Councils hit by severe cuts
November 29, 2010
As a attempt to curb spending and bring the economy under control councils have been hit by severe cuts. As a result Richmond Council has made a statement that in attempt to work to the budget a large amount of job losses and services being cut is inevitable. The actual budget cut being discussed is a cut by £35m from a annual budget of £143m. this means that cuts are unavoidable and a focus on protecting the vital service needs to be carefully considered. The council say they are trying to establish the level of job cuts and the impact of the governments spending review.
Effective use of taxpayers money for roadworks
November 27, 2010
The history behind the project is that it was set to widen the existing network from Junction 16 and Junction 23 – a stretch covering 22 miles. The contract was let in May 2009 a 18 month delay. One of the responses from the Highways agency was that it was debating if using the hard shoulder at Peak times in a attempt to ease the traffic and reduced the need to widen the motorway. As a result this delayed the start of the work and the testing took longer then originally anticipated. A full lessons learnt report is needed to ensure that in the future costs don’t rise in this manner and the taxpayers money is used effectively.
M25 motorway to be widened
November 24, 2010
For those who travel to London or live in the south east they would have heard and be aware of the Famous M25 as the main circular ring road around Outer London. This itself joins upto many other routes leading to various parts of the country. Being such a popular road has the greatest disadvantage of being of the most congested transport links in the UK. In a attempt to address the traffic a project has been set to widen the M25 Motorway. However this has now increased by a quarter as a result of failures by the Highways Agency. As a result this now equates to 660m – taking the full cost of the project to a outstanding £3.4billion.
London 2012 Olympics - Proposed Marathon Route Change
November 21, 2010
Legal action is being carried out by one of the East London councils in a attempt to get the 2012 Olympic Games to change it’s existing route for the marathon and include the East End. The London 2012 Olympic Committee said that operational issues meant that a marathon finish at one of the sites in Stratford was now impossible. This was what had originally been planned. The council in question is Tower Hamlets and are seeking legal action to get the decision revoked. In it’s defence the London 2012 Committee said the change to the route was fair and legal.
The transport for London accused of lying by the Rail Union
November 19, 2010
The transport for London has been accused of lying by the rail union about the level of staff on the Tube. A document was leaked by the Rail Maritime and Transport Union which showed that some stations had no staff. In it’s defense the TFL said that the document was valid but only on rare occasions were stations left unmanned. This comes after they also said that as a result of the cuts they will not impact the stations. It goes down the safety of our trains and the ability of having access to staff to provide the service which rail passengers are paying for.
