Transport for London are still in denial over Oyster overcharging

You may not know about the new proposals from Transport for London to allow Oyster card users to check their accounts online and to allow Oyster customers to submit refund applications online.

Sounds good but these improvements are welcome and very much long overdue. Last year alone passengers using Oyster Pay As You Go were wrongly charged maximum fares totaling over £66 million.

Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, spoke about this recently: "The fact remains that Transport for London are still in denial over the real problems behind Oyster overcharging.  They continue to portray Oyster overcharging as being solely the fault of passengers when in reality a huge part of the problem is how the technology actually works."

Caroline added: “Even with these changes there still remains much that needs to be done to ensure that honest passengers are not overcharged when using Oyster Pay as You Go.”

Caroline is right. Blaming passengers is wrong. Transport for London could solve these issues but they do not want to because they like the extra money they get.

Colonial Drive Planning Meeting – the outcome‏

Earlier today (well Wednesday night) I attended the Ealing Council planning committee where the Colonial Drive application was discussed.

Let me thank all of the residents who attended the site visit last weekend or the planning committee meeting a few hours ago.

In the meeting, residents Malcolm Haxby and Jan Hewlett as well as Southfield ward Councillor Harvey Rose, spoke up against the developer’s planning application. They listed the many reasons why the set of 100 or more flats would be bad for both the skyline and the nature reserve, as well as the likely parking issues that the development will cause.

Sadly, Ealing Council’s planning committee voted 7 to 6 to approve the plan. This means that it is highly likely that the 100 or more flats will be built on Colonial Drive, next door to the currently tranquil Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve.

It was totally wrong for Ealing Council to allow such a large development next to the Gunnersbury Triangle Wildlife Reserve. The 100 or more flats will cause parking problems and will harm the flora and fauna in the reserve. The development is too high and too near to the reserve. Well over 1500 residents in the area signed petitions to show their disgust at the idea of this development that is an over development. Ealing Council has made a grave mistake for the sake of £1.9 million given by the developer.

Given Ealing Council’s decision tonight your ward councillors and others will be looking to any legal avenues where the decision could be challenged (perhaps via the Mayor of London). This may not be possible but we will be looking in the near future to see what might be possible.

Decision Day for the Gunnersbury Triangle Planning Application

Today (Wednesday 16th May) Ealing Council's planning committee will decide whether to allow a set of over 100 flats, rising to 8 stories high, to be built adjacent to the tranquil place of Gunnersbury Triangle.

You can see three pictures taken at the recent site visit by the planning committee on Saturday. I was informed that there were over 100 people attending the site visit and that this is the second highest number of residents attending this type of event:

• Gary Busuttil and over 100 residents at the recent Gunnersbury Triangle planning site visit
• Southfield Councillors Andrew Steed and Harvey Rose at the Gunnersbury Triangle planning demo
• Councillor Andrew Steed making his views know about the Collonial Drive planning application

The planning committee meets from 7pm in Ealing Town Hall and the public gallery is likely to be packed given the controversial nature of the application.

For those who are nor aware of the location and reasons why people are against it read on. It is located across the road from Chiswick Park tube station and a large number of residents and the well known botanist David Bellamy are against the plan as it will cause a lot of problems such as parking problems and harm to wildlife in the Triangle.

The development will be sited with almost no gap between the wall and the Triangle meaning there will be a lot of light taken away from the triangle grounds.

More than 1600 people have now signed the petition calling for rejection of the present application in favour of more sensitive development of this site and one which respects the special quality of the nature reserve.

If you would like to know the outcome of the planning committee meeting please email me at: gary.malcolm@ealing.gov.uk

Tonight's Ealing Council Meeting About the Non Collection of Rubbish

Tonight's meeting about why Ealing Council and its contractor, Enterprise, had a full public gallery (not the norm).

I handed in a large petition from residents all across Ealing who were totally annoyed that the service the Council provides, was not for many weeks in April. I reported that one road had not had its waste collected for three weeks. It was only collected when I contacted the Council's CEO - he then arranged for the waste to be collected the next day, a Sunday! It should not have taken the CEO to be involved.

My party demanded that both Ealing Council and Enterprise should be scrutinised at a public council meeting. What the Labour-run administration stated, was a half-baked alternative - to have a report presented at the next Cabinet meeting which almost no discussion is allowed - was acceptable. Clearly this is not acceptable. Essentially this will be a rubber stamping exercise.

The strange logic that the Labour Council Leader and his environmental side kick, Cllr Bassam Mahfouz, was that it was okay  to attack the contractor 100% for failing and then apologising for the mistakes made. If the contractor was totally to blame then surely the Ealing Council Leader should not be apologising?

During the meeting it became apparent that the new contractor would not have bought the correct number of vehicles in time for when the contract started. If I had been the top Council officer I would have been more sceptical and really challenged Enterprise to prove they would be able to collect Ealing's waste from day one.

Another matter that I raised was that when the fiasco (the term was accepted and repeated by the Labour party) began residents were not communicated to properly. Most residents do not read Ealing Council's twitter feed or their web site. But I suggested that the Council should have emailed Residents Association chairs and Street-watchers who might be able to spread news about the issue and what the Council was advising residents to do. It did not do this and so clearly left itself open to people guessing and spreading comment.

Also I am awaiting to see how much time was wasted by Ealing Council staff dealing with this fiasco. I have asked for details of what actions and meetings occurred before the contact started to get more of a picture of how much effort Ealing spent in trying to ensure the new contractor could fulfil its pledges.

Later in the debate Cllr Bassam Mahfouz the Councillor in charge of recycling and waste collection said he was a "solutions man". Many in the Council meeting laughed as it was a claim that appears to have been made when still many streets in West Ealing are not having their waste collected on time. Offering solutions that do not work is the same as failing.

Our amendment to have a full and public review attracted the support of the Conservative party but the Labour administration put their head in the sand and voted down the proposal. A sad day. When a Council makes a mistakes it should look to review what it did (or not did) so to ensure this cannot happen again. Without a review this event might well happen again.

The new contractor started on April 1st, and since then Ealing has been made to look like fools!

Southfield Park Triangle Residents' Association AGM

Despite the cold weather this morning I attended the Southfield Park Triangle Residents' Association AGM this morning. Once in the local scout hut there was coffee which was welcomed by the residents who had already arrived.

Their meetings are never boring and procedural. They chat about local matters and often have the police and ward councillors, including myself, in attendance to answer questions about some of the current topics of interest.

One issue that was raised was a social summer party in June. Last year it was great - they have face painting for the children, a BBQ, a Pimms bar, a baking table and refreshments plus music were readily available. It aims to break even or raise a little money. The atmosphere was great and I look forward to this event next month!

I have been asked to do the BBQ so given I like cooking this should be a nice afternoon. Hopefully the weather will be nice. Fingers crossed. I was lucky in last year's raffle so might buy a few tickets this year. Again, fingers crossed. If I lose then any monies raised by the event is ploughed back into the future social events so residents can have more fun.

The serious issue of the proposed Thames Tunnel was then raised. A meeting has been organised with representatives from Ealing Council, Thames Water so that residents can ask questions and see Thames Water's current proposals about the tunnel. A website with more information is here.

If you want to see more about what the Southfield Park Triangle Residents' Association are up to check out their website.

A Visit to Kent to See Where Some of Ealing's Waste is Sorted

This morning I was invited by Ealing Council to go to a MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) in Kent. This is where some of Ealing's waste is being sorted. After all of the bad press Ealing Council has had it made sense to try to get a positive spin on the tonnes of waste that Ealing Council gets recycled.

One of the points raised was that recyclable items such as plastics and paper were being landfilled. Due to issues with the new contractor in the short term some roads are having their green boxes and plastics all dumped together - which obviously has meant many residents have wasted lots of their time they have spent sorting it out themselves.

The value of pre-sorted waste (by residents) is that the contractor can sell this pre-sorted recyclables to other companies for a higher value (and profit). If as it is, as it is, for many residents, mixed up by Enterprise then it goes to the Kent MRF where I sent today, and the outputted plastics, metals, paper etc are worth less than the pre-sorted methods. This short term arrangement does not cost the Council any money but it has lost them its reputation in high-ish levels of recycling.

I have visited a MRF plan a number of years ago. This one was larger and sorted more items. At the end of it you get bales of plastics, paper, card with glass and metals separated. These are then sold to be re-used by other manufacturers.

The plant looks a mess but it is as the plan manager described "organised chaos". Lots of dust, noise and vehicles moving around. Have a look at a couple of the photos and videos I took giving you an idea of what the place is like:

• Van arriving to dump its load of waste.
• A super little terrier vehicle sorting some waste dropped from the van.
• On this conveyor belt the paper is blown away leaving glass to be dumped in a separate container.
• Lots of wires separated.
• Here is some of the huge numbers of baled paper and plastics.

Certainly being here reminded me of when I worked in a factory in my teens to earn some spending cash (pay my rent to my dad!) One of the vehicles, the small nippy one, was excellent at taking the waste from the floor after the container had been emptied, to the first conveyor belt. I think I would have paid some cash to have a go for ten minutes. Looked like fun. Since I don't drive I think that I would have crashed it - never been good at racing car games!

Overall I was impressed with the operation here. There appears to be little contamination in the bales that are at the end of the chain of events. Clearly you can get more bang for the buck by separating it out on the kerbside as the sell on value is higher but a MRF plant like this can really help to sort mixed waste collected.

I think that the area that Ealing Council needs to work on is how it encourages residents who do not recycle to do so.

Liberal Democrats: a Zero Waste London

The very idea of rubbish being thrown away should be a thing of the past. A great city like London cannot afford to waste its waste. We must set a long term goal of a ‘closed loop’ approach, whereby use of materials is reduced, re-used where possible and recycled for further use. Working with the boroughs and the London Waste and Recycling Board, we will:

• Set tough targets for reducing the amount of waste produced by individuals and businesses in the capital and for reuse and recycling by boroughs and disposal authorities.
• Introduce food waste collections in every borough as a step towards a comprehensive system of separate wet and dry collections.
• Support moves by manufacturers to minimise packaging and simplifying the mix of plastics entering the waste stream.
• Improve recycling rates from flats - currently only around 10% - and challenge branded goods companies to fund ‘on the go’ recycling collections so people can recycle their waste when out-and-about.
• Introduce a plastic bag levy, as Wales and soon Northern Ireland have done, by agreement if possible, by securing legislation.
• Promote a London-wide on-line swap-shop, modelled on the Freecycle scheme, so Londoners can more easily offer their unwanted goods for reuse, not waste.