As the cuts to London's emergency and police budgets, and threatened cuts to the NHS begin to emerge, a new campaign has been launched across London.
And here are some of the local issues we face in Hounslow:
Borough Fire
Station could close:
On
22 November it began to emerge that the list of possible Fire Station closures
in London could be extended to include Chiswick Fire Station, as the fire
service is required to make an additional £50m of cuts. Despite the borough having response times
that are already longer than the target 6 minutes, the closure of Chiswick will
increase this by a further 31 seconds, and leave a large part of the borough a
long way from the nearest station.
On
hearing this news, Colin Ellar and I moved an emergency resolution
at November’s Borough Council meeting condemning Boris Johnson for the cuts,
and calling on our MPs and GLA reps to reverse them. The Tory Councillors split on the issue with
two Chiswick Councillors supporting but,their Leader (also Chiswick) opposing
along.
Chiswick
branch Labour Party has pledged to do what it can to oppose closure. Chair, Andrew Lewin said “Conservatives in City Hall and Westminster
were elected on a hollow pledge to ‘protect front line services’, but we’ve
already seen countless promise broken.
Losing Chiswick Fire Station would increase response times and put lives
at risk. It is imperative that the
Conservatives change their position and time for Mary Macleod MP and London Assembly member Tony Arbour to start acting in the interest of their constituents”
Police:
Brentford
Police Station is set to close under the latest proposals by the Metropolitan
to deal with a 20% cut in funding from central government. It will be replaced
with “contact points”.
As
far as we know Chiswick Hounslow and Feltham Police stations are set to remain
open but only Hounslow will be 24 hour. This comes following staff cuts of 30 officers, 15 Sergeants and 43 PCSOs since 2010.
Hospitals:
NHS
NW London published the results of the public consultation last week,
confirming there was more support for their Option A, that retains the A&E
at 5 hospitals including West Middlesex, and retains urgent care
centres at Ealing Hammersmith, Charing Cross and Central Middlesex. There is an argument to say there should be fewer, larger specialist units dealing with major trauma, as AandE now is, and that fractures, burns etc are dealt with at Urgent Care centres, of which there will remain one at every general hospital. However, what we need to be watchful about is how the expanded role at West Mid will take place in the climate of NHS cuts- will there be enough in-patient beds to cope with the additional patients coming into AandE? Will the "fewer/larger" proposal guarantee there will continue to ensure 24/7 cover of specialist consultants?
Labour Launch
London SOS Campaign
On
the back of these cuts to London’s Emergency services, the Labour Assembly
members have launched 999S0SLondon. AM Murad
Qureshi said: We are fighting to maintain our local emergency services for the
safety and security of all residents.
“We
are calling for residents across London to join our campaign by signing up. By
working together we can send a clear message to the government and the Mayor -
enough is enough - it is time to save our emergency services.”
“We
are calling for residents across London to join our campaign by signing up at
www.999SOS.org.uk. By working together we can send a clear message to the
government and the Mayor - enough is enough - it is time to save our emergency
services.”
The Campaign
details are Twitter: @999S0SLondon Facebook : www.facebook.com /999SOSLondon:
Web: www.999SOS.org.uk
