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Petition Tag - islington
1. 20 mph for Islington: Essex Road and New North Road 
Islington’s first Green Councillor, Katie Dawson, successfully secured cross-party commitment for a 20 mph limit on all the borough’s residential streets.
Islington Green Party is now calling for this to be extended to the borough’s main roads too.
The benefits of 20 mph limits should not be confined to those who live on the quiet side roads. Many Islington residents live, shop, work and travel to school along our main roads.
Extending the limit would make it easier to cross the roads and encourage more people to visit local shops. The safety benefits are well established: if you are hit by a car at 35 mph your chance of survival is 50%. If you are hit by a car at 20 mph your chance of survival leaps to 97%.
Islington is a borough with very limited green space, so it is critical our streets are designed for people and not just as corridors for moving vehicles. 20 mph limits on our main roads would help achieve this by:
• reducing the risk and severity of collisions
• improving accessibility for older people
• making our streets more sociable
• improving health by reducing air pollution
• smoothing traffic flow by reducing bunching at junctions
• reducing noise by minimising acceleration and deceleration
Many residents, including drivers, have told us they’d welcome the benefits of a default 20 mph limit on our main roads. If you feel the same and want to see 20 mph limits on New North Road and Essex Road, please sign our petition and send a strong message to Islington Council and Transport for London that Islington’s residents want and deserve roads that are safer, calmer and less polluted.
[When signing the petition, please note that it is optional to give your address & postcode. They will NOT be publicly displayed, but would add weight to the petition particularly with the council.]
2. Boris: Install mirrors that save cyclists lives (Petition for Paula)
On April 5th 2011, on a clear afternoon long before rush hour, London cyclist and student Paula Jurek was knocked down and killed by a lorry turning left from Camden Road into St Pancras Way. She was just twenty.
She joins many other cyclists killed or gravely injured in the same circumstances in London, but if you click the image above to sign this petition for Paula, and many others, you can help ensure this doesn't happen again.
Her death could have been prevented by three things, one of which is so cheap and simple it could be done tomorrow.
As Boris Johnson tries to coax more cyclists onto our roads, he must also make the same effort to keep them safe. Here’s how:
1. MIRRORS FOR LORRY DRIVERS: In 2010, Mr Johnson introduced "Trixi" mirrors, mounted at junctions to give lorry drivers greater visibility on their left sides and to prevent these kinds of accidents.
But he installed only 39 of these mirrors for the entire capital.
He said they would be "reviewed", but their effectiveness has already been demonstrated in Europe. In January, he was asked when this review would be available. His answer: "TfL will shortly be discussing the results of the trial… to retain the existing mirrors and to install further mirrors." That was January. Where are the results? Where are the mirrors?
Both lorry drivers and cyclists have agreed the mirrors are a big help. Even the Deputy Chair of London's Transport Committee and one of Mr Johnson's own colleagues, Caroline Pidgeon, says these mirrors are an important part of improving cycle safety. But Boris has stalled.
The mirrors do not cost much to install or maintain, and the process involves no disruption. They save lives. We need more, now.
2. CITY TRAINING FOR LORRY DRIVERS: Lorry drivers cannot always see cyclists. While a few London boroughs have specifically trained lorry drivers to watch for them on the capital’s busy and sometimes narrow roads, most boroughs still haven’t.
3. SAFE CYCLE ROUTES IN CAMDEN: There are few provisions for cyclists in Camden, yet many students and young people bike there every day. Camden's roads are packed and its cyclists need safe cycle lanes and cycle boxes. The junction at which Paula died has only one cycle box. Why? It should have three.
Camden Councillor Paul Braithwaite has been pushing TfL to improve cycling provisions where Paula died. "There are far too many deaths on Camden Road," he says.
3. Petition Against Floodlighting at St Aloysius School
Developers Balfour Beatty have applied for planning permission to erect eight 23 foot (eight metre) high floodlight columns on the sports and games areas at St Aloysius School in Hornsey Lane. The pitches are next to a woodland conservation area and the floodlights will be clearly visible to homes on all sides of the school. This contrary to policy.
The facilities can accommodate 3 football games, the users of a large sports hall and associated spectators. The planning application requests permission to use floodlights until 9pm weekdays and until 7pm weekends and Bank Holidays.
4. Fair bills and payment plans for Islington leaseholders
Exorbitant major works bills have been a fact of life for Council leaseholders in Islington for many years. However, the lastest round of bills has taken things to whole new and entirely unacceptable level. Leaseholders across the London Borough of Islington are facing unpayable major works bills ranging from £10k to as much as £45k - all this at a time when credit conditions are at their tightest since the 1920s.
To top it all, Homes for Islingon (HFI) has just released a new raft of honey-trap repayment plans. It describes these as 'generous', but they are anything but because they oblige leaseholders to give up their right to dispute the cost of their bills at a Leaseholder Valuation Tribunal (LVT).
Aggressive letters from HFI telling leaseholders they must clear the entire £10-45k on their bill within two weeks or sign up for a repayment plan are being used to bully leaseholders into relinquishing their right to have their bills objectively evaluated at an LVT. It's an important right since bills that have been brought before the LVT in the past have often been halved or more.
5. Give us access to Finsbury Park
In a City the size of London, the Underground system is the quickest way to get around and we are disappointed with the Mayor's decision to shelve 22 of the 45 planned step free access projects across London only committing himself to providing step-free access at 29 per cent of all stations by 2017. This is a major step back from previous plans to provide step-free access on a third of the network by 2013. As a result, many disabled passengers, older people and parents with young children are being denied access to this mode of transport. This is particularly concerning in the run up to the 2012 Paralympics and makes us wonder how the Mayor is planning to keep his post-Beijing pledge to make London’s Games the most accessible ever.
It makes little sense that Finsbury Park, where the current 49.1m passenger journeys a year are likely to increase by 40% over the next 15 years, is not being made step-free whilst Kingsbury and Amersham, both serving less than one tenth of Finsbury Park’s passengers, are being made accessible. We believe that money would be better spend on projects in areas where a larger number of people would benefit.
The decision makes even less sense because Network is going ahead with plans to provide step-free access from the overground platforms to street level at Finsbury Park. It has now given Transport for London and the Mayor until the autumn to change their minds on working together to make Finsbury Park step-free.
These are the reasons why we (Jeremy Corbyn MP, Jennette Arnold AM, local councillors, the Islington Disability Network, Islington Mobility Forum and Transport for All) are working together to collect as many signatures to pass to the Mayor to convince him to change his mind. If you agree that Finsbury Park Underground station should be made accessible to all passengers then please sign this petition. We are aiming to hand the petition over to the Mayor in the Autumn.
Ps. Please provide your email address to ensure your signature counts!
6. Make a Fencing Salle part of the new Finsbury Leisure Centre!
Finsbury Leisure Centre in EC1 will soon undergo a major refurbishment and part of it might be demolished all together (see the link above).
We're asking Islington Council to allow London Fencing Club to refurbish the current squash courts building earmarked for demolition into a Fencing Salle.
7. Support Islington's Community and Voluntary Sector
Islington Council is proposing to save £400,000 by reducing grant support for a wide variety of voluntary organisations across the borough, including Islington Voluntary Action Council. These cuts will seriously damage the voluntary and community sector in Islington.
We the under signed oppose the proposed cuts by Islington Council and urge councillors not to vote for the proposal to cut the voluntary sector.
