Lots of drivers are asking about the Bell and Horns Taxi Shelter in Cromwell Gardens.

From the outside it looks to have been fully restored and has been positioned on the pavement adjacent to the Victoria and Albert museum, a much safer location, considering the times it’s been hit by vehicles in the middle of the road.

Not knowing for sure if it was to stay in situ on the pavement the Cabman’s Shelter Fund were contacted.

Unfortunately, their answer is inconclusive. Even though the shelter looks from the outside to have been fully restored, they said:

The Situation with the Bell and Horns Shelter….The discussions over the insurance of the shelter are still dragging on. No decision on where or when the Shelter will be restored have been discussed with the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund.

It saddens me that in today’s society if we drive into a bus lane a camera records us and we get a fine. Put two wheels in a yellow box and a camera records us and we get a fine. Do a u-turn where we’re not supposed to, recorded and fined. Stay too long in a car park, recorded and fined. Drop passengers off in the wrong place, recorded and fined. Yet a youngster gets stabbed to death in a park and there is an appeal for eyewitnesses and dashcam video because there is no money to be made in monitoring the places where our children socialise. I know it is not financially viable to have cameras everywhere, but it is possible, and that is the sad part.

I know that I’m just a humble cabbie, but didn’t it occur to anyone with the dash to go green, there might just might be a problem in putting all our eggs in one basket? Now we are having to go cap-in-hand for oil when if it wasn’t tied down England would float away, we have so much of the stuff beneath us. Surely we should be matching reducing our dependency on fossil fuels in step with wind, sun and water.

The ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) is to be expanded across all of Greater London by the end of next year, Sadiq Khan has announced. This will mean that drivers of more polluting vehicles will have to pay £12.50 a day to drive anywhere in the capital – effectively meaning only “clean” vehicles can drive within the M25 without paying the charge. As night public transport is abysmal, that should see off all low-pay shift workers from getting to work.

Britain’s oldest bank, Child & Co at 1 Fleet Street since 1673, said to have inspired Charles Dickens as the template for Tellson’s Bank in A Tale of Two Cities, is to close. Today, those 349 years count for nothing. The private bank now owned by NatWest, claim ‘fewer people are going into the branch’ as customers shift to online and mobile services. They have a point, but it’s a question of the chicken or the egg. When a branch shuts, most customers are forced into banking online. They have no choice.