Brian Paddick – Liberal Democrats

10:41am Tuesday 8th April 2008

NEWS Shopper spoke to LibDem candidate Brian Paddick to ask why people should vote for him in the mayoral election.

Congestion

What I'm proposing is a £10 Greater London boundary charge to try to discourage long-distance commuting by car.

We will take into account shopping centres that are on the boundary so we don't disadvantage traders.

I'm going to try and and encourage more people to use the trains. There's already an initiative to increase the length of commuter trains and platforms. But the money we can get from the boundary charge can be used for more environmentally-friendly forms of moving large numbers of people above ground.

Free travel

We need to clamp down on anti-social behaviour on buses. I know from travelling on buses, if they're not being violent, even if they're only hitting each other, it's worrying for you.

We've got to get young people to understand how their behaviour is affecting us. If they carry on they need to have their free travel taken away from them. We need a few examples made of these young people.

Crime

The major issue at the moment is guns and knives. We've got to take guns and knives off the street. Quite a few of these murders are young people just being stupid.

At the moment police aren't doing the things that local people want them to do and we need to get the police to concentrate on local priorities.

At the moment only 14 in every 100 stop and searches are for guns and knives, yet it's London's number one priority. It's about winning back public confidence. If we can get to the position where local police are concerned with local priorites people will believe the police are on their side.

Safer neighbourhood teams

If you've got a very good team leader then the team seems to be able to do very well. But the majority of safer neighbourhood teams are struggling to make the impact people thought they would make.

We have some very difficult inner city areas. PCSOs are powerless to do anything about it. We need to get more fully-fledged police officers out on the street.

Pubs/alcohol

I don't accept Ken livingstone's excuses that he can't do anything about it because he's got no power. The London mayor has got a very big voice and people listen to the mayor.

People are getting drunk at home and then going straight to the club or to bed and that's hitting the pubs. We really need to have a good look at the sale of cheap alcohol in supermarkets.

People are getting more drunk than they used to and we need to make it more difficult for young people to get hold of it.

Pubs are a place where we get to meet people and we get to socialise. They're a real focus of community in lots of places. It used to be a place where all the local people went to meet each other and develop a sense of community.

Community

I think it's very important to get local people involved in what's happening in their local community. It's all very well for police to call meetings but I'd be encouraging local meetings by tenants and residents where they can talk about the whole range of issues to which police can go and learn what's important to the community.

Local people can then have a united voice. I want to get to a situation where every Londoner is proud to be a Londoner and because of that they want to do whatever they can to improve things.

The mayor of London should be a representative of Londoners and these are the sorts of things where the mayor can influence how people can keep life in London in a positive way.

We should look at the possibility of providing funding to allow these meetings to take place. That's what I did as police commander in Lambeth and it allowed me to listen to local people.

Housing

The major emphasis has got to be on building affordable rented accommodation. It's not just about leaning on local government.

The majority of Londoners have got no chance of owning their own homes. What they deserve is a reasonable place to live that they can afford. If we can get hold of publicly owned land and for example get pension funds to buy residential places. If we can get the land capacity you can build very good spaces for residential accommodation.

Why should our readers vote for you?

I'm a Londoner born and bred - I was born in Balham. I'm the only candidate that's done a real job - I was a police officer at carious levels.

As the police commander in Lambeth I was prepared to listen to people and I got results. And above anything else I'm someone you can trust.

I'm the guy who's got a hard-earned reputation for that even if it costs me my job.

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