Supporting Your Quality of Life:
Sainsbury’s Extended Licensing Hours proposal withdrawn following resident pressure
Your Conservative councillors Danny Chalkley and David Harvey focus on preserving the character of the Vincent Square area. This means fighting for your quality of life. So we deal with a many planning and licensing issues every month.
Supporting residents, we opposed Sainsbury's proposed extended licensing hours on Rochester Row and we are pleased that the application has now been withdrawn. Cllr Danny Chalkley said “you have told us and we have seen how this will damage residents’ peace and quiet. The original Sainsbury's application faced massive local opposition from residents and Westminster City Council, your councillors and the Council went as far as taking the application to judicial review in the High Court to try and stop it”.
Not every application is this controversial, for instance plans to turn 47 Francis Street into a primary school face local challenge because of traffic issues. Cllr David Harvey said “we are working with the community to find an agreed traffic plan and way forward so that the Westminster choir school can build a secure future and there is no more traffic pressure on our streets or building disturbance as a result”.
If you have planning or licensing concerns or are putting in an application, we are happy to help, [email protected].
Fighting for road safety in the Vincent Square Village
The Vauxhall Bridge Road cycle superhighway threatens road safety say your Conservative councillors, Danny Chalkley and David Harvey. "We have pressured Transport for London to make things safe", said David Harvey. "yet the area outside the White Swan pub and in Causton St is now unsafe. Fast travelling cyclists intermingle with pedestrians on a busy crossing. We have made TfL install new safety signage and road surfacing putting pedestrians first, more safety work is on the way. Police have been out to warn the minority of badly behaved cyclists. We want TfL to speed up their work to ensure that pedestrians and cyclists share our streets safely."
Your Conservative Councillors have also been working with residents to protect the Ponsonbys and John Islip Street, where the cycle superhighway has led to increased traffic. "The Ponsonbys are quiet residential streets, with many families with children", said Councillor Danny Chalkley, "action to stop rat running needs to continue”.
Finally, we are worried that dangerous large vehicles are still using the roads adjoining St Vincent de Paul school, despite new traffic deterrents. Thank you to concerned residents who have sent us more worrying photographs, a traffic audit is going to highlight the extent of this problem.
If you are resident – pedestrian or cyclist – with bad traffic experiences, we would like to know. Please get in touch at [email protected].
News in brief – lots of other things Conservative Councillors do for you
Vincent Square Councillor Steve Summers is Lord Mayor of Westminster: 2016 – 17
This means he withdraws from Ward work to focus on being the first citizen of Westminster supporting everyone across our city. Steve's role will see him meeting and supporting the most vulnerable in our city, using his passion to enable sport for all, recognising the city's heroes and being an ambassador to business and the international community. Congratulations Steve.
Your exercise classes
Contacted by concerned residents, we protected threatened exercise classes focused on older residents at the Queen Mother Centre.
Noise from building sites
Although Westminster is strengthening its code for considerable constructors, which we expect builders to comply with, not all are well behaved. Recently, councillors were able to work with John Islip Street residents via Westminster's environmental services team to stop Sunday building noise. If you have a problem call 020 7641 2000 or go to the https://www.westminster.gov.uk/report-it report it website.
Antisocial behaviour stops here
Residents told us about a group of aggressive street drinkers on Hatherley Street: we contacted the police, the group was broken up and moved on almost immediately.
Help for those that need it
We help rough sleepers return to a healthy and safe settled life: Westminster Council works with a range of partners to do this, you can help too https://www.westminster.gov.uk/rough-sleeping-helpline
Ward budget
Each year the councillors can allocate ward budget to help local projects, if you have an idea and would like to know more please contact us via [email protected].
