Letters to the Editor

A monument to Westminster's road dead is long overdue. It is one of our local missing landmarks.

Westminster continues to be the worst borough in London for 'hit and run' tragedies and it also leads the way in road casualties generally, with over 1,500 of these every year in recent years. Cycling tragedies are especially distressing, with figures increasing three times within the past five years.

Full marks to the Westminster Council planning application committee for allowing common sense to prevail and giving the go-ahead to Pimlico Academy to build a primary school in its own grounds in face of a fervent if misguided NIMBY campaign based on a sadly selfish, snobbish, senseless variety of objections to giving such a unique educational opportunity to Pimlico children.

Let us hope that the health authority members prove as wise in the next local battle over the retention of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital's A&E department.

The Westbourne Action Group on Crossrail (WAG-Crossrail), represents the views of residents affected by Crossrail's potential plans to send up to 70 heavy articulated lorries per day along Chepstow Road, Great Western Road and Westbourne Park Road within Westminster, and along Holland Park Avenue, Pembridge Road, Pembridge Villas and Ladbroke Grove within Kensington & Chelsea for two years, starting in March.

WAG-Crossrail has been shocked by a number of revelations regarding Crossrail's approach to dealing with residents in the area, and the lack of planning by Crossrail in examining much more suitable options, such as the canal or rail-freight.

A recent independent report has revealed that families and children will be the hardest hit by the Tory and Lib Dem tax and benefit changes.

The findings show that the Coalition is allowing the most vulnerable members of society to be punished by the cuts.

I would like to think that Ms Preller is right (letters January 6) in thinking that I need not worry any more about the future of Burlington Arcade because the large international concerns the owners want to attract may not want to come.

But, be that as it may, I and others are deeply concerned that it is now a month since the members of the Westminster Planning Application Committee made their feelings known and we have heard nothing of the owners having come to the realisation that Londoners at large are simply not going to allow them to wreck the arcade by dispensing with the small shops for which it was originally built.

"Of course everyone supports double yellow lines at dropped kerbs so that the disabled, the elderly and parents with prams can cross the road safely.

But helping the disabled is just a very small part of the Council's plans to raise over £7 million a year more from motorists and Westminster is cynically using the disabled to push through plans that will take 1,600 free parking spaces out of use in the West End and force many visitors and people working in the evening to pay up to £20 to go to work or visit the theatre.

I am writing from the point of view of a St Johns Wood and Westminster community member, a woman and a family person.

Since Boris Johnson became Mayor in 2008 he has continuously raised transport fares which were substantially held down by our previous Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Members of Westminster City Council's Planning Application Sub Committee spoke for the whole of London when they said that it was the small shops which gave the Burlington Arcade its unique character.

They made it clear that there was no application before them at the moment to augment the owners' desire to amalgamate the smaller shops to create larger ones to attract worldwide names.

Westminster Council's decision to impose evening and Sunday parking charges in the West End is not only unpopular with 98% of residents, businesses and workers, but it is also being introduced on 9th January 2012, just before the busiest year ever for the West End.

2012 will be a unique year for the West End, with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June, the Olympics in July and August and Paralympics in August and September.

Tory councillors have recently admitted to introducing massive cuts to children's services across Westminster.

The Conservatives have cut each of the Children's Delivery Unit and the Early Intervention Grant budgets by nearly 20 per cent.