• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

What you must reduce are these banal announcements that go on and on and on all day long for hours and hours. The people who have gardens at the bottom of which an Underground train is trundling along are going quite bananas about it. There is a serious problem here, and we are all picking it up and we are passing it on to you and telling everybody it is your fault. The most important thing is really not only the dynamics of it, but also the frequency. They are banal announcements and please get them stopped. In fact, London...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

I am very disappointed, Mr Livingstone. That sounded to me like a typical provided answer from the officials at TfL. It is not even as good as the answer you gave me last time when at least you demonstrated some sympathy for the problem we are facing here. Unfortunately you are taking us backwards with that kind of response. It is absolutely true that you and Tim O'Toole very kindly went all the way to Earls Court. I try not to be a cynic in these matters, but it is absolutely true to say that the week around the time...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

Could I impress on you John Biggs' suggestion which you probably did not overhear, which was that Angie [Bray] should be given a secondment from the job of Assembly Member to station announcer at Earls Court, and the volume and hectoring that we get from there would not be inflicted on us here and would instead sotto voce be inflicted on the good residents of Earls Court! My serious question is, given the concern that we have all expressed and you have echoed, will you ban, forthwith, any further Big Brother style announcements telling us what a good service is...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

Let me bring in a station other than Earls Court. Putney Bridge - which you and I had a discussion about three or four years ago - and at that time you interceded, after my request, with the station manager, and the volume level was turned down, but that was on the old system. I had a grateful resident thanking you and me for having dealt with the matter, which you did under your Noise Strategy by the way. Subsequently there has been refurbishment there and the new sound system has gone in, and he is back on the case...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

I think the reliance on the PA system comes from the signage. We do not have the countdown there telling us which platforms to go to and when, to move between different District Lines. I think once that is done it would solve the problem considerably. I just hope the signage is not listed, because that would stop that improvement whilst they are happening at the moment. I just want to be sure that that is going to happen sooner rather than later.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

I have just quoted what you said to me in November 2006 that London Underground has agreed to look at its PA systems at all stations concerning sound levels. My question to you was what action has come out of that promise that you made me here in this Chamber?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

I represent people who live on the north side of the Blackwall Tunnel who have to put up with some of the consequences of the congestion there, and I regularly drive though it myself, and I am aware of the challenges here. When I first heard the announcement I was reasonably understanding of it, but I have been lobbied enormously since then and there have been some pretty thoughtful questions thrown at me about the decision making. I think people would be more reassured if there was a transparent accountability for how this decision was made, and a willingness to...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

Can I just push that a little bit more then? You have not really directly answered the question about the public exercise of these arguments and opened this to representations from parties affected by it, including the boroughs, because there are some very strong feelings about this. There has been, I think, a lot of suspicion. I have had a lot of emails suggesting it is a covert way of introducing a congestion charge, for example, which I do not think is the case.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

The effect of it, of course, is that something which has operated for the better part of 30 years suddenly ceased operation on 48 hours notice as far as members of the travelling public and the vast majority of stakeholders were concerned. That makes it very difficult for members of the public to have much confidence in the decision. Even if the police are right - and I am not going to enter into that debate now - why was it that the issue was not raised with the affected London boroughs and with people generally when the matter first...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 23 May 2007

So you are saying that it was the police who ended it, not yourself, and you were not consulted by the police before that took place?