Caroline was delighted to take several members from Barking and Dagenham on a tour around City Hall. Caroline showed the group the Chamber, London’s Living Room at the top of City Hall and the wonderful aerial photograph of London on the lower ground floor.
“It is always lovely to chat with Londoners about the work we do holding the Mayor to account and showing them around City Hall” commented Caroline.
Caroline joined other Southwark Liberal Democrats at the wonderful Surrey Docks Water Sports Centre for a summer barbecue and taster of sailing and kayaking on the water.
“It was a fantastic day out and I particularly enjoyed watching colleagues out on the water learning to kayak and of course, to see Cllr Jeff Hook sailing one of the boats. The food was also excellent – thanks to Alvin and Lorraine for the veggie barbecue. Looking forward to next year’s event!” commented Caroline.
Caroline took part in a street audit with London Living Streets on Friday 6th August as part of her investigation into making walking safer and easier in London. (Go to the London Assembly website for more about the investigation.)
Caroline and the team from City Hall joined Jeremy and Phillipa from Living Streets to walk around the centre of Peckham looking at challenges to walking in different areas. Living Streets is a UK charity which works with local people and government to create safe, attractive, enjoyable streets where the needs of people are prioritised over traffic, where local people are involved in decision making and where walking is the natural choice for short journeys. As part of its work to help improve local environments, Living Streets carries out community street audits.
Caroline has started work on her report looking at making walking in London easier and safer. The report will be reviewing the Mayor’s funding for walking schemes ahead of his 2011 year of walking in London and how he can best achieve his aim to get more people walking. Caroline is out and about throughout August meeting many walking groups, visiting some good examples of pedestrian schemes across the capital.
Hackney Lib Dems held a superb summer garden party on Sunday 1st August with a discussion on the referendum next year for fairer votes. Anthony Barnett who headed up Charter 88 for many years spoke about the four possible outcomes politically from the referendum whist Bridget Fox from Islington spoke about it from a Lib Dem perspective. Anthony’s ideas are posted at the OurKingdom website here.
The afternoon discussion provoked a heated discussion including that AV should not be used but fair or fairer votes instead!
