What a pleasure to spend a large part of this weekend watching hundreds of local children and young people taking part in the latest ‘Unity in the Community’ football tournament at Paddington Recreation Ground. It was a tribute to the hard work of the Council Sports Unit, too- a team of people, many local, who are putting in effort way beyond their pay grades to inspire and organise young people into sport. For the enthusiasm is certainly there amongst our children, and the need is beyond dispute- the vast majority of young people in Westminster live in flats and have very limited access to outdoor space, and with exceptionally high levels of child poverty in inner London, few can afford the fees and charges of commercial providers. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that Westminster has the second highest levels of child obesity in London. (more…)

Further Education Minister Bill Rammell visited City of Westminster College on Tuesday to see the ambitious plans for redevelopment of the College’s Paddington Green site. The aim is to create a world-class educational building in the heart of Westminster with cutting-edge facilities to support the College’s extensive and growing range of vocational and academic courses.

After a RIBA-backed competition, the College has appointed award-winning Danish architects schmidt hammer lassen to design the new building, which features a large atrium at the heart of the scheme and public access areas including a theatre and café. The College’s brief was for high quality architecture and sustainability in a building that takes full advantage of a key location in the borough. (more…)

Watch the debate online - starts 2hrs 3mins into the video

Karen continued the debate on a Single London-wide waste authority on Tuesday talking about the benefits this would be bring to ordinary Londoners and make the city a greener, healthier place to live.

Speaking in a Parliamentary debate on the introduction of a single London-wide waste authority Karen said:

The most important issue is that the present system is failing to deliver, and that it has been doing so for the past 20 years. The arguments put forward by the Government and the Opposition that incline the Government to believe that we are about to see a radical change are implausible, given that failure to deliver. A dynamic 21st-century London is still managing its waste as if it were in the Victorian era, with 16 different waste disposal authorities. No other world city has such a fragmented and incoherent delivery structure and, consequently, such a poor waste and recycling performance. The days of London being able to bury its waste problems in other people’s back yards are well and truly numbered. Our capital city faces a step change in the way in which it manages its waste. A creaky and declining infrastructure, based on exporting waste to landfill, must be replaced by a new and rapidly expanding infrastructure that is based on recycling and the recovery of renewable energy from London’s waste. (more…)