Posts Tagged ‘London’

PM promises sticks by high speed rail link

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

The Prime Minister has vowed to move ahead with plans for a high-speed rail link between London and the North, despite calls against it from his Cabinet. David Cameron claims the route, which will run between the capital, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds if given the go-ahead, will transform the country and get rid of the north-south divide.

Cheryl Gillan is just one of Cameron’s Conservative Cabinet standing against the scheme. She claims the link will ruin some of England’s nicest countryside with her constituents in Chesham and Amersham set to be the worst affected.

A debate in the Houses of Commons will be held today where Tory MPs are expected to air their grievances about the proposals. The plans are also set to cost Britain’s tax payers up to £17 billion, but Mr Cameron is adamant that he will not be swayed in his decision.

Speaking about the concerns of people currently living along the proposed route, Mr Cameron said that he understood that people would not be happy about high-speed trains thundering past their homes. He added, however, that the whole point of the link is that it is fast, so it will only be able to stop off at a handful of constituencies.

The PM went on to say that he feels the route can help power the country’s regeneration and finally crack the issue of the north-south divide.

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Avis opens new London location

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Avis, the premiere international car hire firm, has announced the opening of its 15th location in the London metropolitan area. The newest Avis branch will be at the Westfield Shopping Centre in west London, and is set up to be a convenient access route for travellers venturing outside of the capital city, as it is located with direct access to the M3, M4, and M40, as well as tube station such as Shepherd’s Bush, Wood Lane, and White City. The Westfield location will focus primarily on customers in west London, as well as those travelling from the Central part of the city via taxi or tube.

Nick Mountfield, Avis UK director of marketing, said that ‘we’re really excited about the opening of our new Avis branch at Westfield. Not only is it Europe’s largest shopping centre, its location is ideal for those looking to escape London for a weekend getaway via the M3 to the South Coast, the M4 to the West Country and Wales or the M40 for the Cotswolds and beyond.’

Avis now has a total of 112 locations throughout the UK, and has recently launched its nationwide Home Delivery Service in London. The service gives customers the option to have their car hire delivered to and picked up from their homes, for a cost of £10 each way.

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London mayor campaigns for bicycle awareness on driving test

Friday, April 30th, 2010

The mayor of London is calling for a bicycle section on the driving test to ensure that motorists are more aware of cyclists on the roads. After the seventh cyclist was killed on the streets of London in 2010, Mayor Boris Johnson wrote a letter to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis in the hopes of gaining his support for the initiative.

In the letter to the Transport Secretary, Mayor Johnson emphasized the need for new drivers to be aware of cyclists on the road, as they are much more vulnerable than those driving a vehicle. The letter comes after 31 year-old Zoe Sheldrake was killed on the A41 Edgeware Way. The dangers of cycling in Britain were made painfully aware recently, as an academic study released in December 2009 showed that cyclists are 27 times more likely to be injured while on the road than car drivers.

The rate of serious injury and deaths among cyclists has dramatically increased in recent years, and a Department of Transport report showed that the level of cycling injuries and deaths rose by 19 per cent from 2008 to 2009. The British people realise the need to protect cyclists as well, as an IAM poll found that the vast majority of drivers would be supportive of an increase in public money to protect those riding bicycles.

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Internet fraudsters warming up for 2012 Olympic games

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Reports are already being released that internet fraudsters have started limbering up for London’s 2012 Olympic games. There are already websites selling tickets to Olympic events long before the real tickets are even in existence.

Consumer watchdog Which? managed to set up the domain name olympic-games-tickets.org.uk just to show how easy internet scam artists are able to set up similar sites. Which? paid just £7 to do so and is now using the site as a means to alert the public on how to avoid being taken in by sites offering things they have no intention of providing. It also tells visitors how they can report websites they feel are dubious.

Which? said that they were particularly concerned that the fake Olympic ticket sites could be used to get customers to disclose financial information as well as passwords and personal identification details. Editor of Which?, Sarah Kidner points out that there ought to be far tougher regulation of websites to prevent fraud on the web. In a conversation with Nominet, a domain name registry in the U.K., Which? were told that they felt that it was not up to them to check exactly who was registering a name and whether they were legitimate or not.

The U.K. has far less stringent rules when it comes to people registering domain names than other countries such as Bermuda and Albania. Until the regulations are tightened up bodies such as The Office of Fair Trading are doing their best to make people aware that fake websites are a real and present danger.

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Thomas Cook sponsors London Olympics

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Thomas Cook has just announced that it will become an official sponsor of the 2012 Olympics. Lord Sebastian Coe said that the travel firm was an ideal partner for the games and could help to make sure that as many people in the country as possible would be able to travel to see the action. The deal is said to be worth somewhere in the region of £20 million and brings the total amount raised by the Olympic committee through sponsorship to £550 million. The committee aims to raise £700 million overall.

Thomas Cook Group’s CEO, Manny Fontenla-Novoa pointed out that the company had helped its customers to travel to the first modern Olympic games over 100 years ago and was excited about being able to help its customers in the U.K. travel to the games in 2012. He went on to say that being part of such a unique event like the Olympics was a privilege and would cement the company’s position as the countries oldest as well as most respected travel firm.

Thomas Cook now plans to put together a quarter of a million packages combining travel, accommodation and tickets for the London games. It will also provide short trips and breaks for customers who want to see particular events.

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New air-con underground trains poised to go into service

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Transport for London has announced that its first air-conditioned tube train is ready to go into service on the underground’s Metropolitan Line. London’s mayor, Boris Johnson has announced that the new train is just one aspect of a long list of improvements he hopes to implement in the capitals transport system.

The new air-conditioned train is currently being taken care of in a north-west London train depot and when it is introduced into service it will be the first of a fleet of fifty-eight trains that Transport for London hope to have running on the Metropolitan Line by 2011. By 2015 it is hoped that air-conditioned trains, also known as Stock trains will have replaced most of the older versions on both the Circle and District Lines.

Mr. Johnson said that he intends to keep improving the transport network in London so that residents and visitors have the best possible services.

Next year will also see the completion of £1.4 billion worth of improvements to the East London Line. The Jubilee Line will also see its capacity increase by one-third.

Unfortunately some of the underground tracks are too deep to enable the installation of the new air-conditioning systems. The Northern, Bakerloo and Piccadilly Lines run too far under the ground for the hot air from trains to be expelled adequately.

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London hotels weather the recession better than most

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

New figures released by Deloitte show that London’s hotels have weathered the global economic downturn better than those in nearly every other city in the world. Where the rest of the U.K. saw a fall of 4 percent in room occupancy, London’s decline was just 0.2 percent for the first three-quarters of the year.

Revenue per available room fell across the U.K. by an average of 10.9 percent this year. In the capital however it fell by just 7.4 percent. Hotels in London have managed to keep occupancy rates above 80 percent and Deloitte says that this is a remarkable achievement when viewed against the fact that the world has just been through one of the worst economic situations ever.

Cities in the north also fared better than most with Glasgow experiencing a drop of only 1.4 percent in the first three-quarters. Edinburgh hotels also fared well along with Newcastle and the Welsh capital, Cardiff.

Airport hubs like Heathrow and Gatwick have not fared so well. A decline in airline passengers saw revenue per available room drop by a massive 22 percent. The 2.6 percent drop in airline traffic at Heathrow is partly to blame for the drop in people staying at the airport’s hotels along with the fact that the opening of Terminal 5 made many more rooms available just as the recession took hold.

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Mayor of London announces tourism tie-up with New York

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson and the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, have just announced a two year agreement that aims to encourage tourism between the two cities. Speaking at a conference at Columbia University the two mayors announced plans to team up to share best practice and knowledge on how best to encourage tourists to visit both cities. The agreement will see at least one public relations event in each city. There will also be an exchange of advertising worth $357,000 to each city over the two years.

Johnson said that the similarities between London and New York in their commitment to providing both visitors and residents alike with world class experiences meant that the two were perfect for a knowledge sharing partnership. Bloomberg echoed the sentiment and said that during the present economic difficulties it was important to grow economically important sectors like tourism.

Whilst in New York Boris Johnson is launching the £1 million ‘Only in London’ campaign which will roll out across the U.S. and Canada and will celebrate everything that is unique about London in a bid to bring more tourists to the capital. He is pointing out that the strength of the dollar against the pound makes now the perfect time to visit.

Last year nearly 2 million American’s visited Britain’s capital making America the top market for visitors from abroad. Similarly a record number of travelers from the U.K. landed in New York last year. 1,328,000 Brits visited The Big Apple making it the most popular destination for U.K. visitors in the whole of America.

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London embraces electric car hire

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Those living in the city of London will soon be able to take advantage of the new pay-as-you-go car club from Streetcar. The car hire company has just established London’s first electric car hire scheme. The scheme was supported and helped along by London mayor Boris Johnson, who used his influence with the organization Transport for London and the Camden council.

Brett Akker is the co-founder of Streetcar. In a recent interview he said that: “Members of our club are expected to rise to a quarter of a million by the year 2012 as more people recognise the environmental benefits and cost savings of joining a car club. Once they have joined we want to offer the best possible service and our members will be the first Europeans to use this electric technology to hire a car.”

Those travelling in and around London will soon be able to hire a specially adapted Toyota Prius from as little as £5.95 an hour. The modified Toyota Prius is known as an ‘Amberjac’ and will become part of a fleet of Streetcar’s 1,200 pay-as-you-go vehicles available for use by the club’s 58,000 members.

Although the experiment is still in its first stages, there are plans to release additional electrically powered cars in London.

Thanks to www.rhinocarhire.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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Park Plaza Hotel to open in London

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Despite a huge drop in tourism, the new Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel is still scheduled to open. The huge opulent hotel has 1,021 rooms and is the largest hotel in London.

The 15-story £350 million hotel is still under construction. The topping-out ceremony is to take place tomorrow night with Mayor Boris Johnson presiding. Construction of the hotel has transformed a blighted area into a London showcase. When it opens, the hotel will have a four-star rating.

There has been much skepticism leveled at the decision to build such an ambitious project in the midst of the worst recession in decades. Tourism in London has tanked in recent months with no sign of a recovery anytime soon. London at present has a glut of empty hotel rooms.

One highly visible casualty of the recession was the Real Hotel Company that had to go into administration because of financial difficulties last year. Real Hotel saw their business drop dramatically due to cancellations of large corporate events.

Officials at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge remain undaunted. The project has been fully funded since its inception and, to date, hasn’t experienced any cuts.

“People might think we are mad to be doing this but in fact we are investing for the future. We have a fabulous location and our prices will be very reasonable”, said general manager, Andrew Swindells.

When it opens the hotel will feature spectacular views of London from its upper floors and terrace. Besides top end penthouse rooms, it will also offer 540 studio rooms reasonably priced at £140 per night targeting families.

Thanks to www.guardian.co.uk for the above quote. For more information about this article please visit their website.

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