11/04/2012 BBC London News

Tonight on BBC London News: As passenger numbers hit new

records, MPs warn Heathrow may buckle under the pressure of coping

with the Olympics. Knowing that it is going to be busy, let's do what

we can, and that means get the passport desk manned, get those

bags as quickly off the planes as possible.

Do we really want to move to Stratford? West Ham fans organise

their own opinion poll. If the club wins the bid and the keys are

handed over, we don't believe the club will then want to ask

supporters because it will be a fait accompli.

A battle over numbers - the mayoral candidates clash over what election

promises London can afford. And the remarkable story of the

toddler kept alive by an artificial heart for nine months. I have got a

new heart now. I've got a little Good evening. It's our largest

airport, where passenger numbers have hit new levels. For the first

time, 70 million passengers in a year have passed through Heathrow.

But as bosses there were celebrating that figure, there came

a warning from MPs that it may not be able to cope with the influx of

visitors for this summer's Olympics. They warn that planes could be left

on runways for long periods, deterring tourists from returning.

Arriving in to London for this summer's Olympics was supposed to

set the right mood for the millions of visitors coming to enjoy or take

part in the 2012 games. Extra staff and volunteers are being laid on to

help smooth that the passenger experience, as is a temporary

terminal. But a group of influential MPs believe queues for

immigration will be one of the major problems at Heathrow as it

struggles to cope this summer. Westminster's Culture, Media and

Sport committee also warned of planes facing delays and backlogs

on runways as the airport focuses more on visitors departing rather

than arriving. As a result, have we are told tourists could be put off

from returning to Britain altogether. Knowing it is going to

be busy, let's do what we can, and that means get the passport desk --

passport desk manned, get those bags as quickly off the plane as

possible and don't make people wait for a long time. And recognise that

everyone at the airport is an ambassador for tourism. BBA say the

issue of immigration accuses one for the Home Office and the UK

Border Agency -- BAE A. They have called for the problem to be

addressed as a matter of urgency. Alice Bhandakrahvhi is at Heathrow.

This is all about London's image, isn't it?

Yes, it is all about making a good first impression and last week, we

had from several of the big airlines who expressed their

concern with Heathrow's ability to deal with those extra passengers

during the Games. Virgin went as far to say that if we didn't get it

right and passengers did have a bad experience, they wouldn't want to

return to London. And what has BA eight, which runs

Heathrow, had to say? They are laying the responsibility

squarely at the door of the UK Border Agency and say they already

have concerns about the long queues at immigration during busy periods.

We offered the UK Border Agency the opportunity for an interview but

they declined. They did give us a statement in which they say they

are prepared for the Olympics and have additional staff for busy

periods. They will not compromise on border security and are working

with the UN is a pit road to make sure they can deal with the extra

passengers. -- the owners of Heathrow. But it seems they have

some convincing to do. Lots more to come, including:

The green campaigners who've hijacked the 2012 website in a row

Some West Ham fans say they're not being listened to by the club over

plans to move to the Olympic stadium after the Games this summer.

So they've taken things into their own hands and are asking 15,000

supporters if they want the Hammers to move to Stratford. Sara Orchard

reports. Vicky's to the Olympic Stadium. The

prize awaiting one successful bidder on 21st May -- the keys. One

of the bidders is West Ham United Football Club, who have applied for

a 99 year lease of the stadium. However, the club now finds itself

in a tricky situation. They are unable to discuss their exact plans

for a stadium move to Stratford because of a confidentiality

agreement connected to the bidding process. And it is that that has

upset one group of fans who want to be consulted. West Ham will run a

supporters' poll after 21st May, but some say that will be too late.

If the club wins the bid and the keys are handed over, we don't

believe they will then want to ask supporters because it will be a

fait accompli. And it has prompted the fans to start running their own

poll, handing out 50,000 ballot papers. Everton, for example, when

they were going to move ground, they hired the Electoral Reform

services, it any cost �10,000 and for a football club that is nothing,

and they had an independently audited poll of their fan base.

West Ham bosses have shown their plans to the fans are the

supporters Advisory Board and gave The Football supporters' Federation

believes West Ham has not broken any Football League rules regarding

consulting its fans. But future roles expected to come into force

soon should see the club conduct a thorough consultation process.

Technically speaking, if the Football League Havant introduced

the world yet, they might say they are not obliged to do it -- have

not. In the case of West Ham and this proposed move to the Olympic

Stadium, in line with the spirit of the rules that the Football League

are going to introduce, we believe West Ham should carry out a proper,

independent and objective consultation with their fan-base.

Others of clubs come and go, but for supporters, a club is for life

and we should have as much say as the others do. Sara Is here. West

Ham's hands are tied, almost? They are in a really difficult

situation. They could run a poll but they don't want to because they

cannot get all of the information to the fans about their plans for

the Olympic Stadium, should they be when the bid. They are constrained

by this confidentiality agreement. They think they could show the fans

all of the plans, the majority would be happy to move, but they

feel at the moment it would not be fair or an accurate poll if they

did run one. But part of West Ham's bid will

require them to consult with fans at some point.

And they have consulted with fans, they have spoken to the supporters

Advisory Board and the lucky few fans he got to sit on it gave

positive feedback but they also had to sign a confidentiality agreement.

It is the rest of the fans, the majority of the fans, who want

their say. They are not campaigning against the move, they just want

their voices to be heard on whether they should move or not and they

feel that after 21st May, it will be too late. It West Ham have been

awarded the stadium by that point, they don't think they will go back

on the move -- if. The senior Metropolitan Police

commander Ali Dizaei insists his police career is not over, despite

convictions for misconduct in a public office and perverting the

course of justice. Mr Dizaei told the BBC's Hardtalk he had no

intention of resigning as a police commander and would fight to prove

his innocence. I remain absolutely convinced that

I will challenge his conviction and I will win and be able to

demonstrate that I have been a subject of a miscarriage of justice.

And you can watch the full interview on bbc.co.uk/hardtalk.

The mayoral election campaign turned into a battle of numbers

today, with with Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson clashing over

exactly how much London could afford. As Labour launched their

manifesto aimed at helping Londoners in hard times, the Tories

published a dossier claiming that many of Ken Livingstone's promises

are unaffordable. Our political editor Tim Donovan reports.

With the Labour leader joining him, Ken Livingstone today unveiled an

online cost calculator to show how he could help Londoners. With the

fare cut would come lower fuel bills, the event and more help for

students. Did he think this was affordable? All of those things are

costed affordable proposals and reflect the priorities of somebody

who wants to be Mayer for the 99% of London -- mayor. Boris Johnson's

campaign responded with a dossier claiming that the cost of Ken

Livingstone, excluding fares, would be �48 billion. So how would the

Labour candidate fund the promises? The Conservatives say restoring the

education maintenance allowance would cost 220 million over four

years. Labour say it is money already held by colleges and needs

already held by colleges and needs to be allocated centrally. His

policing promises would cost another 220 million. Labour has no

detailed funding of this yet. They detailed funding of this yet. They

are citing some savings for police chauffeurs and first-class travel.

Under new lettings agency to reduce private rents would, say the Tories,

cost �130 million. They do say it would just be some admin costs to

sign up and monitor existing estate agents.

Are you concerned that Londoners may think, yes, that may be a good

idea in good times but they know it is not possible at the moment?

is a good idea in the worst times. We have done this because it is the

worst of times. But the good times, you don't need to do these things.

High taxing outer London borough, ignoring Sammy reformed...

Romford, he drummed his message home, but are his claims fair?

put his -- he put council tax up for an average band D house hold by

other �900 and put that money to completely useless projects like

flying off to Cuba, things that brought no economic benefit. What

was 80% of that money spent on? large proportion of it went on the

police budget, as indeed we have continued to do. Legitimate

spending, then? I am very proud to say we have increased police

numbers by 1,000. Cost-of-living or cost-effectiveness? Diverging views

amounted to Ken Livingstone saying he can do more and Boris Johnson

saying it is unaffordable. As you saw there, the campaign

trail got started early this morning and it continues this

evening, with all four candidates appearing in a hustings in central

London. Our political correspondent Karl Mercer is there.

Yes, with three weeks to go until polling day, it is fair to say that

some Londoners are already fed up with this campaign, but not this

lot, about 1,500 people, they were queueing around the block to get in.

This is the first time the four main candidates have got in

together since that row over their tax affairs. Since then, most of

them have tried to move the debate much more on to policy ground, so

it will be interesting to see where the arguments go tonight. About

half-an-hour ago, I spoke to Clive Anderson, who is chairing the

debate and I asked him what will make tonight a success? He thought

about it for a minute and said, if they start fighting, if somebody

swears, if somebody cries or read somebody storms off.

I wondered... They give. Later in the programme, I'll be

talking live to another candidate hoping to become mayor next month,

Lawrence Webb from the UK Independence Party.

A group of political activists have tricked a number of media outlets

by setting up a spoof London 2012 website to criticise the choice of

corporate partners for the games. Alex Bushill joins us now from the

Olympic Park to tell us more. Well, we have heard of hacking,

fishing, but what about cyber squatting? It is an ugly phrase but

it does sum up what happened. This is the authentic Web page. Now take

a look at this. This is the bogus, spoof site that fault two media

outlets. Apart from the changing the colour of the logo, it looks

like a neat match and it certainly worked. We had two out that running

a bogus story that BP had been dropped as a partner for the

Olympic Games. It was not a true story and once it was revealed as a

hoax, it was pretty soon pulled down but it does raise interesting

questions about how safe the Games are from a cyber attack. Let's be

to one of the top experts in this field. You are one of the biggest

companies in the world that deal with this, does low card have some

responsibility? But the domain name is pretty similar -- log on. Cyber

squatting isn't a normal kind of issue but that may be similar to

their own and they should have been aware that somebody could hijack

their brand name. What else can be done in the Olympics to mitigate

against this? If I were in their place, I would be contacting the

agency that looks at this kind of situation. I would also be looking

at Twitter and monitoring that to see if there is any kind of

activity of this nature which is targeting them. We will have to

leave it there, thank you. Low-cost have said perceiving that they are

very pleased the Web page itself was not hacked -- LOCOG.

Still to come: the toddler kept alive by an

artifical heart for nine months. And why Londoners are being

encouraged to make gardens and window boxes more bee friendly.

We heard from Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone earlier this evening.

Another candidate hoping to become mayor next month is Lawrence Webb

of the UK Independence Party, or UKIP. We'll hear from him in a

moment. First, a quick look at some of his policies.

Our Transport, he wants to take control of parking across the city

away from the boroughs. He would introduce 20 minutes of free

parking across London. He would also scrap the congestion charge

and a post a high-speed to rail link. You could claims half a

million jobs are under threat from proposed EU laws on financial

services, so he would protect the city. On jobs and housing, he says

he would give priority to Londoners and create a central register of

empty properties to reduce council waiting lists.

And Lawrence Webb, UK Independence Party candidate for mayor joins me

now. So you want to take control of parking, does that mean he will

strip the boroughs of that money? Absolutely. One of the mayor's

responsibility is transport and I understand you can't have a fully

integrated system and they should take control of the roads as well.

The motorist is the single largest computer group, 35% of journeys

involve the car, even in the great and outer boroughs. At the moment,

the motorist is being faced by greedy councils, simply used as a

cash cow. What Westminster were tried to do recently... But the

Mannin heat -- the money used by boroughs that they get in parking

is used for road improvement and maintenance, so would the mayor

take control of that question our absolutely, but by taking it under

one roof, there would be economy savings of possibly �100 million.

When you get rid of the heads of parking across all of the boroughs.

Currently, they issue a red 5 million tickets per year in London,

one 5th of which are successfully appealed, so there is an over-

zealous enforcement at the moment. That all costs money. By bringing

it under one roof, there would be savings. And you have indicated

you're on the side of the motorist and want to get rid of the

congestion charge, but it does bring in �174 million net after all

of its operating costs paid here, which is used to improve transport

in the capital. If you lose that money, what suffers? A parking

revenue is �700 million per year. But she would still be losing �174

million. Not if I have taking control of parking revenue. That

would give me money to spend, even when you take into account the

You say you oppose the high-speed rail link, but there's very little

that you can do about it, so are you in danger of promising

something you can't deliver on? local MPs have come out against it

too. This project, when it was first thought up ten years ago,

didn't take into account the amount of development that would take

place in London. Every rail yard has been turned into a business

park or housing. All these will be affected. There's a massive

environmental impact in doing the work. It's going to cost - it

varies - but I pegged it around �1,400 per household in the UK just

to shave 30 minutes off the journey time to Birmingham. As the Mayor

you can't do anything about that, so you are promising things you

can't deliver. As are Boris and Ken. Boris the other day - I take that

as a yes? Yes, but the Mayor has to set a vision for London. That's

part of my vision. In the event that you don't win, we know that

second preference voting plays a very key part, who do you suggest

that your supporters vote for? I've gone on record as suggesting

they vote for Siobhan, because everyone is fed up with the same,

old tired faces and we need a fresh face for London. Thank you very

much. In total, there are seven candidates standing to be Mayor on

May 3rd. Details also on our website, where you can find plenty

more information on the election campaign and if you want to talk

about the issues that matter in this election, we're giving you the

opportunity. Andrew Neil is hosting a special debate programme with the

four main candidates. If you want to take part email us. Tell us the

question you'd like to ask and please do include a phone number so

that we can contact you. With the decline of honey bees in London

over recent years, environmental campaigners have come up with an

idea to help boost their numbers. They've set up a wildflower garden

on the Southbank and invited Londoners to take home bee-friendly

plants. Friends of the Earth claims that if bee numbers don't increase

it would cost the economy millions of pounds to hand-pollinate crops.

Greg McKenzie has more. Bees need flowers, which are rich in Nectar

and pollen to survive. Over recent years there has been a rapid

decline in their numbers. In London alone, almost half of our honey

bees have simply disappeared over the last five years. Bees are

declining for a range of reasons. For instance, the way we farm in

the countryside, but also because we don't plant enough wild flowers

and the flowers that they like in our gardens. Friends of the Earth

built this garden overnight on the South Bank, where people are

enradged to plant these types of flowers -- encouraged to plant

these types of flowers on their window sills or in their gardens.

Bees can see violets and blues, so this is a real bee favourite.

Another one is this one here, yarrow. They are native wild

flowers. The campaigners are calling on the Prime Minister to

back a British bee action plan, taking steps on town planning and

on the way UK farms use some pesticides. If we were to hand

pollenate all the crops it would cost the economy 1.8 billion a year.

That would harm the economy and push up food prices and make our

farming uncompetitive in this country and we can't afford that.

The department for environment, food and rural affairs says there

is currently a ten-year plan in place to protect bees. As the day

comes to an end, members of the public are being welcomed to take

away the plants, so they too can be part of the campaign in saving or

native bees. Joe Skerratt is just three years old. In his short life

a serious medical condition caused his heart to stop beating three

times which led doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital to fit him

with a temporary artificial heart. As his family struggled to find a

donor heart, the toddler from Kent was kept alive for eight months,

which doctors say is longer than any other child in Britain. Simon

Jones has the story. He's a picture of health now, but Joe Skerratt was

born with a rare condition that left him with an abnormally large

heart, which eventually stopped -- eventually stopped beating three

times. He was hooked up to a device called a Berlin heart for a record

amount of time. It could so easily have been very, very different at

this point in time. It's just - we have been - we have been incredibly

lucky. This is the device fitted at the hospital, that helped Joe's

real heart continue to pump blood around his body, keeping him alive

for 251 days. He didn't let it affect him in anyway. He just

carried on doing what he wanted to do and got on with it basically.

Eventually a transplant was found and Joe knows he's now got a heart

that's just the right size. I got a tiny one now. I got a little one. I

haven't got a big one. Just a little one. His parents are now

encouraging others to join the organ donor register. He's gorgeous.

Peter's joined us for a check on Peter's joined us for a check on

the weather. Not quite so at the moment. Showers today. More to come

over the next few days, but if we didn't have the April showers, we

would enjoy the May flowers. Those showers are fading this evening.

The skies will start to clear, so I think it should be dry by the time

they kick-off at Loftus Road. As soon as the sun sets it will turn

quite chilly. Live commentary on The odd thundery shower could

rumble on through the evening, but even those will disappear overnight.

Generally, the skies clear and it will be cold. Remember, the numbers

in the boxes are air temperatures. The blue look on the map is the

computer telling us there is likely to be a frost again on the grass

from the suburbs out into the countryside. A fine, frosty start

in the morning. As soon as the sun gets up, the clouds will start to

pop up and rain will start to come down. Like today, some of those

showers will be thundery. The heaviest ones having hail mixed in.

In between them, in the sun, top temperature 12 or 13. On Friday,

the showers probably not quite as heavy, not so many of them around.

Mind you, it will start to feel a bit colder. Some of the showers

into the weekend could fall as snow up over the highest ground, but

they are going to be the exception rather than the rule. The showers

will be scattered this weekend. It will turn cold. We might lose the

showers. Don't go casting clouts showers. Don't go casting clouts

until May is out. Thank you. Tonight's headlines - a man, who

set fire to a furniture shop during last summer's riots, has been

jailed for 11-and-a-half years. 34- year-old Gordon Thompson admitted

starting the blaze at the House of Reeves shop in Croydon. The big six

energy companies in Britain have agreed to write to their customers

every year to let them know which are the best tariffs available. It

could save some households up to �100 a year. Serious doubts have

been raised by a group of MPs about Heathrow's ability to cope with the

arrival of thousands of extra passengers during the Olympic Games.

And, a group of West Ham fans have started their own poll of 15,000

supporters asking if they want to move to Stratford. The club says it

can't run a poll itself until after the stadium's wining bidder is