Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat) (From News Shopper)

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat)

3:49pm Thursday 5th February 2004

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SIMON Hughes is confident he can snatch the job of London mayor out of Ken Livingstone's hands.

With voters offered a second preference vote, he figures Livingstone's supporters will not support the Tory candidate Steve Norris and vice versa.

And he will be sitting pretty picking up the second votes from both sides.

He is disappointed with Livingstone's four years as mayor, and said: "He hasn't done everything wrong but he has been hopeless on housing, ineffectual on the Tube and nowhere on commuter rail.

"He has wasted money on bus services no-one uses, spent £1 million on a New Year fireworks display no-one could go to and pours money into self publicity."

Mr Hughes believes the introduction of the congestion charge was a good thing but not good enough.

He said: "We would be looking to make it more user-friendly, enabling people to buy tickets in advance, pay the next day and offer several free trips a year. And key workers who have to travel by car at unsocial hours should be exempt."

Working with borough councils to improve public transport and co-ordinate it better with rail services is his key to solving the capital's traffic problems.

And he claims he can improve policing in London without extra resources, by redeploying officers to provide four permanent officers for every council ward. He would also add Police Community Support Officers and neighbourhood wardens to provide everyone with a minimum policing guarantee.

"But if the Met then said it didn't have enough officers to deal with other things such as terrorism, we might have to go back to the public and ask for more money," he added.

An ardent fan of bringing the Olympics to London in 2012, he is concerned about how a successful bid would be financed. "I am very clear Londoners should pay something towards the cost but all parts of London should benefit from the event. I would expect the Government and the private sector to put more into the kitty."

He has doubts about the proposed London Gateway Bridge, planned to connect Beckton in East London with Thamesmead.

"We do need another crossing down river from Tower Bridge but is the current route the best one? I am uncomfortable with the environmental disadvantages."

He is aware people who live in outer London are dissatisfied about large amounts of council tax going to pay for improvements in inner London. "I will undertake that people will not see the sort of increase for London they have had under Ken more than 100 per cent.

"I intend to keep the increase to the rate of inflation for the first year."

Among his money saving ideas are making the mayor's newspaper, The Londoner, a quarterly instead of monthly publication, cutting the number of mayoral press officers, cracking down on people who fail to pay their bus fares (about a fifth of passengers) and reorganising daytime bus services to meet reduced need out of peak times.

He declared: "We have got to try and restore credibility with the voters."

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