Sadiq announces £50m to help London’s homeless

Our Labour Mayor of London has set out plans to help homeless people with a new £350m fund. This will include support for former rough sleepers and victims of domestic abuse.

The funding will be available to housing providers to offer move-on accommodation to homeless people who are ready to move into a home of their own after spending time supported in hostels and refuges.

Sadiq is investing a further £9m annually in services for rough sleepers and recently launched a new taskforce, “No Nights Sleeping Rough”, which will bring together Government, local councils like Lambeth and key agencies to focus on preventing rough sleeping and helping those on the streets.

Meet Sadiq’s new deputy mayor for the environment

Sadiq Khan has appointed Shirley Rodrigues to be the Deputy Mayor for Envrionment. She has previously worked in senior environmental policy roles, helping to implement the London Low Emission Zone and developing programmes to retrofit the capital’s buildings.

Ms Rodrigues has said that her priority is to make London one of the world’s most environmentally friendly cities, and is keen to tackle air pollution. Around 9,500 Londoners die from long term exposure to air pollution every year, and Sadiq Khan has said that tackling this is one of the biggest health emergencies facing the capital. Ms Rodrigues will be driving forward ambitious plans for a T-Charge for the most polluting vehicles, expanding the Ultra-Low Emission Zone and creating green bus zones.

It’s Night Tube time!

The first Night Tube services begin TONIGHT! Running on the Central and Victoria lines from tonight, the service will be extended to the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines in Autumn. It will offer a 24-hour service on Friday and Saturday nights.This means that tonight trains will run every 10 mins to and from Brixton, with the 37, N2 and N3 bringing residents back to Thurlow Park through the night from Brixton station. There will be an enhanced police service during overnight services to ensure that the Tube remains a safe, low crime environment.

After the delays to the rollout of night time services, we are thrilled that Sadiq Khan has managed to come to a resolution with staff and unions that everyone is happy with and deliver the new service within just first 100 days of office.

Help us make our air cleaner

London is suffering from a clean air crisis: 10,000 people lose their lives prematurely every year and Lambeth’s inner city location means that we need urgent action to make our borough’s air cleaner and safer.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan is currently consulting on plans to improve London’s air. Lambeth Council and Lambeth for a Cool Planet have launched a campaign to support the Mayor’s efforts to take strong action to address London’s appalling air quality and make sure that big improvements are made in Lambeth.

We are asking for –

Make the A23 one of the first Clean Bus Corridors. The A23 corridor linking Streatham and Brixton, which has recorded higher levels of air pollution, including NO2, than Oxford Street, should be in the first tranche of Clean Bus Corridors. Clean buses should be introduced to the London bus fleet as a matter or urgency. Buses on London’s roads should use either retrofitted or new, cleaner engines by 2020.

Extend the Ultra-Low Emission Zone to reduce the impact of toxic exhaust fumes. Implementation of the ULEZ should be brought forward to September 2019.

Invest in green infrastructure. The Mayor should roll out the bike hire scheme to Brixton, Streatham and Norwood, help plant hundreds of new trees and invest in freight consolidation centres to slash the number of journeys made by the most polluting vehicles.

Lobby the Government to take clean air seriously. Press the Government to take forward a diesel scrappage scheme at the earliest opportunity, lobby for the devolution of vehicle excise duty to encourage buying of less polluting cars, as well as the reinstatement of the Air Quality Grant.

You can sign our petition here – https://www.change.org/p/sadiq-khan-clean-air-for-lambeth

Please add your name and include in your comments anything you would like us to include in our response to Sadiq.