Meeting between London Transport Committee transport leads and the chair and deputies of London Transport Users Committee. We discuss our differences and the problems they are having with understanding just what we mean by bringing their organisation into a modern and accountable framework. Suffice to say – LTUC are trying.

First informal meeting of the Stop and Search Scrutiny panel to discuss the first draft of our Met Police Authority report on Stop and Search.

The first draft is a bit adrift (understatement). Everyone agreed it was strong and hard hitting with good recommendations – but the structure was appalling, the referencing non-existent, the context entirely missing, the statistics not up-to-date and there was a lot of academic sociological waffle about the issue.

So – a fair bit needing to be done to knock the report into shape. However well it is then put together, there will still be ructions as the basic tenet and thrust is still pretty critical – hopefully constructively so.

PS Emerge from lift on 7th floor of City Hall. The London Assembly member who I didn’t name earlier in my blog when describing them as someone ‘who could talk for Britain’ at an Assembly press lunch, was entering the lift as I emerged. I think they may have twigged – for as I walked away from the lift the word ‘cow’ emanated from said member’s lips.

To Haringey for a Full Council meeting. For reasons that are unclear to me it was a very good humoured meeting. Not a common experience in the chamber where the usual sport is shouting at me individually or the LibDems collectively for daring to exist – let alone having the temerity to challenge the status quo.

By the time we got to council motions the public (there were none this time) and the media had long left. So only council members were left to pontificate amongst themselves on the local MP’s failure to vote against top-up fees, despite much previous media coverage of her ‘rebellion’.

More seriously, my concern is the number of Haringey’s young people who will now not go on to a university education because of debts they will incur. Whilst the government may argue that future graduates will pay back their debts out of their very high and advantaged earnings, many will find that if they go to worthy but lower-paid jobs, like teaching or working for voluntary organisations, they will have to pay back an extortionate tax rate out of very low income.

Meeting with Haringey Council’s traffic officer about various issues, key amongst which are speeding on Muswell Hill and Priory Road.

Have been nagging for speed restrictions on this lethal hill for years. Sum total of Labour’s response to date have been speed signs saying 30mph. From the five accidents at the bottom of the hill in the last few months I would say that Labour’s response is inadequate (understatement).

However, on the back of this spate of accidents I’ve been tackling them again. Labour have now conceded bollards to protect pedestrians from vehicles mounting the pavement on narrow strip at bottom of hill and the officer agreed to apply to the London Safety Camera Partnership to try and get funding for a speed camera.

I have a meeting with the Labour Executive member in the next couple of weeks to plead the case further.

On a crossing for Priory Road – I am offered signs and road markings. I suppose it’s better than nothing, but suggest given the expected increase in traffic that will be generated by a new superstore development further down the road, that we might squeeze funding out of the developer for said crossing to deal with said traffic increase. He agrees to put that forward too!

The meeting is billed as the big show-down with three contentious items on agenda, I feel in murderous mood. Have had enough shenanigans from colleagues in other parties and witnesses alike. Time to get tough.

First up – motorbikes versus cycles in bus lanes. I know – it doesn’t appear that sexy or contentious – but the vitriol that has been flying through my email box as the contenders have rowed over recent months has ended up here in my ‘courtroom’.

Transport for London have been running a pilot along three radial routes in London allowing motorcycles to use bus lanes. To cut a long story short – and no surprise – the motorbike lobby want this to become forever and the cycle lobby more or less say over their dead bodies! Which appear to be the point – they believe they will be injured by motorbikes. The trial so far doesn’t bear this out.

The disagreements were plain to see – but that was all that was plain. The only clear evidence emerging from the session was that nothing was clear at all. And it will be a real tough call as to where to go with this one. Meanwhile the trial is extended so Transport for London can collect more data.

Contentious item number two was the London Transport Users Committee business plan and budget. We have had problems – us and LTUC. Read earlier blogs for more detail. Suffice to say they turned up mob-handed to support their chair and chief exec. Not necessary. I asked LTUC to come back with comments within a month.

That was fine in the end. Though John Biggs (my Labour vice-chair) did say he would behave today – having previously caused ructions by being outrageously rude to them at a previous committee meeting. He behaved like an angel today! Well that’s John. We heard later – don’t know if it was true – that the chair of LTUC had brought six other members just to witness John Biggs appalling behaviour. Disappointment all round then!

And the last item which could have wreaked havoc – was getting the congestion charging report through committee. The Tories had already made it quite clear they would vote against it. Labour had been messing about for two months trying to find fault and were down to five minor amendments to the text.

It looked like it would fall or have to come back yet again, when I thought ‘sod it’ put the amendments (well the three I didn’t mind) to the meeting, they got passed – we then passed the report as amended and Bob’s your uncle. All done and dusted. Hurrah!

Went to Cranley Dene for an ‘estate visit’. Cranley Dene is a sheltered housing development in my own ward of Muswell Hill. I go into the ‘lounge’ where a group of elderly residents are gathered to meet the estates manager and myself.

I love these visits. And was really happy that the new warden and the new estates manager both seem excellent. The previous ones were both pretty useless and seemed to do very little. When you go and meet people like this, it really brings it home to you how dependent older people are on the staff who are charged with their well-being.

There were a number of issues around security – none of the window catches work properly at ground floor level – and some of them are truly terrified as lots of strangers wander in off the street to the little garden at the back and they have had a number of intruders. One very elderly lady was clearly petrified and couldn’t sleep.

So the key things to make sure happen are to get new window catches, evict a squatter from one of the flats and see if we can get CCTV to cover the back area.

One of the residents told me he had been rung by the Tories (there is a by-election on in Muswell Hill at the moment) and asked if they could rely on his vote. He said that he told them where to go – given he hadn’t heard from them since the last election and that the LibDems were around all the time.

Older people are just older – nothing wrong with those marbles I can tell you!