Public Consultations: WEZ And Council Cuts

Today's the last chance to offer your views on scrapping the Western Extension of the Congestion Charging Zone and changes to the payment scheme (including increasing the daily cost from £8 to £10). Plans to remove the C-Charge from Pimlico, Kensington, Chelsea and Notting Hill would reputedly cost cash-strapped TfL £55m a year and increase traffic entering the area, but since on-the-road congestion hasn't actually changed much (TfL blames roadworks and traffic management measures) has the WEZ completely failed? Or are there other, non-road, benefits - will losing the WEZ cause our highly dodgy air quality to become even worse? Time to tell TfL what you think.

While we're talking public consultation, Lewisham Council have launched a survey to discover residents' views on proposed cuts. Perhaps in an effort to make people, in the words of Mayor Steve Bullock, "get real" and stop being "fucking idiots", if you oppose a cut the survey wants to know what else you'd chop to save that particular service. It's an unsubtle way of ramming the point home - we worry the Council will end up with so many different answers as to make the data almost unuseable, but it's still a valuable opportunity to offer direction.