Letters to the Editor

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.

Who is going to sort of the West End parking mess?

There are thousands of people who keep the West End's night time economy 'engine room' going who simply cannot afford to pay £4.80 an hour to park their car and for whom the public transport option does not exist.

To argue that dropping the family quota scheme from Westminster's housing allocation policy is "mean" and "hard-hearted" (Westminster Chronicle, Axing family quota a mean decision, Friday 11 November) is to misunderstand the whole point of the revised policy.

Rather the policy is geared towards keeping those who grew up in Westminster, still in Westminster by giving extra points those with connection to the area for more than ten years.

The Green Party promotes public transport and cycling.

Readers might therefore imagine we're among the few supporters - perhaps the only supporters - of Westminster's unpopular plans for evening and weekend parking charges in the West End.

But we are not.