London transport chaos derails plans for New Year's Eve bang

By ANNE McHARDY

LONDON - New Year's Eve fireworks planned for major buildings and public parks across London are the latest casualty of Britain's transport chaos and the war of wills between London Mayor Ken Livingstone and the Blair Government.

After weeks of increasingly public bickering between himself and the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who has cabinet responsibility for transport, Livingstone yesterday announced that the fireworks were being cancelled. He was publicly disappointed and privately "incandescent."

He was forced to stop plans because the London Underground - over which he and Prescott are fighting a ferocious battle - at first refused any service, then said it would run a partial train service until 6 pm on December 31.

The national rail companies therefore said they could not guarantee the safety of their service. The Metropolitan Police also weighed in, at first saying that the safety of the crowds expected at the fireworks displays could not be guaranteed unless there was a full Underground service, then saying the display could be too dangerous even with the Underground running.

The event was cancelled this week because police said that unless a speedy decision was taken, £3 million of police overtime would have to be booked and paid for whether the display went ahead or not.

The fireworks display had been mooted from New Year's Day this year, after the disappointment that followed the Millennium display.

In June, just as Livingstone came into office, it was announced that rock star turned charity campaigner Bob Geldof was the successful bidder to stage the display.

Since then, there have been negotiations about scope - Geldof wanted to include major buildings, including Big Ben and Alexandra Palace, and all parks with hills - and safety.

The increasingly run-down state of the Underground system increased fears. Some escalators are out of action at most major stations, including King's Cross and Oxford Circus.

There were dark hints of near disasters last year. Then came the four weeks of bedlam on the national train system after four people died in a crash at Hatfield, just north of London. A series of meetings involving Livingstone and Prescott, at which they first maintained a semblance of unity, descended quickly into public vitriol as Prescott attacked Livingstone.

The two are at loggerheads over how the Underground should be made reliable again, with Prescott favouring a partial privatisation and Livingstone, who has brought in a United States expert, preferring a bond issue and a package of transport measures, including bus improvements and a charge on drivers coming in to central London.

Control of the Underground will pass from the Government to the mayor only after its financial future is decided.

Livingstone keeps pointing to the national chaos as proof that Prescott's plans for the London trains are flawed.

Police fears about the sort of crowds which thronged the banks of the River Thames to welcome in the Millennium might have stopped the fireworks. But the appalling transport chaos and the inability of Livingstone and Prescott to agree undoubtedly tipped the balance in what several British papers are dubbing "fun-free London."