The story over the tunnel continues with a debate over it in Parliament last night.
The Debate
The ever on form Greenwich Watch on the subject
SEL Blogs view
The way I see it a lot of it boils down to this statement from Robert Neill the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst.
"We have also discovered that on 12 January—the Minister kindly confirmed this for me—TFL discussed with the Highways Agency the potential cessation of the contraflow. It claims that it also discussed it with the London borough of Greenwich, which is where the tunnel comes out, although the people there are by no means the most affected by the decision. In fact, the London borough of Greenwich says it has no record of any such meeting or discussion taking place. Someone is not telling the truth—and my money is on the London borough of Greenwich being right."
So in Parliament he's calling TFL liars. Surely there's got to be a response.
I really want to get to the bottom of this, there's a lot of spin and conspiracy theories floating around about the closure of the tidal flow lane. Amidst all that we've got TFL and Greenwich Council coming out with fundamentally disagreeing statements on how it came about.
And why is our local MP, Nick Raynsford, keeping so quiet on this issue? In fact he wasn't even there. You've got MPs from areas some distance from the tunnel feeling compelled to comment on what this is doing to their constituents yet the local MP won't even put in an appearance yet alone give a comment.
I really don't want this to become a political blog, I'm not a Greenwich Council basher at all but something smells really bad here.....
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Great blog and thanks for the link to mine, I have returned the favour and added yours.
On the subject of Nick Raynsford, (am interested as my ward is going over to Greenwich and Woolwich at the next election) he doesn't seem to have much to say about anything at all at the moment. Is he ill? or just plain lazy? Maybe he is planning to stand down at the next election and just can't be bothered any more?
He seems to have plenty of QUANGOS and directorships on the go
'I am currently Chairman of the Construction Industry Council and a Vice President of the Town and Country Planning Association, Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Royal Town Planning Institute, President of the Labour Housing Group and Chairman of the NHBC Foundation, the Fire Protection Association Council and the London Open House Supporters at Large Group. I am also a Non-executive Director of Rockpools and of Hometrack.'
which no doubt are contributing to his retirement fund. But if you try and find out his opinons of any local issues, there is a deafening silence.
He claims to have a new website under construction, but I can find no evidence of it. I can find no press releases from him since 1/11/2006, and not a speech since October last year.
He has only asked one question in this session of Parliament on 15/03/2007 about firemen's pensions.
He has intervened in several debates, but often these have not been related to Local matters, but seem to be either to protect his legacy as a former minister or as a spokesperson for the construction Industry.
I think the area deserves better.
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