Forum Topic

Tube

Everyone is trying their best so can Sadiq Khan stop faffing about, the tube is undoubtedly quite literally a death trap.  So only NHS workers, food shop workers and carers should be allowed to travel on it.  Lift parking restrictions and give NHS workers and food shop workers the choice to drive to work.  Get the stations policed, we have a Transport police force, people must demonstrate that they are a key worker or they aren’t allowed into the station.Stop construction work, it is ridiculous that teams of builders are working in my street - none of them are 6’ away from each other and none of them are local so how did they get here. Less TV appearances and more decisive action Mr Khan.

Fiona Campbell ● 2416d13 Comments

To be fair, he needs the Government to be absolutely precise in the message it is sending out.As you say it is absurd that construction work has been given the green light to continue by Gove and Jenrick, whereas, the Planning Inspectorate (who act on behalf of Jenrick) cancelled an appeal site visit this morning on one of my sites despite us having confirmed last week that no-one lives at the property and that a side gate would be left unlatched (and all parties having agreed that the Inspector didn't need to go inside the property).That illustrates the contradictory message still being issued by the government - it's seemingly fine to have hundreds of construction workers on sites all over the capital and commuting to/from those sites, but the very same SoS has also told a department under his control that it's not okay for 1 person to travel to an empty house and wander around the garden on their own.If anyone is faffing around it's the Government, who don't seem to realise that a lockdown has to be all or nothing.

Adam Beamish ● 2416d

What will you do if when the sewers are blocked, there's no water supply, there's no heating, there are no telephones etc etc?  There are essential services which keep people alive and well in other areas of life and we should not be dogmatic about this.  We have to be realistic.There have been some restrictions lifted.

Philippa Bond ● 2416d

Exactly - 'all or nothing' is a naive idea.There are many occupations that need to continue to support the rest of us in our locked down state.

Will Watson ● 2416d

Fiona,A tile blows off your roof. The building in no longer watertight. You phone a roofing contractor. "Sorry, Madam, but we're not allowed to do any work".

Ken Munn ● 2416d

Maybe, but it makes no sense whatsoever that the same SOS who oversees planning matters can allow construction sites to continue without restriction, but not for one of his own Inspectors to visit a vacant site.

Adam Beamish ● 2416d

What is an SOS in this case ?

Richard Greenhough ● 2416d

... — — — 

Carl Wynne ● 2416d

The problem is mostly that they cancelled to many services and closed to many stations, of course if there is only one train every 20 minutes the train and platforms are full, to put this burden onto the anyhow stressed key-workers is not very responsible, and key-workers is not only the NHS, its the staff of foodstores the binman,carers ...., I do think that nobody would squeeze into a tube if it is not necessary

Silvia Kinner ● 2416d

Come on Adam - what's an SOS?

Brian Coyle ● 2416d

BC > "what's an SOS?"AB refers to Jenrick, so I assume SOS = Secretary of State (for Housing, Communities and Local Government)

John Whitworth ● 2416d

Thanks. I got the impression from Adam's post that the SOS he was referring to made low-level decisions such as whether to allow a planning inspector to make a visit. In fact this would be a lower-level manager interpreting department policy, not the Secretary of State himself. In the first days of this lockdown there is inevitably going to be some confusion about what is and what isn't permissible.

Richard Greenhough ● 2416d

Secretary of State, in this case Robert Jenrick.

Adam Beamish ● 2416d

I take the basic thrust of your point Richard, and clearly I didn't expect for a minute that the SoS had personally intervened in the case of an appeal site visit today. However, surely you'd expect the government to have briefed its departments as to precisely what they should and shouldn't be doing long before Boris gave his bulletin last night ?.And the contradiction I've described is so great that it's hardly surprising that the public is still unclear as to what it should and shouldn't be doing.There's so many of these contradictions at the moment, like how all the major restaurant and fast food chains have now completely closed altogether (rather than operating the takeaway/collection/delivery service only they switched too last week), yet the government is still staying its okay for such establishments to remain open and offer such services.As for the tubes, personally I think if they could only be used for essential journey or key workers then they wouldn't be anything like as busy as they are, and the worst thing Khan/TfL could do would be to restore more trains as that would only be seen as an encouragement for more people to travel.

Adam Beamish ● 2416d