For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

A Black Day for Black Cabs (16.11.2010)

I’m sorry to come over all cabbie centric here, but if you want the answer to why there aren’t any cabs are to be found soon on a wet Friday night, stick with me so you’ll know who to blame, now here is a clue: Our London Mayor Boris Johnson is proposing to put a 10 year limit to the age of London Black taxi fleet.

A leading trade journalist has estimated that at a stroke 7,500 cabs will be taken off the road equating to one third of the fleet. Followed by another 1,500 every year after that, so in just over two years nearly half of London cabs would be scrapped. These scrapped cabs are the vehicles approved by TfL and in fact until recent they were virtually the ONLY vehicles cabbies could use with TfL approval.

Not long ago to gain our green credentials every older cab had to undergo an expensive modification to bring it up to Euro 3 compliant. Apparently Boris doesn’t think the £2,000 conversion goes far enough and wants to run fleets of Euro 4 or higher compliant vehicles.

His proposition to cap the age of cabs at 10 years means that their residual value would reduce by approximately £4,000 a year and that dear reader would mean increased fares just at the time of austerity measures for many London business and residents.

Setting aside the environmental impact of dismantling perfectly serviceable vehicles only to replace them with imports from China, yes China, many components from London’s cabs are produced in Asia and the vehicles are only assembled in Birmingham, how can that be a realistic option for the environment when many much older cars are allowed into London?

What our passengers don’t realised (and why should they), is that many vehicles are rented. Again the London Taxi Drivers Association (“LTDA”) estimated this older fleet of rented vehicles will diminish by up to 50 per cent and the operators would be unable to survive this catastrophic blow to their equity. These garages owned by fleet owners would just shut up shop with their staff being made redundant.

Many older drivers, including this writer, would simply retire having decided that to replace their cab or the increase in rent was too a higher price to pay, for what a part-time job is for many. Some younger drivers, particularly firemen supplement their income as cabbies, and would have to consider the viability of replacing their vehicle or seeking alternative employment.

The LTDA have commissioned a report to counter some of the dubious claims made about London cabs green credentials by TfL, and hope to persuade Boris of his folly. But if reasoned persuasion doesn’t work (and Boris is not renowned for about-turns) expect to find an awful lot of empty cabs blocking traffic flow while demonstrating in central London.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Rich men’s basements (02.11.2010)

Recently I was taking a couple home after they had been to the theatre. They were the quiet, courteous generation that grew up in the 1930s and 40s, expensively well dressed in a subdued way rather than the vulgar and scruffy apparel favoured by the rich today.

After a short conversation about their theatre visit, I was directed to their home in Belgravia. Travelling down Chester Row my customers directed me to stop just before a house shrouded in builder’s hoardings and with a large skip outside in the road.

“I see your neighbour is having some work done”, I remarked when we had stopped.

While his wife said goodbye and thanking me as she walked towards her front door, her husband approached my driver’s window to pay, upon which he metamorphosised from a genial gentleman to Victor Meldrew. “These houses weren’t built with deep foundations, they are digging under the house and we can hear their work all day, the noise is driving my wife made and I’m just waiting for my house to subside, cracks have already appeared in our walls”.

A sad fact is that a new generation is moving to Belgravia nowadays and many are doubling the size and value of their houses by burrowing underground.

Now my customer’s predictions would seem prophetic, for while adding an underground cinema and a gym to a perfectly respectable late Georgian house in Chester Row a skip has fallen into a hole in the road outside the house, spewing water out of the hole and flooding the neighbouring properties in the process.

Why would you spend the sum of a respectable semi, to live underground if not for a vast profit? Who would want to live underground we’re not moles. Already predictably there is the threat of legal action as the conversion was originally opposed by most of the road’s residents.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but a little research of Belgravia’s history might have given the developers cause for concern.

The land owned by Lord Grosvenor was originally marshy land with the River Westbourne running through it. In the 1820s Thomas Cubitt was granted the right to develop the houses that we see today. The nomenclature “Speculative Builder” given to the developer should tell you everything you need to know about Cubitt’s Belgravia. Built for a quick profit, much like today’s developers, they would not have been expected to last nearly 200 years. The lax building regulations of the day almost certainly precluded the insistence of adequate foundations, load bearing joists and cavity walls.

When building a single story kitchen extension my borough planners wanted me to dig three metre footings, enough to support St. Pauls Cathedral, so why cannot the same be applied in conservation areas?

A neighbour commenting summed it up perfectly:

This entire fiasco represents a massive collective failure for all involved in designing, approving and attempting to build overly ambitious, vulgar additions to listed buildings in a conservation area.

How much misery do residents have to endure before we learn to properly balance long term interest against reckless pursuit of short-term profit?

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Oranges and Lemons (22.10.2010)

Standing in the shadow of the East London Mosque in a modest Grand II listed premises on Whitechapel Road is Britain’s oldest manufacturer. As the mosque calls out for worshippers to attend their daily prayers this small factory continues to produce the bells used to call Christians to their place of worship, just as it has done since 1583.

The Church Bell Foundry to give it its formal name was established even earlier in 1570, although a firm link predates even this to 1420 when a Richard Chamberlain was known as a “bell-founder of Aldgate”.

When most heavy industry has left London this remarkable factory is still a family-owned and run company. Having produced some of the world’s great bells including Big Ben, America’s Liberty Bell and bells for what was at the time Russia’s new capital St. Petersburg and even today over 80 per cent of production is making church bells and associated accessories.

The premises date from 1670, just four years after the Great Fire of London, although this eastern end of the City was untouched by the conflagration. It is built on the site of an inn called the Artichoke whose cellars survive and are still used by the foundry today.

The building’s entrance is through a replica bell frame of the company most famous bell, needing 10.5 tons of molten copper mixed with 3 tons of tin “Big Ben” is still the largest bell ever made in London.

Originally the order for the 16-ton bell was given to another bell foundry; Warners of Cripplegate at their Norton factory near Stockton-on-Tees who cast the new bell in August 1856. It was transported by rail and sea to London, and on arrival at the Port of London, it was placed on a carriage and pulled across Westminster Bridge by 16 white horses. The bell was hung in New Palace Yard and it was tested each day until 17th October 1857 when a 4 foot crack appeared, but no-one would accept the blame. Theories included the composition of the bell’s metal or its dimensions. Warners blamed Edmund Denison, an abrasive lawyer who had designed the clock’s mechanism for insisting on increasing the hammer’s weight from 355kg to 660kg. Warners asked too high a price to break up and recast the bell so George Mears at the Whitechapel Foundry was appointed.

The bell was melted down and recast successfully by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry on 10th April 1858, and when finished it took 16 horses the best part of a day to haul the gigantic bell from Whitechapel to Parliament Square.

There are two theories about the origins of the name “Big Ben”: Around the time the clock was due to be completed, the prize fighter and publican Ben Caunt went 60 rounds with the best bare-knuckle boxer in the country, Nat Langham. The bout was declared a draw but it made both men national heroes. Ben Caunt was a huge man and one story has it that the great bell was named after him. The other story attributes the name to Benjamin Hall, the chief commissioner of works, who was addressing the House on the subject of a name for the new bell tower when, to great laughter, someone shouted “Call it Big Ben!”, but no record is to be found in Hansard of this remark.

When the time came to install the bell although this bell was 2.5 tonnes lighter than the first, its dimensions meant it was too large to fit up the Clock Tower’s shaft vertically so Big Ben was turned on its side and winched up. It took 30 hours to winch the bell to the belfry in October 1858. The four quarter bells, which chime on the quarter hour, were already in place.

Big Ben rang out on 11 July 1859 but its success was short-lived. In September 1859, the new bell also cracked and Big Ben was silent for four years. During this time, the hour was struck on the fourth quarter bell.

In 1863, a solution was found to Big Ben’s silence by Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Big Ben was turned by a quarter turn so the hammer struck a different spot; the hammer was replaced by a lighter version; and a small square was cut into the bell to prevent the crack from spreading.

The total cost of making the clock and bells and installing them in the Clock Tower reached £22,000.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Demographic analysis (15.10.2010)

This month London’s first French language terrestrial radio station starts broadcasting to the capital’s 400,000 native French speakers as a reminder of their own culture, but why are so many French institutions based around South Kensington?

It’s a subject that has perplexed me for years, if not decades and here I feel I might need some help.

London is often said to be a conglomeration of villages each with its own identity, but also within our City – as with its villages – are islands of immigrant settlements each with their own economic, social and cultural identities.

But here’s the question I would like answered: What attracts ethnic, religious or cultural groups to live in particular areas?

For instance why have the Chinese moved into Chinatown; why are a few streets at the north of Stamford Hill the home to Europe’s largest Hasidic and Adeni Jewish communities. The Greeks frequent Green Lanes and why would you find Little Lebanon, with its large Arabic population along the southern stretch of Edgware Road.

When I first started working in London my company was located in Clerkenwell known then as Little Italy, there was to be found an Italian delicatessen, restaurants serving pasta and pizza, an Italian church, it even had (and still does) an Italian driving school, presumably to teach you Italian driving skills.

Earls Court is known as Kangaroo Court due to the large number of antipodeans students in digs there.

The Irish once populated Kilburn while the Whitechapel Road supports an almost exclusive population of Muslims.

For while I can understand later arrivals setting up home near people of their own ethnic mix for language, security or cultural reasons but what makes the first settlers adopt a particular area?

For the large Afro-Caribbean community in Brixton David Long in his book The London Underground suggests:

During the war a series of deep level air raid shelters were built designed in such a fashion they could eventually be linked up to form a super underground railway, but lack of money after the war meant this scheme was abandoned. So in 1948 the Clapham Common Deep Level Shelter became briefly home to several hundred Commonwealth citizens who arrived on the SS Empire Windrush, laying the foundations for nearby Brixton’s Afro-Caribbean community.

So why have different divergent communities decided at random to live in different areas of London, any theories are to be welcomed?

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Slow boat from china (12.10.2010)

If ever evidence was needed to support the claim that London’s streets were paved with gold the place to find it would be Exhibition Road. This 3/4mile long road is undergoing a transition that in the words of Nick Paget-Brown, Kensington and Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Transport will transform it into “the most beautiful road in London”.

Unable to source enough granite locally the Tory council has obtained enough stone to match the colour required from China and by using a slow boat from China the council claim the “carbon footprint” is much reduced. An alternative supplier in the north of England would presumably have parachuted in the granite sets by a gas guzzling Tornado jet.

The total project is estimated to cost £29 million which equates to £22,000 per yard; truly London’s streets are paved with gold.

When completed both drivers and pedestrians will share the same space in what is termed a “transition zone”. The most recognisable characteristic of shared space is the absence of street clutter, such as conventional traffic signals, barriers, signs and road markings. This according to the council encourages motorists to slow down, engage with their surroundings and make eye contact with pedestrians – resulting in a higher quality and more usable street area, with enhanced road safety.

When writing last year I described Kensington and Chelsea’s attitude to both pedestrians and vehicles sharing this road as:

“For most of us who use London’s roads encounter inappropriate speeding, overtaking on the nearside, rude and careless drivers, and a complete disregard of pedestrians and cyclists.”

But it would appear that The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s roads department don’t populate the world that I live in (or most accurately the world that I drive in).

Their world is akin to Camberwick Green when everybody is aware of other road users, greeting them with a cheery riposte, and continuing on their journey unimpeded. They help little old ladies cross the road and slow down for children.”

The Royal National Institute for the Blind have been objecting to the plan since its inception even resorting to 150 blind and partially sighted people campaigning outside the London Assembly. The western side of Exhibition Road is used by 19 million pedestrians a year visiting the many attractions in the area, surely there is still time to ban vehicles for most of the day and let everybody enjoy the space of “the most beautiful road in London”.