversed cut. Still, it's better than nothing, but they've got a lot of roads to repair.

Here are the first few examples I've been sent or come across myself:


Amerland Road



Amerland Road - junction of Valonia Gardens



Daylesford Avenue - junction with Langside Avenue and Lantern Close. Daylesford Avenue has been in a state for a while, but the cold winter we've just had has really finished it off...Langside and Dungarvan aren't in the best nick either.


Dryburgh Road at the apex of the bridge over the railway: one I reported last summer which the council still hasn't fixed! Proof for the Tories that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away...in fact it multiplies: here's another one right next door to that crater!:



And while it's good to see some of the roads we highlighted last Summer having been properly resurfaced, like Borneo and Blackett Streets off Hotham Road, not doing so well is next door Westhorpe Road!:

Sunset from Sispara

Did anyone else catch the fantastic sunset tonight? I was delivering Putney Papers in Sispara Gardens when this photo was taken.

Work starts on Southfields tube

I was at Southfields tube station today to mark the start of the long-overdue work on the station that will add a passenger lift and generally transform it into a station fit for the 2012 Olympics.

The work to Southfields is only being undertaken because Wimbledon's All England Club is hosting the Olympic tennis and, of course, Southfields is the nearest station.

While Putney's Conservative MP has tried desperately to claim credit for this work commencing today, only those who worked so hard to persuade the the International Olympic Committee that the games should come to London can actually do so.

How wrong can you be?

Conservatives claim they want to help ordinary families - yet their first priority is to give 3,000 millionaires each a tax cut worth £200,000 on average. That's what cutting Inheritance Tax for estates worth up to £2million does. It?s a policy that does nothing for 96 per cent of families in this country.

If they meant what they said about helping ordinary families then they'd drop their tax cuts for the wealthiest estates and instead they would support the £145 tax cut that Labour are giving to basic rate taxpayers; and the £5 a week the average household is saving from the VAT cut.

Action on Barnes Station

I've had a really great response from Putney residents who live closest to Barnes Station to my survey about their views and concerns on the station and the surrounding area.

I've already been in contact with South West Trains about getting rubbish cleared that had been thrown down the embankment because of the lack of a litter bin by the bus stop on one side of Rocks Lane.

But several of the concerns raised by residents aren't the responsibility of South West Trains (who manage the station itself): these rest with Richmond Council.

That's why, last week, I wrote to Richmond's Director of Environment asking him for a response on a number of issues including:

• Getting a new rubbish bin for the south-bound bus stop
• Repairing the dreadful, dangerous and narrow path along Rocks Lane
• Improving conditions for bus passengers at the station, who have to wait on a very narrow ledge above a very steep set of steps
• Repairing some of the potholed roads in the area

You can read my letter here. As soon as I have a reply I'll share it with you.

No to parking charges in Richmond Park

Yesterday I sent in my objection to the Royal Parks Agency over their proposal to introduce parking charges in Richmond Park.

You can read my response here.

Richmond Park - especially the Putney and Roehampton side of it, is incredibly isolated. There are no nearby bus links. Unless you live in Roedean Crescent, Roehampton Gate or Priory Lane; or down the bottom of Roehampton Vale it is unlikely that you live close enough to the park to walk to it.

The people who park in Richmond Park are not "park and ride" commuters, abusing free parking while they hop on a bus into central London, because there isn't a bus to hop onto. They are users of Richmond Park, who can only get to the park by car: people who treasure this vital natural resource for London.

So the Royal Parks Agency needs to think again. I've asked them to work with Transport for London to set up a bus link that connects the park with the world beyond it: possibly even a dedicated service that shuttles between the roads around the park to give people an alternative. Even then parking charges will be a very difficult case to make.

There's still time to have your say on the Royal Parks Agency plans. Click here to download the consultation document.

Tory TV gimmick

Can anyone explain to me this absurdity please?

On the one hand, Conservatives claim that the cut in VAT, that puts £260 a year - £5 a week - in people's pockets on average, is a waste of money.

On the other, the Conservatives call for a freeze in the TV License, which will save license holders a stunning £3 a year. They say it'll help people out in these economic times.

£260 = a waste of money
£3 = helping people out

They just don't get real life for ordinary people, do they?

Real help for pensioners

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King George's Park: close but no cigar

King George's Park has failed to win one of the Mayor for London's parks improvements grants, but came fourthd in the public vote, which I reported here.

The two parks in south west London that won are Wandle Park in Croydon - which is near the source of the Wandle and will involve unearthing the river here, which currently runs through a concrete pipe - and Crane Valley Park that borders Richmond and Hounslow.



You can read more about the winning parks - and the candidates - on the Help a London Park website.

Clamping down on knife crime

The number of immediate custodial sentences handed down for offences involving possession of a knife or other offensive weapon has gone up by almost a quarter (23%) the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw MP, has announced.

This could be regarded as a reflection that knife crimes are soaring, were it not for the fact that cautions issued for knife offences fell by a third in the same period. In other words, the legal system is finally clamping down in the way most of us want on this serious problem.

Jack Straw said:

"These figures underline our determination to tackle the scourge of knife crime. And they show that the tough approach is working. As the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has recently spelt out, if you are caught carrying a knife the consequences are serious: with jail sentences for many more offenders.

"The figures show that tougher penalties are being implemented by the courts, in line with Court of Appeal guidance. Fewer cautions are being issued and we're seeing more community sentences, more suspended sentences and more prison sentences handed out. Those getting tough community sentences are having to work more hours and those going to prison are receiving longer sentences.

"It's crucial that everyone should feel safe when they walk around our towns and cities. That is why we have clamped down on thugs who carry knives and doubled the longest jail term available."

Wandsworth Guardian covers wardens story

I am delighted to see the Wandsworth Guardian reporting on this story in today's edition.

What annoys me about the way Wandsworth Conservatives behave is their attitude that they know best and everyone else is wrong.

It's this appalling arrogance that has led to this unpopular reorganisation of the sheltered housing scheme. There is no reason why they could not have consulted properly - as they're supposed (and I would argue required) to do.

As Arabella Drive resident Rita Maxwell highlights in the Guardian article there is no reason to adequately explain the way they buried two petitions opposing their plans - why hasn't the council sent these petitions to its housing committee as it should have?

And there is no reason why, once residents' concerns were known, that they could not have agreed to my request to suspend the plans while they investigated the widespread concern that had been generated.

I suspect they think that admitting errors makes them look weak; answering to local residents a distraction; and agreeing to a request from someone from a different political party hands me some sort of victory.

What a sad way to approach really important concerns that have caused terrible distress among senior citizens in our sheltered housing. And what a dreadful indictment of the arrogance of Conservatives in Putney.

Childreach International

A Southfields student - 20 year old Katharine O'Donnell - has been in touch to let me know about her part in a 250 student fundraising expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro.

Nottingham is my old University, so I've agreed to publicise Katharine's fundraising effort.

The climb is in aid of Childreach International, a global youth development charity that works to alleviate poverty and bring education, safe water and healthcare to the world's poorest and most vulnerable children.

Katharine and her mates from the University of Nottingham set off on their climb in June. From the reports we're getting back from the Comic Relief celebrity team that have just accomplished the feat, it's going to be a gruelling, once-in-a-lifetime challenge.

If you would like to support her efforts then you can donate via her website at http://www.justgiving.com/katharinesmammothclimb. For more information about the work of Childreach International visit their website here

Action on loansharks

Back in September I flagged up warnings about a gang of loan sharks that had begun operating in the Roehampton area. Apparently loans at an interest rate of 66% were being touted.

Loansharking is illegal but despite this over 165,000 households are believed to borrow from loansharks each year: a problem made worse by banks dramatically cutting back on lending - even to those with decent credit histories.

This week Consumer Affairs Minister Gareth Thomas launched a confidential national hotline to help people stuggling with loansharks and to help with indebtedness.

The hotline number is 0300 555 2222.

The Stop Loan Sharks teams have successfully prosecuted more than 60 people with a further 90 prosecutions underway. This amounts to nearly 40 years of custodial sentences for illegal lending and associated crimes. The teams have supported more than 7,000 victims of illegal money lenders. Their work has meant around £14million has been saved for consumers who were locked in illegal deals with these money lenders.

In addition to the website, there's a website at www.direct.gov.uk/stoploansharks; and you can also get help by texting loan shark [include the space] and any message to 60003.

Record numbers of Putney undergraduates

The number of students going on to higher education in Putney has increased by one of the highest amounts in the country under Labour.

In the 1997/8 academic year - the last under the Conservative Government, 250 Putney young people became undergraduates. A decade on, in 2007/8, after ten years of Labour, that number was 410: that's a 67% increase. And that is the 67th biggest increase anywhere in the UK - out of over 650. In perspective, the average increase is 27%.

But what happens if the Conservatives get in? They've pledged to cut £610million from the learning and skills budget - just at the time when getting a good qualification can make the difference between getting on the career ladder or struggling to find work. Under the last Tory government, higher education funding fell by 37%.

This is what Chris Patten, the former Tory Government Minister who went on to become Vice Chancellor of Oxford University said about his own party's failure on higher education, writing in the Guardian on 14th October last year:

?What is true is we expanded higher education hugely by reducing the investment in each student. In just over a decade we doubled the number of students and halved the investment in each. The Treasury calls that higher productivity - it's a euphemism for poorer pay, degraded facilities, less money to support the teaching of each student.?

Labour has halted and reversed that trend, without reducing the numbers of students entering higher education. We've had to take tough and unpopular decisions to get to where we are today, but given the choice between the record numbers of Putney teenagers becoming undergraduates and the miserable times students faced when I was at University in the 1980s and 1990s I think the progress we've made is significant. Don't let the Tories wreck it.

Click here to download the table of undergraduates by constituency, in excel format

Real help for families

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More on the Town Centre Partnership's Tileman response

For those of you who, like me, struggled to believe that Putney Town Centre Partnership could fail to find anything to say about a planning application of such consequence to our town centre as Tileman House - other than to ask about the future of three trees - here is their submission.

Even confining themselves to the issues of "townscape" alone, does not a 15 storey block affect the townscape? Is the fact it comes right up to the pavement, whereas the current Tileman House is at least set back from the street not worthy of observation? What about the relationship between this building and the adjoining beautiful historic terrace?

If anyone from the Putney Town Centre Partnership would like to explain their incapacity to say something about a major part of Putney Town Centre, I suspect the hundreds of Putney people who have managed to voice an objection to this plan would like to hear from them.

More evidence of the do-nothing Tories

On Sunday the Wandsworth Guardian website was headlined by the stinging criticism on local Conservative policies by a business leader, criticising the damage their do-nothing stance towards business was having.

Peter Pledger, Chief Executive of South London Business, which represents thousands of businesses across our area, compared the lack of interest in helping businesses claim grants and other related help in Wandsworth with the more engaged leadership of nearby councils.

Councils like Wandsworth should be stepping-in to help by making sure businesses claim every penny of Small Business Relief (SBR) and that they are aware of the Government's new access to credit schemes. These enable small and medium sized businesses struggling with cashflow because banks have been cutting back on credit to get help to keep themselves solvent udint the downturn.

The Guardian report also exposes one of the issues Labour councillors in Wandsworth have been concerned about - the Tory Council's reluctance to pay its debts promptly. Wandsworth is notorious for waiting until the last possible moment to pay its bills: a policy that earns the Council huge interest savings but which can be the last straw for businesses with cashflow difficulties.

The Conservative response to the latest stinging criticism from business of their do-nothing approach can only be characterised as pathetic. The best the councillor responsible for business could do was to come up with the statistic that over £1million of business rate relief (something businesses are entitled to anyway) had been claimed by over 1,900 Wandsworth businesses; a sum that amounts to less than £600 on average!

The Conservative do-nothing approach locally is exactly what they would repeat nationally if given the chance. You don't have to take my word for it when I highlight the Tory do-nothing policies George Osborne and Justine Greening keep arguing for: you just need to take a look at what Wandsworth Tories are already doing.

Or rather, what they're not doing.

Business attacks Tory Do-Nothings

London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson has, like Wandsworth's Conservative Council, been leading from the front when it comes to doing absolutely nothing to help business weather the recession.

Almost a month ago "London First", the business organisation that represents stores including Harrods, Selfridges, John Lewis, Fortnum & Mason and many more of London's leading retailers asked Boris Johnson to launch an advertising campaign talking up the fantastic shopping opportunities that London - uniquely - offers.

Des Gunewardena, chair of London First, and owner of the chain that was Conran Restaurants told BBC London: "London also needs to be marketed to Londoners and to people in the Home Counties who are a bit closer to us, to remind people of what a great city it is, great restaurants, shops, movies, music venues, museums."

But the Tories weren't interested - they don't believe in talking up London and they don't believe in intervening to mitgate the recession. Boris Johnson says he's yet to be convinced that an advertising campaign would work. Well, the only way to be convinced is to do it.

He says "We don't want to spend a lot of taxpayers' money prematurely. We want to wait and decide when is the moment of optimum impact." We're in the midst of the worst global recession since the 1930s. How much worse does it have to get?

This Tory inaction is not about some genius strategy that is poised to unleash a massive stimulus package on London. It's about doing nothing because that's what the Conservatives believe should be done.

Click here to read the letter London First sent to Boris Johnson

The global economic "power cut"

"A global power cut" was how Prime Minister Gordon Brown accurately characterised the financial crisis when he met with President Obama yesterday.

British political media coverage has become so trite these days that journalists now seem much more interested on whether Gordon Brown was the first European Leader to meet President Obama (he was) or if a press call in the Oval Office is a snub compared to one in the grounds of the White House (it isn't).

What actually matters is that you'd be hard-pressed to slot a piece of paper between the leadership Gordon Brown is providing on the economy here and in Europe, and the leadership President Obama is providing in the US.

The content of the speech President Obama gave to the joint session of Congress a few days ago will be identical to the content Prime Minister Brown will give today.

The criticisms the marginalised, out of touch and right-wing Republicans are being ridiculed for in America are the same criticisms the do nothing Conservatives keep spouting here.

All you need to do when considering which position is more sensible: the Gordon Brown-Barack Obama economic leadership or the Conservative do-nothing approach is simply to ask whether a single economy of any significance is following the path the Tories are advocating. They're not. There's a very good reason for that.

It's because the Tories are catastrophically wrong on this. And the whole world knows it.

Who represents you best?

Below are two responses to the Tileman House planning application. One is what the council officers have described as a "general comment" from Justine Greening - probably because they can't work out whether she's for or against the application. The other is my response. Which one better represents - and advocates for - local opinion?

Click on each image for the larger version.

Making a real difference

The putneysw15 website is reporting yet another example of Putney's Police Safer Neighbourhood team's effectiveness.

A teenage robber has just been sentenced to three years in jail after being caught by the West Putney Safer Neighbourhood team just moments after accosting and stealing an I-Pod from someone in Larpent Avenue.

The Safer Neighbourhood team, who were patrolling on mountain bikes in the area were able to get to the scene of the crime promptly. From the description given by the victim and the direction the robber fled in, they were able to apprehend him within minutes.

Sgt Eric Ostrowski of West Putney Safer Neighbourhoods Team said: "This arrest within minutes of the offence and subsequent conviction has come about due to the courage of the victim in reporting this matter to police, the hard work of the Safer Neighbourhoods officers who were on patrol that day and the dedication of the Robbery Squad officers at Wandsworth.

"Due to this a violent individual has been removed from the streets of Putney for the foreseeable future. I hope this shows the public that we will continue to work with the local community in making our streets safer."

As usual, what is conspicuous by its absence from this story is any praise or support for our Safer Neighbourhood Police from Putney's Conservative MP, or any of its councillors. The Conservatives tried at every turn to stop former London Mayor Ken Livingstone introducing safer neighbourhood police teams - we now have forty of them - and voted against funding them once they lost that battle.

Ever since, the Conservatives have taken every turn to criticise, undermine and ridicule as ineffective our safer neighbourhood teams. That's despite a stream of success stories like this, and the consistent fall in crime Putney has benefited from since Labour introduced them.

Meeting Margaret Beckett to discuss Putney's housing concerns

Last week I got the chance to meet with the new housing minister and former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett MP in Westminster.

Housing is my number one campaign priority in Putney; a priority made all the more urgent by our current economic environment. While the Conservatives keep piling up unsellable luxury apartment flats, I'm arguing for many more affordable homes for rent - to replace the 16,000 that have been sold off by the Tory council in the past 30 years.

Last year I met with then housing minister Caroline Flint to make sure Putney's housing priorities are heard at the heart of government - and I'm pleased to report that Margaret Beckett was as receptive to the case I presented to her as Caroline was.

The Conservatives oppose Labour's help for homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages - they would do nothing. They oppose the building of affordable housing - they would rather sell it off and price local people out of Putney. And Tory councils like Wandsworth have refused to use the powers the government has given them to step in and take over the mortgages of those who are about to lose their homes: yet more evidence that they couldn't care less about housing.

Arctic expedition sets off

In January I wrote about the really important Catlin Arctic Survey, which is going to provide, for the first time, detailed evidence of the extent of climate change on the Arctic.

The survey group set off today on its way to the North Pole.

According to the survey website, temperatures at the top of the world are a balmy minus-40 centigrade at the moment, and whenever the team want some exercise (and even when they don't) they'll have the opportunity of bathing in the idyllic Arctic Ocean whenever the glaciers they are walking across have separated from the land mass they're trying to reach.

Rather them than me!

But joking aside, this is a really serious job the three Arctic explorers are undertaking because of the triple-whammy losing Arctic (and Antarctic) ice will mean for climate change:

1. The loss of a "mirror" reflecting solar heat back out to space;
2. The amount of greenhouses gases captured in the frozen tundra of the north that will be released if the planet warms, so accelerating change;
3. The huge rise in sea levels melted ice will bring about

This expedition is really important.

You can follow the team on their website; via Twitter, or their facebook group.