UK engineer Fandstan sold to New York’s Wabtec for £130m February 12, 2014 FANDSTAN Electric Group, the London-headquartered engineering group whose subsidiaries have provided parts for London’s DLR and the Eurostar, has been sold to New York-listed Wabtec for £130m. The private company was founded by Lord Tanlaw, a former director of his family firm Inchcape, whose grandfather was the final White Rajah of Sarawak, the dynastic monarchy [...]
The boffins have proved it: Commuting makes you miserable February 12, 2014 Who’d be a commuter? Escalating train fares, Tube strikes, people sneezing without covering their noses. My soul’s getting heavy just thinking about it. And now even the boffins at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are weighing in, performing a complex “regression analysis” – a way of comparing lots of different variables, in this case [...]
TfL to talk more with unions now Tube strike is off February 11, 2014 TRANSPORT unions called off a 48-hour Tube strike hours before it was due to start last night, after last-ditch talks with London Underground officials produced the seeds of a compromise. The two sides agreed to sit down for further “intensive talks” over the next two months, taking the RMT and TSSA representatives station by station [...]
The Docklands legacy can help fix London’s chronic housing crisis February 11, 2014 LONDON’S housing crisis is caused largely by a chronic shortage of new homes, which is pushing the average house price in the capital north of £500,000. Only 18,000 new homes were completed last year, barely a third as many as are needed to match population growth and household formation. There is no silver bullet to [...]
Second Tube walkout set to start tonight February 10, 2014 TRANSPORT unions and London Underground negotiators will today make a last-ditch attempt to avoid a second wave of staff walkouts on the Tube, due to start at 9pm. Talks at resolution service Acas broke up last night without a compromise, but both sides have agreed to meet again at 9am. If they fail to find [...]
First fleet of electric minicabs starts work on London’s streets February 10, 2014 A FLEET of electric minicabs will start operating in London today, two months after the capital got its first fully electric buses. Chinese firm BYD manufactured the 20 vehicles which have been bought by chauffer service Thriev. The new cars – the e6 model – come four years ahead of mayor Boris Johnson’s deadline for [...]
Victoria set for £4bn investment as Armani and Jimmy Choo relocate February 10, 2014 Victoria is set for a £4bn investment over the next decade as developers cash in on companies following in Armani and Jimmy Choo's footsteps and relocating their headquarters to the area. London’s busy transport hub has undergone a major shift over the last ten years as government departments who were traditionally the biggest office-users in [...]
Tube talks go up to the wire as strike looms February 10, 2014 UNIONS and transport officials will meet today as they try to ward off a second week of strike action on the London Underground. Both sides left the resolution service Acas on Friday night without a deal but pledged to “consider their positions” over the weekend. The RMT and TSSA unions are due to walk out [...]
London needs Crossrail Two but the Treasury doesn’t have to fund it February 9, 2014 IT MIGHT seem absurd to be talking about Crossrail 2 when Crossrail 1 has only just hit the halfway mark. But the uncomfortable truth – and I mean this literally for London’s rail users – is that, as soon as it opens, Crossrail 1 will be full to bursting. We are playing a desperate game [...]
Father v son: who will master the snowboard? February 9, 2014 Ski fan Keith Perry swapped his skis for a snowboard at Les Deux Alpes to see if he could give his son a run for his money on the slopes THE FACT that I fall into the so-called “grays on trays” category – snowboarders of a certain age – should have warned me off. That, [...]