London Fire Brigade video streaming app could improve response to major incidents
Posted by GLA Conservatives in News
New technology could better inform and speed up emergency response
London Fire Brigade could improve its response to major incidents with a mobile app that allows eyewitnesses to stream live video footage to the control room, a new report shows.
Streaming technology has already been trialled by West Midlands Fire Service and similar apps are currently used in Sacramento, California, and Victoria, Australia.
A new report by Tony Arbour shows the app could quickly direct the most appropriate response to the exact location of a live incident and may help in the investigative process afterwards.
Give PCSOs fire and medical training to combine community safety
London’s 1,667 PCSOs could provide preventative fire safety and first-response medical care
PCSOs should be given fire safety and first-response medical training to become Tri-Service Safety Officers, suggests a new report by Conservative London Assembly member Tony Arbour.
The report, Tri-Service: Broadening the role of London’s PCSOs, suggests officers could provide initial support before the arrival of paramedics, as well as offering preventative fire safety advice in their communities.
Phone companies 'should blacklist hoax 999 callers'
– Hoax calls to the Met police tripled last year and cost the fire brigade £1.6million
The Mayor of London should encourage mobile phone operators to consider blacklisting hoax emergency callers that are costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, says Conservative London Assembly member Tony Arbour.
Hoax calls to the Metropolitan Police tripled over the past three years and cost London Fire Brigade £1.6million in 2015, showed figures obtained by Assembly Member Arbour in a recent written question to the Mayor of London.
London Fire Brigade attended more than 1,257 malicious false alarms last year, wasting over 2,387 attendance hours.
The Met meanwhile received 3,671 hoax calls by October 2015, a near 300 per cent rise from the 1,259 it handled in 2012. The statistics also showed 811 hoax calls cost the London Ambulance Service £152,000 in 2014.
Sound cannon could be the water cannon alternative London needs
The Home Secretary has made the wrong decision in not allowing the Metropolitan Police the use of water cannon. Not only are water cannon a better alternative to rubber bullets, they act as a powerful visual deterrent to violence.
Another crowd control alternative is now required and I suggest the Met adopt Sound Cannon. They are low cost, safe, extremely mobile, and would be very effective at dispersing a riot or violent demonstrations. Though I hope another riot never happens we must be prepared to protect Londoners against all eventualities.
Compulsory Living Wage would cost London businesses £612m
– This yearly wage bill is equivalent to 32k hospitality jobs in the Capital
– Use small business tax cuts to boost wages without the need for sackings
Making the London Living Wage compulsory would cost London’s businesses £611.8m every year, the equivalent of 32,287 jobs in the hospitality sector.¹
GLA Conservative Tony Arbour, who calculated the figures, is calling for wages to be raised through business rate relief for smaller firms and VAT cuts in the hospitality sector.
GLA Conservative Assembly Member, Tony Arbour, said:
“We need to think practically about how get more Londoners on the Living Wage. It’s an ideal win-win situation for business, employees and the public purse. It puts more cash into people’s pockets and improves working conditions. But forcing firms to sign up to this, especially start-ups and small businesses – such as B&Bs, restaurants and coffee shops – will only hurt them and may even put them out of business. What we need instead are common-sense measures, such as tax cuts, designed to ease the burden on small business whilst boosting pay for employees. First, we need to give business rates relief to small businesses that sign up to the Living Wage. Next, we need to cut VAT in the hospitality sector. I will work with the Mayor of London and lobby the Government, to make sure pay can be boosted without the need for price hikes or sackings. These tax cuts will pay for themselves through reduced dependency on in-work benefits and increased tax-revenues.”
London needs to tap into £94bn oil and gas industry to create 46k jobs
Local geographic area has 4.4bn barrels of shale oil, which could bring £93.7bn to London’s economy
London is on the doorstep of one of the country’s most promising new areas for oil and gas exploration.
There could be £93.7bn of oil within the Weald Basin,1 a geographic region directly south of London, spanning from Kent to Dorset, according to new estimates from GLA Conservative Tony Arbour.
The oil and shale gas industry has the potential to create jobs not only where the wells are located, such as a recent well found in Horse Hill Surrey worth £2 billion, but within Greater London as the industry requires a great deal of support.
Estimates show over 46,000 jobs – such as lorry drivers, geologists and hydraulic technicians – could be sustained throughout the next three decades.2
Court system failures see hundreds of criminals dodging justice every day
· 73,143 criminal prosecutions thrown out in the last year alone, working out at 200 every day, costing the taxpayer £13.1m
· Reasons include missing exhibits, police files and witnesses
· “Common sense measures will bring crooks to justice: Tell victims time and place of trial, show barristers case papers in advance”
Tens of thousands of criminals are dodging justice every year because of faults within the courts system, according to new FOI figures.
Out of 738,064 total prosecutions across the UK in 2013, 73,143 have been dropped*, working out to 200 every day.1
Thrown out prosecutions cost the taxpayer £13.1m a year.2
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