The LaMiLo Project
Few have heard of the LaMiLo Project, which is an EU funded project to reduce truck traffic and the consequent air pollution in cities.
I hadn’t until half-an-hour ago, although I knew there were experiments going on at Euston.
This page on the London Councils web site, gives more details about the pilot project in London.
In this pilot a freight train was brought into Euston station in the middle of the night and pallets of goods were unloaded on to smaller trucks for onward delivery in Central London.
This is said on the London Councils web site about the pilot.
The pilot has provided outstanding results; it has seen 50,000 items delivered to over 250 councils building, leading to a 46% reduction in the number of vehicle trips and a 45% reduction in kilometres travelled.
It sounds like an idea worth pursuing. Although Nigel Farage would object to the EU involvement.
How Long Will We Wait For A Tram At Birmingham New Street Station?
The Midland Metro extension to Birmingham City Centre and New Street station was supposed to be completed by March 2015.
It is still not connected at Birmingham Snow Hill station to allow access across the city to Birmingham New Street station.
It had been previously announced that trams would reach New Street station, this year, so I was surprised to red this article on Global Rail News entitled Birmingham New Street tram extension delayed until 2016. The article says this.
Trams won’t reach Birmingham New Street until the New Year after Centro announced that work would be scaled back to support traders ahead of the Christmas period.
It’s probably the most valid reason, I’ve heard for a delay, but it does strike me that if the trams had reached New Street in March, they would have brought more visitors to Birmingham City Centre for Christmas.
If I was the Mayor of Birmingham, I’d be kicking a few backsides.
The London Office Crane Survey
I liked this survey from Deloitte!
Up Yours, Putin!
I tend to think that the reports of doping by Russia’s athletes, like this report in the Guardian entitled How Russian athletics’ rotten system built a wall to conceal doping and deceit, could be more significant politically. than anybody thinks. After all it follows a very similar pattern to their dealings with Ukraine and other former Soviet possessions, where Russia thinks itself to be able to ignore the standards of the rest of the World.
They should be banned from the Olympics in Rio!
I also suspect that the bombing of the airliner in Egypt was not deliberately targeted at a Russian plane. If that is the case, as some experts have said, it was Putin’s bad luck and our good!
The sooner Putin is removed from power, the better it will be for everyone. Except perhaps for a few Russian oligarchs!
My father, who was a very strong anti-dictator and anti-fascist would rate Putin alongside Hitler and Stalin.
He would have laughed like a drain at Peter Brookes cartoon in The Times, where Putin is shown laying a wreath sfter the air crash, with a speech bubble of “What sort of a rat blows hundreds of innocent civilians out of the sky?” As he turns to walk away, you can see his rodent’s tail.
Is liking cartoons in my genes?
Ipswich Town’s Away Support
At Rotherham on Saturday, where I saw Ipswich win 5-2, the away end was pretty full.
It’s always the same, even if the match is a long way away!
Ipswich does seem to have a large diaspora, but a surprising number travelled up from Suffolk.
Compared to some of the pathetic away crowds we see at Portman Road, Ipswich Town’s away support always surprises me. I think the team appreciate it too!
They’re Not So Silly In Suffolk
I once had a letter published in The Times after C died, in which I praised the joined up thinking, between the Registrars and the Council, which got me a virtually automatic Council Tax reduction.
Have you ever wondered what happened to all those businesses, that were displaced by the Olympics in Stratford?
Quite a few ended up in Haverhill, as St. Edmundsbury Council thought that would be a good place to relocate and they had the sites available. So the Council achieved the highest rate of inward investment of any Council in England in 2012, by some intelligent marketing of the businesses to be displaced. One unlikely story, I heard, was that someone from the Council walked around and knocked on doors!
BBC Breakfast was joking this morning that Bury St. Edmunds-based brewer, Greene King have an export boom to China after David Cameron took the Chinese leader to the local pub and gave him a pint of Greene King IPA.
It’s all reported in this article in the Guardian, entitled Greene King strikes gold as Chinese demand soars after Xi Jinping pint.
The Anonymous Widower 