Archive for the 'Action Alert' Category

Flashride tomorrow (Friday) 0830am: Why we need to draw a line in the sand over Blackfriars

Published on 19 May 2011 in Action Alert, cycling, London and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Blackfriars bridge is a watershed. Despite the hositle environment, there are more bicycles on it in rush hour than any other form of transport and there’s a major opportunity to improve conditions as part of the Crossrail work in the area. Yet unbelievably instead TfL decide to make things even worse for cycling! If not here, then where? If not now then when? Read the background here and join us on the #flashride tomorrow (Fri 20 May) morning at 0830. We’ll be on the south side of the Bridge, outside the Doggett’s pub. Follow @london_cycling for updates.

Since I took over the chairmanship of LCC‘s Campaigns Committee I have found there has been one single, recurring theme frustrating many of our objectives: Transport for London, the quango responsible for the major road network in London is drunk on maximising space for cars at the exclusion of all other road users. Now in the right circumstances (e.g. motorways on the outskirts of Greater London) that might well be appropriate. However, on streets in which people, live, work, shop and play that cannot be the case. Our streets must be liveable places where it is pleasant to walk, cycle or just hang out – not ghettos in subservience to a trunk road passing through them. Bridges are particularly important as there aren’t many options to cross the River. As our Chief Executive, Ashok Sinha says “The choice for cyclists shouldn’t be to navigate through a dangerous junction or take a boat.”

Despite the Mayor’s vision of a cyclised city, Transport for London are failing to delivery the much-vaunted ‘Cycling Revolution‘ because they simply refuse to make space available for quality cycling facilities. Next week the London Cycling Campaign will launch its biggest ever democratic exercise to select a single-issue campaign demand for the 2012 Mayoral election. Not a single one of the four options we’ll be asking our members to vote on is attainable without the political will to make road space available to cycling. That’s why, whilst the menial back-tracking by TfL this last week is welcome we must now make a stand and press for a more equitable allocation of road space.

I hope you will join us on Blackfriars bridge tomorrow morning. If you feel as strongly as we do perhaps you’d consider joining LCC and help us in our mission to achieve a world class cycling city. If nothing else, you’ll get to vote on our headline demand for the next Mayor (and discounts at virtually all good local bike shops).

Back the Cross River Tram

Published on 2 August 2008 in Action Alert, London and Transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Mayor Boris has decided to review all the various transport projects in London. Whilst this happens it’s important to show levels of public support for important initiatives. So please take a few moments to sign the petition in support of the Cross River Tram. Especially if you are one of the many people who has to find a vacant arm pit to squeeze your head into on the Northern Line every morning, or breath in all the bus fumes in Bloomsbury!

Even better why not write to the Mayor and your local London Assembly representative? Get your responses in good time for the 9th of September when the London Assembly’s Transport Committee will be looking at CRT.

Here’s a summary of some the benefits of the CRT:

  • Carrying over 90 million passengers per year.
  • Giving passengers travelling to work on the Victoria, Northern & Piccadilly lines a more comfortable journey as it will help relieve passenger congestion.
  • Reducing crowding at Euston, Camden Town and Elephant & Castle.
  • Providing access to over 200,000 residents with better access to employment, health and leisure opportunities.
  • Reduce car usage by over 2 million trips per year as people switch to this environmentally friendly option.
  • An estimated reduction in CO2 emissions of over 19,000 tonnes.
  • Enhance access by providing around 30 new fully accessible stops throughout central London.

There is a real risk that some local objections to details of the route in Camden may be used by those Conservative AMs opposed to trams to derail the whole scheme. So please lend CRT your support.

FSA makes bank charges situation worse

Published on 1 August 2007 in Action Alert and Journal. 7 Comments

Over the last year or so the situation with usurious bank charges in the UK has got ridiculous with the county courts and ombudsman services getting increasingly bogged down by consumers claiming refunds. The regulator had to act but the FSA seems to have done so in a way that actually makes the situation worse, not better, for consumers.

There’s a good article explaining why here: It’s Vital You Still Claim Your Bank Charges [Motley Fool].

Basically the FSA stipulation gives the banks, county courts and Ombudsman an excuse for putting off consideration of your case, until after the Office of Fair Trading’s pending High Court case has been resolved. That could take years. Unless you take specific action now you may lose the ability to reclaim all your charges since you are normally only able to claim back 6 years’ worth.

The Motley Fool article includes a link to a petition asking the FSA to change tack. Please consider signing it in support of all claimants.

UPDATE 2 Aug 2007: The Fool has since revised it’s advice: Some Good News From FSA On Bank Charges. It’s still imperative to act promptly, however.

The status of professional engineers in the UK

Published on 26 March 2007 in Action Alert, Journal and Society. 3 Comments

There are several e-petitions on the Downing Street web site that call for greater status, in law, for professional engineers in the UK:

I broadly support all three and have signed them all.

Ironically my attention was drawn to them by an email from the Engineering Council, which actually argued the opposite. An extract from the email is re-produced below.

Among the many hundreds of e-petitions currently to be found on the 10 Downing Street web-site, there are two concerning the status of UK engineers. Both of these call for the epithet ‘engineer’ to become a title protected in law.

While it is true that such protection is afforded to titles like ‘ingenier’ that are used elsewhere in Europe, this is largely because they have a different, less general meaning than engineer. Hardly surprising then that in other English-speaking nations, like the USA and Australia, the situation is the same as in the UK. The word engineer has been in common use in this country for centuries and is widely understood to mean anyone whose work relates to engineering, particularly manufacture or maintenance. Consequently there is no prospect of the engineering profession gaining exclusive rights to the term and thus preventing others from using it.

Even if granting such rights were on the cards, it might be seen by many as undermining individual freedoms, the preservation of which is fundamental to common law in this country. Restricting access to professional practice could also be interpreted as anti-competitive.
Three titles that are of course protected – under ECUK’s Royal Charter – are those of Chartered Engineer, Incorporated Engineer and Engineering Technician. These can only be used by individuals who have satisfied all the requirements for professional registration. Any person falsely claiming to hold one of these awards is pursued through the civil courts.

Possibly one way of addressing the petitioners’ concerns would be to encourage more engineers to become professionally registered. In one of the petitions, the desire for legal status seems motivated by a belief that society lacks respect for engineers. If more qualified engineers and technicians were to gain the titles CEng, IEng and EngTech then the profession’s image would only be enhanced.

I have some sympathy for the argument that “engineering” has a broader meaning in the English language than in other European tongues. Nevertheless there is a serious problem here best summed up by Jon Jennings, the proposer of the first of the above petitions:

As a recently qualified Astronautics Engineer and with 8 years experience as a Robotics Engineer I am at a point where due to the lack of respect by the Government, the media in particular the BBC, and society as a whole, I feel there is little point staying in the UK. Car mechanics, Plumbers and Electricians are now commonly referred to as Engineers and Banks now regard Engineers as non/semi skilled.

And that’s actually a serious point. If we are to compete with the likes of China in a technology-driven age we need to maintain our excellence at the forefront of technological development. It isn’t going to happen when so many of the nation’s best graduates from top engineering schools feel they will be better off in the City. Legal recognition of the title might seem trivial but if job titles weren’t important to people’s self-esteem we would not be seeing the phenomenon of job-title inflation in today’s competitive labour market.

Besides, the broader meaning of the word “engineering” is actually the problem. It’s all very well saying that engineers should assert the fact that they are Chartered, Incorporated or whatever, but the average person in the street finds such prefixes meaningless. If it were not for the existing legal protection terms such as architect would have been devalued by job title inflation. If we are prepared to limit personal freedom in job titles for other professions then it should apply to engineering too.

So please, if you’re a British citizen, add your signature to the petitions.