Showing posts with label Caroline Russell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caroline Russell. Show all posts

Friday 29 September 2023

GLA Call for Evidence: Preventing Violence and Protecting Young People

 

The weekend's stabbings in Wembley Park and Neasden, as well as the death in Croydon, were very much on our minds last night at the Brent and Harrow hustings for the Green Party candidate for the GLA constituency.

The London Assembly Police and Crime Committee chaired by Green Assembly Member Caroline Russell, has launched an investigation into preventing violence and protecting young people. It will consider the root causes of violence affecting young people in London and what the Mayor and Metropolitan Police are doing to prevent violence in communities.

You can submit your own evidence to the investigation.  Details from  the GLA below.

 

How to respond 

 

The deadline for submission is Friday 13 October 2023.

 

The Committee would like to invite anyone with knowledge or experience of violence affecting young people to submit views and information to the investigation, including those working to protect young people and prevent violence, giving you the opportunity to inform the Committee’s work and influence its recommendations. Therefore, this call for evidence is open to all who would like to respond.

 

1.    What are the root causes of violence affecting young people in London?

2.    What role do non-policing solutions, including projects run by youth services, community organisations and charities, play in preventing violence and protecting young people in London? How do these projects help to reduce violence affecting young people?

3.    What more should schools and education providers be doing to protect children and young people at risk of violence in London?

4.    What impact has London’s Violence Reduction Unit had on reducing and preventing violence since it was established in 2019?

5.    How well does the Met work with partner organisations to prevent and reduce violence affecting young people? What more should it be doing?

6.    What actions should the Mayor be taking to build trust and confidence among young people and protect communities that are most impacted by violence?

7.    What action should be taken to engage young Londoners in initiatives to protect and support young people affected by violence?

 

Please send evidence by email to: scrutiny@london.gov.uk

 

https://www.london.gov.uk/media/102723/download

 

What we will do with your responses

The responses to this Call for Evidence will be used to inform the Committee’s discussion with invited stakeholders at its meetings in September and October 2023 and any subsequent recommendations. These are open meetings which will be held in City Hall, and anyone is welcome to attend as an audience member to watch the discussions. They will also be broadcast online.

Following the investigation, the Committee may produce an output in the form of a published letter or report. Information and/or quotations from submissions to this call for evidence may be used in this output, and we will ensure we cite you. We generally inform those who have submitted evidence about the outcome of the investigation in the form of link to a report or output when it is published.

 


Thursday 7 September 2023

London Assembly unites in call for the Mayor to invest in new toilets on the tube - no more crossing your legs and hoping!

The London Assembly has yet again today supported a call from Caroline Russell AM for the Mayor to invest in new toilets on the London transport network – but this time with unanimous, cross-party support.

 

The call comes after a report released by Caroline Russell AM showed that less than a quarter of Transport for London (TfL) stations in zones 1 -3 of London have toilets, with ‘loo deserts’ like the Northern line stretching all the way from Morden to Kennington.

 

 


 

The call has also been supported by campaigners such as Age UK London. The need for a toilet can be a real challenge to older Londoners and those with a medical condition, preventing them accessing all that London has to offer.

 

Green Party London Assembly Member Caroline Russell said:

 

I expect the Mayor to listen and get on with providing new toilets at existing TfL stations. My report has uncovered a hugely uneven picture in the provision of toilets – some lines are flush with them, and others are just crap.

 

When I last asked the Mayor to invest in new toilets, he instead suggested a feasibility study which has taken months to even begin. Londoners need real investment in new toilets now. You can’t have a wee in a feasibility study.

 

I really hope this is the last time we have to come together as an Assembly and call on the Mayor to stop Londoners having to cross their legs and hope.

 

Abi Wood, CEO, Age UK London said:

 

The ability to use the transport network easily can be transformative. Unfortunately, the current lack of toilet provision can make journeys really difficult and in some cases lead people to decide not to make a journey at all. 

 

This ultimately prevents people from doing the things that they need and want to do – we shouldn’t accept that this is just how things are. We fully support calls for more investment in toilet provision on the TfL network. 

 

This is something that all Londoners will benefit from and make our city more inclusive and welcoming now and in the future.

 

Caroline’s report The London Loo League Table was published in August 2023, it draws on data from TfL to analyse toilet provision throughout London. https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-08/TfL%20Toilet%20Report%20FINAL.pdf



Thursday 8 September 2022

Greens question London Mayor on bus driver toilet facilities as Unite explore legal action on industrial bladder injury

 

Wembley Matters recently published a guest post by Lorraine Robertson about the difficulties faced by London bus drivers due to lack of toilet facilities on bus routes LINK.

Now Green AM Caroline Russell has put down two questions for Sadiq Khan for the September 15th session. The first relates directly to some of the issues Lorraine raised: 

A bus driver has raised with me that some bus routes still do not have adequate toilet facilities, with more than 25 per cent of routes not having a toilet at either the beginning of the route or the terminus. There are also inconsistencies in provision of toilets, where facilities are either not open during drivers working hours, toilets are not free or access to them relies on security personal or other staff to access certain buildings. This is a particularly acute issue for drivers who are menstruating, and some very distressing cases have been reported to me that have impacted the dignity of bus drivers. Will you review provision of toilets on all bus routes and make a commitment to having accessible, clean facilities that are open during all the hours drivers are working on all bus routes, to protect the health and dignity of all bus staff?

The second question is specifically about the 206 bus route that runs from Kilburn Park to The Paddocks in Wembley Park:

A constituent has raised an issue with the lack of toilet provision for drivers on the 206 bus route. While there is a toilet near the beginning of the route at Kilburn Park Station, this is not constantly accessible as it requires station staff to open it for drivers. At the route terminus (The Paddocks, Wembley Park) there are no toilets. Will Transport for London (TfL) look into urgently providing a toilet at the terminus of this route?

Meanwhile Sharon Graham, General Secretary of Unite the Union, addressing combined bus workers about their conditions said:

 It is also why we are looking to mount legal cases on industrial bladder injuries many bus drivers have faced for years due to lack of toilet facilities.

It is easy to make jokes about such matters but they are actually serious health and safety and medical issues with long-term consequences.  Many workers are on the road for hours at a time and the decline in the number of public toilets does not help.  Delivery drivers, under pressure of delivery targets,  often resort to carrying bottles to urinate in as they go about their work, easier for men than women, but not ideal for anyone.

A problem that is usually hidden so it is good to seeing it raised as a health and  safety and workers' dignity issue.

 


Thursday 24 September 2020

Greens call for London-wide recycling system to end postcode lottery on what is recycled

With life thrown into chaos over lockdown, and the craze for banana bread baking, Londoners are throwing away more food than the rest of the nation, as well as binning more plastic, warns Caroline Russell AM.

WRAP, an anti-waste charity, found that Londoners were more likely to have higher levels of food waste, with 43 per cent of us admitting to binning food during lockdown, compared with the national average of 27 per cent. 

 

Even worse was the picture of plastics, the Everyday Plastic project found households were averaging 128 bits of plastic waste in a week, up from 99 bits before the pandemic. 

 

Showing the rise in online shopping and food waste 25 per cent more food packaging, as well as parcel bags and PPE items were thrown away.


Earlier this year Caroline Russell found that no London Borough was able to recycle a list of seven common household items. 

 

In January Caroline asked all councils if they could recycle:

  • a broken plastic bucket
  • crisp packet
  • Tetra Pak container
  • Aluminium foil
  • black plastic food container
  • Biro pen 
  • and a bike tyre.

She found a lack of London-wide oversight means there is no consistency between boroughs, and residents are left confused as recycling rules vary from one borough to the next. 

 

Although most boroughs (29 out of 32) collect six dry recycling streams Caroline found that Havering was unable to recycle any item from the list and two London boroughs – Enfield and Kensington and Chelsea – were only able to recycle one of the items, Tetra Paks.

 

Caroline Russell says:

As this year’s theme for Recycle Week recognises, our key workers include the people who come to take away our waste and recycling every week under difficult circumstances and maintaining safe social distancing.

 

Londoners have not forgotten the impact of plastic waste but with the rise in plastic being binned it means that Government must take urgent action to address plastic pollution at its source.

 

My research from earlier this year found it’s just too hard to know what to do with your rubbish in London. You can recycle bike tyres in Bexley but not Brent, and Hackney recycles foil but Hammersmith doesn’t.

 

Londoners are deeply concerned about plastic pollution. The Mayor should be asking for the power to take control of London’s waste and sort out this rubbish postcode lottery.

 

Friday 17 July 2020

Green Assembly Member wins TfL over to Green Energy

London’s biggest energy consumer would be running on renewables within the next decade as today, after pressure from Caroline Russell AM, TfL announced they’re looking for greener energy.

Almost exactly a year ago Caroline took the Mayor to task when she uncovered that only 0.01 per cent of TfL’s energy came from renewable sources, despite a target for rail services under the Mayor’s control to be zero carbon by 2030.
At the time the Mayor admitted more needed to be done saying, "You [Caroline Russell] are right, we can do much better."
Today, Caroline Russell says:
This is major news and I’m so pleased that the Mayor and TfL are seriously upping their game and addressing the climate emergency. 
I called the Mayor ‘irresponsible’ over his lack of concrete plans to get to zero carbon by 2030 after he joined me, and the Assembly, in declaring a climate emergency in December 2018. But this is a big step in the right direction.
Although the initial plan is for up to 10 per cent of TfL’s energy to come from renewable sources, that’s still much better than what I found last year. Making London’s hungriest energy consumer green is a great start. 
Now let’s get the London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police Service to switch to a 100 per cent green energy supply!

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Build support for a London Car Free Day


Over 50 organisations across the capital sent an open letter to the Mayor of London this week requesting he direct TfL to implement an ambitious plan for Car Free Day 2018. The letter asks Sadiq Khan to publicly commit to an ambitious Car Free Day plan for London next September. The groups believe that Car Free Day could be an important catalyst for London to address the public health scourge of air pollution, and to test out car-free zones in the city that can then be made permanently car-free as envisioned in the Mayor’s transport plan. 
The opportunity to both reduce air pollution and bolster local businesses by going car-free has already motivated Oslo to commit to permanently removing private cars from the city center by 2019. In Madrid, private cars will be removed from over 500 acres of the city by 2020 in a bid to boost local commerce and improve air quality. 
Endorsers of the London Car Free Day vision include a host of charities, think-tanks, research groups, businesses, and neighbourhood forums across 15 London Boroughs. According to the letter “World Car Free Day 2018 is a tremendous opportunity to catalyse long-term reductions in air pollution [and] improve London’s transport system.” 
Car Free Day is an annual global event held in cities each 22nd September which encourages citizens to walk, cycle or use public transport for one day. While individual boroughs like Hackney, Lambeth, Islington, and Greenwich have all hosted modest Car Free Day celebrations in the past, it has never been a city-wide celebration of walking and cycling like it is in Vancouver, Paris, or Brussels. The letter points out that there is even a weekly Car Free Day in Jakarta, Indonesia, a city of over 10 million. 
The Mayor’s new Transport Strategy means that the world is now looking for London’s to lead the global transition to city centres free from private cars. The letter writers consider Car Free Day 2018 as the perfect opportunity to test new models for car-free urban mobility across London. The Day would provide an opportunity to test the air quality improvements of taking private cars out of the city centre. Small businesses across London would benefit from a day with streets full of customers on foot. 
Community supporters flagged the many benefits of hosting a Car Free Day. According to Marco Picardi at Green Westway, a community group working to improve the air quality and mobility options around the A40 flyover: 
“Car Free Day is an opportunity to test the transformative potential of car-free streets. New approaches are needed to address congestion, pollution, safety, and the public health. Car Free Day is a catalyst to make safe walking and cycling part of a daily routine for Londoners.”

Caroline Russell AM, Green Party Member of the London Assembly emphasised:
“No one should be left out of having streets that are safe and pleasant to use – a car-free day would give Londoners the space to breathe.”
“Paris has a monthly car-free day so it is possible for big cities to do this. I want Londoners to have a taste of fresher air and to see that streets can be for people, not just vehicles.”
“It would be great to see London open for walking and cycling to give people the freedom to choose how they want to travel without being intimidated by hostile streets.”
According to Rosalind Readhead, Chair of the London Campaign for Better Transport: 
There is a huge opportunity to go car-free in central London and convert road spaces to higher-value activities. We already have 6.8 million parking spaces taking up almost 80km sq. across a city where space is at a huge premium. Could we remove parking spaces and build affordable housing or expand public green space? London Car Free Day is an opportunity to ask these questions and to showcase an ambitious vision for more car-free city centres around the world.”
Other supporters think Car Free Day could make London a more liveable city for all residents: “I grew up in Brussels where there has been an annual Car Free Day for many years. The day is a pleasant opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, re-discover the city from a different perspective and get some exercise. There is something liberating and empowering about pedestrians and cyclists reclaiming the streets.” says Helena O’Rourke-Potocki, one the co-founders of Our Air Our Health, a clean air campaign in Tower Hamlets. 
A version of the letter (See below) sent to the Mayor’s office this morning is also on the online petition platform Change.org so that individual citizens from across London can express their support. 
The online petition is accessible here: http://bit.ly/LCFD_petition .

More information

Twitter: @carfreedayLDN #LondonCarFreeDay2018 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carfreedayLDN/

LETTER OF SUPPORT


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Wednesday 21 March 2018

Green AM urges London Mayor to reject Cricklewood Rail-Freight Facility

Caroline Russell, Green Assembly Member for London, has written to the London Mayor urging him to reject the planning application for the Rail-Freight facility in Cricklewood.

Her letter is below (click on bottom right square to enlarge)


Friday 24 November 2017

Brent Council urged to end pension fund investment in Fossil Fuels - how you can support the campaign

Green Party London Assembly Members Caroline Russell and Sian Berry with Brent Green Simon Erskine

Climate change campaigners are urging Brent Council to take its money out of fossil fuels.

A new campaign group, Divest Brent, launched this week. The activists hope to put pressure on the Council to “divest” from the fossil fuel industry by withdrawing any money they have invested in companies involved in digging for or burning coal, oil and gas.

Industry

Recently published figures indicate that the Council has over £37 million invested in the fossil fuel industry through its pension fund.

Campaigner and Green Party activist Simon Erskine explained that the divestment movement had already scored many victories in recent years and has become a powerful method of forcing organisations to consider their contribution to human-made climate change.

He told Wembley Matters: 
It sends a message to the industry and it raises awareness of the issue.
People may not already be aware of where their money is going and might be concerned to learn they are helping to finance the fossil fuel industry.

Fossil fuels belong to the past; they are not the answer to climate change, they are the problem.

In the same way, people no longer want to invest in tobacco or the arms trade.
Earlier this month a protest was staged outside City Hall to call for the Greater London Authority to divest from fossil fuels. The London Assembly has already passed a motion requesting the London Mayor to do exactly that.

Organisations in the UK that have committed to fossil fuel divestment so far include Oxford and Bristol city councils, the University of Glasgow and the British Medical Association. A number of London Boroughs have also committed – including neighbouring borough, Hammersmith & Fulham.

Globally more than 800 institutions (from government, faith-based, philanthropic and educational organisations etc), representing well over $5 trillion in assets, have committed to divest.

Ali Warrington, another Divest Brent campaigner, said:
It’s really exciting to bring the fastest-growing divestment movement in history to Brent. We need to act locally and ensure our representatives do what’s right and invest ethically. The companies they’re investing in are creating devastating climate change, and are insecure investments financially.
To support the campaign sign the petition HERE and email, Facebook and Tweet your friends urging them to sign.

This is the petition:

Brent Council should divest its pension fund from fossil fuel companies to protect the people of Brent. So we ask Brent Council to make a public divestment statement committing the Brent Pension Fund to:

1. Immediately freeze any new investment in the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel companies with largest known carbon reserves (oil, coal and gas)
2. Divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds in the top 200 list and shift these funds to lower risk, ethical investments within 5 years
3. Advocate to other pension funds, including the London Pension Fund Authority and Local Government Pension Scheme members to do the same
4. To do the above in a timely manner - by setting up a working group to report back on a strategy to bring about divestment within three months from the submission of this petition

Why is this important?

We believe divestment from fossil fuels to be not only ethically and environmentally correct, but also financially prudent.

Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has encountered. The 20 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1981 and 2016 was the hottest ever [1]. Higher average temperatures are directly linked to extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods and storms.
Scientists have unanimously concluded that these changes are a consequence of human activity, arising from the burning of fossil fuels [2]. Moreover, this activity has resulted in unprecedented levels of air pollution, now regarded as a major world killer [3].

In a speech at Lloyd’s of London in September 2015, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England said that by the time ‘climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late’. Carney warned investors that policies to address climate change ‘would render the vast majority of reserves ‘stranded’ – oil, gas and coal that will be literary unburnable’ [4].

In order to continue developing fossil fuel reserves – particularly in the difficult areas where the remaining reserves are located (including the Arctic, the mouth of the Amazon and tar sands in sensitive areas) the developing companies need investment – divestment is a way of cutting off the funds needed to carry out these damaging activities. It also sends a powerful signal to the companies and others that it is time to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy.

References:
[1] http://tinyurl.com/y9tkm4sn
[2] http://tinyurl.com/3e3zv
[3] http://tinyurl.com/pqgdd5q
[4] http://tinyurl.com/ycspl5sg

 

Saturday 3 December 2016

Brent Council steps up action on air quality


When Mayor Boris Johnson concealed London's air pollution crisis as much as he could so Sadiq Khan deserves praise for bringing the issue out into the open, with Green AM Caroline Russell providing much of the pressure. Last week's alerts to Londoners demonstrate the seriousness of the issue.

Brent Council's Cabinet is due to approve the Council's own Air Quality Action Plan for consultation. The Action Plan opens with a declaration:
Brent council acknowledges the impact of poor air quality on health and the need for action to reduce or eliminate air pollution where possible. In Brent it is estimated that 200 premature deaths occur each year which are directly attributable to air pollution as well as further unquantified premature deaths where air quality is a factor. We accept air quality in Brent is poor and recognise significant intervention is required to improve local air quality for all. We have made some progress but accept that further work is needed to meet this challenge. Our air quality action plan demonstrates we are taking this issue seriously and will endeavour to tackle air pollution at source or reduce exposure where this is not possible. 

We will demonstrate our leadership by exploring options for low emission neighbourhoods, promotion of low emission vehicles and fuels where possible, reduce pollutant emissions from our buildings and vehicles and develop meaningful partnerships with others to get the most out of our air quality action measures.
We recognise air pollution as a shared problem and everyone must play their part to commit to continue to work with our communities to achieve air quality improvement. As we understand more about air pollution and the impact on health, we want to empower our residents to make informed choices about their options for travel and participate in decisions about air quality in the areas they live and work in. We must commit to safeguarding those at highest risk to provide additional information and limit or prohibit the development of areas where air quality is likely to be made worse. 

Not all air quality improvements can be delivered directly by our actions and so we will develop partnerships with other Local Authorities, the London Mayor, and other agencies where appropriate to maximise resources where we can and realise wider air quality benefits from our actions. 

We will commit to keeping this air quality action plan under review and will continue to identify new opportunities for air quality action in response to changes in legislation or local air quality as the need arises.
Our ultimate aim is to secure clean air for all especially for those at greatest risk or in the worst affected areas in the borough. We accept that this is likely to be a challenge to fulfil, but commit to investing in air quality action for improvement now and in the future. .
Brent's current Air Quality Management Area
The Action Plan acknowledges the impact of poor air quality on different sections of Brent's population:
...some areas of the Borough are more likely to be affected by poor air quality than others as the wider problems of poverty; deprivation and general poor health make people more vulnerable to the effects of pollution. This contributes to an almost 9-year difference in life expectancy between the most affluent and least affluent wards in the Borough. The council is committed to reducing this gap.
Four Air Quality Action Areas are proposed:

  1. The revised action plan includes the creation of four Air Quality Action Areas (AQAA) or hotspots, as Neasden town centre, Church End, the Kilburn Regeneration Area, and Wembley and Tokyngton. These areas were selected based on traffic volumes and levels of traffic emissions, and have been identified as areas of planned development and aligned with the priority areas identified in the current Borough Plan. Brent will develop strategic policies and localised focussed air quality measures in these areas. 

They will:
·      provide extra assistance and support to ensure that all schools within the AQAAs have and use school travel plans, reducing vehicle use associated with schools, regularly reviewing targets for reducing air pollution and establishing programmes for raising awareness;
·       provide assistance and support to businesses within the AQAAs with large fleets to have and utilise travel plans. The council and businesses will agree targets for emission reductions;
·      Identify possible Low Emission Neighbourhoods in each AQAA and draft implementation plans for areas within each;
·      Consider these sites within these areas as highest priority for public realm improvements (such as additional green infrastructure) especially where there are those at highest risk or the most susceptible are located such as schools, residential properties and hospitals 
·       to educate and raise awareness about local air quality; - working with communities and public health professionals to protect and inform the most vulnerable 

The Plan lists detailed action points for each of these areas:
  • Emissions from new developments and buildings
  • Public health and community engagement
  • Delivery servicing and freight
  • Exposure reduction measures
  • Cleaner transpor
See the full action points in Appendix 1 below:
 
Click bottom right to enlarge.