Rob Blackie - Liberal Democrats Candidate for Mayor

Age UK London recently hosted its Older Londoners’ Election Hustings and has also released its Manifesto.

There are 13 candidates standing to be Mayor of London. For a full list please visit https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/candidates/mayoral-candidates.

We asked the four leading London Mayoral Candidates if they would write a blog post for older Londoners. Here we have the second, a joint blog from Rob Blackie Liberal Democrats candidate and colleague Hina Bokhari, an Assembly Member standing in the London Assembly elections.

Rob and I very much welcome the Age UK London manifesto and endorse fully its recommendations. The London LibDems will commit to an Age-friendly London, tackle poverty, help to eradicate the digital divide and support the health and wellbeing of older Londoners.  

As an Assembly member who has worked with Age UK London on many occasions, I know how important and impactful the work has been from campaigning to get more public toilets to calling for improvements to Dial-a-Ride, to highlighting digital exclusion. 

When I was Chair of Economy, Age UK London's contributions on the committee’s report on Older Londoners renewed the campaign to encourage take up of Pension Credit and highlighted that at 25%, poverty levels among older Londoners are the highest in the country. The recommendations from our report included an Employers Tool kit which is now in the Age UK London manifesto. 

I was also pleased to work with Age UK London as a member of the Cost of Living Working group and was pleased that older Londoners featured greatly in the need to focusing on renting and job security.  

Many of Age UK London's manifesto commitments are already in line with our own.  

• Increasing step-free access to stations. The Lib Dems have a long history of campaigning to make as many stations step-free access as possible and we will continue to champion this cause. Just last year, we uncovered that the brand-new Old Oak Common station will not be step free throughout and have led calls for the UK Government & Mayor to ensure this is changed before construction starts.  

• We will extend the 60+ Oyster photocard back to 24 hours when Transport for London’s finances have been stabilised.  
   
• Pushing for improvements on Dial-a-ride has also been a constant campaign of ours for many years. Under both Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan, the service has been failing its customers and we have been at the forefront of pushing the Mayor to improve the service and reverse the cuts. We have also carried out casework on the behalf of many older Londoners experiencing issues with the service.  
   
• I have also been working recently with Dementia charities and fully back the need for a Dementia Friendly London and Dementia Friendly Venues Charter projects, to create a more inclusive city for those living with dementia. We have already seen great work on this in LibDem run Sutton Council.  

Rob Blackie’s top priority as Mayor would be to fix the Met and tackle rising crime, which continues to be a top concern of older Londoners. This has also been a top priority of ours over the last London Assembly term where we have held both the Mayor and Met Commissioner to account over issues like the number of burglaries that receive no police response, knife crime and increasing crime on the Tube.  

We are fully committed to working with accessible housing partners and the London Housing Panel to increase older Londoners’ awareness of accessible housing support. But will also set up City Developer and Housing Service Association to deal with help with advice to both private and social renters. 

We will also continue to support community organisation to provide public warm spaces for older residents and others during colder months and push for more solar panels in London to help reduce energy costs. A key initiative we have been pushing the current Mayor to adopt is the Green Doctors scheme, which would have provided face-to-face visits to Londoners to help them insulate their homes better. This is key for helping people stay warm, cutting their bills, reducing sicknesses such as pneumonia and tackling climate change.  

London needs to be an anti-ageist city, by being fully accessible and providing offline access to public services. We will continue work side by side with Age UK and to make our city we can all thrive on, no matter what your age.  

These are our commitments to you. 

Rob Blackie is the Liberal Democrats candidate for Mayor of London.Rob runs a business advising start-up tech companies, working on challenges from tackling climate change to accelerating cancer treatments. A long-standing Lib Dem, Rob has campaigned in every London borough - and now has his sights set on leading the whole city. A passionate environmentalist he now wants to green London with clean rivers and solar panels on every roof.