Boris Towers

This is the 63 storey - let me repeat that: SIXTY THREE STOREY - skyscraper that Boris Johnson has just insisted be built in Docklands.

In case you need reminding, Boris Johnson is the man who won thousands of votes in the London elections barely a year ago by promising to reverse fomer mayor Ken Livingstone's plans for skyscrapers.

Yet the moment he was elected the Tory changed his tune. He gave the green light to a skyscraper in Ealing Broadway. It was the Labour Government that had to halt them by calling a public inquiry.

Wandsworth Conservatives then approved their twin 42-storey towers on the Ram Brewery site. Boris Johnson failed to block those plans. It was the Labour Government that had to halt them by calling a public inquiry.

Boris Johnson has caved-in over skyscraper after skyscraper: he had no objections in principle to the 40+ storeys at Clapham Junction.

And now he's given the go-ahead - which the local Labour council refused - for this 63 storey tower in Docklands.

Now I should be clear. The centre of London, and an area like Docklands, is precisely the area where high-rise buildings should be built. I am not against all skyscrapers anywhere.

I do have concerns about the desirability of buildings of such heights.

But this isn't about my views on architecture: it's about one of the most spectacularly cynical U-turns by any politician ever seen - it is just 15 months since Boris Johnson promised us that he'd oppose such plans, and in just 15 months he has broken that promise over and over again.

Tileman "doesn't comply with London Plan" says Boris

The letter above is the first page of a 16-page submission to the council from the Greater London Authority, objecting to the Tileman House application. You can read the complete document here.

This is a significant, surprising and welcome contribution to the debate on Tileman House, and I don't see how on earth this application gets approved in its wake.

• Instead of a 15 storey building the GLA wants to see an 8-10 storey building that respects the existing variances in heights.
• It questions whether the derisory amount of affordable homes represents the "maximum reasonable amount that could be provided".
• And it suggests that the planned Tileman building would not be "green" enough in terms of both its polluting biomass boiler and its failure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

If we are to believe the developers and the local Conservative councillors, 15 storeys is the minimum height at which this building can be financially viable, then insisting on a lower height means the application must fail.

Of course, the developers should not be believed on this - they could achieve a better design with more floorspace for retail and more affordable homes - it's just that the massive profit margin they hoped for will be reduced as a consequence.

So I welcome the GLA's contribution to this debate. With each submission the council receives those supporting the Tileman application become more and more isolated from the mainstream. That's good news for Putney.

New housing design plan for London

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has published a detailed design plan that sets the standards to which all new homes in the capital should aspire in future.

It's a comprehensive and well-argued document that seeks to learn lessons from housing mistakes in the past, as well as adapting for the changed climate London appears likely to esxperience in the future.

There are one or two points I can take issue with: the argument that there should be no more than eight properties accessed from any communal space is one such; and I suspect anyone wanting to take issue with developments like Tileman House could find plenty to bolster their arguments against it in here, but these are all technical quibbles in what is a thorough and wide-ranging guide.

We all have an interest in improving the design of our environment because design directly influences life chances, community safety, quality of life and how we interact with each other. If you like this sort of thing, you'll enjoy the design guide, which you can read here.

The last figleaf slips?

The passage above is from the Planning report on the Clapham Junction towerblock plan - it's the section that reports on comments received from Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson on the plan.

I've highlighted the lines where he says the 39-storey tower blocks "have been positioned to have minimum impact", "are not considered to harm these views"; that their "design quality" ensures they don't "overwhelm the surrounding townscape" and, most damningly of all "the design of the towers adds positively to the skyline".

This from the man who promised you time and time again last year when he was running for Mayor that he was opposed to high rise development in London and would block such towers.

What do you think of that pledge now?

Wandsworth's Conservative Council and London's Conservative Mayor are united in their determination to bury our area under high-rise overdevelopment. Stand with me against these destructive Tory plans.

"Boris the new Shirley Porter"

This is from the latest edition of Inside Housing, which I appreciate probably isn't on the must-read list for many Putney residents:

Boris Johnson has been accused of attempting to 'corral' social housing into poor London boroughs, reminiscent of Shirley Porter, in an attack from London Councils' new housing chief. Steve Reed, who holds the housing portfolio on the cross-party committee, this week laid siege to the Conservative mayor's policies.

Mr Johnson - who has been in post a year this week - has scrapped Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone's 50 per cent affordable target for housing developments and is replacing it with individual targets for each borough.

Mr Reed, Labour leader of Lambeth Council, said the mayor was "trying to corral social housing into boroughs which are already relatively poor".

"He's allowing boroughs which are relatively wealthy to avoid their responsibility to provide housing to people on low incomes. That?s what Shirley Porter did," he added.

In the 1980s, former Westminster Council leader Dame Porter was at the centre of a scandal in which the council tried to use home sales to cultivate Conservative votes in marginal wards.

Mr Reed said City Hall?s calculations of each borough's capacity for new social homes had "found that poor Labour boroughs have plenty of capacity" whereas "wealthy Tory boroughs have less". Labour-controlled Newham was given a proposed target of 5,754 homes by 2011, while its neighbour Bexley got just 566, he said.

This could have "the potential advantage of taking Labour voters out of Tory areas", he added.

Housing is the most powerful tool politicians have for changing demographics of a borough. Tory Shirley Porter did it in Westminster in such a crass way she was caught out, sacked and surcharged millions of pounds - which forced her into exile to avoid punishment. Tory Wandsworth has done so more covertly but no less radically. The loss of 16,000 council homes and the refusal to oblige developers to provide sufficient affordable homes in new builds has massively reshaped Wandsworth:

• Creating massive shortages of affordable homes
• Increasing homelessness and people living for years in overcrowded, unsuitable accommodation
• Forcing sons and daughters of long-term local families to move miles away from their homes to start their lives
• Turning our estates into soulless, high-turnover, buy-to-let ghettos
• Driving housing prices up even more than they otherwise would have been
• Polarising Putney far more starkly than it ever was before

In fact the only thing it has failed to do is the one thing the Tories wanted: drive out so many supposedly Labour-voting council tenants and replace them with so many supposedly Tory-voting home owners.

Now Boris Johnson is up to the same tricks on a capital-wide scale. For anyone with any social conscience whatsoever, that should be extremely worrying.

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.

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

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.

Labour steps in to halt latest Tory tower

A couple of weeks ago I reported on the Evening Standard's devastating expose of Boris Johnson's U-turn over tower blocks. The Standard noted how, despite the Tory pledge in last year's London Elections not to allow any more high-rise applications, Boris has subsequently broken that pledge over and over again.

One of those broken promises concerned a 23-storey tower planned for Ealing Broadway, an area - like Putney - without any similar high rise buildings. Today, the Standard is reporting that the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, has "called-in" the Ealing skyscraper which Boris approved. All I can say is: thank goodness London's Mayor isn't the last resort on issues like this.

It's worth noting that at 23 storeys, the Ealing tower is just about HALF the size of one of the the Ram Brewery towers the Conservatives here forced through in December.

Even Boris opposes the Tories' Roehampton plans

To the list of opponents of the Conservatives' plans to redevelop the top end of Danebury Avenue can now be added the (Conservative) Mayor of London.

Wandsworth Council has been advised that their current application for Danebury Avenue does not comply with the Mayors' London Plan (the overarching plan for the capital) in a number of respects including housing and tenure mix, site layout and open space, residential quality of design, sustainability, transportation, cycle and car parking.

In fact, every single aspect of the plans that residents and I have said the Council has got wrong. You can read the report here.

The table below says it all, really.

Evening Standard exposes Tory high rise lie

Below I reproduce the main article in last night's Evening Standard. The first two lines should be incredibly alarming for Putney:

"One of Boris Johnson's most popular election pledges was to oppose the building of towers in unsuitable locations...it also proved to be the pledge he was to break most quickly and more often than any other."

The Standard is absolutely right on both counts. I know many local people voted Tory in last year's Mayoral election because they believed he would protect our area from high rise threats. Would you like to bet any money at all that Boris Johnson will call in and halt the gross overdevelopment on the Ram Brewery site in central Wandsworth, with its huge tower development, approved by Tory councillors just before Christmas? Of course he won't.

Yesterday I showed how the Tories were breaking their promise not to cut police - today the Evening Standard is showing how they lied about protecting Putney and other parts of London from overdevelopment.

Tories tell Met to make £472milllion savings

For all the - untrue - Tory rhetoric of falling police numbers, you'd think they had a policy of massively increasing the number of bobbies on the beat, wouldn't you?

Of course, the reality is utterly different to the Tory spin. London Mayor Boris Johnson has told the Metropolitan Police Authority to make an astonishing £472 million in cuts.

It gets worse.

In the same breath as they claim that this massive cut will not reduce police numbers, they announce their intention to recruit 900 unpaid special constables in order to pick up the slack created by "redeploying" 550 existing Police Officers to other duties which have been vacated by retirees.

Doesn't that sound like a cut to you?

It really is back to the future with the Conservatives. In 1993, Wandsworth had 693 Police Officers. By the time the damage Michael Howard and the Tories had wrought had fed through, we were down to 568. That's a Tory cut in local Police numbers of 125!

By the end of November last year, Labour had increased Police numbers to 592 plus 96 Safer Neighbourhood Community Support Officers - a total of 688. Don't take my word for it: the Metropolitan Police Authority records the figures here.

Of course the Tories can't cut £472 million without sacking Police. Of course that means fewer police in Putney. And of course that means they lied to you when seeking election last year.

Tory fare hikes hit Putney

Yesterday was the first day in which many local commuters will have experienced the Tories' inflation-busting bus and tube fare hikes.

Bus fares increased on 01 January to £1 (assuming you have an Oystercard): an 11% increase - that's three times the rate of inflation, while a single tube journey now costs £2.20 - a 10% rise (again on Oystercard figures).

The Conservatives won votes last May because they promised - as the Tories always promise - to make the cost of living cheaper for us all. The fare rise comes only a few days after local Conservatives announced another huge increase in one of their notorious stealth taxes: residential parking permits - up 27% - which even Boris Johnson hasn't been able to match.

The Conservatives announced yesterday that transport was an area they wanted to cut spending on. So: fare hikes, parking permit hikes and service cuts - a New Year triple-whammy, courtesy of local Conservatives.

Wandsworth's housing record the worst in London

London's Labour Assembly members are warning that the Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson, will not be able to deliver the 50,000 affordable homes London desperately needs.

Nicky Gavron, who was Deputy Mayor of London and before that chaired the London Planning Advisory Committee - someone with a massive amount of experience in planning in the capital said:

"The impact of the credit crunch on every aspect of the housing sector cannot be underestimated - yet the demand for housing, particularly affordable rented housing - has never been higher. Over a third of a million Londoners are waiting for affordable housing yet the Mayor's housing adviser has made it clear they will not impose any target for rented homes on London councils.

"Without political leadership and direction from the Mayor, the record of many London councils in office shows that they fail to deliver affordable housing for their residents. Wandsworth has almost 9,000 people waiting yet delivered just 20 new homes. This is their record and it is just pitiful. If anything the Mayor is giving boroughs like Wandsworth even less incentive to deliver.

"Of course we should be helping people get on the housing ladder and encourage low-income ownership schemes, but the stark fact is there are over 9,000 low-cost homes lying unsold and empty - the bulk of which are in London. Until the housing market stabilises and there are mortgages available, these homes will stay empty and unsold. At the same time, Londoners are crying out for low-cost homes for rent.

"The Mayor is kicking away the first rung of the ladder for the thousands of Londoners on housing waiting lists. These lists are only going to increase in the next few years."

I couldn't agree more with this - and it is telling that Wandsworth is being named and shamed as the worst provider of affordable homes for rent. Remember this devastating fact: in 1981 there were over 32,000 council homes for rent locally - today there are barely 16,000.

Tory Mayor is going to miss affordable housing targets

Imagine my shock: the Tory Mayor of London has started preparing the ground for an admission that he isn't going to meet the far from challenging target for affordable housing that Ken Livingstone left him.

Yesterday a panel of housing experts called before the London Assembly all forecast that building 50,000 affordable homes by 2011 - which may sound a lot but works out at just 520 per borough per year - isn't achievable.

My response is: of course it is; it just isn't achievable by continuing with the policy of tacking affordable homes onto much larger private developments as an afterthought. Building a handful of affordable homes in return for being allowed massive overdevelopment is only a relatively recent phenomenon born of the Thatcher Government's ban on councils building homes. Prior to that, councils and housing associations were able to - and did - build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes.

In fairness, the experts that gave evidence to the London Assembly came closer than I have ever seen in admitting this: they said that because of the housing downturn £4 billion earmarked for new housebuilding should be targeted on affordable rented homes. Of course it should.

The Mayor's Housing advisor, Richard Blakeway, came up with this piece of bluster that even Boris would be proud of:

"We are asking the Housing and Communities agency to develop innovative models for delivery in the capital to meet new circumstances."

Anyone who can translate that into plain English please send me your answers on a postcard. It's utter tosh: we don't need "innovative models for delivery" - we need Councils like Wandsworth to stop sitting on millions and millions built up from the right-to-buy sales they've pursued so damagingly and start building new affordable homes. They could start tomorrow if they wanted.

But they don't and won't, and we now have a Tory Mayor who lacks the interest or ability to force them too. Look out folks: Wandsworth's catastropic housing policy is about to be applied across the whole capital.

Saving local gardens

An issue I predict will become massive in the coming years is the loss of green space in urban environments like Putney's. In the past 20 years, two thirds of front gardens in London have been paved-over. Just think about that stark statistic for a moment.

Throughout the constituency, concern has been growing about the loss of front and rear gardens due to three factors:

• Turning front gardens into hard standings to park cars on
• Excavating basements, which also involves the loss of a large chunk of front and/or rear gardens
• The more recent phenomenon of residents with large gardens selling off chunks to build new homes on

Pressure from all three of these factors is certain to grow as the credit crunch reduces the likelihood of people to be able to move home, and financial pressures encourage us all to look at new ways of utilising our assets to make more money.

This isn't exactly a new issue: residents on the Dover House Estate in particular have been concerned about the loss of front gardens for several years now and basement excavations have been increasingly common throughout the past decade.

You may have seen London Mayor Boris Johnson recently discover the wonder of roof-top gardens, as if they're something he's invented. They're important; and they'll become more so, but they're no compensation for that two-thirds loss of front garden green space.

But what does this really matter? There's actually a really serious consequence to this loss of garden space - and not just some aesthetic impact that cutting down a few trees and bushes and concreting over some lawns will have.

Over the past three or four years, parts of the constituency - including Roehampton, the parts of Southfields alongside the Wandle and parts of central Putney - have all been affected by flash flooding caused by sudden very heavy downpours that the drain system locally can't cope with. Gardens help drain this water away. Without them, the impact of flash flooding worsens - and bear in mind that ours is an area liable to flooding from the Thames, Wandle and even Beverley Brook. And because ours is a hilly area, those who live at the foot of hills have to absorb the cascading water pouring down upon them as well as their own share of heavy rainfall.

People have a right to expand their living space within reason. But I am against allowing front gardens to be turned into car parks and back or side gardens to be sold off to cram another unit of housing into our already densely populated community, however much a nice little earner that may be for the landowner.

Follow Boris - axe BrightSide

One of the things many of us did welcome in Boris Johnson's first few weeks as Mayor was his axing of "The Londoner" newspaper and using the proceeds on more useful things.

I think it's time Wandsworth Conservatives learnt from that and chopped their dreadful "BrightSide" publication.

BrightSide has long trod a dodgy line politically: a one-sided promotion of the Conservative administration in Wandsworth paid for by taxpayers. If the Conservatives want to tell us how wonderful they think they are, so be it - but they should fund that from their own pockets, not ours.

In recent months BrightSide's stopped even printing stories that could, under the most generous interpretation be considered "news": they seem to be publishing it just for the sake of publishing it. It contains very little information of any use to anyone - pretty much its only purpose is to get photos of Conservative Councillors into print. It wastes huge amounts of glossy paper. And it's just another piece of junk mail flying through the door...straight into the recycling bin. In fact, possibly the biggest contribution BrightSide makes is to boost Wandsworth's recycling rate.

Council Leader Edward Lister is now working with Boris Johnson on his so-called "waste audit". He could demonstrate that he's serious by copying his boss and scrapping BrightSide.

Green taxes: wrong conclusions being drawn

One of the conclusions some people are leaping to after setbacks for councils that have tried to introduce so-called bin taxes; from Boris Johnson's plans to repeal the higher congestion charge fee for larger cars; and from the current furore over increased road tax for the more polluting vehicles is that green taxes equal electoral suicide.

On the face of it who could possibly argue with the evidence of the unpopularity of these taxes, vented through the ballot box?

But in reality, it's not green taxes that are the problem: it's extra taxes, and the abuse of environmental charges to pursue other political ends that voters - quite understandably - are reacting against.

Take each of those issues I mentioned above. I support the principle of the polluter paying more. But the congestion charge is what it says on the label: a charge to reduce congestion, not to reduce pollution. If a political party want to suggest a new tax to reduce polluting vehicles on our streets then fine: let's have an open, honest, upfront debate involving the public. But don't cynically attempt to bolt on a "pollution" justification to hike up a tax that has nothing to do with its objective.

The same is true with controlled parking: charges to park on a particular street exist because there is not enough roadspace to park the number of vehicles - residential or commuter - that wish to occupy it. They are not an excuse for Lib Dem councils like Richmond to fleece their own residents above and beyond their already exhorbitant council tax.

And when we're talking about charging people who don't recycle, why aren't we also talking about both rewarding those who do with tax rebates - AND scrapping that proportion of council tax devoted to refuse services as well? Councils can't have it both ways: either charge through council tax, or charge households individually - you can't do both and expect to get re-elected.

People are not against green tax: they are just against politicians trying to squeeze even more money out of them on the pretense that its for the environment. Politicians need to wake up that the public aren't stupid: they can see what are stealth taxes and what are serious, honest attempts to address a particular problem. That's why the congestion charge itself was and remains broadly popular, and why the gas-guzzler surcharge (and the zone extension) was not.

I've argued in earlier posts that incentives are far more effective in dealing with climate change than taxes. I've also made clear my concern that the stampede towards the environmental agenda which we've seen in the past five years would actually do more harm than good to the cause - and we've seen that in the exploitation of green tax for more tax.

Green taxes are good - and honestly applied, they're not unpopular either. We need to start being straight with the public - transparent in their levying, ringfenced in their use, encompassing rewards and incentives as well as taxes and charges, and neutral in the overall level of tax levied as a result. That way politicians will avoid reaping the whirlwind of electoral defeat as they did last week.

The high rise signal from Boris that should worry Putney

Today's Evening Standard reports that London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson just can't be bothered to submit an objection to a 43-storey tower block on the South Bank, the Doon Street Tower.

This is a complete reverse of his campaign pledge to block tower blocks across the capital and should be a major concern in our neck of the woods where, of course, we are under threat from several tower block plans - some of similar height to this one.

I am someone who isn't opposed to high buildings on principle: they can be appropriate in the City of London and central London. Putney isn't such a location. But that's not Boris's position. He ran for election and, I suspect, won quite a few votes, for his blanket opposition to tower blocks.

Yet today he couldn't even muster the interest to jot down a few words of opposition and submit them to the Secretary of State for Communities, Hazel Blears, who has to rule on this application following a Public Inquiry earlier this year.

If Boris can't be bothered to object to a tower block plan that was backed by a Labour Mayor, was reviewed before he was even elected and which no one will hold him accountable for, the prospects of him standing up to his Conservative allies in Wandsworth over their planning mistakes aren't high, to say the least.

We need Boris to honour his election pledges - not sell out at the first test of them.

London

With Thursday's London results finally counted [why did it take so long?], I congratulate Boris Johnson on his election as Mayor of London and Richard Tracey on his success in being elected to represent Putney at City Hall.

I particularly want to pay tribute to Ken Livingstone's eight years' service as Mayor. As Boris Johnson acknowledged in his victory speech, Ken has devoted his life to London and, agree or disagree, as London's first Mayor has developed the position into one of substance, influence and international significance.

There is no doubt that our mayoral system is here to stay and that has a lot to do with the success Ken has made of the job. in 2000 when he was first elected many considered London's competition to be Frankfurt or Paris. Today it is with New York.

I'm pleased that Mayor Johnson has announced his top priorities are building further on Ken's public transport and policing improvements. But the campaign is over: now is the time for delivery. And no-one, whether you voted for him or not, can know what Boris intends to do, because beneath the soundbites, he was silent on substance. Four key questions will soon have to be answered:

• How will Boris cut council tax while, at the same time, increase spending on buses and policing?
  
• Will Boris really stand up to the Tory council locally and veto the high-rise monstrosities being planned for East Putney?
  
• How committed is he to retaining Putney's 40 Safer Neighbourhood Police officers?
  
• With his promise to scrap all affordable housing targets - and a Tory council locally champing at the bit to build zero affordable homes - how will he help Putney families face the housing crisis?

Since Thursday, much has - rightly - been made of the thoroughly dreadful result Labour was handed. But the result locally was actually pretty decent: the swing against us: just 1.3% was the lowest in any Conservative-won London Assembly seat. And this after thousands and thousands of luxury penthouses have been stacked up by the Conservative council across our borough.

In fact, Labour's Leonie Cooper (an excellent candidate who fought a terrific campaign) received more votes this year in losing than the Tories got four years ago when they won. Of course we lost and that's ultimately what matters but it does show that a hard-fought campaign, maintaining a presence locally and getting our vote out can have an impact, even in Labour's worst-ever year. That will continue to be our focus here in Putney over the next two years.

Vote Ken, vote Leonie, vote Labour on Thursday

With less than 31 hours until polls open for London's important elections, I'm republishing the post I did a fortnight ago when postal votes were sent out.

In the London elections voters get three different ballot papers: one to elect the Mayor, one for our local member of the London Assembly, and one for a London list of candidates that ensures that the results across the capital are broadly proportional to votes cast.

These are examples of the ballot papers - and how to vote if you wish to support your Labour team. You can click on each image to make it larger:

The Mayoral ballot paper is pink - Labour's Ken Livingstone is candidate 7:



The ballot paper for the London Assembly member representing us in Merton & Wandsworth is cream - Labour's candidate is Councillor Leonie Cooper, candidate 1:



And the ballot paper to make the London results proportional - on which you vote for parties, not individuals, is buff. Labour is party 7:

London's elections & the BNP

A low turnout in May's elections could result in the BNP winning a seat on the London Assembly. The more of us who turn out and vote, the harder it becomes for the BNP to slime their way onto a capital-wide stage.

In case you didn't read it in Tuesday's Evening Standard, this is what the person who the BNP felt so well represented them that they placed him second on their list of candidates thinks about rape:

"Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched."

Since his comments became public the candidate has been dropped by the BNP. But ask yourself whether he's been sacked because of the views he holds, or because those views have been unearthed?

I hope you will vote for Ken, Leonie Cooper and Labour in May's elections. But if you do not want the BNP and their abhorrent opinions elected to represent YOU in London, whoever you support make sure you vote on 1st May.

May 01: The choice on transport

On Monday Labour launched our transport manifesto for London for the next four years.
Transport is the area that has been most transformed by Labour's eight years in charge of London:

• Buses have been transformed
• The Tube is slowly but surely beginning to benefit from the billions invested
• We've taken control of some of the worst performing train services to creat London Overground
• The number of cyclists in London has never been higher
• London's great town squares like Trafalgar Square are once again being returned to pedestrians
• We've revolutionised paying for public transport journeys by introducing the Oystercard
• The congestion charge has reduced traffic gridlock in the city without the dire displacement around the edges the Tories scaremongered would happen
• And the income from the congestion zone has made it possible for everything else listed above to be provided by Labour without crippling fare rises.

That's what we've already done - but we're nowhere near done. Here's what you'll get by re-electing Labour for another term of office on 01 May:

• A brand new London bike-hire scheme
• Free public transport travel for our service veterans
• Pensioners with Freedom Passes able to use them any time of the day
• More convenient ways of paying for Oyster and the congestion charge
• Cheaper fares than the Tories will saddle you with: each bus journey will be 15p cheaper with Labour
• The expansion of London Overground

Coupled with the campaigns I'm running for:

• Extensive improvements to Putney Station
• Setting up the AirTrack network connecting Waterloo with Heathrow
• More capacity on local train services by returning the six unused Waterloo platforms vacated by Eurostar
• And fully accessible East Putney and Southfields Stations

...these are bold, enterprising, ambitious and achievable plans to make London an Olympic City by 2012.

I don't like talking about what things were like under the Tories - it was such a long time ago that they messed things up so badly, after all. But on transport, even those barely old enough to remember the underfunded, run-down Conservative years have the scars of the dreadful mess they made of London Transport seared into their memories. Don't let the Tories take us back down that tunnel again.

Vote for Ken Livingstone as Mayor and give us a Labour voice on the Assembly for the first time ever by backing local Assembly candidate Leonie Cooper.

You can read Ken's Transport for London manifesto here.

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/

Mayor's light-bulb amnesty

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.

Wandsworth Park stabbing

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?

Christmas could be better if we had a smarter High Street

I was in Putney High Street earlier today - and I have to say that when it is cold and raining, then alongside all the other problems: the litter, the uneven, greasy paving, the pavement clutter, the traffic gridlock and the ongoing gradual decline in quality shops it is one of my least favourite places in the constituency.

Contrast the state of Putney High Street with the hugely successful pedestrianisation of Oxford Street and surrounding areas in the run-up to Christmas.

Now, obviously, there's a limit to how far we can compare London's shopping district with Putney's, but I can compare the dynamism, leadership and (though I hate the term) vision of Westminster Council and London Mayor Ken Livingstone with our own council - that won't even concede that a single thing is wrong with Putney High Street.

This isn't an issue that's going to go away, not least because the Council simply refuses to pay any attention to the - entirely legitimate - concerns residents, The Putney Society, Putney Labour Party and I will continue to raise until we get action. And it's not a party political issue: Westminster Council is Conservative-run as is Kensington & Chelsea, which has done great things to improve High Street Ken; just as Labour did with Fulham Broadway when we administered Hammersmith & Fulham.

The utter disdain our Council has for our High Street can be seen in the sorry excuse for Christmas lights that "adorn" the High Street's lamp-posts. For the umpteenth year in a row dug out from whatever mouldy basement storeroom they cram them into they epitomise the Conservatives' lack of pride in Putney.

The Tories will say they're being frugal with taxpayers' money. I say that their "bah, humbug" scrooge approach to Christmas is pathetically mean and counter productive: the High Street was hardly crammed full of shoppers today - just two shopping weekends before Christmas. By investing in our High Street shoppers are far more likely to invest in Putney.

I've set out a commonsense ten-point plan that would transform the High Street without costing the earth. Click here to visit my Save Putney High Street campaign page, or join my Putney High Street facebook group.

The Boris Johnson housing plan: LESS affordable homes

The Tory Mayoral candidate for London, Boris Johnson, yesterday came out with his plan to tackle our housing crisis: scrap all obligations on councils to ensure affordable homes are built!

Of course, it wasn't Londoners priced out of the housing market Boris chose to announce his bright idea to: it was house-builders, who would much rather reap the extra profits than honour their commitment to the areas they pile up their gated-off luxury apartments in the midst of.

Along with Wandsworth's Conservative Council - that has just about the worst record in London for building affordable homes and has almost halved the number of council homes for rent in the borough from 32,000 to less than 17,000 - these are just about the only people who would regard Boris's plan as anything other than plain stupid.

So under the Tories, we'll see even more luxury riverside penthouses along our Thamesbank, more public sites sold off for private housing, greater overcrowding, even higher house prices, more homelessness and longer waiting lists.

We desperately need more affordable homes, not less. I think the problem is severe enough in London that I don't think even Ken Livingstone is being radical enough: for the next five years I believe two thirds of all homes built in the Capital should be affordable - mainly for rent. Fat-cat developers like St George won't like that of course, but they know full well that they can still net a huge profit on the one-third of properties they could still sell.

No one can reasonably argue that there is no difference between Labour and Conservative. This is a critical problem: the Tories either ignore it (as Putney's MP does), or want to make it worse. I know Boris likes to play up to his 'buffoon' image but this is ridiculous.

Next year's London elections must count

I got news yesterday that the website of the body overseeing next year's elections for the Mayor and Assembly for London has just been relaunched: http://www.londonelects.org.uk/ if you're interested.

A lot of coverage was - rightly - devoted to the voting debacle in Scotland earlier this year when tens of thousands of votes were incorrectly cast because of badly designed ballot papers and the multitude of different systems being used.

But what's far less widely known is that in 2004, the last time the Mayor and Assembly were elected, there was an even bigger problem in London with spoilt ballots for exactly the same reason. In some parts of London, up to 18% of all the ballots cast were "spoilt" - not because voters were making some protest about the quality of their candidates, but because the three elections (Mayor, Assembly and European Parliament), which yielded up to five votes per person, were simply baffling to too many people.

I'm really concerned that next year's elections are heading the same way. The Electoral Commission, which oversaw the design of ballots in 2004 and in Scotland this year seems to have done little to accept responsibility or make improvements in the six months since the elections. Although we won't have European Elections next year (because MEPs serve a five-year term) there is still a risk that an unacceptably high number of votes will be mis-cast.

It's up to all of us: politicians, the media, the electoral administrators and yes, the electorate, to make sure that we have an electoral system we can be confident in, which makes voting as easy as possible and - most importantly - where every vote counts.

Community Policing: why we need a London Mayor

One of the Conservatives who had hoped to be that Party's Mayoral candidate prior to Boris Johnson throwing his hat in to the ring is someone called Lee Rotherham.

Lee is someone who believes that the very institution of the Mayorality should be abolished and powers restored to the borough councils; and in that we disagree. But he has produced a thoughtful, well-argued policy platform; the latest aspect of which covers policing and crime. Lee argues that the Mayor is irrelevant in the fight against crime and again we disagree: we would not have Police Community Support teams (which even he recognises as beneficial) in every single ward in our borough without the Mayor's leadership.

It is inconceivable that had the responsibility been with 32 separate London boroughs we'd have any PCSOs today - in the case of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields alone that's over 30 Officers lost. Fully qualified police are invaluable, but PCSOs not only provide extra Police presence on our streets but also enable 'full' police to focus on more serious crimes.

Lee makes several other good suggestions. Apparently, every arrest produced 3.5 hours of paperwork for the arresting officer. I agree with him that this red tape must be slashed: in itself that would free up resources to put more police on our streets. I also share his view that a day of civic recognition of the contribution (and, occasionally, sacrifice) our Police Officers - and for that matter Fire Fighters and Ambulance crews - make to our city, similar to that of Washington DC, is long overdue. You can read Lee's platform for policing here.

Putney High Street

There's been a lot of coverage and some discussion locally about last Friday's accident when a shop hoarding collapsed, injuring - in one case seriously - two passers by.

I send my condolences, and wishes for a speedy recovery to the two injured and welcome the Health & Safety inquiry launched by the Council.

Some have been questioning the common sense of a shop - any shop - choosing to have a hoarding made of concrete (or at least what was designed to look like concrete, and which was incredibly heavy anyway). I have sympathy with this view.

It was one of the reasons why my Save Putney High Street campaign launched in Autumn 2005 called for both far tighter design standards for the High Street and a shop front improvements scheme.

We proposed such ideas to try to smarten up our High Street - which any impartial observer must agree (still) looks cluttered and grubby almost two years on - but clearly to ensure some consistency in both safety standards and visual quality. This incident, while entirely unforeseen, suggests that the Council was at best unwise and at worst negligent in dismissing out of hand our ideas simply because local Labour supporters rather than Conservatives had proposed them.

Some progress in improving Putney High Street - but nowhere near enough - has been made since the last council elections: mainly thanks to London Mayor Ken Livingstone coming up with investment for aspects of the street scene that the Council is actually responsible for funding.

This isn't just about the Council. We need co-ordinated action from Transport for London, Network Rail and the train companies (to improve Putney Station), the Government's Departments for Transport and Enterprise (to deal with the impact of traffic on the area and to stimulate business growth locally), local businesses and, yes, the Council. What is clear is that the past two years since the Putney Society and my Labour team raised our concerns about the neglect of Putney High Street have been characterised by inaction and lack of imagination. What we need is local leadership. Putney simply isn't getting it from its Conservative MP and councillors.

Links on the hoarding incident:

• Wandsworth Guardian coverage


• putneysw15 website news story


• putneysw15 website discussion forum