I have been selected to stand as the Parliamentary Candidate for Hammersmith when the next general election is called.
As your Liberal Democrat Candidate I have a vision for Hammersmith.
Not a vision where the property prices are the 4th highest in London but where over 40% of housing stock do not meet national 'decent homes' standard. Nor one where increasing number of parents have to send their children to schools outside of the borough because of their lack of faith in the local schools (59% of children leave school with less than 5 good GCSEs including Maths and English).
And despite Hammersmith being in a dynamic transport hub served by a network of tube, rail and buses we find ourselves victims to the inefficiencies of transport authorities controlled by the Labour Government and now Tory dominated City Hall. One only has to think of the unnecessary closure of the vital Shepherd's Bush central line station, not to mention the debacle of a brand new railway platform at White City built 16 inches too narrow to pass the regulators!
You deserve better than that. I want to fight for better local services and ensure that the interests of local residents come first. With your help I can, so let's make it happen for Hammersmith!
There is indeed much to celebrate of strides that have been made by women, their achievements both within the family as well as in greater society. However there are still areas for much concern.
Parents in Hammersmith and Fulham have been left disappointed and frustrated after only about half of the pupils in the borough made it into their preferred secondary school, well below the London average of 65 per cent for first choice admissions.
The latest budget plans adopted by the Tory controlled H&F Council at a Budget meeting on 24 Feb confirmed a final year of cuts in Council taxes. Local Liberal Democrats have warned of future sharp increases in Council Tax, as the Council has financed this year's 3% cut not out of revenue but by drawing down £2.8 million from reserves.
On the evening of Friday 19 February, Foreign Secretary David Miliband came to Hammersmith at the invitation of Labour MP Andrew Slaughter and held a public meeting at St Paul's Church near the Broadway.
Last Wednesday, I was at Stone Masons Arms, a pub in Hammersmith, at the unearthly hour of 7a.m., not to imbibe alcohol I might add, but rather to join a group of dynamic and entrepreneurial small business owners at a networking breakfast.
"Prior to the closure of the Shepherds Bush station to allow for the building of Westfield, Europe's largest urban shopping mall at £1.6 billion, local residents were promised a fully accessible station, including a lift, in keeping with TfL efforts to make the underground as user-friendly as possible.
On 2nd February, the Electoral Commission held a Press launch at Queen Anne's Gate to announce the publication of their new bilingual leaflet to encourage voter registration. According to Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission, about 30 per cent of British Chinese who are eligible to vote are not registered with their local authority to vote. The equivalent statistic of non registration for the rest of the population is closer to the region of 8-9%.
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Published and promoted by Merlene Emerson, 82a Minford Gardens, London W14 0AP.
The views expressed are those of the party, not of the service provider.
Merlene Emerson interview with BC Project on why it is important to vote at the next elections
Fawcett Society interview with Merlene Emerson on representation of ethnic minority women in politics in the UK (April 2008).
