According to the lead article in today’s London Evening Standard, we are facing weekend tube chaos until 2012 right up until 21 July, 2012. This will mean that Londoners have not had a full weekend tube service for 46 months. In fact, the only time London Underground has been able to run a full weekend service in recent years has been 29/30 December, 2007 and prior to that, the previous date was 30/31 December,2006.

So who is to blame? TfL is appointing the blame at the failure of Metronet and Tubelines who between them where responsible to £10 billion worth of upgrades to the network – this failed. Both Labour and Conservative have shouldered the blame for the failures – at a local and central government level. Ken Livingstone fought against the privatisation of the maintenance and this was imposed bu the Labour Government. So is Labour to blame for this?

No, we need to look back further at the Thatcher period of government, during which time the subsidies to London Transport (as it was) where slashed year upon year. This resulted in little if no maintenance to the infrastructure of the network leaving us with a legacy of out dated signalling systems, tracks which where in need of replacement and rolling stock that was in dire need of modernisation, to name but a few of the issues.

In this time of austerity, should we expect an increase in the funding from central government?

In my view, yes, if they are committed to maintaining their supposed ‘green’ credentials.

Should the current mayor be doing more?

Yes – he needs to take immediate control of the entire infrastructure and management chain, and fight tooth and nail for the funding which is required to provide 21st century London with a 21st century network. We used to have an underground that was a world leader, now it is seemingly a world follower-up.

Interestingly, whilst the network is in what is viewed by some as chaos, LUL has found £60M to soend on legal advice!

Worth noting is, that in the same edition of the Standard, on page 28, is an article about the new fashion of ‘pop up’ restaurants.

The link to the Underground? LUL bosses have  told the owners of one of these new restaurants to change the name of their restaurant or else! Apparently the Underground Restaurant is devaluing the brand of London Underground. So, the £60M has now been added to with LUL bosses taking more legal advice.

Wake up – the devaluation has occurred through the poor management and stewardship of your organisation, not from a fashionable restaurant. The public have lost confidence in the Mayor of London and LUL/TfL’s management of the network. Focus on what is needed – a network which works. Not some of the time and while it is understandable that there will be things that happen from time to time, beyond your control which means you cannot operate a 100% service, but lets aim high shall we?

Londoners NEED, no Londoners DEMAND a weekend underground service.

We pay one of the highest costs per journey in Europe but for what? A replacement bus service? 20 minute delays? Trains being full beyond bursting point (noteworthy that sheep or cattle would not be permitted to travel in such cramped conditions – even though they are generally on a one way journey to become next the forthcoming weekend Sunday roast)? Enough is enough.

The next Mayor of London will be elected on their transport policy – nothing else.

Some time back, I received a PCN from an officious City of Westminster parking person, who decided that they would ticket me for a supposed parking violation.

Bad move – I not only know the regulations regarding Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (TSRGD 2002) but I will willingly challenge a PCN issued incorrectly!

Why was the PCN in my view incorrect?

Looking at the above photo. do you see anything wrong?

Referring back to Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002, Chapter 5 which deals with yellow lines, page 116 paragraph 20.3 states that there are 4 instances where the T-Bar must be used: “A transverse mark must be placed at each end of a line, where one type of line changes to another, where it abuts a bay marking or a zig-zag line and at a point where a vertical sign indicates the time period changes, but the road marking remains the same.”

As you will see (referring to the red highlighted text) the yellow line did not have a transverse mark. So, well and good you may think. I completed the online form to contest the PCN and received my confirmation and duly waited ten days . . . no reply and suddenly a notification came through, in summary saying I had not paid or appealed, therefore, pay loads of money now please! Having been online and reading forums on how City of Westminster loved to do this I thought grrrrr…not likely. I called up not once, but on 4 separate occasions and was shunted from department to department, until I found someone who knew what I was calling about and finally was able to tell me how to sort this out.

After faxing a copy of the original confirmation email with their reference number on it, I waited (nearly 4 weeks during which time they informed me that they where sending someone to inspect the location the ticket had been issued) and they finally wrote to me on Friday stating that due to a technical error, the ticket would be cancelled immediately.

Therefore, City of Westminster 0, Me 1

Always contest a parking ticket – you have nothing to loose!!

Today, as part of the expansion of our blog into areas relating to London (with particular reference to the City of Westminster), we have launched London Life which will be addressing a number of topics in the lead up to the local authority and general election.

The first topic we have selected is potholes! They are everywhere and despite the promises of £100M in the budget, this will not even start to address the cost of repairing and maintaining our roads! We want to hear your pothole stories, see your photos, hear what action (or lack of) your council or borough has taken . . . if you happen to live in the City of Westminster and you have a pothole nightmare, please share this with me. I am intending to stand for local election and even though there is little chance of polling 3rd, I am going to give it all I have and there are a couple of issues I have in mind – this being one of them – to highlight.

One of the most clearly populist measures yesterday was a commitment to provide £100m to repair the potholes that have made a moonscape of many British roads in the aftermath of the winter freeze (FT.com)

The cost of potholes does not stop at the cost of repairing the actual hole. Motorists across the Capital have experienced damaged wheel rims, tyres, suspension and even been involved in collisions – all down to holes in the road which the local authorities have not taken steps to fill. Motor cyclists and cyclists are even more exposed to the risks of these (in some cases, gargantuan) holes in the road.

£100M is very nice Mr. Darling, but it is nowhere near enough to repair the net cost of underinvestment by successive Labour and Tory governments in our road infrastructure.

The Mayor of London has made ineffectual postulations and promises – all of which remain to be seen if they are actually worth anything, or are they pure piffle?

So, on we go with potholes. Click on London Life in order to have your say.

What will be the next topic of conversation and debate once we have filled in the potholes?

In no particular order, I am thinking about:

• the proposed changes to parking restrictions in the City of Westminster
• are parking fines being used as a cash stream?
• sustainability of public transport – with a focus on buses in London – what is the way forward?
• trams in London – Boris killed off the excellent proposal for the tram line across the Thames – was he right?
• Northern Line closures – will it kill off the tourist trade to Camden market?
• Weekend underground closures (the bane of ANY Londoner!)

As a result of the hack attack in which a number (it now turns out) of sites and associated blogs where ‘disrupted’, I have decided that instead of attempting to resurrect the dead, I will start from scratch (again) with this blog.

So what will it have ?

In no particular order or preference:

• Lib Dem stuff – national and local
• DELGA information and postings
• Transport Issues (mainly London but also those national ones which impact on London too)
• Personal postings
• Postings relating to my activities with the British Red Cross
• Links to our other sites
• An expanded set of ‘content’ pages
  • About Chris and Eddie
  • Thailand
  • DELGA and the LibDems in London
• New photos section

These are the initial thoughts I am having….