In 1995, eight out of 10 tools were considered unsafe and, in 1999, the figure was four out of 10.. Tony Blair indicated yesterday that the Government will proceed with the controversial part-privatisation of London Underground, a scheme critics call a “nightmare version of Railtrack”. The Prime Minister insisted he would proceed with the much-derided plan “not out of pride, but because we believe it to be the right thing to do”.Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, and his colleagues said that, unlike the decision to place Railtrack into administration, it would take an Act of Parliament to unravel the “disastrous” partnership envisaged for the Tube system. Bob Kiley, Mr Livingstone’s transport commissioner, has said privately that keeping his job would be a “dilemma” for him, given his ferocious denunciation of the scheme.Mr Kiley and the Livingstone camp at Transport for London(TfL) said the blueprint was a “one-way shovel” for delivering taxpayers’ money to commercial companies. The £13bn partnership would result in few tangible improvements to passengers in the first seven years or so, they said.Officials at TfL will examine the “hugely complicated” PPP contracts when they are published today and consider legal action under European law. Mr Livingstone’s colleagues said there was a “mismatch” between draft contracts and the obligations private companies told the Health and Safety Executive they were committed to.

Mr Kiley said when the “inevitable disaster” came the Government would find there was no effective “escape clause” to protect the public.The three consortiums taking over 30-year leases would earn a 35 per cent return on capital and break even in year three. But in negotiations the companies had reduced to a minimum any financial risk to themselves.More than 100 companies would be involved in running the system under the PPP and the Underground “conservatively” estimated it would need four times as many employees to oversee contracts.Mr Blair insisted that using conventional public-sector finance to improve the Underground would cause the loss of billions of pounds in investment. Challenged over the PPP at Prime Minister’s questions, Mr Blair said: “The reason we are engaged in this public- private investment partnership is so the infrastructure work, which is urgently needed, can be done.”All the evidence is that if we do it in that way, it will run over budget and over time. However difficult the decision may be, what is important is to take the right decision for the future.”. Fourteen months ago, a wellington-booted Tony Blair stood on the stone bridge spanning the river Severn at Bewdley, assuring those whose homes and businesses had been flooded that everything was being done to help them. The Severn is running worryingly high and locals are stocking up on sandbags and other improvised devices for fear that the river will again overflow.Hundreds were evacuated in the flooding of 2000, which was the worst to strike Bewdley since 1947.

Mr Blair – whose visit to the town was the first by a Prime Minister since Stanley Baldwin’s, more than 60 years ago – promised to take action to relieve the misery. Many, however, feel that little progress has been made with his undertaking.One of those to have buttonholed Mr Blair as he was being harangued by locals over the closure of casualty department in nearby Kidderminster General Hospital – among other issues – was Mark Leadbetter. His riverside gallery opened the day before the flood struck on 4 November and forced him to close for three weeks. Mr Leadbetter – who has had a miserable 14 months, in which the company balance sheet has reflected the costs of enforced closure and repair – is filled with gloom as he watches the current race past, only inches below the river’s bank.Earlier in the week, the Environment Agency phoned to warn him that heavy rains in the Welsh mountains, which will flow into the upper reaches of the Severn and Vyrnwy Rivers, had led to the issue of another flood warning for Bewdley.

The prospect of rain over the coming days has compounded the sense of danger.”The Environment Agency have kept us well informed and there has definitely been a momentum created by Mr Blair’s visit,” Mr Leadbetter said. “[But] that will be of little consolation if we’re hit again and we have to put all the paintings back into storage.”If the Severn overflows with anything resembling the ferocity of November 2000 – when it rose more than six yards above summer levels – then Mr Leadbetter and his neighbours on either side of the river will be at the mercy of nature, because much of the remedial work is incomplete.A team of about 12 construction workers is still at the pile-driving stage of a £6.6m flood defence project funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The scheme, which is based on a system pioneered in Germany, is not due to be completed until July this year.The Environment Agency rejected a plan for a dam, dredging and upstream storage lake and opted instead for the 650-yard concrete barrier, which runs 20ft under the river and is intended not only to prevent damage to sewage systems and the foundations of buildings but also to preserve the character of the area.Other businesses complained that once Mr Blair had left the scene they were left to beat local bureaucracy in their fight for survival. The Wye Forest District Council assiduously pursued business rate collection to cover the period of closure, they claimed.