Whitelands parking perversity

I've written before about the crazy decision by Wandsworth Conservatives to give permission for over 100 homes on the Whitelands Park development off Sutherland Grove without a single parking space for their residents. The point was also made in a Wandsworth Guardian story almost exactly a year ago.

But now the Conservatives are about to create a whole lot more trouble for residents of Whitelands Park because they're planning to introduce a controlled parking zone in Sutherland Grove, Combemartin Road and Skeena Hill, the nearest "free parking" streets in the area.

So in a few weeks time, residents of Whitelands Park will be denied a parking space in their own development and will be banned from parking in the street closest to their home. And to add insult to injury, the Conservatives have rounded things off by refusing to even consult Whitelands residents on the parking scheme that will directly affect them.

The homes denied parking spaces on Whitelands are mainly for key workers: people like nurses, police officers, ambulance medics, firefighters, teachers and council workers, all of whom do a fantastic job keeping London a world class capital. What's common among most of these professions is a need for shift work: leaving or returning home in the early morning when trains aren't running and bus services barely functioning. In short, many of those the Conservatives are denying parking spaces to are the people who actually need and depend on a car.

Whitelands Park is a 20 minute walk from Southfields tube. The only bus routes close by are the 39, 493 and 170; none of these modes of public transport operate 24-hour services. This area is classified as having poor public transport accessibility at the best of times.

The Conservatives have messed up gravely over Whitelands Park - to the extent that they have since changed their policy in this area so that these errors will not be repeated in future developments in the borough. But instead of seeking to mitigate their mistake the Tories seem hell-bent on making it worse. Fairness dictates that they must let Whitelands Park have its say on this parking zone; and if the Conservatives want to press ahead with it the least they should do is provide some facility for Whitelands residents to park somewhere near to their homes.

I hardly think this is unreasonable. The Conservatives do. Worrying, isn't it?

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.

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.

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.

Parking permits up 27%

The day after Tory Leader David Cameron lectured us about the evils of tax increases, Wandsworth Conservatives unveil a 27% increase in the cost of residents parking permits.

The price of a permit will now be £95 - a cost that has increased 44% since the council elections two years ago.

Curiously, the Conservatives mentioned nothing about their plans to hike up the cost of parking permits in their election manifesto for those elections - just as they forgot to tell us about their plans to close Wandsworth Museum or West Hill Library.

This is the reality of Wandsworth: Council Tax may be low but only because the Tories claw back the money through stealth taxes like this.

Inflation busting parking permit hikes are just one example; council tenants pay among the highest rents in London; pensioners needing home helps pay among the highest charges in London; charges for collecting bulky rubbish are among the highest in London; the amounts raised through library fines among the highest in London (and slammed by the Taxpayers' Alliance, no less); leisure centre charges among the highest in London; even the cost of dying - burial charges - are among the highest in London.

The irony of this 27% parking permit hike is that at the last council elections Labour in Wandsworth under my leadership pledged to make parking permits for the first car in every household free - which we'd have paid for by increasing the costs for second and subsequent parking permits in multi-car households. Of course, the Conservatives won those elections - so they'll say you get what you voted for.

It goes to show the real difference your vote makes locally.

Transported from reality

I've been reading the Transport Assessment the Council has commissioned to try to show that their redevelopment plans for Danebury Avenue won't gridlock an already heavily congested area.

The report can be read here as a pdf (and is missing a page).

There are two big problems with this report. First, the "modelling" which they use to forecast how much traffic they think the plans will generate is flawed. And second, the report is incomplete, because while it looks at what the industry calls "modes" of transport - that is car traffic, bus traffic, walking etc individually, it doesn't look at the combined impact.

So for example, you will find nothing in the report about the quality of pedestrian routes around Danebury Avenue when car traffic doubles (as even this report acknowledges); nor the likelihood of road traffic accidents. One of the reasons I oppose this development is that it is simply crazy to direct hundreds of extra vehicles through the heart of the most densely populated, residential parts of the constituency. All the council will do is make Roehampton's shopping area as congested, polluted, unsafe and unpleasant as gridlocked Putney High Street is. The only difference is that Putney High Street is principally a shopping area. Danebury Avenue is principally a residential area.

I mentioned above that the models used to forecast traffic are wrong. As an example of this, it makes the assumption that we all regard supermarket brands in the same way - that someone who prefers Waitrose, for example, will shop at Asda if it is more convenient for them. That isn't my experience, and it wasn't what Roehampton said when I consulted them earlier this Autumn.

This matters, because the Traffic assessment asserts that residents who shop at Asda in Roehampton Vale would cease doing so if, say, a Sainsbury's opens up that is nearer to them. No doubt some will.

But Asda has massive brand loyalty. So do all the major brand supermarkets - it's why they are so big. Brand loyalty trumps convenience in my experience. People won't just change from their supermarket of choice because some other retailer opens up. And whichever retailer does eventually open here will likewise attract outsiders into Roehampton for whom this will be their nearest branch. The traffic assessment dismisses those arguments - and actually goes further, claiming that traffic will DECREASE because Alton residents will stop driving to Asda.

For me, it's a risk too high to believe that anything approaching a majority of the custom of the Danebury Avenue store will come from Asda. I would have had a lot more confidence had the assessment compared like with like: for example comparing the number of people who drive to a store of similar size to that planned for Danebury Avenue (like Putney Sainsbury's) and using those traffic "movements" as the basis.

One final comment. The report forecasts that while traffic down Danebury Avenue will double, in Roehampton Lane it will only increase by 1.3%. That sounds tiny doesn't it? Yet 1.3% (a very conservative estimate of the likely traffic increase, given my comments above) is actually over 400 extra vehicles on Roehampton Lane. I think the true figure will be well over 1,000 extra cars on an already gridlocked road now coming to grips with the 400+ new homes at Queen Mary's Place.

The table below is from the assessment and shows how much traffic already uses Roehampton's roads.

Greening's preposterous petrol policy performance

A few days ago, I drew attention to the Conservatives' policy on fuel duty, which is that right now all drivers would be paying a lot more tax.

That being the case, it is the most obscene hypocrisy for Putney's Conservative MP to be complaining about increases in road tax. Yet at Treasury questions on Thursday, there she was, shamelessly and shamefully whining about road tax changes that reward smaller, less polluting cars and penalise larger, more polluting vehicles.

Before she gets up to make another spectacle of herself - and Putney - in the House of Commons she should at least try to come up with an answer to the question posed to her by Treasury Minister Angela Eagle MP:

"Why is the hon. Lady talking about that, when her policy would put 5p on fuel duty now, creating an increase that would feed right through to the pumps? That is bad judgment."

Fancy paying more tax on petrol?

In July, when oil prices - and therefore the price at the pumps - reached record levels, David Cameron and George Osborne came up with a short-term tactic to score political points. They announced that there should be a variable tax rate on petrol so that when oil prices were high tax would fall and when petrol was cheap taxes would rise.

Today, oil prices have almost halved from their Summer high. Under the Tories, that means we would now be paying more tax on our petrol. Just as the price fall is beginning to put a little money back in our pockets - some of which we might save for Winter fuel bills - the Conservatives would take it away from us.

Once again David Cameron and George Osborne demonstrate that now is no time for a novice to be given the keys to the Treasury.

No to Roehampton no-right-turns

Over two and a half years ago, in March 2006, Roehampton's Labour Council candidates and I were raising serious questions about plans by local Conservatives to prevent right-turns from Roehampton Lane into Ponsonby Road and Medfield Street. Here's what we wrote at the time, posing the questions the Tories had no answer to - then or now:



We were concerned that the 460 cars an hour that would be displaced - figures the Tories were bandying about at the time - would only serve to send this traffic up Roehampton High Street and Rodway Road; hardly a good idea in itself nor one that would help deal with the genuine problem of rat-running through Roehampton Village.

Two years later and those plans are back again. Nothing has changed, except of course that the now opening of the 400+ home Queen Mary's Place will add hundreds of extra car movements to Roehampton Lane which cannot cope with them, thus increasing further the number of rat-runners through Roehampton and onto the Dover House estate. And the Tories' supermarket plans for Danebury Avenue will add hundreds more.

There is a strong case for banning right turns into Ponsonby Road: it's very narrow; it contains a school and a church.

Tackling non-residential traffic through the Dover House estate was the origin of the plans to deter rat-running and I agree with the Dover House Residents Association (DHERA) that this is a problem that needs addressing. But it should only be addressed by action that will work. This scheme is not that: it's bureacratic tinkering brought about by political pressure from the Conservative Party.

Unless cars cannot get from Roehampton Lane to Dover House Road they will continue to rat-run, putting unacceptable strain on the roads that have not been closed off. Just transferring the problem from one street to another is not effective action: it is just another example of the "let's be seen to do something...anything" gimmick we have come to expect from Putney Conservatives.

Both Roehampton Village and the Dover House Estate deserve better.

Razing Merton Road's raised crossing

A few days ago I was in Hanford Close, a council estate on the edge of the Southfields Grid at the corner of Brookwood Road and Merton Road - opposite Southfields Community College.

Last year the Conservative Council decided to raise the zebra crossing here, no doubt with the well-meaning intention of making motorists better aware of the large number of school pupils crossing Merton Road here.

These are laudable aims but a questionable way of tackling a problem I'm not sure ever existed.

The consequence is that while cars do slow to avoid any damage as they go over the raised crossing, lorries have no need to do so, and so slam over the crossing at all hours. That creates a huge din loud enough to wake Hanford Close residents in the early hours of the morning.

If the crossing prevents road traffic accidents then that may be a price worth paying for the disturbance. But I doubt there was a problem with the old crossing before it was raised. I find it hard to believe that motorists failed to spot the crossing, the flashing lights and the bright markings when it was flush to the road surface; nor am I aware of any road traffic accidents here prior to it being raised up.

And if raising a crossing has such a dramatic impact saving lives, why hasn't the council raised all crossings around the borough, or even just those near schools and colleges?

I've written to the council asking them to review this crossing, or provide clear evidence that raising the crossing up in itself has produced significant road safety benefits that outweigh the detrimental impact on the residents of Hanford Close of what is effectively a super-road hump.

The residents of Hanford Close and I look forward to hearing from them.

Better buses for Roehampton?

A few days ago there was an exhibition about public transport accessibility in Roehampton, held by Transport for London consultants SDG.

Because Roehampton is relatively remote - separated from other places by Richmond Park, Putney Heath, Wimbledon Common and Barnes Common - it is especially reliant on buses.

One of the key strands of the consultation was improving connections between Roehampton and Barnes station. Two bus routes, one from Kingston that currently stops at ASDA in Putney Vale, and the 170 that runs to Victoria from Danebury Avenue, are both being considered for extension to Barnes.

In the case of the 170, it's proposed that it runs down Priory Lane. Priory Lane desperately needs a bus service but the problem with this plan is that the plans as they stand would continue the bus down Danebury Avenue and through the road closure by the Alton School. Removing the barrier would return Danebury Avenue to being a rat-run.

And we also need assurances that extending further a route like the 170 - which has already been lengthened from Clapham Junction to Victoria in recent months - will have no knock-on consequences for frequency or reliability.

What do you think? Please get in touch to let me know your thoughts.

Just the ticket? Not if SWT have their way!

South West Trains (SWT) are set to announce reduced ticket office opening times later this month. Although the plans won't affect Putney Station, they are going to hit Barnes Station and Wandsworth Town, which many constituents around the edges of our area use.

Under the SWT proposals, Barnes Station will have its ticket office closed for six and-a-half hours more on Saturdays, closed entirely on Sundays, and during the week cut back by half an hour.

Wandsworth Town is even harder hit: during the week the ticket office here will be open three and-a-half hours less and will be closed entirely on both Saturday and Sunday.

These plans are bad news. Unstaffed stations increase the potential for vandalism, graffiti and other crime making them unwelcoming for the public. That's especially true for Barnes Station which is very isolated, set in the midst of Barnes Common.

Wandsworth Town is already an unpleasant and virtually unstaffed station, with its dingy, foreboding subway - and given the huge riverside developments either side of Wandsworth Bridge, the new housing at the top of East Hill and the plans for the Ram Brewery site we should be talking about expanding capacity here, not cutting it back.

If you'd like to protest these closure plans, you can sign my online petition here. Every response I get strengthens the case against closure, so please sign up.

New entry in worst Putney pothole competition

Residents of The Platt, just across the road from my campaign HQ in Felsham Road, have a very strong entry into my Putney potholes competition. This is the state the Council has allowed Gay Street, on the estate, to fall into:



Here are a couple of close-ups of what can no longer be called a road - more like a gravel track (you can click to enlarge):



The state of Gay Street - and a lot of the roads on Putney's council estates - leave much to be desired, though of course as my earlier post, here shows, The Council aren't discriminating: they're neglecting all roads equally as dreadfully.

Do you know of a pothole worse than this one? Let me know - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or sms it to 07533 384 895 and we'll add it to our gallery. Sooner or later, even Wandsworth Conservatives will be shamed into taking action on their neglect of our roads.

Fair parking for Brewhouse Lane

Residents of the Putney Wharf development just behind Putney Bridge became the latest to contact me about unfair council parking restrictions in their area.

Just as residents of the Whitelands Park and SW15H developments - mainly, but not exclusively key workers - have fallen between two stools because they have either not been allocated or cannot afford to buy an exhorbitantly priced off-street parking space and, simultaneously, the Conservative council is refusing to even allow them to apply for an on-street residents' parking permit.

The motivation behind the policy of tackling parking stress is sound, but it is only fairly applied if residents are treated equally; by which I mean that all residents must either be given an affordable off-street parking space or, if the intent is to promote car-free living, no off-street spaces should be provided for anyone.

However, in respect of Putney Wharf we have won a small victory. I have persuaded the council to remove the permit-holder only restrictions in Brewhouse Lane - the road just behind Putney Cinema that runs down to the Thames. Because the only residents in the vicinity of Brewhouse Lane are, in fact, residents of Putney Wharf there is a strong case for the few bays in this road to be shared-use, rather than permit-holder only.

This will enable residents who do not have off-street parking spaces in the Putney Wharf development and their guests to park closer to their homes.

As a consequence of my campaigning on this and other parking problems created by the council's short-sighted, dogmatic parking scheme - behind the SW15H development in East Putney and Whitelands Park behind West Hill - Councillors have admitted that they got this wrong and are reviewing its parking policies.

I hope that residents of any future developments in Putney will therefore be spared the frustration and inconvenience that some - too many - have been subjected to.

Transport Police now patrolling Putney

The British Transport Police have just set up a new team specialising in patrolling stations in South West London, including Putney.

The team of nine officers, based at station 9 in Clapham Junction will be focussed particularly on cutting down assaults, but will be taking on any policing concerns on the rail network in south west London, including drug dealing and knife crime.

The team was only launched this week, and they've already arrested what appears to be a gang member carrying a six-inch long kitchen knife who assaulted a police officer.

The stations covered by the team include Clapham Junction, Wimbledon, Richmond, Staines, Twickenham, Earlsfield, Mortlake, Norbiton, Putney, Strawberry Hill, Wandsworth Town, Kingston, Feltham, Hampton Wick, Raynes Park, New Malden, Teddington, St Margarets, North Sheen, Barnes, Whitton and Ashford.

Putney going to pot (holes)

Working my way around the constituency, I have to comment on the quite appalling state of many of the roads in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

I'm reminded of the Beatles' song "A Day In The Life":

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And though the holes were rather small they had to count them all: now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

If the Beatles had been around today, they could have substituted "Putney, Wandsworth" for "Blackburn, Lancashire" though I suspect the town hall has no idea how many holes there are in our streets.

There was even a letter in the Wandsworth Guardian from someone from Tooting about this problem last week. It made the - perfectly reasonable - point that low council tax is no excuse for leaving our streets in the state they're in: maintaining our highways is a fundamental duty of any council and our Conservative one is failing in it.

I'd like town hall bosses to visit Victoria Drive or Putney Heath - to single out just two of Putney's potholed streets - and see exactly how bad things have got. But the problem affects every part of the constituency: Danebury Avenue and Harbridge Avenue in Roehampton, Holroyd Road in West Putney and Kingsmere Road in West Hill - these are just a selection of roads from across Putney (click on each for the full size photo).

If you've got a pothole in your street, take a photo of it and send it to me: email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or text 07533 384 895. I'll keep logging further examples of the council's neglect of our streets as I'm out and about around the constituency.

Together we may be able to shame the Conservatives into taking proper care of Putney's potholed roads.

Southfields' Olympic lift

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

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

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

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

AirTrack

Today, I'm launching my Putney4AirTrack campaign.

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

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

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

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

To support my Putney4AirTrack campaign, click here.

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

And for more on the AirTrack proposal, click here.

Putney Station improvements

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

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

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

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

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

Local buses

Following complaints I've received about the quality of some of the local bus routes, I've been looking into the reliability of buses throughout the constituency.

Most of our bus services now run very frequently indeed; the improvements in public transport since Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London are significant. Buses are now cleaner, safer, more reliable and 24-hour routes like the 85 have made a real difference to more remote parts of the constituency like Roehampton and Putney Vale.

The average time people have to wait for borough buses is just over four minutes. The longest waiting times are for the 493 bus, that seems to visit everywhere in South West London - but even here the average wait is supposedly just 7 minutes (though there is a 1 in 4 chance that passengers will end up waiting up to 20 minutes, according to the stats - and that chimes with my experiences of this route).

There are, however, some routes that I want to see improvements in. The reliability of three routes: the 493, the 265 which goes down Lower Richmond Road and up Roehampton Lane towards Tolworth; and the 337 which runs along Upper Richmond Road between Richmond and Clapham Junction also leave something to be desired.

You can download the bus service reliability report here; and I'd like to hear from you about your own experiences of public transport - good and bad - not just buses but tube and train journeys too. Of course, there is more to a good travel experience than the amount of time you have to wait.

Pupils and buses

Another story that caught my eye in this week's Wandsworth Guardian was a complaint by the Deputy Head of Southfields Community College that 156 bus drivers haven't been stopping near the college at home times.

He makes the not-unreasonable point that by refusing to pick up groups of schoolkids, the group only grows even larger and more rowdy. On the other hand, being a passenger (and I'm sure a driver too) when large groups of noisy, boisterous pupils surge onto a bus, shouting, jostling and often behaving aggressively and thoughtlessly is not a pleasant experience.

What would help no end would, I suggest, be the College - and our other secondary schools too - sending a staff member out to the bus stops at home time to make sure that the pupils behave themselves while waiting for their buses. In such circumstances, other than when buses are already full to bursting, there would be no excuse whatsoever for 156s not to stop. The Guardian story is here.

Heathrow exhibition

Last Friday I attended the Department for Transport's exhibition as part of their consultation into adding capacity at Heathrow airport at the Wetland Centre in Barnes.

The exhibition essentially comprised blown-up panels of the summary consultation document and interactive touchscreen devices to look at the maps; but slightly more usefully a range of Department for Transport officials were on hand to answer questions and some of the more detailed reference documents were available to take away.

Outside the exhibition the anti-Heathrow expansion campaign HACAN clearskies had a stand - I spent some time chatting with the group's chair John Stewart.

I have also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to find out exactly which areas have received the consultation document: some 9,000 have been distributed in Putney: principally in the area closest to Barnes, which falls within (or just short of) the contour considered by the DfT as the area most affected by noise nuisance from planes. I am currently obtaining the specific list of postcodes because of course, even if it is conceded that noise is slightly reduced elsewhere in the constituency it remains a major blight.

There are two key problems with this consultation for me:

First, it isn't about the question of whether Heathrow should get a third runway - because this was consulted on and agreed to a couple of years ago - but rather what options are best (or least bad) for the development of the airport in light of this;

And second, the consultation questionnaire is "opaque" to say the least - the questions are highly technical and you need to have a considerable determination to plough through the jargon and references to other texts to be able to contribute meaningfully;

To date, I don't think the government has done itself any favours with the way it has gone about this exercise: it has looked evasive even when it has not actually been so and by dripping out every few years very narrow aspects of the aviation problems facing London (the next will, of course, be in 2012 when night-flights policy is reviewed) rather than giving us a say on the overall strategy for London it is very difficult to submit views for or against the broader issues.

I'll be blogging further about the issues within this current consultation and my broader views concerning aviation policy in general in the coming weeks.

Heathrow consultation underway

You may have seen news coverage about the government's consultation on the future of Heathrow in the last few days.

This is a massive issue for the country, for the Capital and for our part of London, so it's really important not to pay attention to the noise made by politicians, pressure groups and special interests and reach your own opinion on the basis of the facts.

The Department of Transport has published a comprehensive consultation document - the full thing is 77mb and runs to 240 pages - but don't worry if that puts you off: there's a summary document and other tools to help assess the impact.

The consultation runs through to 27 February 2008: you can find out more here.