#LondonIsOpen (and toxic)

There is no secret that I find the Twitter feed of the current London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, very annoying. Constantly bleating on about things, then falling silent when questions are asked, or the tables turned.

One of the original things that really got on my nerves was the constant tweets stating how there would be less strikes and more negotiations under his watch, cutting the number of transport strikes drastically. Boris had called for them to be almost banned, Sadiq felt that negotiation was the way forward.
For days on end there were almost hourly tweets about his pledge and how there were less strikes. Until of course strike season hit, aka holiday season. Then the shit hit the fan and the strikes begun. On the odd occasion when agreement was reached, they would be cancelled or postponed, and Twitter would hear all about how HE had prevented travel chaos, and was so much better than Boris..

Then the tables turned, and strike after strike has hit various transport networks, and silence from the mayor. The occasional "we are disappointed" tweet, but nothing strong worded, demanding further talks or how out of order it was. Certainly no boasts about his involvement in the talks, in fact the opposite. Avoiding having any involvement at all.

Then there is the demand that TfL have control over Southern Rail. Again, another bandwagon jumped aboard before knowing the full story. Granted Southern is a joke, especially with their strikes also, but their services leave a lot to be desired too. Something needs to be done, but with the shambles that is under his control already, I am not sure that adding another pony to the stables is the right move. Again, we heard so much about "I want to take control" but no comments on the strikes that cripple London each time. Obviously the negotiating skills used with the tube unions don't work, so stay out of it. Wise move!
That said, when Southern rejected the idea of handing over to TfL, they DID say be part of our talks, and help us with your ideas on how it could be improved.
With London's best interests at heart, naturally Mr Khan said NO, I want nothing to do with it, and refuse to be a part of this. Nice one Sadiq!

Then my favourite bit of it all. As you can tell from the blog title.. #LondonIsOpen.
Put on most posts from the mayors office, this seems to be the favourite tag of the moment.
My only thought on it is summed up by this scene from Blades of Glory..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eRRab36XLI

I don't even know what that means
No one knows what it means, but its provocative
No it's not!
Quite simple, words!
Ringing back to the Brexit referendum, when people started somehow saying that the UK was shutting the world out and didn't want to trade with them, the mayors office coined the phrase and tag #LondonIsOpen
Somehow suggesting that the world thought we were closed for some reason. Not once has it ever been suggested that London didn't want to trade with anyone, or that London was somehow closed for refurbishment. Windows painted out, so no one could see what was happening.
Nope, in fact London has never been closed, and in some ways, suggesting it is open creates an air of negativity towards it.

After that was all done with, the tag remained, and is now used on absolutely everything, from business to events etc. Which when promoting an event which has already been arranged is a bit pointless, as the organisers clearly know London Is Open, or they couldn't have booked it ! Duh!

Speaking of events, that is my next and final grip, mixed in with #LondonIsOpen

Recently, along with being open, the mayor has also identified that London is toxic. Very toxic in fact. To the point of issuing warnings suggesting people don't go outdoors unless really necessary at times, and saying how we are failing, and people are dying each year in London BECAUSE of the pollution.
Now I am no neigh sayer here, I know full well that we live in a very busy city, packed with vehicles and other things churning out toxins all day long. I certainly notice the difference when I visit Wales or the Spanish Mountains. But there seems to be some confusion from the mayors office about how bad it really is.

Day after day, Twitter is flooded with comments about how the government need to give people thousands of pounds towards replacing their diesel car. The same diesel car they were given money towards in the last scrappage scheme. The government needs to act on the pollution, taxes levied and increases to the tolls for the congestion zone. Advising how many people die annually because of the air etc.

And then, in the nest breath (a very toxic one of course) we get told about events being held, in Central London, in the open air, and how people should flock to them, because after all #LondonIsOpen.

I have posted a few examples of the contradictions below. And before you say anything, I am all for London hosting events, I love cycling in London, and spending time in town, so have nothing against it. But you can't be the champion of champions for London, aka the mayor, and scaremonger people into believing we are living in a city which has toxic smog daily, air quality warnings and sirens, and environmental wardens walking around in high vis uniforms so they can be seen through the smog.
THEN expect your same audience on Twitter to flock to events you are promoting. That's just dumb. Get a story and stick to it.

Smog and toxic
https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/831929385741668377

https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/830718056959709185

https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/830367140733714432
London’s dirty air is a public health crisis. I’m committed to tackling this. Read more about my plans here:
Older people & adults & children with lung or heart problems should avoid strenuous physical exercise, particularly outdoors.

Meanwhile... Positives
https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/832198886102093825
On 26 Feb we're turning Trafalgar Square into London's biggest cinema for a very special Oscar-night screening of #TheSalesman #LondonIsOpen << There it is!!

https://twitter.com/TfL/status/831862211303845888

https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/831823169858203650

So... #LondonIsOpen AND #LondonIsToxic

In short, I guess what I am trying to put across in this entry is quite simple.

Stop talking shit Sadiq. Do what is right for London and its people, stop scaring people with over exaggerated stories, and then contradicting yourself by saying we need to bring people to London for events, tourism etc. Don't you see that by bleating on about air quality, you scare people away, not bring them here. Its the exact same media channel and audience that you speak through and to, but somehow you expect them to be positive.

London IS open, London is proud. It is a diverse yet united city who has been and still is respected globally by millions of potential tourists. Walk in the streets in town and you will see just how open London is, without having to use a damn hashtag and believe it spreads a message of positivity. It really doesn't. London is not a convenience store which has an Open/Closed sign. It is a city right up there on the world stage, historic, respected, and a magnet to people around the world. Stop pretending that YOU are single handedly  making the difference, you really aren't.

#RantOver

Preservation vs housing targets.

I head a lot these days about political pledges to build X amount of house by a certain date. How there is a housing crisis, we need more homes, more affordable homes etc. But at the same time I read everyday about the outrage over planned developments in preservation, conservation, and other sorts of land and properties.

There is a slight issue here, especially when in some cases it is the same people bleating on about needing more housing, who are chaining themselves to railings outside properties and pieces of land that they feel should be protected. Usually because 200 years ago a King stayed there overnight (apparently), or that the views are of outstanding beauty.

Now sure we all have different opinions on these things, and one mans beauty is another mans eyesore. However most will agree that falsely pushing up the prices of available housing, because everyone is bickering about if a piece of land should or should not have apartments built on it is not helping anyone.

Private money seems to speak loudest. You only have to take a drive along the now dark and overhung Nine Elms Lane in Battersea to realise that if the money is there, planning kinda goes out of the window, and the demand for expensive housing is met in a flash. Usually because people in these walks of life are willing to look the other way for the right sum of money.

Don't get me wrong, I think what is happening in Battersea is stunning, some amazing buildings going up. But the Thames has disappeared from view from the streets, and apartments in the new developments are going in droves for £8m , yes EIGHT MILLION POUNDS !
Just have a look on www.rightmove.co.uk and search Nine Elms Lane, it is shocking.

Anyway, back to smaller stuff. Years ago a long strip of properties were bought up under a CPO by the Tories, to widen and free up the flow of the traffic along the Westway. Labour took power and scrapped it, but not before all the houses had been flattened.
Today, over a decade later, most of it just sits there, empty land, doing nothing. Why is it not being built on.
20+ years ago two houses on my street were demolished with the intention of rebuilding. It never happened. 20 years later, the empty, overgrown plot just sits there, doing nothing. I don't get it. Sure you can't demand someone builds on their empty land. But surely after X time some sort of compulsory purchase can be set in place, to at least encourage some movement by the owner. There are plots like this all over the place, some probably with no one sure who owns them anymore. I can't believe for one minute during the last housing booms we have had, that someone would not sell such a plot to a developer.

Then there is preservation and conservation. Something I don't get sometimes. Sure there are buildings of significance, and historic importance. There are pieces of groundbreaking architectural design, one of a kind or first of their kind that need preserving to maintain that chain of history and development.
But protecting something just because it was built by someone who was once locally relevant, and no one outside the tight knit world of historic architecture would know.... Is it really important we protect every piece of that persons work, especially when they fall into disrepair, or have changed so much that they are no longer period relevant?

Should such a property stand in the way of redevelopment, in which 3 times as many places to live could be created on the same footprint? Where somewhere that can be bought and demolished to provide affordable local housing, is protected because someone  locally relevant built the house?

Recently a small group of properties in W1 were demolished. On a little known road called Park Crescent. I am of course being sarcastic. The properties in mind were / are of huge significance, and have stood as a landmark in their own right for decades. Designed by the same architect as Buckingham Palace, the tall white facades, and columned exterior stood boldly in London's historic architecture. However after interest in knocking it all down was raised, it was decided that during the war the buildings had been damaged and not repaired to the correct period standard. Therefore the OK was given to sell them for £103m and flatten them. The plan is to build them to a more period correct standard.

So you can take a building which is 60% original, repair it not to quite the original standard, but to a standard to which no one will complain for 60+ years, but when the money shows up, it becomes substandard, and rebuilding the whole thing would be MORE period correct?

I guess what I am trying to say all along here is, there is a housing shortage, there are PC people who on one hand stand in the way of sensible, small local projects to increase housing on an incremental scale, opening opportunities slowly and steadily. But at the same time, other groups with apparently the same considerations will open up the flood gates for massive, unaffordable housing explosions.
I don't get it.

Sure open spaces are nice, clean air etc. Historic buildings need to be preserved. But HISTORIC buildings, not ones which have little bearing on the future, and teach us nothing about the past. I know I sound like a miserable old sod, but I am just sick of seeing things caught up in an over complicated, unnecessarily painful and time consuming process, only to be blocked sometimes by what I can only describe as people who have an air of self importance about them. I completely appreciate that some applications are blocked. God only knows what our streets would be full of if anyone could just build anything.

But when you take a look at the inconsistencies of things, and how modern regularly clashes with historic, but then other times something fitting is blocked because we have grown used to an open space, and the new plan is too high. Demands for certain more expensive materials to be used, making a plan prohibitively expensive, so the plan is cancelled. A certain roof tile,  window frames of set materials, even how a garden should appear. I don't get it. Why small groups of people get such a say.

Something has to give, something needs to get the land and property prices under control so developers can get on with making new homes which the average person in London can even dream of affording, because right now, just thinking about the repayments on a mortgage to buy a 2 bed flat on the 11th floor with no lift, is more a nightmare than a dream.

I don't have the answers, I'm not sure anyone does right now. But I am sick of hearing the line "affordable housing" when it is completely unrealistic. The Mayor of London blowing his own trumpet about achieving goals in all walks of life. But right now, none of them matter if people can't afford to live in the damn city in the first place.

Rant over.

Build some bloody houses, and stop whining about pointless shit!