There are two ways to travel into London. One is by car and the other is by
train.

Travelling by car is discouraged by the Congestion Charge. Especially as
there is talk of expanding the catchment area as well. They obviously want
you to catch public transport.

Anyone who uses public transport (trains) can tell you that the system is
nearly full already - this is confirmed by reports that some train operators
are considering increasing the ticket prices to reduce the number of people
on the trains back to a manageable level (as if using a supply/demand model
can work on a public service - where do they get these boffins??!!)

Has anyone in London heard of an "Intergrated Transport Policy" or something
similar? Or are we, the punters, going to get shafted both ways with the
above proposals. There are too many people in London, no one is doubting
that - I just wish they would have the balls to come out and say it - "We
want you to leave - we're full".

On Sun, 8 May 2005 08:10:46 +0000 (UTC), "Mick"
wrote:

"We
want you to leave - we're full".

I've long said there should be serious tax breaks for companies
relocating their HQs out of London to other cities, particularly in
the North. London, quite simply, *is* too full, and it is ludicrous
that the situation has arisen whereby some people are having to travel
two hours up each way to/from work on a daily basis.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

Agreed.

Has it ever been discussed politically? I know other countries that do this
quite actively - and it would surely have a flow in effect in terms of
increasing economic activitiy in other parts of the country and help reduce
the extra amount employers have to pay employees to work in London...
effectivly reducing the north/south divide - which must be a good thing.

To be fair - there are some areas that have done this - ie Reading IT
centre.

On Sun, 08 May 2005 08:51:51 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

I've long said there should be serious tax breaks for companies
relocating their HQs out of London to other cities, particularly in
the North. London, quite simply, *is* too full, and it is ludicrous
that the situation has arisen whereby some people are having to travel
two hours up each way to/from work on a daily basis.

Maybe HMG should be the first to reduce the tax burden by doing this
with its own offices? Maybe even outsourcing to India or further
afield?
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

"Terry Harper" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 08 May 2005 08:51:51 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

I've long said there should be serious tax breaks for companies
relocating their HQs out of London to other cities, particularly in
the North. London, quite simply, *is* too full, and it is ludicrous
that the situation has arisen whereby some people are having to travel
two hours up each way to/from work on a daily basis.

Maybe HMG should be the first to reduce the tax burden by doing this
with its own offices? Maybe even outsourcing to India or further
afield?

Hasn't this been Government policy for some time now?

As for major companies moving out of London, I feel most would not, for fear
of losing their 'competitive edge'.

As for major companies moving out of London, I feel most would not,
for fear
of losing their 'competitive edge'.

Possibly years ago , but these days given most communications are
electronic
it shouldn't really matter. If a large company relocated to a perhaps
slightly
depressed region it could do wonders for the local economy plus it
would be
cheap to live in for the employees (at least initially) and would take
some pressure
off london. Unfortunately london like most big cities suffers from the
black hole
effect , the more people come in , the stronger the attractions to
others becomes
so they more in too and so forth until you end up with a nightmare like
Mexico
City or Tokyo which have the population of a medium sized country each.

B2003

On Mon, 9 May 2005 00:39:55 +0100, "Robin Mayes"
wrote:

As for major companies moving out of London, I feel most would not, for fear
of losing their 'competitive edge'.

There3 are a lot of insurance companies that moved out of London, to
places like Tunbridge Wells, Horsham, Bristol, etc, and many an
engineering company have moved away, to Crawley, Portsmouth, Brighton,
and so on.

The London Office syndrome is based on a fallacy.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

The London Office syndrome is based on a fallacy.

So the couple of million people who commute in daily in packed tubes &
buses and mile long tailbacks during the rush hour are all heading to
the
shops or to feed the pigeons?

B2003

"Terry Harper" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 08 May 2005 08:51:51 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

I've long said there should be serious tax breaks
for companies relocating their HQs out of London
to other cities, particularly in the North.

Maybe HMG should be the first to reduce the tax burden
by doing this with its own offices? Maybe even outsourcing
to India or further afield?

Well, the MOD has been outsourced to Washington DC.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Have we all forgotten the LOB (Location of Offices Bureau) and those
cute advertisements on London Subway trains?

During the Seventy's and early Eighties they helped companies leave
London. Indeed that is why Milton Keyes and the enlarged Basingstoke
exist.

By the late 1980s the LOB's role had changed. At that point they were
encouraging companies to move TO London.

One assumes the LOB was quietly put to sleep during the Thatcher years.

A.