GetWestLondon: "West London Orbital Railway 'stands good a chance of becoming a reality' and here is how it will look"

Link to web site

"Plans for a new orbital railway line linking north and west London have been given the thumbs up by an economic board and made a significant step towards becoming a reality.

"The West London Orbital Railway would consist of two new lines one running from West Hampstead to Hounslow and another running from Hendon to Isleworth via Brent Cross.

"... Brent councillor and West London Orbital Railway campaigner, Lia Colacicco, said:

"I had to pinch myself – I have spent eight years campaigning for the West London Orbital Railway, and now it actually stands a good chance of becoming a reality."

The Guardian: "Robots could destabilise world through war and unemployment, says UN"

"United Nations opens new centre in Netherlands to monitor artificial intelligence and predict possible threats"

Link to web site

"The UN has warned that robots could destabilise the world ahead of the opening of a headquarters in The Hague to monitor developments in artificial intelligence.

"From the risk of mass unemployment to the deployment of autonomous robotics by criminal organisations or rogue states, the new Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics has been set the goal of second-guessing the possible threats.

"It is estimated that 30% of jobs in Britain are potentially under threat from breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, according to the consultancy firm PwC. In some sectors half the jobs could go. A recent study by the International Bar Association claimed robotics could force governments to legislate for quotas of human workers."

Link to web site

Daily Telegraph: "These are the jobs most at risk of automation according to Oxford University: Is yours one of them?"

"In his speech at the 2017 Labour Party conference, Jeremy Corbyn outlined his desire to "urgently... face the challenge of automation", which he called a " threat in the hands of the greedy".

"Whether or not Corbyn is planing a potentially controversial 'robot tax' wasn't clear from his speech, but addressing the forward march of automation is a savvy move designed to appeal to voters in low-paying, routine work.

"Automation of jobs through technological advances have been mooted for years but analyses have shown that progress towards this eventuality may be accelerating."

[Reposted from Dec 2014] Hammerson's Brent Cross shopping centre under Barnet's corrupt planning consent: Relying on wealthy new customers or out-of-control consumer debt?

Link to The Observer

"According to the OBR’s chilling analysis, 'subdued earnings' caused a shortfall in tax revenue from income tax and national insurance contributions of £8bn this year. That is predicted to rise to £15.2bn by 2018-19. By the end of the next parliament, the country will have experienced 18 years of lost wage growth, while the top 5% will have become ever richer.

As economist Özlem Onaran writes: “The share of income in the national income pie will contract in favour of the owners of capital.” And that brings with it the related problem of spiralling debt. In this country, the ratio of household debt to incomes is predicted to reach a staggering 184% by 2020. In 2010, at 170% it was high. Many of us don’t earn enough, so we continue to borrow – a tightrope for the clumsy-footed, unbalanced as soon as interest rates rise.

In November, the Bank of England appointed Michael Kumhof, formerly of the IMF, as a special adviser. In 2010, he co-authored an authoritative paper, 'Inequality, Leverage and Crisis' that also made reference to the 1930s. The paper argues that two periods – 1920-1929 (followed by the Great Depression of the 30s) and 1983-2008 (followed by the recession) both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich, a large increase in leverage (borrowing) for the remainder, and an eventual financial crisis. Kumhof’s favoured more effective solution to avoid this is the “restoration of the lower income group’s bargaining power”.

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Link to web site

Sunday Telegraph:
"Ten more years of borrowing if productivity lags"

"The Government will take a decade longer to balance the books if Britain's low productivity recovery continues to drag down the economy, experts have warned.

"George Osborne admitted last week that weak wage growth and a rise in low paid work meant the Government would borrow £91bn this fiscal year – £5bn more than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast in March. It is still predicted to post a surplus in 2019.

"A key part of the OBR's forecast centres around stronger productivity growth, which is expected to gradually rise to 2pc by the end of its forecast in 2020.

"However, the OBR calculated that if productivity grew at the rate as it has since 2008 – just 0.5pc a year – it would leave 'living standards materially lower', with wages still 7pc down on their pre-crisis peak after [another] five years."

The Guardian: "Britain's growing debt problem demands a fresh set of eyes"

Enter PIN for web site

"When it was first created in 2010, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) adopted the Treasury view that austerity would have very little impact on potential for economic growth. It predicted a surge in business investment and jobs as if the economy was about to bounce back from a medium-sized recession and not the worst financial crash in a century.

"For several years, its reports repeated the same nonsense that wages would soar and annual inflation return to the Bank of England target of 2%, without any regard for what was obvious from just looking around. In this respect it followed the Treasury, many of the economists in the largest City banks and most importantly, the Bank of England.

"... Unfortunately, a large minority of households, many of them living in the rented sector, are caught in a spiral of unsecured debt that has already sent the total for the UK above £200bn and according to the OBR, send it soaring further, until it reaches a new peak as a ratio of GDP as soon as 2020."

Hammerson's OTHER shopping centre in London is also in trouble

Woe is me!
Link to 'Inside Croydon'

"Progress on the biggest redevelopment in Croydon for half a century has been stalled since a Compulsory Purchase Order was agreed in 2015. A revised planning application from Westfield and partners Hammerson was supposed to have been submitted to Croydon Council nearly six months ago, with a view to demolition work of the existing Whitgift Centre beginning in early 2018.

"The Croydon Partnership website is still suggesting that the supermall, which was supposed to have been built and operational by 2017, will finally be ready for business in 2021. That’s now looking increasingly unlikely.

"There's mounting concerns over the slow progress, especially among the governors of the Whitgift Foundation, which owns the freehold of the steadily declining Whitgift Centre, and who depend on the commercial income from the shopping mall site to help meet the costs of running their alms houses and private schools. It was the Foundation which invited Westfield to Croydon in 2012, when the Whitgift Centre leasees had already engaged Hammerson to oversee a redevelopment of the site."

Brent & Kilburn Times (x2): Brent Cross ruins Dollis Hill, and Barnet Times (x3): "The West London Orbital Railway" (what goes around comes around)

The Brent Cross Railway: West London Alliance's "West London Orbital Railway" - the full monty 'GRIP1' report, and "What to put in the Mayor's Transport Strategy"

2017-09 7b. Draft Feasbility Study by scribdstorage on Scribd

2017-09 7a. Letter From the Committee by scribdstorage on Scribd

Evening Standard: "British business and what went horribly wrong"

Link to web site

"The British class structure, reinforced by the educational establishment, channelled the brightest people into the professions and the City rather than engineering and industrial management.

"Once inside the companies, the brightest were unlikely to be those who got their hands dirty.

"Production and operations were in large part run by people who started on the shop floor and received almost no training when promoted to management even though they were in charge of the one area on which the company’s life depended.

"The class divide meant that those who understood the job had no voice in strategy and those who decided strategy had no understanding of the job.

Then, into this unholy mix, was injected an unwarranted respect for accountants."

The 'Brent Cross Railway' morphs into the 'West London Orbital Railway'!

The 'turn south at Cricklewood' option

The 'turn north at Cricklewood' option

2017-09 West London Alliance - 7. West London Orbital Rail Progress and Next Steps by scribdstorage on Scribd

(Old Oak Common HS2 station is roughly
where the 'North London Line' wording is.)