Have I Got News For You?

I'm just back from a meeting with Boris Johnson at City Hall. The meeting with Leaders or Deputy Leaders of all the London Councils was called at short notice at his initiative.

Boris promised to work closely with the boroughs - not just the inner London ones - and announced that he will develop a charter for working with the boroughs in the next week or so.

If he is serious, as I hope he is, I look forward to:

• a shake up of Transport for London, who are a law to themselves. We should see more spending on things we want to do here in Sutton rather than just carrying out the Mayor's plans;
• The London Development Agency buying a map and learning where Sutton is - and investing some of our £millions locally;
• new planning policies being drawn up to stop inappropriate back garden development - see my previous post.

I'll believe it when I see it, but I have to say that I can't remember Ken ever doing anything like it.

TORY MAYOR BACKS LIB DEM CAMPAIGN AGAINST BACK GARDEN DEVELOPMENT

It’s vital that we protect our gardens and green spaces from unscrupulous developers. They are the lungs of the city and have an essential role in dealing with rainwater.

But the London Plan, the planning bible for the capital, counts back gardens as ‘brownfield’ land and this makes them a soft a target for developers with hardly a day going by without a new planning application coming in. This is why we have opposed the proposals in the Plan for so long with huge public support.

I’m pleased to see that London’s new Mayor has offered his support to the local Lib Dem’s “Hands Off Our Back Gardens” campaign. We will be making sure that he sticks to his pledge.

You can sign our petition here: http://www.tombrake.co.uk/pages/backgardens.html

Not so high

In the week that Gordon Brown has decided to recommend that cannabis is recategorised as a class B drug, my colleague Jayne McCoy and I are looking into ways to protect young people from a new shop in Wallington.

“Your High” in Stafford Road has cannabis leaf images on its shop banner and windows and according to its website stocks “herbal highs, bongs, pipes, smoking paraphernalia”. Shops like this are commonplace in Camden Town but not in Wallington and we are worried that the shop, which is on route to Bandon Hill primary School for many children, may be seen as glamourising drug taking.