Wandsworth Conservatives

Support for Boris Johnson has never been in doubt in this territory, but his arrival in Merton and Wandsworth on Monday was a truly great event.

Boris started his visit by joining an anti-Heathrow expansion protest with Justine Greening MP and a number of others including me right under the noisy flightpath at the Lennox Estate, Roehampton. We were not frustrated by any lack of deafening jumbo jets as we stood there with our banners - ”No to Heathrow Expansion”. A lot of local residents were there with us, very pleased to see that the future Mayor of London feels for their ears.

He then went on to visit one of Wandsworth’s highly successful “Hidden Homes”, valuable accommodation which has been created from unused spaces on the estates - former garages, pram sheds, drying areas etc. The current tenant of the property, who had previously been in a tower block with her young children, proudly showed her home to Boris. He was highly impressed by the innovative work of Wandsworth Council. We all wonder why the current  Mayor Livingstone can only pour scorn on the way these extra homes have been created.

Last, Boris went to a massive reception of supporters down by the River Thames at a Chinese restaurant in Battersea. The supporters were packed in to meet him, grasp his hand, and talk to him. The informal chat went on for about an hour before Boris spoke to the massed ranks, many standing in the overhead gallery. They cheered nearly every sentence as he spelt out his policies and his approach to change London from its present stagnant, tired and costly administration. He talked for about twenty minutes, and was then mobbed again as he moved towards the door to go home. Very many people there have since emailed and phoned me or stopped me in the street to say what a good night, what a lot of good serious policies, this man will make a great Mayor. Back Boris - join the Team. What do you think?    

I have spent some hours over the past two weeks visiting Underground stations and senior managers involved in the operations of the main services, the Northern and the District Lines, operating in Merton and Wandsworth, . Regularly, apart from my own experiences travelling on these lines, I hear from commuters that they have to endure crowded rush hour trains, long queues, and delays travelling to and from work. One of my priorities at the London Assembly and in Transport for London will be fairness and value for money for our commuters and more comfort and safety.

One of my visits was to the Tube Lines control centre of the engineering work on the Northern Line which runs north from Morden through stations up to Clapham South in the constituency. I emphasised to managers that vital station and escalator upgrades must be on time - and if possible happening before the due dates. Some stations like Morden have been improved, new escalators have been installed in Tooting, with Clapham South coming along shortly, but my demand to managers is that commuters must get much better service. The projections by Transport for London a few years ago were poor and barely took account of the massive growth in travellers, and these projections have been massively overtaken. I shall be watching the Northern Line management and improvements closely in coming months and years, and one key factor will be modern signalling to speed up trains and increase their numbers.

My other visit was to Earls’ Court and Fulham Broadway stations on the District Line on Wednesday evening when a Chelsea football match was being played at Stamford Bridge. Evening crowding on the busy Wimbledon-bound platforms at Earl’s Court is a constant problem for commuters, but this gets much worse some midweek evenings with the arrival of thousands of football fans. I, together with my colleague Elizabeth Howlett AM, watched with District Line managers as the delicate task went on, shepherding the hordes on and off trains. The platforms were very crowded as the build up progressed and it is vital that this is skilfully managed. Once again, I can see that the campaign must be for more capacity on trains, extra length, and modern signalling to allow more frequent trains to run. I shall be monitoring progress.

I am determined to work with the campaigns of my Parliamentary colleagues Justine Greening in Putney and Stephen Hammond in Wimbledon to improve the daily travelling experience of constituents.     

Last night I went to support my colleague Justine Greening, MP for Putney, in a debate about the Labour Government’s proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport and the inevitable extra number of flights. What a splendid performance was put up by Justine in addressing 700 local residents packed into St Mary’s Church, Putney ( the location of Cromwell’s Levellers Debates!) - they were in the church galleries and standing several deep all around the body of the church. The other speaker was John Stewart, from the campaign body HACAN. No audible sign though of anybody from the Labour Party !

There is no doubt that local people, woken up like my wife and myself in Wandsworth Town from about 5am in the morning by noisy aircraft coming into land, are solidly against the Government’s plans. And they are angry at the inadequate and misleading charade of a consultation about the plans, where most of us have not been sent the documents and have to read them on the internet, and we have no exhibitions staged by the Government to explain the plans .

If we need more airport capacity in this country, it should come from regional airports, not overcrowding Heathrow even more. And we should cut the transit flights and stop domestic flights from Heathrow, and we should encourage use of high speed trains in this country and to Europe. Then, if we still need more capacity in the London area, we should follow the excellent suggestion from one of my London Assembly candidate colleagues, Kit Malthouse to go east in the Thames estuary. 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2925884.ece

UPDATE 5th FEBRUARY - In front of a packed audience of Battersea residents at Belleville School, in answer to my challenge the Battersea Labour MP has agreed to join Justine Greening MP in all-party campaigning against expansion. Battersea Conservative Parliamentary spokesman Jane Ellison spoke strongly in favour of all-party opposition to the Heathrow plans.