The Cowan Report

Beware: Pickpocket Operating On Public Transport

2012-01-18T10:21:00.003Z

At a time when many households are crunching the numbers on their household budgets the maths is pretty straight forward when it comes to travel fares in London. The current Conservative Mayor of London has increased fares by an extra seven per cent this month. He has put London’s travel fares up every year he has been in office and by many times more than inflation. Some fares have risen by as much as 56%.The Conservative Mayor has pledged to continue to do this until 2017.

Labour’s candidate to be London’s Mayor has pledged to cut fares by seven per cent if elected in May. That will save the average household at least £800.

The full scale of the Conservatives' fare rises over the last four years may not have been absolutely clear to everyone - that's the nature of stealth taxes. People may have been aware their wallets are a little lighter or that they had a little less cash to spend but they may not have clocked the exact amounts this crafty stealth tax ruse was lifting from their pockets. So Ken Livingstone’s silhouette of the all too familiar Conservative London Mayor reaching into a commuter's bag is spot on. The metaphor works. And, rather than simply criticise, Labour is offering voters the opportunity to get their money back by cutting fares and halting Mayor Johnson’s planned extra fare hikes.

TfL Update On Hammersmith Flyover Closure

2012-01-03T13:59:00.001Z

Transport for London have advised that Hammersmith flyover “will remain closed this week.” But that they “hope to open it for some traffic next week”.

The flyover was dramatically closed on December 23rd. Hammersmith has been locked with high levels of traffic congestion almost every day since.

Responding to a series of queries I raised with them, TfL have written to say they have “been concerned about the structure for some months and we have been conducting engineering assessments over this time. Unhappily, the assessments have increased the level of concern. On the Thursday before the Christmas weekend an inspection raised the level of concern to the point where we had to close the flyover.

The problem relates to corrosion of the steel tendons which help to hold the structure together. The assessments and monitoring include ultrasound and physical examination following exposure of the tendons from the surrounding concrete.

Your constituents would have seen very little activity on the flyover. That's because the majority of the work is taking place inside the structure within the underside of the flyover. Teams of engineers trained specially for confined spaces have been working day and night on the problem.

We are taking a range of measures to ease the inevitable congestions, including phasing traffic signals, limiting road works, providing traffic advice - but our best advice remains telling drivers to avoid the area. We will be monitoring traffic levels and pinch points.”

TfL have promised to send me “a technical briefing this week” and will let me know if they’re able to achieve their aim of re-opening the flyover to some limited traffic next week – once they have finished all their evaluations.

It's not clear why the corrosion of the steal tendons, critical to the structure of the flyover, have been allowed to deteriorate to such a apparently dangerous extent. It is not yet evident if TfL had been engaged in sufficiently regular maintenance of the structures and whether that could have avoided this sudden closure? I expect that information to be in the technical briefing.

What is clear is that there are chronic levels of traffic congestion, pollution and increased rat-running traffic in residential roads around Hammersmith. It's a mess. I hope that TfL can demonstrate they they have done everything possible to avoid this and are putting all necessary resources and effort in getting it back in use. I'll let you know when I get their briefing.

H&F Council's Wins Private Eye's Annual Rotten Borough Award For Second Consecutive Year

2011-12-22T19:11:00.010Z

The Conservative run Council has again won
Private Eye's annual award

Hammersmith and Fulham Council has made Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs section again - for a fourteenth time. This time for winning one of the 2011 Rotten Borough Annual Awards.

The dubious accolade was given because the Conservative run Council closed a support centre for Afghan refugees without taking any care or thought about where they could go for help. The Administration argued it was okay to do this because the refugees could go to the Southern Afghan Club instead. But that turned out to be a dog fanciers' club for those that particularly admired Afghan hounds. You can read more about that and the other heartless advice they offered by clicking here.

This is the second year in a row that H&F Council has made the Rotten Borough Annual Awards pages. In 2010 it found itself winning under the Retiree of the Year category. That was awarded to Mr. Nick Johnson, one of H&F Council's long standing "full time" "consultants". In 2007 he retired as the Chief Executive of Bexley Council at the tender age of 54 because of ill health - which entitled him to draw his generous pension. But he then popped up in Hammersmith and Fulham fourteen weeks later as a consultant Chief Executive. H&F Council has now paid him an amount of money that is roughly the same sum as equivalent to a 2% council tax cut for every household in the Borough since he started working here in 2008 .

You can read more about Private Eye's Rotten Borough Awards in its Christmas edition (no 1304) which is available at all good newsagents.

Town Hall Planning Debacle: GLA Slaps H&F Conservatives In The Face

2011-12-16T19:44:00.016Z

H&F Conservatives' Town Hall Scheme
stopped - or at least "kicked into the long grass"

H&F Conservatives’ Town Hall office and demolition scheme has been stopped – for now. The Greater London Authority was apparently about to refuse the controversial scheme which was granted planning permission by H&F's Conservative councillors on 30th November. The GLA had reached the conclusion that it breached their regional planning rules - as well as those of this Borough. However, H&F Conservatives pleaded with Mayor Boris Johnson to let them "withdraw" it instead "until further notice." He agreed and so has allowed them the opportunity to bring it back at some future point without the public currently seeing all of the GLA's criticisms. It is still a "live planning application."

So sadly this is not our VE day, it's more like D Day instead. But it is still a battle victory and a humiliating slap in the face for the Conservative Administration, their planning officials and for those Conservative Councillors that block voted it through, without asking a single testing question.

There appears to have been some intriguing goings-on behind the scenes. I understand that Mayor Boris Johnson (Con) was furious at having this issue land on his desk just five months before the Mayoral and GLA elections. Thousands of residents from across south west London have protested about it and were emailing the him in droves. Indeed many, including actress Vanessa Redgrave, were taking part in a vigil outside City Hall only yesterday. A reliable source told me that Mayor Johnson and leading members of H&F's Administration have been engaged in "heated discussions." It has now been "kicked into the long grass."

However, H&F's Conservative Administration needs to rip these plans up, drop their £35m office project and agree to protect the cinema, the park, the skyline and the homes they were going to demolish. They should use this opportunity to start fresh talks with residents about what might work best. That's what I will do should Labour win control of the Council on 1st May 2014 - assuming H&F Conservatives haven’t been allowed to grant a further planning permission by then.

For now, we must understand exactly what concerns the GLA raised about this project. Those need to be published so Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative Administration can properly be held to account should they bring this back after the Mayoral election or propose anything similar during the next two and a half years.

There also needs to be an inquiry into the money that's been wasted on this scheme. Senior Conservative councillors and their officials have been working on it since 2006. They have spend millions of tax pounds on consultants, trips abroad to meet property speculators and time putting it all together. On top of that, they were in the process of offering property speculators well over £70m of public land to make this scheme go through.

Anyone that attended the Planning Committee on 30th November would have got a strong whiff of the weakness of the Administration’s case. This is a gargantuan mess. We need to understand how they got it so wrong and how that was allowed to happen consistently during the five years they all worked on it. And when we do, maybe there will be some resignations from the Cabinet Members and senior officials that were behind this project as well as the Planning Committee members that voted this scheme through.

You can read more about this in The Standard, the Shepherds Bush Blog and the local Chronicle.

How H&F Labour Will Cut Council Taxes Without The Conservatives' Octopus Tactics

2011-12-12T09:19:00.002Z

Labour's campaign for cuts in
Council Taxes

Over the last year my fellow Labour councillors and I have resumed our campaign for cuts in council taxes. Times are tough but the council has the money to do it. Today the Council announced that it will cut roughly £30 from the average band ‘D’ council tax bill. That’s a move in the right direction and I'm sure it will win them some easy headlines.

But H&F Conservatives are like an octopus that gives with one arm but rifles through your pockets and takes your money with its seven others. Early on their Administration introduced nearly 600 new or higher inflation busting stealth taxes. The Telegraph have put them on their List of Parking Shame for, until this year, introducing nearly 60% hikes in charges in a single year; elderly and disabled people now pay £12.40 an hour if they need home care; and even introduced new charges this year for people who want to use a personal trainer in our parks. The real mission for H&F Conservatives should be how can they genuinely put more money back into the pockets of hard pressed households up and down the Borough.

Consider that roughly £600,000 is equivalent to a 1% council tax cut in this Borough, It’s therefore easy to understand the scope for further cuts if you look at what our money has been wasted on in recent years. Here’s a list:

Wasted £35million on the unwanted Hammersmith Town Hall office scheme by handing over expensive council owned land and paying for much of the work undertaken by officials and professionals
Wasted up to £12million on employing unnecessary consultants that the council admitted were paid despite many no longer doing any necessary work for the council.
Wasted £5million a year on what a leading Tory MP said was “political propaganda on the rates”
Giving senior bureaucrats 16% salary rises and, at an average of £220,000 a year and therefore employing the highest paid senior council bureaucrats in the UK
They even admitted wasting £250,000.00 because they failed to turn the lights off in the Town Hall extension

H&F Council have now paid this consultant almost the same as a 2% council tax cut for every Borough household. And the culture around respecting public money is wrong when they argue it’s OK to spent £7,000 on a booze up that started on a Monday afternoon. There is more and it can be stopped.

Labour will cut Council Taxes should we win the election in 2014. We will use zero based budgeting to access all H&F Council’s expenditure and will strip out waste such as that listed above.

Town Hall Scheme On Boris Johnson's Desk After H&F Conservatives' Predictable "Yes" Vote

2011-12-08T17:03:00.009Z

Residents queueing to get into the planning meeting just
before the 7.00pm start. Dozens were barred because
H&F Council booked too small a room
to accommodate everyone

Well over 400 Hammersmith residents turned out to a special session of the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) last week. They had come to hear the arguments the Conservative Administration would use to justify their office and tower block scheme. But, as one leading resident later wrote: council “officers offered no real analysis or justification for their recommendations” adding we have “rarely heard such a display of double-speak and flummery.” Needless to say, none of that stopped all seven Conservative councillors on PAC from somewhat predictably block voting their own Administration’s plan through. Labour’s three PAC members voted against. Now the decision goes to Mayor Boris Johnson (Con).

The Mayor has to review this scheme, not least because the Council has a clear conflict of interests. Boris Johnson has the power to instruct H&F Council to refuse permission. If he looks at the evidence objectively then it’s hard to see him doing anything other than that. But many residents fear that Boris Johnson’s close relationship with H&F Conservatives could be an obstacle. The Mayor and H&F Conservatives work closely on policy together, H&F Council hosted Boris Johnson’s campaign day, the Council Leader worked on the Mayor’s Audit panel and is said to be chairing his re-election committee.

The scheme could also be called in by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. But many residents are equally wary of that, noting that this post is currently held by Mr. Eric Pickles MP (Con). He has described H&F Council as the “apple in his eye” and even made the Council Leader the Chair of his Innovation Unit.

None of that should affect the process but I understand why residents are concerned. H&F Council’s PAC meeting looked like a stitch-up from beginning to end and has left many with little more than contempt for the way the Administration and Conservative PAC members have acted. I cannot recall witnessing such a thoroughly disingenuous approach to any planning application – and that’s really saying something. I therefore think there should be an independent investigation of what has gone on.

Over 1,300 residents, local community groups and English Heritage had written in to offer their criticisms of the project. English Heritage had taken the unusual step of detailing why this scheme will cause “considerable harm” to the environment. But none of that appeared to matter. The meeting was characterised by Conservative PAC members lining up to ask planted questions and planning officers then nervously responding with their often rehearsed answers. Nobody in the audience had any confidence that any of their concerns were being properly dealt with.

The scheme is the end result of four years’ of negotiations which had been led by Cllr. Mark Loveday, H&F Conservatives’ Chief Whip and Cabinet Member for Strategy and Nigel Pallace, the Director of the Council’s Environment and Planning Department. Driving it all was the Administration’s desire for £35m of new offices for Town Hall bureaucrats. To get those, the Conservative Administration had traded land, will agree to CPO and demolish homes, shops and the cinema; it had agreed to build on a quarter of the riverside park; and for its chosen developer to build tower bocks reaching up to 15 storeys high into the Hammersmith skyline. It is a ridiculous deal and it’s hard to find anyone that supports it other than the Conservative Administration or the developer.

I asked Nigel Pallace how the process had worked, what minutes had been kept of the many private meetings with the developer and who had been involved? Notably, I wanted to know what had come first, the deal or the changes to the Local Development Framework (LDF) and justifications for the scheme his officials are using to recommend “approval”? His response was long and didn’t answer my questions. I asked him another four times. But each time he gave a similar answer. He talked about an earlier scheme that he had worked on with some of my colleagues in a previous Labour Administration - the subtext of all that appeared to be to try and link the current Labour Opposition into this current scheme. A young Conservative councillor pounced on that and tried to articulate an accusation. But Mr. Pallace knew all too well that this was irrelevant; that those people behind the 2002 scheme had listened and dropped it; and that it was me, Cllr. Mike Cartwright (Lab) and former Cllr. Chris Allen (Lab) who ensured that scheme was killed as soon as we found out about it. Labour's last Borough manifesto confirmed that this scheme would be dead forever - had we won the elections last year.

By the time Mr. Pallace had finished his remarks I think many in the audience were of the view that officials had changed the LDF and written their justifications with the sole aim of recommending approval for the Administration’s scheme - not that he said any of that.

Ravenscourt Park ward Councillor Lucy Ivimy (Con) added further clarification. She told the PAC that “the report is deeply defective. It contains basic errors of fact; it appears to accept without criticism arguments and evidence put forward by the applicants, and contains arguments that bear all the hallmarks of being disingenuous. I note that those responsible for producing it, report to that same executive which has been the main moving force for the council behind these proposals, and I wonder what influence that executive has had on the professional judgement of officers.”

Until last May, Cllr. Ivimy was in that Executive as the Administration’s Cabinet Member for Housing which made her evidence all the more insightful and powerful. She gave an excellent speech.

Councillor Mark Loveday, the Conservative Chief Whip and the lead Administration councillor for the scheme, was stood at the back of the room eyeing the proceedings at the front. He would have been an anonymous figure for all but the councillors and a few residents.

I wondered what pressure the Conservative PAC members must feel given the importance of this scheme to senior members of their Administration.

The vote took place just before midnight. It had been a long night and it was impressive to see hundreds of people wait so long to see the outcome. Indeed, dozens had been barred from entering the smaller hall the Council had booked at Latymer Upper School. But the outcome was thoroughly predictable. So much so that as we left members of Save Our Skyline (SOS) were stood by the door handing out a press release printed prior to the meeting but criticising the vote that had just happened.

Residents can ask Mayor Boris Johnson to refuse this scheme by emailing Mr. Giles Dolphin here. I think it’s worth copying in Boris Johnson at this email address too. As well as that, residents should write to The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. You can email him by clicking here. If you want to consider what others are saying the main objections are you can see those here on SOS’ website.

“A Disaster:” “Britain’s Experiment In Austerity”

2011-12-06T23:53:00.001Z

Professor Krugman's analysis from across the Atlantic
offers an alternative view of how Britain should
rise to its economic challenges

Professor Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has again reported on the British economy - his first analysis since the Autumn Statement. He’s not a fan of the Conservative/Lib Dem government’s austerity experiment which he says “will depress the economy even further in the short run, leading to further depression of long-run potential.” You can read his article by clicking here.

Writing in the New York Times Professor Krugman notes that things are unlikely to change because “the truly awful thing is that Cameron and Osborne are so deeply identified with the austerity doctrine that they can’t change course without effectively destroying themselves politically.” Professor Krugman has also spotted that the government is well aware of the effects its policies are having and has effectively admitted that in the latest report from the Office of Budget Responsibility. If so it makes our current economic predicament even more depressing.

It is admirable that Professor Krugman resisted all attempts to crow that he told us so. But he offered his first warning about the government’s austerity programme less than six months after the last election saying it “will lead to a renewed economic slump” and has charted what's actually happening since.

The Conservative/LibDem government had effectively gambled that Britain could get away with running an austerity budget, not least, because they expected our major trading partners would have sufficient growth to pull us along in their slip stream. But our biggest partners are the European Union and the United States and they are hardly in a position to do that. We therefore need another economic plan, but as Professor Krugman pointed out, that’s unlikely to come from Mr. Cameron and Mr. Osborne.

Labour’s Ed Ball argues that there is a better way. It is without doubt in our national interests that we have a thorough public debate on how that might work and what we do next.

H&F Conservatives Say £7,000 Tax Payer Funded Booze-Up Was Er... "Good For Morale"

2011-11-29T02:38:00.007Z

Hard to earn but easy to waste. Over £7,000 of tax payers'
cash squandered on H&F Council knees up. But H&F
Conservatives say they'll do it all again

There has been quite a lot of squirming from the Borough’s ruling Conservative councillors over the last few days. That's all a consequence of this story about how they squandered £7,104 of tax payers’ money on a leaving party that started at 4.00pm on a Monday afternoon.

The Shepherds Bush Blog and HFConWatch also featured the story and I expect other media to pick it up too.

Just for the record, I want residents and senior officers of Hammersmith and Fulham Council to know that should Labour win control of the Council on 1st May 2014, I will stop all tax payers’ money being spent on parties, socials, leaving functions and other such frivolous waste. I’m more than happy for people to have leaving get-togethers which are paid for privately with their own money and happen after work hours. But that’s it.

I’m actually surprised that H&F Conservatives think this is OK. The Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle contacted three people in the Conservative Administration and is reporting Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con), the Leader of the Council saying “I am never going to stop spending some money” on such celebrations.

Cllr. Peter Graham (Con)

Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con), the Cabinet Member for Community Engagement was recently calling for even more cuts but on this occasion he advised the Chronicle that this £7,000 bash was “good for morale” and says the public will “understand it was the right thing to do.”

Going by the Twitter exchanges between the recently elected Cllr. Peter Graham (Con) and the Chronicle, he appeared to have a touch more apprehension of what the public would really think. That was presumably why that paper had to ask for his view an incredible ten times while he tried to obfuscate and duck out of directly answering whether he supported this £7k splurge or not. Others joined in and he eventually came clean and said that he “doesn’t have a problem with it” because the Council is making cuts elsewhere.

Hmmm. These are really very tough times for many local people but even if they weren't, I would still have a problem with this. That £7,104 was not the Council's money, they were simply custodians of it - it was the public's money. The politicians and officials that decided to squander it in this manner showed no respect for that or indeed any appreciation of how hard many people work just to pay bills, such as their council tax. I hope H&F Conservatives get that message before we uncover more such senseless waste.

Guardian's Interview Gives More Insight Into Mr. Cameron's Character

2011-11-26T15:31:00.008Z

See the Guardian's interview

There is a good interview with Prime Minister David Cameron (Con) in today's Guardian. They have innovatively had fifty five famous people, from all walks of life, each ask him a single question. It's well worth a read. All the Prime Minister's answers are interesting but he inadvertently demonstrates that Flashmanesque bullying characteristic, that's been commented on before, in one or two of his answers. Look at Mr. Cameron's response to Polly Toynbee's question about child poverty:

Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist
"On the basis of your government's present policies, the IFS predicts child poverty will rise steeply, after nine years of falling. What emergency measures will you now take to correct this trajectory and fulfil your pledge to cut the numbers of children living below the OECD recognised poverty line?"

Prime Minister David Cameron, "I note that she doesn't refer to that fact that we've had a series of budgets that have not added to child poverty and the reason is we took steps to increase child tax credits, to demonstrate that while we were making cuts, we were doing so in a way that was fair… There are many things I can do in life, but making Polly happy is not one of them, I'm afraid."

Polly Toynbee is a committed campaigner on child poverty. I've seen her ask equally tough questions about progress on that subject to Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But Mr Cameron not only refused to answer Ms. Toynbee's question he had a couple of digs at her too. It was an odd subject for him to judge such a petulant response would be reasonable.

I am sure Mr. Cameron's advisers must tell him to keep that aspect of his personality under wraps. But I suspect he just can't help himself. I recall a similar response on 5th January 2010 when he did a public meeting in Hammersmith. Maxine Bayliss, one of my constituents, asked him about the safety of her home on the Queen Caroline Estate, which H&F's Conservative run Council has listed for demolition in their Local Development Framework. Mr. Cameron became visibly irritated by her question, turned his back on her and while walking away snapped, "If you don't like them stand for election?"

I expect we will see more of this unbecoming characteristic next year as the Prime Minister’s economic policies begin to cut further into the fabric of our national life. There will be much greater scrutiny given to the Cameron government’s role in failing economic growth, rising unemployment, rising child poverty and plenty of other areas the Prime Minister would no doubt prefer not to be asked about.

Residents Associations' Call To Arms: 30th Nov Meeting Is "Last Chance" To Say "No" To Hammersmith Skyline Blight

2011-11-25T18:28:00.001Z

Click to expand and view. Feel free to print SOS'
poster and put it in your window

H&F Conservatives’ much criticised proposals for the Town Hall tower blocks will go to a “special meeting” of the Council's Planning Applications Committee (PAC) this Wednesday. It will begin at 7.00pm and will be held in Latymer Upper School and NOT in Hammersmith Town Hall. Unsurprisingly, its planning officers have recommended “approval.”

But many residents tell me they want to know if there is a conflict of interest? This is not an independent planning application such as any resident may put in to extend their home; nor is it a situation where a developer has approached the council with a scheme. This project is the brainchild of the Council’s Conservative Leadership and senior council officers.

Conservative Councillors actually went looking for firms to deliver this scheme and even flew to the French Riviera to court developers. Nigel Pallace, the Borough’s Director of Environment and Planning has led on this project since the outset. So residents understandably question how can H&F’s PAC make an independent decision that isn’t unduly influenced in some way by senior members of the Administration?

It’s an interesting question. A lawyer would advise that it would be unlawful for members of PAC to be Whipped on which way to vote. But they would also caution that people with any concerns about any particular members of PAC will have prove with evidence that there is undue influence. If they can't do that then the good name of those councillors should be left in tact.

Save Our Skyline and other residents’ groups are calling on people to attend and protest. I will be there and I will be arguing against this disgraceful scheme. I may see you on Wednesday night…

Is That Really A Spending Priority?!? H&F Conservatives Waste £7,000 Of Tax Payers’ Money On A Booze-Up

2011-11-25T16:06:00.003Z

Mr. Geoff Alltimes, Council's former CEO. H&F Conservatives
spent over £7000 on his goodbye party. It is also
estimated that he received a £270,000 tax free
lump sum pay-off and will receive a
£104,000 annual pension.

This year, the Borough’s residents will hand over between £747.74 to £2,243.20 to Hammersmith and Fulham Council in Council Tax – depending on the banding of their home. They may have to add extra payments for parking, parking fines, meals on wheels and even for using fitness trainers in our local parks. H&F Conservatives has consistently added record hikes to these stealth taxes. All of us know these are difficult times of austerity. Or so we thought…

Yesterday, the Council reported that the Borough’s ruling Conservative Councillors spent an incredible £7,184.00 (excluding VAT) of tax payers’ money on a booze-up. The party began at 4.00pm in the afternoon on Monday, October 31st and it took place in the Assembly Hall in Hammersmith Town Hall.

I find it genuinely hard to fathom why the Conservative Administration spent that amount of money on a shin-dig. This year the Conservative/Lib Dem government has slashed funding to Hammersmith and Fulham Council by a record amount. Our local Conservative councillors called for even more cuts and to show the way, added an extra £1 cut to every £3 cut by their government. That meant that £33million was slashed from front line services or added as stealth taxes. Sure Start nurseries are a pertinent example as many up and down the Borough found that their budgets were dropped from over £450,000 a year to just £19,000 a year. Think what an extra £7,000 could do for any of those facilities. Indeed, think what an extra £7000 could do to significantly improve any of the many reduced services. Consider that an average Band D council taxpayer will pay £1,121.60 then almost six and a half Borough households have had their payment for this year thoroughly wasted paying for a get-together.

The reason given for such extravagance is that it was a retirement party for Mr. Geoff Alltimes, the Borough’s former Chief Executive. I have nothing against people putting their hands in the own pockets and having a retirement party after work hours. I am sure that is what will have happened often during the last two years for many of the 296 H&F Council staff that have left because of redundancy or retirement. But Mr. Alltimes has already been treated extremely generously by this Administration. He was remunerated almost £300,000 a year; his annual pension is estimated to be £104,000 a year and he is also estimated to have received a tax free, lump sum payment of £270,000 as part of his leaving package.

I think we should get the money for Mr. Alltimes' leaving bash back. I can picture some Sure Start nurseries that would happily welcome it.

H&F Conservatives Place Borough's Vital Mental Health Service Under Threat

2011-11-25T13:07:00.001Z

For many years now, the Ellerslie Centre has offered some truly excellent day services that have proved critical to supporting people with enduring mental health needs. H&F Conservatives are looking to curtail these services and move in other community groups which they intend to evict from other council buildings they are planning to sell off. The users of Ellerslie Road are devastated and upset.

This process has reached the “consultation” stage which I encourage people to take part in by clicking here. Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Administration have built a reputation of never doing a consultation unless they have already decided what they want the outcome to be. So at the last Select Committee (click on link and see page 84) meeting on 5th November many users of these services expressed an understandable cynicism about the consultation process.

I must say I didn’t find the evidence presented by the council officials leading on this to be in any way convincing. “This isn’t being driven by building sales” was offered up early on as a particularly hard to believe assurance about these service changes. Instead, we were told that the numbers of users had mysteriously dropped off despite their best efforts to encourage people to attend.

So I asked the officials if it was true they had stopped referring people to the centre last year? “Er, yes… that did happen” came the answer. I enquired how long that was for “I’m not sure” came the nervous response concluding with “I think it was about three months.” I thought it was peculiar that the officials hadn’t mentioned that in their presentation.

You put the lunch prices up as well didn’t you? I asked. “Yes we did” came the response. They went up from £1 to nearly £4 a lunch or from £7 a week to nearly £24 a week. "Would that deter people from attending?" I asked? The forty or so users of the centre in the audience shouted "Yes!"

One in four of us will suffer some type of mental health issue during our life times. If that happens our eating, hygiene and day-to-day communication habits may all deteriorate. And so when people are on the way back up it’s places like the Ellerslie Centre that are there to help with the lifting providing an affordable hot meal, laundry and washing facilities and expertly trained staff.

It appeared to me that the Council has been purposefully been running a policy of trying to cut the numbers of users attending this service. That in itself then allows them to justify the cut, then move in other groups and sell off the other buildings.

At the Select Committee, Cllr. Joe Carlebach (Con), H&F's Cabinet Member for Community Care, asked us all to believe that this is just a consultation. I asked him what would he do if the answer came back saying, "No thanks." He prevaricated but despite that, I suggest we take him at his word his word, print it out and send back our views. We’ll see what he does with that at the next Select Committee meeting on 18th January 2012.

H&F Homes Under The Hammer But Council Blocks H&F Residents

2011-11-17T12:28:00.005Z

There are currently 10,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in our Borough. There are thousands more trying to get a foothold onto the property ladder. In fact the latest figures show that on average, someone currently in their 20s aspiring to purchase a home will be in their 50s before they achieve their goal. There is therefore little doubt that we are seeing the beginnings of a housing crisis that could last a generation if councils, the London Mayor and the government fails to act. So what is H&F Council doing to improve this?

The simple answer is they're doing nothing whatsoever and if you take a look at this episode of the BBC’s Homes Under The Hammer (13.54 minutes in) then it is easy to add this to all the things they are doing to make it much worse.

The presenter tells how a council flat in Coningham Road, Shepherds Bush is being sold at auction by Hammersmith and Fulham Council but advises “However, there is one small technical hitch… a legal clause imposed by the vendor, in this case the local Council, meant that this flat could only be sold to someone who was not intending to use it as their main residence. So basically they had to be an investor who bought this to either do up to let or to sell on.” The Council can get more money this way but the fact is this home would previously have been allocated to people in need of social housing.

On page 200 of this Cabinet Report H&F Council’s own legal team advised “Sales and lettings of stock (as envisaged by this report) must be motivated purely by bona fide housing objectives. In particular they must not be tainted by any considerations of potential electoral advantage (any member or officer pursuing, or wilfully blind to, such motives would act unlawfully and not be protected by any legal advice).” The Council lawyers go on to advise that “scarce properties for which there is a pressing need should normally not be sold.”

Since coming to power in 2006, H&F’s Conservative Administration hasn’t granted planning permission for a single affordable social home to rent, they have cut all sales of genuinely affordable homes to buy and are hoping to demolish a third of all of the Borough’s current Council homes. There is little doubt that H&F Conservatives' housing policies are more for the benefit of their large corporate property speculator friends than local residents but it's now also hard to see how they are even on the right side of their own legal advice.

You can read more about this on the Shepherds Bush Blog by clicking here.

Fares Choice Central To London Mayoral Election With Ken's £800 Saving Promise

2011-11-17T11:10:00.002Z

Early next year, the Conservative Mayor of London will add an extra 7% to London’s travel fares. That will be the fourth fare rise in a row that Mayor Boris Johnson (Con) has introduced. Consider that since 2008, Mayor Johnson has already increased the cost of a single bus fare, using Oyster, by 56%; that he has put the price of a Zone 1 to 6 Travelcard up by 22% and a weekly bus and tram pass has gone up by 47%. A household using all of these services will find they're a staggering £1086.00 worse off each year since Mayor Johnson took office. So what to do?

Labour's Ken Livingstone is promising to stop this and deliver the average Londoner a saving of about £800 during the period of the Mayor's four year term. Watch this video to find out more:

Mayor Johnson is currently sitting on a Transport for London operating surplus of £728million but he has also indicated he will maintain these vast inflation busting fares rises for Londoners up until 2017 - if he's re-elected.

Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative Administration supports these fare increases. At the Council Meeting on 19th October 2011 (see page 15) they deployed their large block vote to stop the Opposition's request that they lobby Mayor Johnson on this matter and voted against a motion that said, "This Council recognises that stealth taxes such as these have a dampening effect on the London economy and hits people hard during this particularly difficult economic situation." H&F Conservatives enjoy a very close relationship with London's Conservative Mayor and are playing a major role on his re-election committee. So if they won't even try to get Mayor Johnson to change his mind who will?

Well the simple answer is that Londoners can if they want to. Ken Livingstone is offering voters a straight democratic choice on what they want to happen to fares. The Mayoral election will be held on 3rd May 2012. What happens to this part of our household budget afterwards is up to us.

Ken Comes To H&F Pledging More Police, Lower Fares And More Affordable Housing

2011-11-06T21:32:00.012Z

Ken Livingstone and Todd Foreman considering the Save Our
Skyline (SOS) poster outside Digby Mansions, Hammersmith

Ken Livingstone was given a warm reception when he came to Hammersmith and Fulham last Monday. He was accompanied by Val Shawcross AM and Todd Foreman, Labour’s GLA candidate for West Central. All were here for what turned out to be a busy and enjoyable “Tell Ken” day - which he is running for each London Borough up until the election.

It is just six months until that election which will decide who runs London’s regional government for the next four years. Ken is running on a ticket that includes:

Reversing the Conservatives’ police cuts
Lower transport fares
More affordable housing to buy and to rent.

The London Mayor’s powers are limited compared to the Mayor of New York or other world cities. However, the critical areas of policing, transport and affordable housing all fall within its remit. Ken Livingstone had a genuinely excellent record in all three areas last time he was London's Mayor. One that starkly contrasts with the current Conservative incumbent’s police cuts, record fare hikes and risible numbers of affordable homes.

Me with Val Shawcross AM, Ken Livingstone and Todd Foreman
on the Queen Caroline Estate, Hammersmith - an estate
described by H&F Conservatives as
"not a decent neighbourhood."

Ken listened to people tell him of their hopes and worries. I showed him around the site of H&F Conservatives’ awful Town Hall scheme. Then walked along the river to the Queen Caroline Estate. There he met residents and heard about their fears for their future now that H&F Conservatives have admitted they want to demolish their homes and refuse to guarantee that they’ll be able to return to any new development on that site. Residents told Ken how H&F Conservatives have identified up to a third of all the Borough’s council housing for demolition and have described the Queen Caroline Estate as not being a “decent neighbourhood.”

Ken met representatives of Save Our Riverfront. They told him how they had lost all confidence in H&F Council’s approach to planning, having witnessed the goings-on over the recent Fulham Reach development. One resident told how there is a need for family sized housing in our Borough but the Council had granted permission for “Japanese style micro-flats” which were likely to be bought by wealthy overseas investors looking for a temporary London pad.

After that we visited a local collage. A loud cheer went up from the two hundred or so young men and women who waited in the auditorium to ask questions. All of them would have been too young to vote last time but they asked Ken about everything from the government's cut to their Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) to their fears for their security and wishes for safer streets.

Later we walked down the North End Road market. Traders and shoppers stopped to shake Ken's hand and chat. I think he was genuinely shocked to learn that H&F Conservatives also plan to move the market from its historic site – with many fearing it would be much smaller or even lost altogether.

The day finished with an open public meeting in St. Augustine’s Church. Ken talked passionately about how he world put extra police onto London’s streets. He told how he had met an investment banker on a salary of £70,000 a year but even she couldn’t get an affordable home. He said he believed there was a housing crisis and one he wanted to begin to fix. He told how he would cut fares and try to make a difference so that the vast majority of Londoners saw an improvement in their quality of life.

I think Ken was right to be shocked and appalled at the antics of H&F Conservatives. He heard from many of those at the sharp end of their policies and genuinely felt for their plight. I see what H&F’s Conservative Administration gets up to on a daily basis. It is numbing to stand by and be out voted by a large Conservative majority that does whatever their leadership proposes without even a single question or murmur of concern. Consider just some of their actions here:

Cut vital services to vulnerable children with critical needs
Losing millions of pounds on bizarre consultancy contracts
Over 500 new stealth taxes including on people using local parks
Admitted they had "risked" the health of people who are disabled, sick or elderly by introducing new £12.40 hourly charges for care
Increased meals and wheels charges by £600 a year and used disgusting tactics to trick elderly people into giving up the service
Ended the Sure Start nursery programme in all but name
Insulted thousands of residents in social housing, successfully argued for vast rent increases and weaker tenants' rights and is threatening to demolish thousands more homes up and down the Borough
Risked childrens' health with a worrying approach to school meal deliveries
Planning to demolish Shepherds Bush Market and close down North End Market
Failed to grant any planning permission for any affordable social homes to rent
Shut down important facilities for those with mental health issues
Selling off youth clubs, community centers and shutting down volunteer groups
Shut down homeless charities, tightened homeless acceptance criteria and has been found guilty of maladministration on desperately sad homeless cases a total of THREE times. They even forbad Crisis and the BBC from running a Christmas homeless shelter describing Crisis' clients as "a law and order issue"
Closed parks and ripped up community athletics facilities so a private polo event could be run on the site at the height of the summer
Blighting Hammersmith’s riverfront with £35m of unnecessary offices and tower blocks for decades to come.

Ken highlighted the similarities between Shirley Porter’s disgraced Conservative Administration in Westminster to the approach taken by the Conservatives running Hammersmith and Fulham. Those young Tories feigning offence would be wise to check out those similarities for themselves before giving unquestioning support to their Administration's truly atrocious policies.

The next Mayoral elections are about issues: issues that matter and which Ken Livingstone will improve for the better should he win in six months time. I hope he does win. It would make a positive difference to the lives of millions of of people across our great city.

Controversial Town Hall Tower Block and Office Planning Date Set: 30th November 2011

2011-11-06T17:19:00.003Z

The Conservative Administration set 30th Nov
as their decision day.

At 5.00 pm on Friday night the Conservative Administration announced that its controversial Town Hall scheme is going to the Planning Applications Committee on Wednesday 30th November 2011. The meeting is a “special” session of the PAC and will start at 7.00 pm.

Oddly, despite having had years to arrange this they have chosen a date when they say the Town Hall Assembly Room is booked out. So it will be held at Latymer Upper School – not Hammersmith Town Hall - instead.

The November date is interesting. The Conservative Administration clearly fears that should Ken Livingstone become the Mayor in six months time he will act against these ridiculous plans. So, this date gives the current Conservative Mayor an opportunity to consider them before the election.

Residents wishing to demonstrate their objections can attend. I know many residents groups are arranging for that to happen. I’ll see you at the meeting.

Property Speculator Announces Plans to Demolish And Develop Queens Wharf And Riverside Studios

2011-11-02T17:26:00.002Z

View of Queens Wharf, then Riverside Studios along
Hammersmith's riverfront

Todays Financial Times is reporting that a “club of investors behind plans to build the City’s tallest skyscraper are set to redevelop the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, West London.” Arab Investments has been in longstanding talks with the Riverside Studios and Hammersmith and Fulham Council who owns the site. The paper says Arab Investments is “owned mainly by Saudi and Kuwaiti investors” who have teamed up with A2 Dominion and plan to include Queens Wharf as part of the £190m development.

According to the FT the proposals cater for “a block of upmarket apartments, new bars, a restaurant” along with “new studios” which will be “rebuilt across the original site and the adjacent Queens Wharf development.”

There is no mention of any affordable housing which is odd considering that it was only as recently as 8th August this year that H&F Council refused planning permission for A2 Dominion’s last set of bizarre proposals for Queens Wharf because of their “failure to provide a suitable affordable housing provision”

Click on cutting to expand and view

Likewise, there is no mention of how high this "block of upmarket appartments" will be. We should expect it to be smaller and less dense than A2 Dominion's last proposal because H&F Council said that had “inappropriate height and massing” but who could be confident of that with this Administration's record?

I will report again on this once we find out more. Needless to say, residents are already concerned about the Conservative Administration's all too friendly attitude to property speculators and their propensity to wave through completely inappropriate schemes. If they plan that approach here then all the participants behind this scheme will have a long and ugly fight on their hands.

Why H&F’s Opposition Voted Against Appointing The Council’s New Chief Executive

2011-10-30T14:27:00.002Z

It’s a straight forward management decision: Does H&F Council need a Chief Executive on £300,000.00 a year as well as a Managing Director on £200.000.00 a year? At the last Full Council Meeting my Labour Opposition colleagues and I voted “against” that unnecessary proposal and said "no we don't".

Before doing that, we had asked the Conservative Administration and its officials for details of all the objective analysis that had been carried out that led them to determine that the tax payers of our Borough needed to pay for both of these almost duplicate positions. Here’s what we found:

No good practice models had been followed in determining the need for both the CEO and MD post
No independent advice was sought from any possible critical friends in other local authorities, the Local Government Association, the government or academia
No cost benefit analysis was carried out on the likely benefits of having both a CEO and MD
H&F Council admitted that it hadn’t undertaken any objective analysis and hadn't followed any recognised methodologies when coming up with this highly unusual senior exec job structure.

These jobs had simply been negotiated amongst officials in private back-room deals and signed off by Conservative councillors in the relevant boroughs. That wouldn't happen in a large organisation genuinely committed to getting value for money - especially in these difficult times.

To be fair, our council will be sharing its new Chief Executive with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. That means we will get that person’s time and energy for about two and a half days a week for a cost of £150,000.00 a year. Consider that Hackney is a much larger London Borough but it pays their Chief Executive £180,000.00 a year. It begs the question couldn’t we have done better?

Local government needs to modernise. It is not acceptable that jobs should be fixed in private deals that side step best practice. Our Council particularly needs to learn from the very best companies in the private sector so it can better manage its staff and its resources.

Should Labour win power in 2014 we will delete the CEO’s post and just have an MD. We will also strip out up to ten per cent of assistant director positions and cut back the senior directors to just four. The money we save will be used to cut taxes and fund front line services such as extra police and better youth facilities.

Gun Crime, Burglary, Robbery And Total Crime Up But H&F Conservatives Vote To Confirm Borough's Police Cuts

2011-10-29T23:52:00.007+01:00

Last week at the Full Council Meeting my Opposition colleagues and I voted to have the Council restore the four local sergeants positions that have been cut from Hammersmith and Fulham’s police force this month. The Conservative run Council deployed its block vote and unanimously voted against that proposal. They did admit crime had gone up - with gun crime, burglary and robberies all up from last year but they refused to say why they were voting to stop the Council stepping in and stopping the current round of police cuts.

Does the Borough have the money to fund these roles? Consider that H&F Council made the BBC News last weekend for wasting between £5m to £12m on shoddy consultancy contracts; or that a leading Conservative MP condemned the Conservative Administration for spending £5m of tax payers’ money on "political propaganda"; or that they waste millions of pounds on some of the most expensive and unnecessary senior bureaucrats positions in the UK. Put another way the choice is even more straight forward: people in this Borough could have their four police sergeants back or keep paying for just one of the Council's high paid consultants. So yes - the money is there but only if the political will to make this a priority is there. But it wasn't.

There are 31 Conservative councillors in Hammersmith and Fulham to 15 Labour councillors. Their votes killed the proposal to restore local police numbers.

Police numbers are important. There are lessons from around the world that demonstrates how police numbers make a major difference to cutting crime. Combined with measures that tackle the causes of crime, governments and councils can make real headway into making areas much, much safer.

This is not the time to cut police numbers. The public are rightly concerned about knife crime; about increases in violent crime and about the fact that total crime is up in Hammersmith and Fulham for the first time since Ken Livingstone introduced neighbourhood police teams many years ago.

My Labour colleagues will increase police numbers should we win control of the Council in 2014. But we need action now. So, along with local residents, we’ll continue to campaign on this issue. Sooner or later the Conservatives will have to listen and restore those important police officers jobs.

H&F Conservatives: “We’re Not Embarrassed!” As £5m to 12m Is Wasted On Shoddy Consultant Contracts

2011-10-23T22:56:00.002+01:00

Gone but not forgotten

During the last year, H&F Council eventually agreed to examine the highly unorthodox consultancy contracts it now admits it has wasted millions of pounds on. But that examination was a direct consequence of a two year investigation carried out by H&F’s Labour Opposition. This was featured on today’s Politics Show and BBC London News.

Audit Committee reports were successfully pushed for by Councillors PJ Murphy (Lab) and Mike Cartwright (Lab) who are two of that Committee’s members. This began after concerns arose about the Conservative Administration’s curious method of hiring Mr. Nick Johnson, which it claims is a “full-time consultant”.

Conservative councillors initially complained that they didn’t understand why the Audit Committee was “wasting its time” looking into these matters but were then embarrassed to discover that the majority of contractors hired by their Administration:

Had NO valid contract
Had NO clear specification of what the council was buying
Had NO performance criteria
Had NO performance monitoring to check outcomes
Had NO checks for value for money

Indeed, the investigation showed that while the Conservatives argued they were cutting the number of staff they employed, they were actually hiring many of them back on inflated private service company contracts which were hidden from public scrutiny. This meant:

Some council bureaucrats were being paid twice from the public purse given that they were former local government employees already on generous final salary pensions (who had often been allowed to retire early) but were then hired back by H&F Council as full time employees for sums ranging up to £1000 per day and more
The Conservative-run Council kept no records of how many consultants it employed and initially tried to stop any investigation by the Audit Committee on the basis that it would be “too much work” to compile this information
The Conservative Administration got itself into a situation where consultants were hiring other consultants to do work that was unspecified, unmonitored and in many cases unnecessary
The Conservative Administration even paid consultants despite the work not being completed and in one case the consultancy company had even ceased to exist.

Indeed, the Opposition estimates that H&F Council has wasted between £5m to £12m by commissioning consultants for work that was thoroughly unnecessary. It is however, still difficult to have much confidence in the way H&F Council is managing these contracts. It was only last month that the Finance Director eventually wrote to me to confirm that as a consequence of the Opposition's investigations, a new “procedure for the selection, appointment and management of consultants and interims was approved by the Executive Management Team (EMT) on 13th July.”

Consider that for every £3 the Conservative led government has cut to H&F Council’s budget, the local Conservative Administration has added an extra £1 cut. That translates into service cuts and local stealth taxes, such as ending the Sure Start children’s education programme in all but name; cutting homeless acceptance criteria; introducing a 55% parking charge increases in just one year; and a new £12.40 hourly care charge for the elderly, sick and disabled.

To be fair to Cllr. Greg Smith, I think he did quite a good job on today’s Politics Show by putting a positive spin on what is an awful story about his Administration's waste and incompetence. But much of what he said was blatantly not true: he falsely claimed credit for taking "the initiative" and investigating what was going on. He even tried to blame a previous Labour Administration that left office nearly six years ago. All of the incompetence the Council has identified is a direct result of the policies and actions of the current Conservative Administration although Cllr. Smith did tell the BBC that he and his colleagues were "not embarrassed" in the slightest - which is a concern in itself.

Meanwhile, H&F Council is still refusing to say how many more of its full time staff are actually employed by agencies and therefore hidden from public scrutiny. The agencies enjoy a high commission which is paid to them from public funds with every monthly bill. While there are occasions when large organisations may need to employ people like for short periods it is very peculiar for people to be employed by a council as agency workers on a permanent basis. However, the Opposition has already discovered that many of these individuals hold high level council positions and have been employed by H&F Council in exactly this way for years.

Many residents will be asking how much more is there to come out? H&F Council therefore needs to be transparent and publish a full public account of what's gone wrong and why they tried to avoid fixing it. Then the Administration needs to publish a detailed plan of how they are going to ensure this type of waste never happens again. If they don't do that and we discover further problems, then the Opposition will be calling for some high profile resignations.

Unrelenting Save Our Skyline Campaign Builds Support To New Heights

2011-09-29T23:58:00.005+01:00

On Tuesday night Save Our Skyline (SOS) held another packed meeting to hear of residents' concerns about the Conservative Administration's scheme for central Hammersmith. SOS reported record attendance levels.

Developers Helical Bar Plc and Grainger Plc were appointed by the Conservatives as their preferred builders. They announced their latest plans in July.

Councillor PJ Murphy (Lab) attended the public meeting along with other members of the Opposition. He said "The Conservative Administration has lost all perspective. They have already wasted millions of pounds on this project. The fact is we don't need £35 million pounds of new offices for Town Hall bureaucrats and it is criminal to blight Hammersmith's skyline with high rise tower blocks; to knock down the cinema; and to demolish the Pocklington Trust homes for the blind."

The impressive residents' campaign sent a clear message that the current plans are thoroughly unacceptable to the vast majority of local people. I agree. I was at the Labour Party Conference on that evening but you can view my letter of support by clicking onto the attached photo.

A Depressingly Obvious Result At Last Night's Planning Meeting

2011-09-24T11:26:00.006+01:00

Conservative councillors on the planning
committee unanimously said "Yes!"

Last night, on my way to the reconvened Planning Applications Committee (PAC), I bumped into a group of residents walking along Hammersmith’s riverfront. They were heading there too. “It’s a done deal isn’t it Steve?" One asked, referring to St. George's Hammersmith Embankment scheme. “I think so” I responded. “I’m expecting to see my councillors ask their officials some planted questions - ones that are helpful the developer” said the Fulham Reach ward resident. “Sadly, I think you may be right” I replied.

About an hour later and well into the PAC meeting, Fulham Reach ward Councillor Andrew Johnson (Con) indicated he wanted to speak. And, with a straight face, he asked the bicycling expert amongst the council officers “Would you possibly have any information comparing bicycle traffic studies of this development and the previous Goodman’s office block?" Adding with faux wonderment “I suspect this scheme might be marginally better?"... Surprise, surprise: the officer had that info and Cllr. Johnson’s suspicions were proved correct. The audience burst out laughing. “Do you think we're stupid?” shouted one member of the 120 strong crowd,"That was clearly a planted question." Cllr. Johnson didn’t respond.

So was it a done deal? All six of the Conservative members of PAC (including the Fulham Reach ward councillors) voted as a block and approved the scheme - but why? It was bigger than anything else in the neighbourhood, it flouted the council’s rules on density, affordable housing and the conservation area and is going to blight the Hammersmith riverside with some pretty horrible buildings.

Cllr. Alex Karmel (Con) then poured scorn on the Queen Caroline Residents Association. Their apparent sin was to mention in their objection letter how they were concerned about loss of daylight. "How far away is Queen Caroline Street?" asked Cllr. Karmel - winding up all the members of that residents group that had taken the trouble to attend. One resident spoke up in defence, "We are concerned about the loss of daylight for our friends and neighbours in Chancellors Road" he said. "We don't just care about ourselves!" The Conservatives looked confused.

Labour’s PAC members are Councillors Colin Aherne, Mike Cartwright and Wesley Harcourt. They asked questions about all this scheme’s obvious flouts of the Council’s and London Mayor’s planning guidelines - the audience loudly applauding each of their direct hits. But the Conservative members smirked and carried on – giving the impression that they knew the outcome because they had the majority vote.

Residents wanted to know about the all too cosy relationship H&F’s Conservative Administration had with St. George, the developer. The Council had acquiesced to St. George’s request to change their highly influential Core Strategy. That meant the obstacles stopping St. George buildings a block of flats on the Hammersmith Embankment higher than six stories were removed. The Conservative Administration did this despite St. George being the only people to request it and every single resident association in the area arguing against that. No one in the Administration gave a satisfactory explanation.

One explanation being put by residents was that the Conservative Administration had unlawfully sold the planning approval for a £13 million Section 106 Agreement. Could that be true?

I had written to the Director of the Environment on the 12th August and asked about the many meetings that Conservative Councillors and Senior Council Officials had with St. George. I asked him to tell me when these took place, who was in the meetings and what was agreed? I knew that the meetings had begun prior to St. George buying the Hammersmith Embankment site and had also included discussion about the Riverside Studios and Queens Wharf – which are within 100 metres of the Hammersmith Embankment site.

The Director of the Environment wrote back to me to say there has been “a very large number of meetings between representatives of the Council and the Berkley Homes Group (including St George) over the past three years” and these were about a number of schemes across the Borough. He admitted, “many but not necessarily all of which will have involved officers in my department, and indeed myself” but refused to let me know the details of this specific scheme because he believed it would be “extremely onerous and time-consuming to gather all the information you have requested” and that under the "Wednesbury" rules I would have to detail why I needed that information. I wrote to him again on the 22nd August detailing why but still no satisfaction. I therefore wrote to the Council’s Chief Executive on the 8th September detailing more concerns and asked him to investigate what meetings had occurred, who attended these meetings and what was agreed.

By 14th September the Chief Exec hadn’t got back to me. The St. George’s scheme was scheduled to be discussed (and as it later turned out agreed) that night. So both Cllr. Mike Cartwright (Lab) and I wrote Cllr. Alex Chalk (Con) the Chair of the Planning Committee to ask him to get the answers to those questions. Councillors Cartwright and Chalk are both PAC members so are entitled to this information under the “Wednesbury” rules.

At 32 seconds past 5.00pm last night I got a vague response from the CEO. It was sixteen days since I had written to him but his email said he needed more time to investigate but he thought I could get my concerns addressed at the PAC meeting - which would still be allowed to go ahead.

Cllr Chalk had not responded to my concerns either. By the start of last night’s PAC meeting the only email I had from Cllr. Chalk was one saying that he had decided to deny me the chance to speak at the PAC meeting. This would have been a break in the convention that accepted ward councillors could speak on matters that affected their constituents or were in their ward. My constituents in Chancellors Road had asked me to ask about this development. It was about two metres from their homes, would block their light, cause disruption from traffic, parking and building works. I spoke anyway.

I said that the audience should be told that the vague, misleading photos the committee were being shown was from St. George not the Council. I asked about the committee’s knowledge of a deal St. George had offered the Conservative Administration that it could either have affordable housing or £13 million; I asked if Cllr. Andrew Johnson, who is also the Cabinet Member for Housing, had been involved in this housing deal and why Cllr. Chalk had failed to follow up on my concerns sent to him ten days earlier. Cllr. Chalk refused to answer any of these questions and suspended the meeting. I spoke to him in the interlude and again raised the seriousness of my concerns.

On return, Cllr. Johnson spoke first and said that he had not been involved in any of the agreements made between the Administration and St. George. He said he had behaved properly and in line with the strict PAC rules. I believed him. Cllr. Chalk called me to speak next so I made all my points again and asked who in the Conservative Administration had agreed the £13 million deal? Still no answer. The Committee moved to a vote. All three Labour councillors voted against.

A resident came up to me at the end, “So what happens if the Council did act improperly. Does that void this planning approval?” he asked. The answer is sadly not. It would get the Council into serious trouble but the approval stands. St. George’s diggers are expected on site within the month.

SOS Public Meeting: Tuesday, 27th September 2011

2011-09-23T08:22:00.001+01:00

The amazing Save Our Skyline (SOS) campaigners have organised their next public meeting to review the Council’s (and their preferred developers’) latest plans to build new offices for bureaucrats, demolish Hammersmith’s Cinema and demolish the Pocklington Trust homes for the blind.

The next public meeting will take place next Tuesday 27th September at Rivercourt Methodist Church, King Street, Hammersmith. It will start at 7.00pm. It promises to be an interesting meeting.

You can click onto SOS' latest poster to expand it to full size. Please feel free to print it off and put it in your window if you want to show your support for saving Hammersmith from a Basingstoke style skyline.

Comedy Of Errors Sees Planning Committee Delay St. George’s Carbuncle

2011-09-15T19:01:00.036+01:00

St. George’s controversial multi-storey, Tokyo style, Hammersmith housing project was first on the agenda at last night’s Planning Applications Committee (PAC). The meeting was scheduled to begin at 7.00 pm sharp. An audience of about 140 people turned up to witness the explanations and vent their anger at H&F’s Conservative Administration for recommending "approval". But, the evening turned out to be characterised by high farce concluding with the Committee adjourning without a single decision being made. St. George’s application will now be considered next week at a special PAC. That is scheduled for 7.00 pm on Friday, 23rd September. Here’s what happened last night:

Act One

At about 5.50 pm I stepped out of Hammersmith Town Hall and bumped into the superb Una Hodgkins and a couple of other local residents at the main entrance. They were diligently lobbying Conservative Councillors with placards emblazoned with the words “Say No!” as they were on their way to a secret pre-planning committee call-over - where they hoped to agree what they would say and do at the public meeting.

Within ten minutes or so, the assembled numbers had grown significantly – many arriving with their own posters and placards. A cheerful buzz resonated around the scene. That caused four burly, uniformed council security guards to come out and form a line at the front entrance to the Town Hall. “No one is allowed into the Town Hall until we authorise it” said one.

I was surprised to see a large contingent of representatives from St. George also turn up. Their MD told me they’d read of the planned protest on Save Our Riverfront’s (SOR) website. They had come early and in force as a consequence.

By around 6.30 pm there were about 100 people waiting outside the front door. A council official stepped out to say he’d been instructed to only allow 80 people in – the others would be turned away. The St. George contingent quickly rushed to the front of the queue. Residents were taken aback and rightly upset.

I popped back into the Town Hall and found an official in a side corridor. I asked him to interrupt the Conservatives’ pre-meeting and to get them to sort this out.

There had been over 150 people at Save Our Riverfront’s (SOR) meeting last week. Residents told me they expected similar numbers at last night’s PAC but guessed there could be as many as 300. The assembled people said they found it hard to believe that H&F Council had not planned to accommodate them – especially as last week’s meeting had been attended by the Leader of the Council and the Borough’s Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, along with all three Fulham Reach Conservative ward councillors. They should have seen the numbers then and expected at least the same for last night. That failure to act didn't reflect well on any of them.

Shortly before 7.00 pm, two officials arrived at the front door. The crowd went quiet, “The Chairman of the Planning Committee has agreed to let you all in and we’re moving the meeting to the Assembly Hall” said one. A cheer went up. We were told it would delay things by half an hour as chairs, tables and technical support would need to be arranged.

Act Two

By 7.15ish, people began to file into the Assembly Hall. That is a vast room with high municipal ceilings, wooden floors and echoing acoustics. A neat rectangle of chairs was laid out for the public about twenty feet away from an equally neat square of tables and chairs set aside for the committee and planning officials. The three Labour PAC members were already seated. The Conservatives and their officials' seats were empty. We waited.

Just over ten minutes later the Conservatives arrived looking flustered. Officials fiddled with an array of wires, computers, presentation screens and microphones. Then at 7.30 pm Cllr. Alex Chalk (Con), the Chair of PAC, announced that there would be another five minute delay.

About another ten minutes passed and none of the electrics were yet working. Cllr Chalk spoke again thanking people for their patience and asking us to bear with him for another five minutes.

By 8.00 pm a slow hand clap started but died out after five minutes or so. At 8.10 pm Cllr. Chalk stood up for what appeared to be the final time. “I am sorry to tell you that we cannot get the presentation or audio equipment to work.” He went on to tell us that the presentation screen was particularly important. “We will have to adjourn to another date” he said. But just at that exact point the screen came to life. “We have visual” shouted one of the technicians. The meeting was on.

Act Three

There were still no microphones. Someone in the audience suggested that the public might be able to hear better if they moved the chairs closer to the Committee’s table. All agreed. And so I sat and watched in amazed admiration as almost all of the individual members of the 140 strong crowd moved in unison across the empty space. The majority took advantage of a machine-like manoeuvre which involved remaining seated while repeatedly pulling oneself forward by outstretched legs. It couldn’t have been more beautifully choreographed if someone had tried. A clunk, clunk, clunk noise reverberated around the Assembly Hall as the group collectively progressed towards us at a regal pace - eventually enveloping an almost perfect U shape around the committee tables. Now we were all seated just a couple of feet or so away from each other. Everyone would be able to hear.

Cllr. Chalk took charge. He opened the re-convened meeting. “Minutes?” he asked. “Agreed” they said. "Apologies" was next and we were sailing through the agenda at an impressive pace. We came to “Fulham Reach.” It was item number one. All smiled as the presentation dutifully flickered onto the screen and a planning officer was called to his feet to present his report.

He began to read out the first few lines of his talk. He had a gentle, quiet voice. “We can’t hear you!” said someone from across the hall. The officer stopped nervously and began again but spoke at the same decibel level. “We really can’t hear you” said another. Cllr. Chalk lent over and spoke directly to the officer. “Could you possibly talk a little louder?” he asked politely. The officer resumed but no luck – now the audience were becoming frustrated. Cllr. Chalk called for a vote on whether or not to proceed. The St. George delegation’s hands shot up and swung it for the “Yes” camp. So on we went.

The officer remained inaudible. “Has the Council got a megaphone?” asked one person. A gentleman with a cockney accent, and a voice I’m advised is described in operatic circles as ‘basso profondo,’ kindly offered his assistance adding "I cun read it awt for ya?" Someone else suggested that people might hear the presentation if the officer stood in a different part of the hall. The more the helpful interventions flowed, the more that poor man’s voice faltered. It wasn’t going to work.

Cllr. Chalk conferred with his fellow Conservatives. “I’m afraid this isn’t working. We will have to adjourn” he advised. All agreed.

It was now around 8.30 pm. There was a quiet anger as people left: “incompetent!” said one, “ridiculous” another added - clearly referring to their Conservative councillors who had failed to get the Council to accommodate them as it was obvious to all that officials had done everything they could once they were told to move the meeting. Residents were genuinely disbelieving how events unfolded that evening despite having witnessed every bit of it.

St. George's delegation was some of the last to leave the hall. I watched as people filed out and found myself standing next to someone from that firm. “So that went well then?” I said, attempting a joke to lighten the situation. But he was in no mood for humour. He was furious.

FIN

Social Change Through Housing Benefits Cuts Again Misreported By H&F Council

2011-09-15T18:33:00.003+01:00

Tuesday night’s Housing, Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee again considered the housing benefits (HB) and Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cuts

The Administration presented a report that omitted to inform the committee the full picture on the basis that it was too complex to compile. If they had purposefully set out to mislead new councillors still learning about this subject they couldn’t have done a better job.

There are almost 25,000 Hammersmith and Fulham Borough residents in receipt of housing benefits but the Administration chose just to talk about the 546 households it has an on-going relationship with. There is plenty of independent research that says thousands of households will be forced to move out of high value areas like Hammersmith and Fulham because of the Government’s cuts. It was only last November that a senior official told the Select Committee that he didn't know whether this would induce “a small wave of homelessness applications or a homeless Tsunami.”

Earlier this year I had written to the Director of Education asking him about how this would affect local schools. He has since carried out research to answer that question. “Where is that?” I asked. The Housing Department hadn’t brought it along. There was no good explanation.

The last Borough Select Committee meetings on HB/LHA was last March and in November last year. Those meeting were quite disgraceful and caused H&F Council to be spotlighted by a number of charities and national media. It was a shame that hadn’t caused them to alter their approach.

The new Chair of the Housing Select Committee promised that we will review all these matters at the January meeting. I was glad she took such a clear line. I'll let you know what happens then.

Phibbs Spotlights H&F Council’s Corrupted Political Processes

2011-09-12T00:06:00.014+01:00

Cllr. Harry Phibbs brings his record on
public service and extra pay back to the fore

Over the last year or so there has been a new approach at H&F Council’s Cabinet Meetings. The Opposition have been forbidden by Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con) the Leader of the Council to ask questions and, at times, even speak.

The meetings can sometimes be over in just five minutes. Usually, Cllr. Greenhalgh shouts out a series of numbers relating to agenda items and his colleagues obediently respond with the words “Agreed!” The real discussions have always taken place days before at a secret call-over meeting.

On the occasions that my Opposition colleagues and I have been able to garner some form of response it’s hardly been what one might expect from a government institution in the world’s oldest democracy. Consider the Cabinet Meetings on the 18th July 2011. Cllr. Greenhalgh refused to allow any of the Opposition to ask questions or even speak at the packed public meeting - I spoke anyway. Or take the one on 20th June 2011: My fellow Opposition Councillors wanted to ask about the tri-borough deal with K&C and Westminster councils. Cllr. Greenhalgh asked why we had “bothered to turn up”, forbade any questions or comments from my colleagues and said I could make a short statement. He then announced that if we wanted questions answered we should write to him or his officials (which we had done anyway). The meeting on 9th May 2011 was similar.

We did get to ask questions at the Cabinet Meeting on 18th April 2011. But when Cllr. Greg Smith (Con), H&F's Cabinet Member for Residents' Services, was asked about proposals to sell off homes on a Fulham estate because of his Administration’s self-confessed “failure to cut crime,” he responded with the words “You tw*t!” and followed that up with a tirade of other foul-mouthed abuse. The public have been met with similar condescension even when they turn up in their hundreds as they did over the sell off of our local ‘Big Society’ voluntary clubs or the demolition of Shepherds Bush market.

So I was a touch surprised to return from summer holiday early Tuesday evening to be told that H&F Conservatives were crowing that Labour hadn't turned up to last Monday’s Cabinet Meeting. Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con) detailed the council allowances of each Labour councillor (odd given his dubious record on council pay) and told his readers that this meant that the Opposition had therefore failed to “hold [his] administration to account” or “to provide some [necessary] rigour in the decision making process.”

The Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle was even suckered into running Cllr. Phibbs’ spin on page two of their current edition. This being an apparent break in the Chronicle's boycott, of sorts. Back on the 14th June 2011 one of their employees had told me they’d decided not to report anything about the activities of Labour Opposition Councillors - a strange decision for a self-proclaimed "proper paper."

Cllr. Phibbs and his colleagues can’t have it both ways. He knows full well that the Conservative Administration have corrupted the democratic processes. That’s not just at Cabinet Meetings - were the Opposition do not have speaking or voting rights but at Full Council, Select Committee and Planning Applications Committee meetings where we do.

The Borough’s Full Council Meetings are manipulated to stop the Opposition even talking about subjects that may upset the ruling Conservative Administration - such as closing down homeless charities or debating the Administration’s approach to crime reduction.

The Conservatives actually cut back the number of the Borough’s Select Committees because they couldn’t get Conservative Councillors to attend or ask questions. Even then these meetings are very weak with, for example, this year the Conservatives actually voting to go to the pub rather than ask about the Council’s controversial budget.

The Planning Application Committee meetings, which are supposedly quasi-judicial, has long been thoroughly discredited.

There are 15 Labour Councillors and 31 Conservative Councillors. We cannot out vote them. Despite this we have still forced H&F’s Conservative Administration to reverse police cuts to the ward with the highest crime, reverse the 18% salary rise the Conservatives awarded themselves, reverse the secret 14% salary rise the Leader of the Council awarded himself and much more.

Ultimately the public are the boss. So my fellow Opposition councillors and I make it a priority to let them know what’s happening. We do this via the regional and national media, and given the Chronicle’s boycott, we rely on respected local websites too. We work closely with residents, local groups and associations and have uncovered numerous questionable activities the Council secretly tries to get away.

You just had to look at the expression on Cllr. Phibbs' face at Tuesday night's packed public meeting when I questioned him about his Administration's secret dealings with the property speculator responsible for the hideous proposals for Hammersmith Embankment - which he refused to answer. It was easy to see how he knows full well that this Labour Opposition holds him and his colleagues fully to account on all they get up to. In fact one leading Tory councillor once complained to me that I and my colleagues had made Hammersmith and Fulham "the most infamous council in the

UK." I pointed out that he’d done that, I’d just ensured his activities were reported.

If Labour wins the next local elections in 2014 there will be a new, more democratic approach. We'll repair the Borough's democratic processes and we will work with all, irrespective of their party political preferences, to deliver on the promises we make prior to the elections in a publicly circulated manifesto.

Save Our Riverfront’s Packed Public Meeting Puts Council And St. George On The Spot

2011-09-11T16:13:00.009+01:00

St. George's scheme comparred to its neighbours. Graph kindly
provided by Tony Boys - which he used in his presentation.
Graphs show number of homes and
homes per hectare

I got back from holiday early on Tuesday evening and headed off to speak at Save Our Riverfront's public meeting in St Augustine’s Church, Hammersmith. I was impressed to see over 150 local people there - especially as it was raining, England was playing a football game and the summer break wasn’t yet over for all our local schools. My fellow ward Counciilors Mike Cartwright (Lab) and PJ Murphy (Lab) were also there.

The motivation for such large public attendance was painfully evident. There was a shared anxiety about St George’s proposals for their scheme on Hammersmith Embankment which will blight that riverside spot for decades to come.

The question residents wanted to know was could they still influence this or was the deal between St. George and Hammersmith and Fulham Council already agreed? The Planning Applications Committee (PAC) meets next Wednesday night. H&F Council is predictably recommending approval. Will this simply be nodded through as a formality? Hundreds of local people are expected to attend.

Elizabeth Loudon chaired Tuesday night’s meeting. She is a local resident who has felt compelled to work with her neighbours to lobby against this horrendous project.

Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh (Con) the Leader of H&F Council was the first to speak. He confirmed that his administration had removed the planning guidance that had ruled out building anything more than six storeys high on the Hammersmith Embankment/"Fulham Reach" site. St. George had been the only people to request this to happen. Residents and their associations had urged otherwise. But the Conservative Administration acquiesced to St. George’s wishes. Now they plan to build up to nine stories high.

Tony Boys, the Chair of Hammersmith Embankment Residents Association (HERA), spoke next. He was followed by Melanie Whitlock of the Hammersmith Society, me and then John Jones of Save Our Skyline. The public asked questions and these were also answered by Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con) on behalf of H&F Council.

The following issues were raised:

Why did H&F Council change its Core Strategy planning guidelines to allow buildings to be built higher than 6 storeys on that part of Hammersmith's riverfront? Every single residents group had objected to this. St. George was the only organisation requesting this to happen. What ignore residents and bow to the demands of a property speculator?
St. George's requeshad H&F Council had taken the unusual step of already agreeing a £10 million Section 106 payment. Could our Council have sold planning permission?
Why has H&F Council ‘tweaked’ its official definition of Hammersmith town centre to include St. George’s Hammersmith Embankment site? This has allowed the Council to now consider a scheme that would have far greater height and density than any of the surrounding buildings
Why is there no affordable social housing and why has H&F Council agreed to allow Tokyo style, studio micro-flats instead of the larger homes that Council says it needs in its local plan?
Large aspects of the plans submitted by St. George are outlines only instead of being the usual detailed architectural drawings. This is against H&F Council's own guidance and is also unprecedented. Why have they allowed this to happen and what does this tell us about the relationship between H&F Council (the planning authority) and the developer?
Why is H&F Council ignoring its environmental and planning rules to protect river views and fit with the character of the neighbourhood?
Why was the Queens Wharf site turned down 100 metres away for a series of planning reasons that should be equally applied to the St. George's scheme which is recommended for approval?
Why is H&F Council ignoring many of its own planning guidelines to recommend this St. George's scheme?

No satisfactory answers were given to any of these questions. At the end of the meeting John Jones asked for a view on the scheme. There was unanimous disapproval from all the residents in the room.

I have written to H&F Council to ask for details of the many private meetings the Conservative Administration and their officials have had with St. George. So far they have refused and won't even tell me when they met, who was there and what was agreed? I intend to find out.

So what will happen with this particular scheme? Councillors Peter Graham (Con) and Andrew Johnson (Con) are two Fulham Reach ward councillors who are members of PAC. Andrew Johnson is also the Borough's Cabinet Member for Housing and so he would have agreed many of the proposals for this plan. They, along with their ward colleague Cllr. Gavin Donovan (Con), were at Tuesday night's meeting.

There’s a majority of seven Conservative councillors on PAC to three Labour councillors. The Conservative Chair also has a casting vote. But PAC members sit in a quasi-judicial role. They are meant to make up their minds on the evidence before them. That should lead all to vote overwhelmingly against St. George's scheme. You'll be able to tell which way the meeting is going if any of the Conservative PAC members start asking officials helpful questions. If they do, it means they've agreed to vote it through at their pre-meeting - although Councillors Peter Graham and Andrew Johnson may be allowed to vote against it to appease their Fulham Reach constituents. We will have to see. It looks like this is a done deal but they may surprise us and listen to what local people want - which is a scheme more in keeping with the neighbourhood.

If you want to come to the PAC meeting to demonstrate your feelings about saving our riverfront, then please come to Hammersmith Town Hall for 7.00 pm on Wednesday, 14th September. I will see you there.

Town Hall Demolition Chief Chairs Property Speculators Forum That Raises £150,000.00 A Year For The Conservative Party

2011-09-10T00:45:00.002+01:00

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Conservative Party set up a property speculators forum that “raises around £150,000 a year for the Tory party and charges members £2,500 to meet senior MPs to discuss policy and planning issues.” It is chaired by Mr. Mike Slade, of Helical Bar Plc. That firm is one of Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s preferred partners behind the highly controversial new Town Hall office plans.

The Telegraph tells how Mr Slade has been a key influence on the Conservative Party's developing planning policies and how he has also generously “given more than £300,000 over the past decade, individually and through his property firm, Helical Bar.” You can read the full article by clicking here.

Helical Bar Plc and their partners Grainger Plc came together to form King Street Developments after the Conservative Administration picked them as their preferred property speculators for their Town Hall plans, after winning the local elections in 2006.

Meanwhile, the latest Town Hall plans were announced over the summer and still include proposals to demolish the cinema, demolish homes for the blind and blight Hammersmith with Basingstoke style skyscrapers.

The local residents' group, Save Our Skyline (SOS) have arranged another public meeting to review this awful scheme. That will take place at 7.00pm on Tuesday 27th September at Rivercourt Methodist Church, King Street, Hammersmith. I'm sure there will be a lot to discuss.

H&F Conservatives' Thirteenth Appearance In Rotten Boroughs. This Time For Wasting Millions Of Pounds On Un-Monitored Consultancy Contracts

2011-09-09T18:35:00.000+01:00

Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s exploits once again grace the pages of Private Eye magazine’s Rotten Borough’s section and for a record thirteenth time. Thus, the Conservative Administration now has the dubious honour of being the UK’s leading rotten borough.

Click to view

The Eye report that H&F Council commissioned a report from Deloitte following the controversy over some of its high profile consultancy contracts. It says that Deloitte found H&F Council “badly wanting in seven areas.” As a consequence it may have needlessly paid out millions of pounds of tax payers’ money to high paid consultants.

The report appears in issue 1296 currently available in all good newsagents.

Record Rent Increases Bad For Economy, Bad For First Time Buyers And Damaging To Social Cohesion

2011-08-19T11:36:00.002+01:00

The Guardian reports record rent hikes

Today's Guardian is reporting that rents in England and Wales have risen to a record £705 per month with the sharpest rises in the South East. This is a sign of the chronic housing shortages and policy failure. It will have a detrimental effect on households at risk of eviction because of the government's controversial cuts to housing benefits (HB) and Local Housing Allowance (LHA). It will also be critically damaging for first time buyers trying to save a deposit and get onto the property ladder.

It's useful to consider how Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative Administration approaches the housing issue as its leading councillors have been the key influence on the current government's housing policies.

This time last year Shelter forecast that 134,000 UK households could find themselves evicted or forced out because of the government's approach to HB/LHA. Local councils, such as my own, were tasked with dealing with the fall-out. It quickly became apparent that they intended to shun their legal responsibilities. To start, they turned a deaf ear to the many experts and charities that had begun to demonstrate what is likely to happen, they failed to carry out any comprehensive assessment of the issue for themselves and eventually attacked those that had. All shocking stuff when you consider that there are 25,000 local households that will be adversely affected in some way. Today's rent figures will exaggerate the problems they face and add to their chances of eviction.

Meanwhile, our Council's failure to enforce its obligation for new schemes to have sufficient affordable, decent accommodation to buy and rent is also compounding this problem at a local level. Indeed, not only does it bow to the wishes of private property speculators but H&F Conservatives have also successfully ensured that their pet housing associations, such as Notting Hill Housing Group, equally fail in these duties - even when they have an opportunity to do the right thing.

Statistics currently demonstrate that the average person in their early twenties, will not be able to get onto the property ladder until they're in their early fifties. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of thousands of UK families who are bringing up their children in miserable housing conditions are just beginning to discover that this government has slimmed their chances of getting a decent affordable home and cut their rights as future tenants.

The next Labour government will inherit a housing emergency. One that will have a massive effect on our economy and social cohesion. Today's news underlines the importance of having a government and local councils that understands these problems and come forward with policy platforms able to take us in a different, better direction.

Thumbs Down For Disappointing Town Hall Mark II

2011-08-15T20:44:00.002+01:00

Photo construction from property firm King Street Regeneration
which is owned by Grainger Plc and Helical Bar Plc

About four months have passed since H&F Conservatives and their property speculator partner promised to go away and develop exciting new proposals for their infamous Town Hall office scheme. Now they’re back but the proposals are neither exciting nor that new.

The ridiculous bridge into Furnivall Gardens remains but it’s more worrying that the scheme still contains proposals for big, shiny, new and unnecessary offices for Town Hall bureaucrats. That fact alone has tied the hands of the negotiators and meant that Conservative councillors and their officials failed to deliver even the expected cut of five floors for each of the three residential blocks of flats. Instead, it has cut the number of flats by just 30 and appears to be heralding its major achievement as reducing only one tower block, close to the river, by just four floors.

Meanwhile, all of the following has been offered up just to suit the wish for council officials to get brand new offices:

The demolition of the cinema and replacement with a supermarket – probably a Tesco
The demolition of all 54 Pocklington Trust homes for the blind
The demolition of the King Street shops immediately in the block to the west of the cinema
No affordable housing
Blighting the Hammersmith skyline for generations to come

That’s some sacrifice and for what? As I mentioned before, the people leading this have become emotionally attached to getting new Town Hall offices. That’s inappropriate and we won’t get a decent regeneration scheme in King Street, that has wide ranging public support until those new council offices are dropped from this project.

H&F Conservatives Told They Must Restore The Sergeants And Give Us More Police

2011-08-14T15:35:00.016+01:00

Just a few weeks ago, on the 17th July, it was announced that our Borough’s Safer Neighbourhood Police Teams (SNTs) will face a cut from 16 to 12 sergeants. The Cabinet Member responsible for policing in Hammersmith and Fulham is Cllr. Greg Smith (Con). He gave this quote “In these difficult economic times everyone has to do more for less and to be only losing four Safer Neighbourhoods Sergeants at a time when other boroughs are losing more is good news for Hammersmith and Fulham."

Good news?.. Really? Other similar "good news" cuts were made to crime fighting in the Council's budget last February.

Last week Hammersmith and Fulham's brave police officers did an excellent job tackling disturbances whenever they arose around the Borough. They were supported from police officers who came from as far away as Wales and Hampshire.

The Borough will still need extra police when this has all died down. My Opposition Labour colleagues and I have been calling for that since long before the riots happened. We campaigned against police cuts in 2007, pledged more police in 2009 and explained how we would pay for them in our manifesto in 2010. Now, there are wide spread calls for more cops. Restoring the four police sergeants, who had played such a critical front line roles, should just be the start of having a more comprehensive strategy to tackle crime and disorder in our Borough.

Five years ago when Cllr. Greg Smith took on this important cabinet job he actually enjoyed the Labour Opposition’s support. He promised extra police and up to 80% cuts in crime. Now he appears to have been reduced to being an apologist for police cuts and rising crime. That strategy is in tatters. A telling incident occurred at the Cabinet Meeting on 18th April this year. Cllr. Smith and his colleague, the then Cabinet Member for Housing, explained that council homes are being sold off on an unspecified council estate because they thought crime was out of control and there had been a murder. That is an extremely odd crime reduction strategy and one that hadn’t been officially admitted in any published council documents. When Cllr. Smith was asked if this was indicative of his failure to deliver on his publicly stated crime pledges he became furious and responded with a particularly ill-advised four letter expletive. He appears to be under a lot of pressure.

Last year, crime rose again in Hammersmith and Fulham. The public expect those in power to focus on the future and what they will do next. So to begin, Cllr. Smith must get the Council he helps to run, to fund and restore the sergeant positions. I would suggest that money should come from savings elsewhere such as:

Saving at least £600,000.00 by cutting council directors, super tri-borough directors and assistant directors jobs
Saving at least £1 million by getting rid of high paid consultants. The council admits it has failed to monitor consultancy contracts and has unknowingly paid out vast amounts of public money without being aware the sums were so high.
Saving at least £1.25 million by cutting the council's press office, shutting down the three glossy council magazines and ending the council's controversial propaganda budget.
Halting the £35 million new Town Hall offices scheme

There's many more savings that could be delivered. It is therefore eminently possible to invest more in crime fighting if the political will is there. I hope that Cllr. Smith and his colleagues find a new determination to do that. Currently it's likely that we will hear lots of tough talk in the coming days. But as the saying goes, “Talk is cheap.”

We had hoped to debate much of this at the last full council meeting on 29th June. But the Conservative led local authority packed the agenda and voted against our council motion without a single word being said. So, just for the record, should Labour win control of the Council in 2014, I stand by our promises and confirm we will invest more in crime prevention and policing than the current Conservative run Council. We will restore the sergeants and provide all of the Borough’s sixteen wards with extra 24/7 police task squad protection.

Public Meeting To Save Hammersmith Riverfront: 6th September 2011

2011-08-12T15:18:00.006+01:00

I have been sent this website from a new residents’ group in the Borough that is campaigning for a more reasonable approach to developing Hammersmith Embankment. Save Our Riverfront (SOR) is another non-party political campaign which appears to be following in the footsteps of Save Our Skyline (SOS).

The St. George subsidiary of Berkeley Homes purchased the Hammersmith Embankment site (which they have re-christened "Fulham Reach") last year and hopes to get planning permission for almost 750 properties. Those would be built up to 9 storeys high on one of the most sensitive sites in Hammersmith. You can read a full report about that here.

Feel free to click on the attached poster, print it out and put it in your window if you're concerned about St. George's plans.

Save Our Riverfront have arranged a public meeting at 7.00pm on Tuesday, 6^th September 2011. It will be held at St. Augustine’s Church, 55 Fulham Palace Road. They are asking H&F Council to say no to this enormous scheme. I expect the meeting to be packed out and wish SOR luck in their aim of encouraging our Council to see sense.

Planning officers are currently writing up their recommendations in preparation for a report on the site which will be considered at the Planning Application’s Committee (PAC) on Wednesday, 14th September. Therefore residents wanting to influence the planning process should send their comments and objections in by either clicking here or email letters directly to the planning officer here and quote reference 2011/00407/COMB. The planning recomendations will be published here on Monday, 5th September. The PAC is a public meeting and I urge residents to attend. The details of where and exactly when can be found here.

Brave Borough Police Deserve Our Thanks And Support

2011-08-11T18:04:00.019+01:00

By the middle of this week, many of the men and women that make up our Borough’s police force had been on duty for in excess of twenty hours. They faced hostile groups armed with baseball bats and batons as pockets of disturbance sprung up in a handful of locations around Hammersmith and Fulham. I have been contacted by many local people who wanted to find out what’s going on, some of them frightened, but all of them extremely grateful and proud of our police officers who put themselves in harms way to protect them, their families, their businesses and their property.

We’ve now had record numbers of police on the streets for several days. Added to the regular police constables, there are Community Support Officers, Safer Transport officers, CID officers, Crime and Drug Squad officers, Intelligence Unit officers, Football officers, special police constables and more. What is clear is that together, they are successfully managing to contain the violence and put a stop to this anarchic, materialistic criminality whenever it appears in our neighbourhoods.

Whatever the situation around the death of Mark Duggan, there is absolutely no excuse for the violence, robbery and looting that has taken place since. We can and must spend time later coming to a balanced and informed view about why this is happening and what needs to be done to stop it re-occurring. For now, enough is enough and we need order fully restored.

The police are asking local businesses to keep all video footage and ensure their cameras have sufficient storage. We should all note that the vast majority of people arrested in this Borough for these crimes are not youths. That said, it would still be enormously helpful if parents and carers would make every possible effort to ensure their children remain supervised - particularly at night. Residents with information they want to pass onto the police should call the Major Investigation Team on 020 8345 4142 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The police have also launched this website.

Chief Superintendent Lucy D'Orsi, our Borough Commander, has called a public meeting tonight to brief people what she and her team are doing on our behalfs. That will take place at 6:45 pm at St. Paul’s Church, Hammersmith. I may see you there.

Private Dealings And Broken Alliances Raise Questions About H&F Council’s Hammersmith Riverfront Plans

2011-08-09T11:38:00.003+01:00

Queens Wharf with the St. George's Hammersmith Embankment
site further along the riverfront to the right

There we were last Wednesday night in a brand new fantasy world. This world was one in which Hammersmith and Fulham’s Conservative-run Council complained about a property speculator’s building proposals because of “inappropriate height and massing”, their “failure to provide a suitable affordable housing provision”, “excessive density”, lack of “residential amenity”, its “un-neighbourliness” and even how it “would harm the character and appearance of the conservation area.” Consequently, the 3rd August 2011 Planning Applications Committee (PAC) refused A2Dominion’s application to build 91 residential units at Queens Wharf, Hammersmith.

Initially there was surprise amongst the seasoned observers that had turned up to witness this unusual event. Now, the Conservative Administration was making arguments it had previously scorned when made by residents and Opposition councillors on countless other schemes. So what happened? Was this some sort of Road to Damascus style epiphany? Had they seen the light?

Well let’s consider what we know: Up until the summer of 2009, Westcity Plc owned Queens Wharf. They had bought it for over £30 million. H&F Council owns the freehold to the neighbouring Riverside Studios. On Thursday 13th March 2008, senior representatives of H&F Council met with Ira Rapp, Chief Executive of Westcity Plc, in Cannes on the French Riviera. The Council refused to provide minutes of that meeting but they did concede that they were discussing plans to construct a new building on the Queens Wharf and Riverside Studios sites - which they had been doing for some time. It later emerged that the Conservative Administration had also secretly offered up the “opportunity” to include hundreds of people’s homes on the Queen Caroline Estate as part of a much bigger riverside demolition and development. The Leader of the Council was forced to reluctantly admit that in this video filmed on 29th April 2009. Residents were deeply worried but the worldwide economic slow down intervened and it became difficult for property speculators to raise funds.

Westcity Plc hit financial issues too so, in the summer of 2009, Queens Wharf was sold to A2Dominion for the knock-down price of £12.8 million. On 29th July 2009 they put out a press release about their new purchase which said “A2Dominion is working in partnership with the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham on the scheme.”

I eventually met A2Dominion for a briefing meeting on 1st December 2009. Initially they had wanted to bring along their partner representatives from the Board of the Riverside Studios but I declined. They confirmed they were still working closely with H&F Council. They told me they hoped to have plans in front of PAC for a joint Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf scheme sometime after May 2010 – shortly after the local elections were out of the way (and when the Conservatives expected my fellow Hammersmith Broadway councillors and I to have lost our seats and be less able to oppose any undesirable schemes).

I next met A2Dominion eleven months later on 3rd November 2010. The expected plans had not been submitted to PAC and it was apparent the relationship between them and the Administration had soured. The joint Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf development was, for the moment, no more. Now, A2Dominion were focussing solely on the site they owned. At that meeting, A2Dominion told me that they had met a senior person from the Berkeley Group in the summer of 2010. He had told them that a senior H&F Conservative councillor now wanted the developer of the brownfield Hammersmith Embankment site to also develop the Riverside Studios and Queens Wharf sites. How he knew that is unclear but it was interesting that the St George division of the Berkeley Group later purchased the Hammersmith Embankment site in October 2010. I asked A2Dominion if they would sell the Queens Wharf site. (Having bought it for such a low price they might feel that was the easy option.) They gave an unequivocal “No” and said they were determined to build Queens Wharf for themselves.

I met A2Dominion for two more briefings on the 27th January and 24th May 2011; their relationship with H&F Council hadn’t improved.

So last week at the bizarre PAC meeting, I enquired how this broken relationship had affected the Council’s approach to A2Dominion’s plans. A visibly furious planning officer refused to answer the question, saying it was irrelevant as the committee could only consider the current plans before it. It was useful, however, to be shown pictures of the whole riverfront and for another planning officer to go on-record and say that Queens Wharf was the Borough’s “most sensitive site.” Presumably then, the neighbouring riverside sites are also sensitive?

Now, consider what’s happening a hundred metres or so down the road on Hammersmith Embankment. St George has submitted plans for a truly massive development of 744 residential flats which will be built up to 9 stories high. They have re-christened the site “Fulham Reach.” Included in their proposals are plans to build accommodation they describe as "Manhattan Apartments." These tiny dwellings are more reminiscent of Tokyo micro-flats than anything I've ever seen in New York - I cannot see how they will add anything to our area. The PAC will discuss and vote on those plans at its next meeting on Wednesday, 14 September. All indications are that H&F’s Conservative-run Council actually intends to grant permission for this scheme.

Planning pictures attached to HAMRA's objection letter.

Like many others, the Hammersmith Mall Residents Association (HAMRA) has already lodged its objections. They make some excellent points. In particular they say they have “reviewed all the representations to that section of the Core Strategy” that deals with the “Fulham Reach” site. HAMRA details how “the majority stated they did not want large-scale buildings on this site. The only representation in favour of having larger buildings was made by St George... Their representation went on to request that the allowed height of buildings be changed to 33.6m, the same height as Blocks B, D and F in the current application. Why, when all but one of the representations asks for smaller buildings, did the Core Strategy document change to suit the developer of the site, rather than respecting the generally held views of local residents?” An insightful question…

Indeed, it appears St. George’s “Fulham Reach” scheme has these familiar failings:

“inappropriate height and massing”
“failure to provide a suitable affordable housing provision”
“excessive density”
lack of “residential amenity”
“un-neighbourliness”
harm to “the character and appearance of the conservation area.”

There’s a more thorough critique of St. George's proposed scheme in the excellent objection letter from Melanie Whitlock, the Chair of the Hammersmith Society. To view it you need to go to the “Consultations” section of their website and click on the Hammersmith Embankment link.

Planning officers are currently writing up their recommendations about the Hammersmith Embankment application. Residents wishing to try and influence the planning process should send their comments and objections in by either clicking here or email letters directly to the planning officer here and quote reference 2011/00407/COMB. I advise that those should be sent in by Friday, 2nd September as the planning papers will be published here on Monday, 5th September but it is still possible to hand comments and objections in right up to the moment the PAC sits at 7.00pm on 14 September.

Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative Administration intends to develop large tracts of the Hammersmith's riverfront. If you get the chance, take a moment to stand on the Barnes side of the river bank next to Hammersmith Bridge. Then consider that over the next few years they hope to start demolishing and building new schemes stretching from the left of your view point at the Town Hall, to the Queen Caroline Estate, Queens Wharf, the Riverside Studios and Hammersmith Embankment (Fulham Reach) on the right of your view. That’s an awful lot of building works and we haven't even considered their plans for Fulham or Shepherds Bush. Currently, all of their schemes share one common characteristic: they're all against the wishes of every residents’ association, every amenity group and the majority of local people in the affected area. That cannot be a good way for an elected local council to behave.

If you’re concerned about the Hammersmith Embankment scheme and want to let H&F Council’s decision makers see the strength of public concern please come to the next PAC meeting which will be held at Hammersmith Town Hall at 7.00pm on Wednesday, 14th September. I’ll see you there.

Cynical Conservatives Spent Thousands More On Legal Fees Fighting Parents Than On The Children’s Service They Were Trying To End

2011-08-03T01:27:00.004+01:00

Cllr. PJ Murphy (Lab) uncovered how H&F Council
wasted thousands of pounds fighting parents
campaigning for children's centers

Councillor PJ Murphy (Lab) has forced officials at H&F Council to come clean and admit they spent £67,480.00 on legal fees unsuccessfully trying to stop parents challenging the Conservative Administration’s decision to all but end the Sure Start programme at the Cathnor Park Children’s Centre.

Earlier this year H&F Conservatives slashed the £455,000.00 annual budget for the Cathnor Park centre to just £19,000.00 as part of their overall £3.4 million cuts programme to all the Borough’s children’s centres. After much local anger they then said they would raise the Cathnor Park centre’s funding to £50,000.00. However it now turns out H&F Council spend nearly £20,000.00 more than this trying to fight a Judicial Review of their decision by local parents determined to show the injustice of H&F Conservatives' controversial decision.

On 1st July, Mr. Justice Collins indicated that the parents had an arguable case and told the Conservative run local authority that its actions maybe unlawful. H&F Council capitulated and gave in to parents demands.

The costs of our Council’s futile legal endeavour break down as follows:

H&F Council’s in-house legal fees £25,848.00
Court fees of £80.00
Counsel’s fees £41,552.00

Many local residents will be astonished that the Administration chose to waste nearly £70,000.00 of tax payers’ money fighting local parents in the High Court while leaving the majority of the Borough’s other children’s centres each with only £19,000.00 to run severely scaled down children's services.

Defiant Tories Re-Launch Controversial Media

2011-07-14T02:03:00.006+01:00

There was much public distain about that particular newspaper. Brave independently minded commentators attacked it, residents didn't like paying for it and eventually even the Conservative-led government turned against it. Then, to everyone’s surprise the publisher suddenly closed it down.

It is just over two months since the Council’s H&F News disappeared from our Borough. Some said it was the most controversial government self-promotion outside of North Korea. For too long H&F’s Conservative Administration refused to even countenance that but in the end, even they agreed it had to go. “Political propaganda on the rates” was supposedly dead.

However, next came the alarming deal with the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle. Now, there’s three, all-new, expensively produced, glossy council magazines dropping through our mail boxes and paid for by our taxes.

Many of the same staff work on these new titles and they are packed with pictures of Conservative councillors doing "good works" around our community. Kim Jong-il would be proud and if Rupert Murdoch is watching these three phoenixes rise from H&F News’ ashes, he may conclude he could learn a thing or two from the sly goings at Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative run Council.

Next Step For H&F Conservatives' Controversial Housing Demolitions Scheme Announced

2011-07-13T16:06:00.011+01:00

H&F's Labour councillors first exposed the
Conservatives plans with this leaflet in 2007. Now
the Tories don't even try to hide what they're doing

The very best explanation for David Cameron’s use of the words “appalling lies” is that he had absolutely no understanding of the Conservative Party housing policies he was talking about. Indeed, even H&F Conservatives have changed their tune and dropped their accusations of “scaremongering.”

Now, it is plain for all to see that this council administration does in fact intend to demolish thousands of local council homes and leave many people will little choice but to move out of the Borough.

My fellow Labour councillors and I first uncovered these plans in 2007. But it is only since the elections last year that H&F Conservatives have become more brazen about what they’re doing. The latest instalment of this saga can be considered on page 203 of the next set of H&F Council’s cabinet papers. Those say:

“This report recommends that an exclusivity agreement be entered into with Capital and Counties in order to continue negotiations towards a potential Land Sale Agreement for the inclusion of the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates in a comprehensive regeneration scheme.”

H&F Conservatives now argue that this is a “regeneration scheme” that will be much better for the current residents. If that is in any way true we should expect to see them carry out a vote of the residents whose homes are to be demolished. But I’m willing to bet that won’t happen. Even our Conservatives don’t yet appear to have started believing their own propaganda.

Take a look elsewhere in the same council papers. On page 348 you’ll see that the Conservatives propose to introduce a “Right to Move Pilot” – probably more aptly put as a Right to Clear-Off-Out-Of-Here. That tells us that our council hopes “To agree to a joint pilot of a Right to Move scheme for Council’s tenants to move to properties outside the Borough. The pilot to run in conjunction with Notting Hill Housing Group.”

Meanwhile, on 18th April the Conservative cabinet gave its unanimous support to selling off many council homes instead of re-letting them to people on the housing waiting list which is detailed in this report.

If you’re trying to square the circle and work out where all our council house residents will go then the obvious answer is these policies mean many won't all be able to stay in this Borough. Indeed, now that rents have been hiked up to "near market levels", large numbers of residents of social housing will have no option but to leave Hammersmith and Fulham for cheaper shelter elsewhere. Combine that exodus with those leaving because of a similarly harsh approach taken to Local Housing Allowances and our Borough begins to have a very different population is a relatively short space of time.

Town Hall Development Debacle Phase Two

2011-07-12T16:01:00.010+01:00

There’s a quiet panic rippling around Hammersmith Town Hall. The Conservative Administration had planned to demolish the cinema, demolish the Pocklington Trust homes for the blind, demolish the Friends Meeting House and then build a supermarket (probably a Tesco), two fourteen storey blocks of flats, an ugly bridge into Furnivall Gardens and luxury offices for bureaucrats. But Hammersmith’s residents don’t like it.

Now as far as this administration is concerned there is a problem with residents – they’re also known as voters. So, under vast amounts of pressure the Conservative Administration buckled and has supposedly beaten a reluctant retreat. But have they retreated enough?

I don’t think so. Indications from around the Town Hall are that they are strongly considering dropping the bridge altogether and expect to remove no more than five floors from each of the skyscrapers. That done, they will then tell the public that they have listened and crack on with their still unhappy plans over the next six months.

But most of the rest of the development still stands. So here’s what really needs to happen to genuinely improve the scheme.

Firstly, lose the offices. We don’t need them!.. And the cost being paid by our Council to plan, design, build and deck them out is around £35 million. Lose them and we can have a smaller scheme that regenerates that part of Hammersmith without blighting the skyline for generations.

Secondly, a new plan is needed that has the input and support of Hammersmith’s residents. That should see the demolition of the current ugly extension (also built by a Conservative Administration). It must also seek to adapt the front of the Town Hall using retail and community recreation space to draw people in. There is no need or desire to demolish people’s homes in Pocklington Trust or to demolish the cinema so the new proposals should protect these local assets.

Finally, and possibly most crucially, there is a problem with the senior officials and politicians working on the scheme. They are deeply and emotionally committed to much of it. I believe the senior team has lost all perspective and this affects every aspect of their judgement on this matter. I also believe that many of the officials negotiating with the developers are completely out of their depth. The Administration needs to bring in new people who will take a fresh and competent approach that seeks to rise to residents’ hopes rather than remove one or two items they both fear and loathe.

The Irony: H&F Conservatives Congratulate Schools Whilst Undermining Future Results With Cuts

2011-07-05T10:29:00.008+01:00

Cllr. Mercy Umeh

At last week's Full Council Meeting Conservative councillors put down a motion about the successful local school results. There was an irony here because their administration has cut budgets, ended the early years programme and cut schools funding. Cllr. Mercy Umeh explained that to them in this speech:

"I have been on the Education and Children’s Services Select Committee for six years. I have sat through many presentations by head teachers and I’ve listened to school governors and seen how OFSTED judge a school’s successes.

As a parent of children who were educated locally in our nurseries, primary and secondary schools, I know how important it is that we have schools that continually achieve and have a reputation for doing so.

So I welcome the motion put down by the administration and confirm that the Opposition will support it. But let’s be clear. Results like these do not happen over night. Indeed, as I know from all my experience, it can be a long hard battle to improve a school and even harder battle to improve a school’s reputation. There are several reasons why the results mentioned in the Administration’s motion have happened:

Governors, sometimes with the support of this education authority, have employed effective head teachers who have demonstrated strong leadership.
The quality of teaching and the level of teaching skills has improved and continues to do so.
And parents, carers and the students themselves work hard to reach ever higher education standards

But there is more…

The Sure Start, early years children's centers provided early years help that has ensured children are better able to be educated. This has had an amazing effect on the results of both primary and secondary schools.
Record levels of investment saw children provided with new books, computers and buildings.
Class sizes were cut and the children’s accomplishment grew.
We got better as a society at spotting issues like dyslexia and other learning difficulties and support was often provided.
Homework clubs gave extra teaching
Breakfast clubs ensured kids that often didn’t get a breakfast got one…. And do you know what? That had a positive effect on results too.

All these were Labour initiatives. Many of these have been cut by this Conservative Council or cut by the Conservative led government:

Building Schools for the Future – STOPPED!
Sure Start – ENDED, here in Hammersmith and Fulham in all but name.
And two years ago I was sickened to sit on the Select Committee and hear this Borough’s Director of Education boast that his department had made the biggest cuts out of all the Council’s departments. Do you know what? The Conservative members applauded.

Now we have debated these issues before. So I want to make two points. The first is about

Great Britain

’s competitiveness in an ever-increasing globalised economy. To compete we need educated, skilled citizens who can win wealth for our society and ensure our long term success. I would hope that even the Conservatives would agree that this is a good thing.

But there are moral reasons too… We on this side believe that, at the very least, it is important to give everyone an equal chance in life. Education is critical for that to happen.

So whilst I support the motion and congratulate everyone involved, I also warn the Conservatives, at all levels, that these successes are the consequence of a wide range of causes that have had ever improving effects over many, many years. Your cuts to Sure Start and BSF; your proposals to increase class sizes and the obvious cuts in investment, so applauded by your party, all will all have a cost. They will damage future education results in this Borough and damage our country’s long term economic success."

Cathor Park Parents Cause H&F Council's High Court Capitulation

2011-07-02T16:28:00.002+01:00

Yesterday morning in the High Court, H&F Council grudgingly capitulated. It agreed to re-instate some of the services it has already cut from the Cathnor Park Children's Centre after a local parent instigated a judicial review (JR) of the decision. Mr. Justice Collins indicated that they had an arguable case and told the Conservative run local authority that its actions maybe unlawful. H&F Council then promptly produced a new proposal and the JR was withdrawn. You can read a full report here on the Shepherds Bush Blog.

This is a clear win for the parents that relied on that service and provides encouragement for others across Hammersmith and Fulham. At last February's budget meeting H&F Conservatives cut £3.4 million pounds from the budget of the Borough's sixteen Sure Start children's centers. Then in April at the Cabinet Meeting they agreed the details of where the axe would fall. The point to bear in mind is, at that meeting, H&F's director of children's services admitted that this cut would will mean that around 85% of the households that had relied on the service would not receive it anymore. The Conservatives were unapologetic when my Labour colleagues and I raised this again at last Full Council Meeting on Wednesday night. Somewhat controversially, the Leader of the Council said he didn't believe middle class people should benefit from these children's service and said his administration's budget cut means it will now go only to those deemed to be most in need.

Last February, at a meeting of Cathnor Park Children's Center's parents, grandparents and carers it was heart breaking to hear of the horrible effects that cut in service would have on the children that benefitted from that service. So it absolutely fantastic that they have had this win. Now we have to see if similar blows for fairness can be struck across the Borough.

Questions Around Incompetence, Stealth Taxes, Cuts And Self-Interests Dog Tri-Borough Merger Scheme

2011-06-23T11:39:00.019+01:00

Mr. Eric Pickles (Con): Is he trying to fix new
borough boundaries by the back door?

At a press gathering on 22nd October 2010, the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP (Con) - the local government secretary - was wheeled out to announce that the tri-borough merger between Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Councils would collectively save them a "£100 million." He was flanked by the three Conservative council leaders who all nodded enthusiastically as their minister explained how it would all work. By Christmas, that figure had fallen to "£50 million" and now, in the papers that went to H&F’s Cabinet Meeting last Monday night, it is "£33 million" across all three authorities. So what went wrong?

First imagine, for a moment, being one of Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s most senior officials and hearing that the Administration is considering the possibly of merging your job with similar jobs in two other London councils. Add in the same thing happening in the two other local authorities and you begin to get a picture of the anxiety, panic, plotting and horse-trading that has almost certainly ensued across the three councils?

There are in fact high failure rates for mergers of all kinds, in both the private and public sectors, so learning from others’ mistakes would seem obvious and sensible. But no best practice models have been followed and no independent advice from some type of critical friend (such as an academic or government advisor) has been sought.

Instead, H&F’s Chief Executive, advised me that the three administrations have allowed the directors of their councils to solely “work things out for themselves as they go along.” In the latest paper, the three administrations actually boast that their DIY proposals have been put together “in house” without any outside input. With the greatest respect to the directors, that is like putting the turkeys in charge of what to kill for Christmas and, surprise, surprise… In this case, it ain’t turkey.

My fellow Labour councillors and I are in favour of making back office savings and last year we published radical plans to do just that in our manifesto. I believe merging some post and many back office ancillary services with other organisations is a positive and necessary way forward.

But H&F Conservatives’ record on “efficiencies” has, to say the least, been controversial to date. With one hand they have awarded vast salary hikes to their senior bureaucrats. With the other, they have introduced new stealth taxes, cut many front line services, sold off community assets such as youth clubs, schools and libraries and weakened the public’s right to influence the administration whilst making horrible cuts to front line jobs, terms and conditions. It is therefore reasonable to question what they’re actually doing.

So let’s begin by considering what’s happening in the most expensive aspect of the council’s back office management. Hammersmith and Fulham currently have five Borough directors on an average salary of around £220,000.00 per year. None of the department directors are amongst the many staff losing their jobs and H&F will actually be gaining an extra tri-borough adult services director. According to the TaxPayers Alliance, our Borough has some of the highest paid bureaucrats in the United Kingdom. Compare H&F to Hackney, for example, which is a much bigger borough but their Chief Executive is on nearly £50,000.00 less than our average. It would have been eminently possible to save our Borough another £250,000.00 by cutting the number of directors in H&F and not going ahead with those proposed super-directors (and joint Chief Executive) jobs that are to be shared with the other councils.

Now consider the other extreme and review how this merger will affect front line provision. A good example is the children’s and education services. On the 8th June my colleague, Cllr. Caroline Needham (Lab), and I met with H&F’s Andrew Christie, who the Conservatives have made the “designate director of children’s services” for all three councils. Mr. Christie explained that of the £11.5 million that would be saved in his new department a total of “£5 million” would be cut from Hammersmith and Fulham. Caroline questioned why our residents would suffer the burden of almost half the total cuts. She was told that was because our borough had “a higher base of services” to cut from. Mr Christie also explained that “merging similar services is easier when councils have similar resources levels.” Put this together and it means critical services would be cut to meet the lowest rather than the highest common level of resourcing.

It’s evident that resources won’t be the only things homogenised across the joined up departments. If stealth taxes such as parking, child care and disability care fees become the same it’s hard to imagine anyone dropping theirs. These will rise to the highest rate. Services will be cut to the lowest level as will the terms and conditions of front line staff. But all of these are political factors that can be resolved with a change of administration.

There are technical problems which have not been properly dealt with either. Officials agreed that it would be highly possible (and I think likely) for a super-director and their team, working across the three boroughs, to move money from one to the others without ever being found out. Therefore, you could have a situation were an administration in Hammersmith and Fulham, for example, invests an extra amount of funding for better local children’s centres but the tri-borough managers reallocate a proportion of that funding to Westminster because they believe the centres there are under resourced. Resource shunting like this is a common problem in merged organisations. “Trust that it won’t happen” was the advice offered from one official after much cross-examination but I don’t believe “trust” is an appropriate mechanism for ensuring public money is properly accounted for.

That leads us to question what happens if one of our merged partners suffers some type of crisis. Westminster’s balances have dropped from over £70 million to around £11 million in less than two and a half years. Officials have briefed me that Westminster City Council has some serious problems to contend with. So at the very least, it is possible that officials paid for by H&F’s tax payers end up spending the largest share of their time sorting out that council’s problems instead of dealing with the concerns of H&F’s residents. As attributes go, this doesn’t make Westminster the most attractive of marriage partners.

I asked officials why these two boroughs were chosen to be H&F’s partners. It’s because the Conservative “politicians get on well with each other and have a lot in common” came the reply. That’s not the greatest of reasons. I can see the logic of sharing some services with Kensington and Chelsea Council – indeed; the last Labour administration did precisely that but not Westminster – especially given its difficult circumstances.

So maybe there is some truth in the allegation that the overall objective for this merger is an attempt to gerrymander a more comprehensive political union between the three Conservative run councils and do away with current borough boundaries before the voters have a chance to kick any of them out at the next elections?

These are tough times for local government. If Labour were in administration in this borough we would do everything possible to keep taxes low and protect front line services. Merging back office jobs with other bodies and seeking new ways to deliver high quality services would be key considerations. But that would all have to be done properly. It is vital that best practice is followed, critical friends need to be on hand to offer objective and sometimes uncomfortable advice, the vested interests of senior bureaucrats needs to be managed and the public and even our political opponents would need to be involved on all matters likely to affect local democratic accountability. The three Conservative administrations have not done any of this. Indeed, their level of secrecy about all these matters is a real concern.

Maybe all that was what Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con), H&F’s Council Leader, was nervous of the Opposition asking about at the Cabinet Meeting on Monday night. He would not allow any questions. I gave a statement much along the lines of what’s written above. Cllr. Greenhalgh looked uncomfortable but went on to tell us that these proposals were simply “phase one of the programme.” It was unclear exactly what he was referring to.

What is clear is the advice given to me by H&F’s Chief Executive last December. I asked him about any risk analysis that had been undertaken. “There’s been none” he replied so I pushed him a little more. “Well, service failures and loss of public money are the real risk if any aspect of this goes wrong” he said.

Given that, and considering that they have missed their £100 million savings target by a country mile, it is astonishing that Mr. Pickles and his three Conservative Council Leaders have taken such an unorthodox approach to their particular scheme. It begs the question why? But you only have to scratch the surface to see there is much that the three administrations are trying to hide.

May 31st Deadline For Objections To Olympia Station Closure

2011-05-21T12:45:00.002+01:00

There are only two weeks left for people to object to plans to stop all weekday tube services to Olympia Station. Over 40,000 residents will be affected by this service cut. You can read more about these plans by clicking onto this campaign website set up by local residents. Click here to email Transport for London directly and here to email Mayor Boris Johnson (Con), who runs TfL.

Here are some of the main points:

NO weekday Olympia tube service at all from December onwards.
TfL did not consult residents prior to announcing this decision
Local Conservatives lobbied for this change
It is damaging to local businesses
Over 40,000 residents are affected
It removes access for hundreds of people with limited mobility because the Olympia District line is a step free station.
Extra Olympia overland trains and the 5 extra Wimbledon District line trains will not compensate for this cut

TFL has set a deadline of 31st May for people to object and plan to withdraw the service on 11th December this year. They argue that their primary reason for this change is to relieve a bottleneck in the Earl’s Court area which they say is the source of many of the delays on the District line. TfL also say they will increase overground services to Olympia station and add five extra tube trains on the District line’s Wimbledon service. However local residents say this will be insufficient to compensate for such a massive loss of service. You can read more of TfL’s explanation by clicking here and view the residents' response here.

Many residents have been disappointed to learn that H&F Conservatives have not only refused to campaign for a more equitable solution but actually lobbied TfL and Mayor Boris Johnson for this change. You can click here to sign the residents' petition and support their campaign.

Now H&F Taxes Exercise In Local Parks

2011-04-26T13:21:00.007+01:00

Residents will be charged for using Hammersmith and
Fulham's parks if they have a personal trainer

Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative run council has become famous for its stealth taxes but this latest tax is really quite hard to believe. The Daily Mail is reporting that our local authority will now charge between £350 to £1,200 a year for personal trainers, nannies or even nursery assistants to use the Borough's parks. You can read the full story here. This charge will undoubtably be passed onto clients of these services - the vast majority being local residents who have already paid for our local parks via their council tax.

Many of the people providing these services are self-employed. They do not have the enormous salaries, final salary pensions or iron-clad, ultra-secure employment terms of, for example, senior local government officers. So it's telling that H&F Conservatives failed to defend the corner of the smallest of small business entrepreneurs.

However, this policy shines a spotlight on the Conservative Administration's failure to deliver genuine improvements in efficiency in incompetent quarters of the Council. Instead they have been content to sign off stealth taxes or cuts in services presented to them as easy savings. Consider that this is the only council out of the 33 local authorities in London to be introducing these extraordinary charges. They're also the same council behind plans to waste £35million on new luxury Town Hall offices and the people who cancelled the garden waste service, introduced new charges for removing bulky waste and hiked parking fees up by 55% only six months ago. So it's questionable why they're still allowed to print Putting Residents First on the sides of their numerous council vehicles.

Tories To Sneak Through Final Blow To H&F's Children's Centres During Easter Break

2011-04-17T18:50:00.018+01:00

Thousands of local children will be turned away after H&F
Conservatives close down Sure Start tomorrow night

So there it is on page 41 of the latest Hammersmith and Fulham Council Cabinet Papers. It's been four and a half months in preparation. There have been denials it even existed but it's finally revealed and there for all to see: a shiny big metaphorical nail that the Conservative run Council hopes to hammer into the coffin of the Borough’s Sure Start programme. They’re shutting it down in all but name.

How could this happen? Both the Prime Minister and his deputy had previously gone out of their way to assure the public that Sure Start would be safe in their hands. David Cameron (Con) told the National Childbirth Trust that “We are strongly committed to Sure Start Children’s Centres and will strengthen this service by introducing 4,200 Sure Start health visitors so all mums and dads get the support they need from birth until their child starts school.” Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) told that same charity: “My party will protect existing childcare entitlements and Sure Start.” Given such strong assurances from such powerful people you’d think it would be hard for them to go back on their words less than a year after they’d uttered them.

But they did and in a highly cynical manner too. First, and under the guise of localism, they removed the ring-fence from Council’s Sure Start budgets and merged them with other budgets. This is contrary to long standing government moves happening elsewhere in education where funding is now given directly to schools. Then, the Conservative-Lib Dem government axed the money it gives to local government. Cameron and Clegg would both have known how this combination would play out on the ground. So now we see Conservative led local authorities up and down the country shutting down the scheme that both Mr Cameron and Mr. Clegg had both promised to protect.

H&F Conservatives have long been in the vanguard of reducing public services and actually complained “the cuts don’t go far enough.” So at this point it’s worth remembering that for every £3 the government cut to Hammersmith and Fulham’s total budget our local Conservative Administration added an extra £1 cut. That left the people of this Borough facing an unprecedented £33 million of local cuts and local stealth taxes and that's just for this year alone.

If you look at the top of the panel on page numbered 759 of H&F’s budget papers you can see that our Council was allocated £9.4 million by the government as part of the new merged children’s early intervention budget. Around just under half of that is money for Sure Start. The Council’s narrative tells us “this is a new grant that is intended to give local areas the freedom and flexibility to invest in early intervention. It is pulled together from a number of old specific grants (such as Sure Start) and ABG.”

But look at the pages numbered 773 and 774 of the same budget and you’ll note that listed as "Tiers 2&3" a total of £3.4 million is removed from the local Sure Start budget which takes out most of the Sure Start funding. That’s how the Borough’s sixteen Sure Start centres are being cut to six. The rest will still get some funding but it will be vastly reduced with for example the Cathnor Park Children’s Centre budget being sliced from £455,000 per year to £50,000 a year. Most of the other centres across the Borough will have their budgets cut back to £19,000 leaving them, at best, only capable of a skeleton service. The long and short of all this is that the vast majority of the thousands of local families that currently benefit from Sure Start children's centres will be turned away.

So why does any of this matter? Well, if you care about living in a country were children grow up to have good jobs and are able to win wealth for the UK in an increasingly competitive world; where they are less likely to get involved in crime or anti-social behaviour and instead live healthy, productive lives, then early intervention through Sure Start matters. Back in the seventeenth century the Jesuits began to preach: "Give me the child till the age of seven and I will show you the man." In 1964 Granada Television began the ground breaking documentary 7Up which regularly revisits how a group of people’s lives are playing out following the start they had been given. And the latest empirical evidence shows that early, pre-school, years intervention gives our children the best possible start in life. Even Republicans supported the introduction of the similar Head Start programme in the United States and almost every developed nation has a variation of Sure Start.

Hammersmith and Fulham’s Tea Party Tories believe in a radical reduction in what the State does. That’s the ideological reason why they’re ending Sure Start for children and families in our Borough. But instead of having the guts to admit this they have dressed up these closures as “efficiency” and produced a shameful report full of dishonest ‘double-speak.’

H&F Conservatives whole approach to setting out their point of view to the public has been cowardly. They first mooted the end of Sure Start under the cover of the Christmas holidays. They then agreed to end it at a Cabinet Meeting on 7th January while saying they would carry out a “consultation.” The result of that “consultation” was never in any doubt because the Tory councillors voted through the £3.4 million budget cut on the 23rd February while they were actually still running the "consultation." It’s therefore no coincidence that this policy will finally be agreed tomorrow night during the Easter break when they hope many local people will be away.

But many parents, grandparents, carers and children will be there to hear the Conservatives justify what they’re doing. A petition will be presented, London Citizens raised it at their meeting on Thursday night and many people will come along just to demonstrate their backing for Sure Start. The meeting begins at 7.00pm in Hammersmith Town Hall but those in power have demonstrated how the campaign for children's pre-school support can successfully be concluded. Sadly, that can clearly only happen when the public removes them from office.

H&F Tory U-Turn On Privileged Olympic Seats After Labour Boycotts Their Scheme

2011-04-15T16:41:00.008+01:00

Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative councillors have changed their minds and have now decided not to purchase £50,000.00 of Olympic tickets which were to be exclusively at the disposal of Conservative councillors and their colleagues. They've left it pretty late in the day to make this u-turn and have ended up giving in and agreeing to Labour's position - which I set out here last month. So the real question is why did it take them almost five weeks before they woke up and smelt the coffee?

Our local Conservative councillors have been flapping around on this issues since 14th March when the Shepherds Bush Blog first scooped this story. Back then the Conservatives confirmed that they did "intend to take up this ticket offer" despite my Labour colleagues and I boycotting this privileged and wasteful scheme. By the 25th March they were still determinedly sticking to their plans and sent an email out from the Council Leader's office asking if there was any takers and urging us all to urgently respond so they could submit their application for the tickets to the Olympic authorities by 30th March. With no takers from Labour councillors the Conservatives were left with the prospect of this story about £50,000.00 wasted for their exclusive enjoyment (against a backdrop of their new local stealth taxes and cuts to front line services) running and running up, until and after the Olympics next year. It's evident that they decided on a disorderly retreat and chickened out. Errr... well done to them then.

This is the latest of a long line of such u-turns and all in surprisingly similar circumstances so you'd have thought they'd have learnt their lesson. Regular readers will recall this story from 2008 of the u-turn on the 14% salary rise the Council Leader awarded himself. And in 2007 Conservative councillors u-turned on the 18% salary rise they had awarded themselves. So at least they're consistent.

Livingstone Will Not Bring Back The Western Extension

2011-04-07T18:19:00.005+01:00

Ken Livingstone. Labour's
Mayoral candidate

The excellent Adam Bienkov has scooped this exclusive story that Ken Livingstone will not seek to reinstate the Western Extension Zone (WEZ) of the congestion charge if he is elected as London's Mayor next year. This is good news.

It is estimated that reinstating the WEZ would cost up to £150 million. Ken Livingstone is quoted in the Scoop saying "I’d much rather spend that money on front line policing and keeping the fares down. And that’s the single most important thing at the moment to not do anything that takes money out of Londoners’ pockets."

Boris has introduced record travel fare hikes and is cutting hundreds of front line police officers. Both of these actions are contrary to his pre- election promises and he has no public mandate for them.

Ken Livingstone is looking at Londoners' priorities and listening to what people tell him. Spending this money on policing and stopping Boris' fare increases is exactly the right thing to do.

H&F Conservatives Award £75,000 "Advertising" And "Advertorial" Contract To Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle

2011-04-07T13:53:00.010+01:00

Last Monday, the Conservative Leader of H&F Council signed an "urgent decision" order awarding £75,000.00 a year of tax payers' money to be spent on advertising and propaganda in the pages of the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle.

At the last local elections my Labour colleagues and I made a manifesto commitment to limit all Council advertising spend to that which it is obliged to do by law - such as publicising planning applications, etc. I therefore believe it is wrong for the Conservatives to seek to tie the hands of any future Labour Administration on this matter and will take every possible measure and undertake every possible legal action to stop this unnecessary spend if the electorate makes Labour the local administration in 2014.

H&F Council claims that £36,500.00 of this new contract is for statutory notices. So that leaves £38,500.00 for propaganda and this figure doesn't include the costs of H&F council's press officers' pay, national insurance and pension contributions who will still be writing their spin.

It was just six weeks ago that H&F Conservatives announced draconian cuts to local police, schools, Sure Start, voluntary groups, elderly and disabled people's care and environmental services. Surely someone in the Administration realises that it is an insult to those suffering the consequences of those cuts to waste £38,500.00 on a propaganda contract?

Chris Underwood of the Shepherds Bush Blog gives this detailed report and tells us H&F Council's spin doctors may now actually be working in the Chronicle's new Hammersmith offices in a move that begs the question surely this relationship is too close for comfort? You can read the Council's version of events here.

The Chronicle began discussions with H&F Council and senior Conservative Administration Councillors about a year ago. Around that time the Tory Chair of a Parliamentary Select Committee had accused H&F Conservatives of publishing "propaganda on the rates." When the government made it clear that they would force H&F Conservatives to close down H&F News the Administration sought loop holds in the law that would allow it to continue with its Town Hall Pravda.

The Chronicle was amongst several other media outlets that bid for the advertising and advertorial contract. H&F Council claims it will allow them to "communicate to residents in space set aside and clearly signposted for public service information." Simon Edgley, Managing Director of Trinity Mirror Southern, is quoted on the Council's website saying: “We are not only absolutely delighted to sign this agreement, but also that our titles and websites will play such a significant part in ensuring that residents of Hammersmith & Fulham remain appropriately informed.”

I do appreciate the difficult financial circumstances all newspaper owners face. Increased competition from web based media and an economic situation that is squeezing advertising spend have put many papers out of business. So £75,000.00 of public money would be a welcome addition to the Chronicle's revenue. H&F News had also raised revenue by selling advertising, sponsorship and promotions. If all of that money has gone to the Chronicle then I can see why this deal is seen by them as very attractive.

However, I for one feel deeply uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this deal. To date, H&F Conservatives have used H&F News to spread "political propaganda" and blatantly mislead members of the public. What will the Chronicle do if the Council uses its paid for "public service information" pages in the Chronicle to do the same? Will it run another story elsewhere in the same paper attacking the Council's claims? Have these negotiations already affected the nature of the Chronicle's reporting over the last year? How will this close relationship affect the stories the Chronicle choses to report and how it reports them in the future? I'll leave you the readers to judge but this signifies a different type of relationship between H&F Council and the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle to how it was previously up and until the acclaimed "proper paper" campaign which the Chronicle ran against the local authority last year.

There are real concerns about how our Council has approached this. We don't live in North Korea or Libya and I strongly believe that in a free democratic society governments (national or local) should not publish their own media that puts their spin on their actions. It was wrong when it happened in H&F News and it will still be wrong if propaganda appears in the pages of a local paper. And, given these difficult financial times this is quite obviously a waste of tax payers' money. I will report more as this story unfolds.

Apology Demonstrates How Propaganda And Smear Has Seeped Into H&F Council's DNA

2011-03-31T14:56:00.003+01:00

I recall feeling sorry for Joe Carlebach, the Conservative Cabinet Member for Community Care. He was only elected for the first time in May last year but by June the 30th he was fronting up the closure of the only carers' centre in our Borough at a packed Full Council Meeting. There he stood, as if enduring some macho initiation test devised by his colleagues, uncomfortably justifying the highly controversial measure which all of us knew was planned, developed and unofficially agreed by the Conservative leadership before he was even a councillor.

In such circumstances the good advice of officials and colleagues is crucial. But that appears to have gone badly wrong. Two days ago I was sent the attached letter. It is signed by both Cllr. Carleback and Mr. James Reilly - the former Director of Community Care. In it they both "apologise unreservedly" to two local people for the content of another letter they had sent out on the 28th June last year. This most recent letter states "We now fully accept that XXX and XXX (I have removed the names to save them from further embarrassment) had no personal or personal financial interest in the bid and that they did not compromise their professional roles" begging the question what led Cllr. Carlebach and Mr. Reilly to believe it was right and proper to have even implied otherwise?

There needs to be a full explanation of what happened. Senior councillors and officials have allowed propaganda and smear to become part of the DNA of how H&F Council operates. Over the last five years it has regularly used tax payers' money to spread untruths and misinformation. This is one of the worst examples yet nobody will be sacked and nobody will resign. The public expect better than this. It has to stop.

More On How Housing Benefits Cuts Will Change London

2011-03-30T07:06:00.003+01:00

On Thursday 24th March the House of Commons Welfare Reform Bill Committee met to hear further evidence on the Bill that will affect the welfare of millions of families and pensioners on low incomes. Those readers that have followed the housing benefits aspects of this bill, and in particular the worrying approach taken by Hammersmith and Fulham’s Conservative Administration, will find the evidence presented interesting. You can watch that meeting by clicking here.

Evidence was provided by Child Poverty Action Group, Gingerbread, Fatherhood Institute, Working Families, Women’s Budget Group, Centre for Separated Families, Family Action, the Local Government Association, London Councils, Shelter, the National Housing Federation, the National Landlords Association and Crisis.

Parents And Toddlers To Hold Hands Around Hammersmith Town Hall For Children’s Centre Shut Down Protest

2011-03-29T08:59:00.002+01:00

At 4.00pm on Wednesday 30th March there will be a Buggy Push around Hammersmith Town Hall. Parents, their young children, carers and their friends hope to demonstrate that our Conservative run Council does not have public backing to close down ten local children’s centres and end the world renowned Sure Start programme in all but name. Feel free to go along and offer your support.

The demonstration coincides with the last day of H&F Council’s sham consultation. Ruth Walsh, one of the organisers tells me “We want to hold hands around the Town Hall and have a protest that is passionate but peaceful.”

The group have set up Hammersmith & Fulham Parents Unite which represents over 5,000 families that will be affected by the closures. They have their own Facebook page (which you can click on and like) and have managed to get over 1,500 signatures to sign their petition so far.

Both David Cameron (Con) and Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) guaranteed the future of Sure Start prior to the last election. However, within months of forming a government Council’s were responding to the government cuts by shutting down Sure Start programmes up and down the country. Hammersmith and Fulham’s Conservative Administration cut £3.4million from the scheme at the Budget Meeting in February and plan to sack up to fifty teachers and experts trained in the toddlers and babies’ development needs. This has meant that two thirds of all the Borough’s children’s centres will lose 95% of their funding.

You can keep up to date with developments at the Save Wendle Park Childrens Centre web site, you can log onto the Facebook group and sign this online petition for the Wendle Park centre.

Leading H&F Conservative Calls For Even More Cuts

2011-03-28T11:42:00.011+01:00

Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con) says
"cuts don't go far enough"

Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Engagement has been errrm… engaging the community. “I'm with the 35% of people who feel the cuts don't go far enough” said Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con) on Saturday thus demonstrating his finely honed “engagement” skills.

His comments were spotted on Twitter by Chris Underwood of the Shepherds Bush Blog. Harry later admitted that he had accidentally increased the poll figure he quoted by 6%.

To be fair to Cllr. Phibbs, he has long espoused a classical small state, ultra-conservative philosophy and at least he's honestly setting out the reasoning behind his Administration's extra 3.7% cut to the Borough budget which H&F Conservatives added to the 11.3% cut handed down's from central government. But sadly for the people of Great Britain, it is also that small state philosophy that has formed the basis of David Cameron and George Osborne's incompetent approach to managing the UK economy - an approach, leading economists point out, ignores sound economic principles and will damage our country’s prospects for a generation.

With unemployment set to soar to levels last seen under Prime Minister John Major; the NHS making unprecedented cuts to front line services and Hammersmith and Fulham’s residents suffering new local stealth taxes and less local services because of the Tories' 15% budget cut: I am sure Cllr. Phibbs comments will engage large numbers in our community – although probably not in the way he had first hoped.

Nobel Prize Winning Economist: There is An Alternative To “The Austerity Delusion”

2011-03-26T09:49:00.012Z

It is a coincidence that in the week the UK government set out how it is continuing with its austere approach to setting our country's budgets a Nobel Prize winning American professor of economics has attacked George Osborne’s plans as "folly." Writing in the New York Times today Paul Krugman asks:

“Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.”

Professor Krugman is particularly critical that the UK’s Conservative led government has managed to halt the British economy’s growth and instead shrunk it by o.6%. He warns us:

“And then there’s the British experience. Like

America

Britain

is still perceived as solvent by financial markets, giving it room to pursue a strategy of jobs first, deficits later. But the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government’s pullback. As I like to put it, the Cameron plan was based on belief that the confidence fairy would make everything all right. But she hasn’t: British growth has stalled, and the government has marked up its deficit projections as a result.”

There will be hundreds of thousands of people marching in London today. All will be urging an alternative approach to managing our economy. Many more are racked with anxiety about their jobs, their family's well being and their future. Looking at the wider picture, this level of worry amongst millions of our citizens cannot be good for UK businesses whose sales and viability rely on consumer confidence. Professor Krugman suggests an alternative. One based on sound economic principles rather than a conservative agenda of shrinking the welfare state as Krugman has pointed out before.

Will the UK’s Conservative led government listen?.. Well they’re being egged on by the ultra-conservative Tea Party faction in the United States. And here’s was Krugman says about them:

“In short, we have a political climate in which self-styled deficit hawks want to punish the unemployed even as they oppose any action that would address our long-run budget problems. And here’s what we know from experience abroad: The confidence fairy won’t save us from the consequences of our folly.”

You can read Professor Krugman's article in full by clicking here.

SOS For Our NHS

2011-03-22T13:28:00.001Z

The NHS is going through unprecedented change and cuts in services. Indeed, it was only at last September’s H&F Health Select Committee that a leading doctor on the Local Medical Committee announced “There are going to be real failures of delivery. Heart attacks not dealt with, hernias won’t be fixed, hip replacements won’t happen, and psychological care will not be given."

Ken Livingstone (Lab) has launched nhSOS. This is pan-London campaign to demonstrate to the government that they have no mandate to cut National Health Services. I’m surprised that there’s hardly been a squeak out of Mayor Boris Johnson on this issue as there are planned closures of A&E, maternity and other services across the capital.

You can sign the petition by clicking here. It will then be handed to government ministers by Ken Livingstone and John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, in May. I will report on more changes to the NHS as and when they happen.

Homeless Need Help Not Handcuffs

2011-03-21T21:18:00.011Z

Yesterday, I attended and spoke at a protest organised by faith groups aiming to stop the criminalisation of soup runs for homeless people in Westminster. The City Council proposes to bring in a bye-law which aims to ban volunteers and charities from providing food for the homeless in the area. They also plan to make it an offense to sleep rough. Those people that attempt to give a homeless person a sandwich or hot drink will be given a £500 fine. Some volunteers tell me they will go to jail rather than pay the fine or stop helping the homeless.

The Conservative run council says it’s dealing with the anti-social nature of having homeless people on the streets. If that’s the case, this is the wrong solution. The right solution is to recognise that over 80% of people who find themselves living on the streets have some form of mental health issue. Homeless people need support. That means they need expertly trained people to go out and find rough sleepers on the streets. As a first step they then need safe, clean refuges where they will be guaranteed to be secure from physical attack and theft. Then they need help addressing the issues that put them onto the streets in the first place and encouragement and support to move their lives forward. There are many excellent charities, social entrepreneurs and government bodies that do this. There’s one problem though - it’s expensive compared to the options Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham Councils have come up with.

It’s obviously far cheaper to close down and sell off homeless hostels, tighten the homeless acceptance criteria, stop funding homeless charities, consistently cut the homeless budget and ban homeless shelters as the Conservatives have done in my own Borough in Hammersmith and Fulham.

Westminster Conservatives are slashing £5million from funding hostels. By combining this with their attempt to criminalise the homeless and those that help them they clearly hope to disperse rough sleepers so they are out of the sight of the rest of us.

Most experts will tell you that there are increases in the number of homeless people during and economic slow down such as the one we're in now. The cuts to housing benefit are likely to make this many times worse. So the draconian measures being taken against rough sleepers indicates the level of cynicism behind these policies.

I believe the attacks on the homeless by Westminster and H&F Conservatives demean the nature of our civilised society. People who have suffered a crisis that has turned them into a rough sleeper need help not handcuffs. I have tremendous respect for the homeless campaigners such as Sock Mob Events, Housing Justice and Streetlytes for being amongst those that organised yesterday's event and indeed for all those that seek to amplify the voice of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Two Million Pound Payout Puts H&F At The Top Of Senior Bureaucrats’ Pay League

2011-03-21T12:00:00.011Z

The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is one of the smallest out of the 33 in the Capital but it has paid some of the largest salaries to its top bureaucrats. A staggering £2,002,719.00 was paid to just nine people in the financial year ending 2009/10 including pension payments and bonuses.

You can click on the attached graph, which was compiled by the TaxPayers Alliance, to see how your money was spent. The graph doesn’t however include payments to people classed as consultants but who actually work full time for the Council and its subsidiaries. So for 2009/10 you can also add an extra £225,611.00 payment for Mr. Nick Johnson who was the "consultant" acting as the lead “full time” official for the council housing management service.

Just a few weeks ago, H&F's Conservative Administration voted through £33 million of cuts to many vital front line services. It is hard to comprehend why they didn’t cut any of these salaries or indeed the numbers of senior officials as has happened in other councils. It is worth reflecting that a year earlier H&F Conservatives had awarded the Council's senior directors an amazing 16% pay rise so they clearly do not see tackling this issue as a priority.

Last June Eric Pickles MP (Con), the Local Government Secretary, boasted that he would tackle these large payouts but he has chosen not to do that and allowed Cameron’s favourite Council to hand out some of the largest payments to bureaucrats in the UK.

Prior to the elections H&F’s Labour councillors stood on a manifesto that would have cut at least two directors positions and removed at least 10% of assistant director positions. We would have engineered a smaller management structure that is more in line with modern, efficient organisations. I believe it is right to cut senior bureaucrats pay as not only are these people being paid vast amounts more than senior managers in other sectors but they are also some of the few employees left in the UK who benefit from index linked pensions. Indeed, there are serious cultural problems with local government. Senior officials work in a world where it’s the norm for many of them to retire early, where it’s difficult to sack them no matter how far they’ve failed to deliver and often receive huge payouts when they leave. And when they’ve left, many pop up again as “consultants” – a mechanism that has the benefit of allowing them to continue to work full time on high consultant rates whilst also receiving their full and extremely generous tax payer funded pensions.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many excellent local government officials. But the pay and remuneration senior bureaucrats receive is completely out of sync with what most Britons have to put up with. Given that their remuneration comes from the taxes the rest of us pay out I cannot see why all this is considered acceptable, particularly in these straitened times.

There needs to be a national review of the pay, terms and conditions for senior local government officials. It has got completely out of hand. This current situation adds to the confusion of who David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is actually talking about when he tells us his austerity budget is necessary but "we're all in it together."

H&F Conservatives Spend Up To £50k For Privileged Olympic Tickets While Cutting £33 Million From Front Line Services

2011-03-14T16:22:00.006Z

Chris Underwood of the Shepherds Bush Blog has scooped this story alleging that Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative run Council are about to lavish up to £50,000.00 worth of Olympic tickets on Conservative councillors. Chris reports that these tickets will be available for Conservative "councillors' bottoms to grace seats in the Olympic stadium."

It is just short of three weeks since H&F Conservatives agreed a budget cutting £33 million from this year's budget alone. They even added an extra 3.7% cut to the 11.3% cut handed down from the Cameron led government. Most of these cuts will be bourne by local children and our elderly, disabled and homeless neighbours as you can read here. So why are the Tories using up to £50k of extremely scarce financial resource for Olympic tickets?

It would be the height of hypocrisy and bad taste if the Conservative Administration spent any tax payers' money lavishing these tickets on politicians or officials. Cllr. Caroline Needham (Lab), the Borough's Shadow Cabinet for Education and Children's Services commented "This money could be used better to support our young people to become Olympians not funding fat cats to watch sports that many children can't access." These tickets should be sent back or be used for the benefit of some local worthy cause. I hope H&F Conservatives see sense and do precisely that.

Green Light Given For Hammersmith Grove Building Schemes

2011-03-14T11:17:00.009Z

Wednesday night’s planning committee was predictable enough. The Conservative block vote was deployed to authorise the NCP car park skyscrapers and the Notting Hill Housing Group's largely unaffordable block of flats - both in Hammersmith Grove. Here’s a summary.

Hammersmith Grove NCP car park skyscraper

I must admit to feeling a striking sense of déjà vu as I listened to the arguments H&F Council officials and Conservative councillors put forward in support of this scheme. Even the tactics were similar to the last time approval had been given for this site.

Officials had been asked to respond to residents’ concerns that the proposed building on the NCP site were wrong for the area as there was already too much un-let office space in Hammersmith. The developer couldn't raise finance for the last scheme granted for this site so why would this one work? The officials explained that this would be “grade A office space” which would be “much in demand” and “easily let”. But Cllr. PJ Murphy (Lab) had researched the subject and quoted directly from Development Securities Plc (the applicant) chairman’s report to investors. As you can read below, it paints a different picture. Officials struggled to explain why.

Chairman’s report to investors

“There are still clouds on the horizon, however. The austerity programme now being introduced in the

will have an impact which is not easy to predict. Increased levels of taxation, both direct and indirect, together with significant reductions in Government expenditure are likely to reduce domestic consumption and encourage the restoration of savings levels as the consumer battles to survive the storm. Unsurprisingly, these current difficulties are also adversely affecting levels of business confidence and are likely to continue to do so until the way ahead has greater clarity. Rental growth in the occupational markets has reduced by some 15.1 per cent over the last three years and whilst that fall now appears to have levelled out, it will likely take many years before any significant rental growth reappears.”

Cllr. Mike Cartwright (Lab) has many years of experience on the planning committee and also worked as a chartered surveyor before retiring. So when he said the Council’s approach to the Section 106 Agreement money was “twisting the law” council officers were nervous when they disagreed. Why?.. Because he was most likely correct. In fact officials admitted they had themselves considered this sufficiently doubtful which had caused them to seek legal advice from a Queen’s Counsel. They refused to tell the committee what those doubts were though.

I asked what had happened to the quarter of a million pounds that Development Securities had previously allocated to deal with the parking problems the 3000 daily visitors to the buildings would cause. Unbelievably, “parking problems were no longer a problem associated with these buildings” an official told us.

As the meeting rolled on it became increasingly obvious that all the interjections from Conservative councillors were designed to support the approval of this scheme. So Councillors Mike Cartwright and Colin Aherne (Lab) moved two separate amendments to protect Hammersmith residents’ TV receptions and the Emerald Community Centre - currently on the NCP site. After much angst from Conservative committee members - who were visibly worried to be diverting from the previously agreed plan - these straightforward amendments eventually went through.

248 Hammersmith Grove

The planning committee was presented with many photographic constructions of how this ugly building would look. They featured many different views but ominously all avoided the attractive four story Georgian houses just across the street or the line of Victorian mansion blocks running down Hammersmith Grove. Officials explained how this building would be better than much of what’s on Goldhawk Road and improve that junction. I asked why officials were avoiding any reference to the most beautiful buildings in the area and hadn’t encouraged the applicant to aspire to something that reflected that standard of design already on Hammersmith Grove? The bizarre explanation was officials thought these neighbouring properties were "too far away." The Tories agreed.

Meanwhile, the housing portfolio was represented by the Borough’s Tory cabinet member and the Tory select committee chair who are also both members of the planning committee. But the public in the audience were unimpressed when neither could explain why this once impressive housing association had removed it’s previously proposed 9 flats for affordable rent and been allowed to build an ugly scheme with a mere 29% of shared ownership properties – most of which will be unaffordable for local people on average incomes.

Ashlar Court

The drawings for this scheme were dire, the explanations were weak and lacked any of the disingenuous chutzpah that characterised the above. Cllr. Colin Aherne summed up the debacle when he said, “If we can’t get the answer to a simple question like what is the distance from that wall to those residents’ homes then we don’t have the information to make a decision.” He was right so he and Cllr. Lucy Ivimy (Con) moved that this item be deferred. This was eventually agreed but only after leading Tories had openly expressed worries that this “will cause a backlog” and “add new layers of bureaucracy to the planning process.” It took the residents heckling “What about us?” and “It’s our neighbourhood that will be damaged” for all the Conservatives to see sense and eventually and suddenly agree to the defer this decision until a later meeting.

Conclusion

I have long believed that the planning process is stitched up by this Conservative Administration well in advance. They have even put videos out giving strong hints that this was the case but I hadn’t realised what pressure Administration councillors on the committee were under to stick to the agreed plan until I saw how they reacted to even small amendments or suggested deferrals. That doesn’t bode well for the contentious Town Hall, Shepherds Bush Market and Hammersmith Embankment schemes all on the near horizon.

H&F Conservatives Need To Stick To Their Promise And Work With Sands End’s “Big Society” To Save Community Centre

2011-03-10T09:16:00.000Z

What’s happened to the Sands End Community Centre since the infamous Cabinet Meeting on 7th February when H&F Conservatives agreed to close it down and sell it off? Regular readers will recall that the Borough's cabinet were visibly shaken by the hundreds of people that turned up to plead for a different ‘big society’ solution that could save the centre. So in front of the largest crowd I’ve ever seen at a cabinet meeting the Conservatives muttered a reluctant promise to work with residents to consider all options to keep the centre open. Well, the latest news is that many of the services will cease to operate from the end of April.

In fact there has been no contact from the Conservative Administration or from Sands End’s three Conservative ward councillors. Rosie Borgia, is one of the residents that’s been working to save the centre. She tells me "The Council is already actively shutting down the Sands End Centre: they are withdrawing services one by one and we will be left with nothing but an empty shell which will be a disaster for this community. The latest I'm told is the gym will cease to operate from end April despite no provision for hard up locals. The Council now simply points to the cheapest private gym which offers a discount rate only if you sign up to a 12-month direct debit and it doesn't accept Lifestyle Card or offer pay-as-you-go, making it impossible for most of the pensioners and those on low incomes who use the Sands End community gym to go there"

The Sands End campaigners recognise that the Conservative Administration will not continue with the services in their current form so they are looking at a variety of other ‘big society’ options. Rosie Borgia says “We hope the Council will be open to our proposals and work with us on our business plan, the funding possibilities we’re developing and look favourably on selling to a sympathetic developer willing to work with us.”

Why wouldn’t H&F Conservatives do that?.. After all, the Sands End volunteers are the epitome of the one pre-election idea David Cameron presented to the nation. But there’s not been a single positive squeak from the Conservatives in Hammersmith Town Hall. Maybe the Sands End campaigners should go over their heads - direct to Number 10. If Mr. Cameron is serious about the ‘big society’ his team should at least want to hear about the impressive approach these local residents have taken to maintaining these important services in a very mixed area in south Fulham.

Poster Campaign Against Hammersmith Grove Skyscraper Encourages March 9th Turnout

2011-03-04T22:29:00.003Z

Residents of Hammersmith Grove, Overstone Road and the surrounding streets have asked me to publicise their campaign to stop two giant buildings being built on the NCP car park site in Hammersmith Grove.

They hope to encourage people to turn up to the next Planning Applications Committee on March 9. You can read the planning papers here and my previous report here. Please feel free to click on the attached picture, print it off and put in your window.

Residents concerns about the development include:

It is far bigger than anything else on Hammersmith Grove or even in Hammersmith town centre
This huge building will be open 24 hours 7 seven days a week
The building is estimated to attract 3000 daily visitors creating extra noise, parking and traffic problems
Vans and lorries will start delivering to the restaurants and offices in the building from the early hours onwards
The building will damage property prices and affect the quality of life for all who live in our neighbourhood.

This development is more than twice as big as a development presented to the last Labour Administration over ten years ago. That was turned down for being too big. Residents are calling on H&F's current Conservative Administration to turn this application down and work with residents to put a scheme in that meets the character, needs and scale of the area.

Why Would H&F Council Want To Rubbish Shelter’s Housing Benefits Research?

2011-03-02T15:12:00.026Z

The big question in front of the last Housing Select Committee (see page numbered 57) was what will be the likely consequences of the Government’s housing benefits and Local Housing Allowance cuts for almost 25,000 Hammersmith and Fulham households? We last considered this at a meeting in November when a senior official had advised us that his department did not know whether there will be “a small wave of homelessness applications or a homeless Tsunami.” Clearly, this is an issue H&F Council needed to get on top of. But it hadn’t and last November’s meeting had verged on farce.

My Labour colleagues and I had insisted on a more thorough approach and so it was to Cllr. Lucy Ivimy’s (Con) credit that she agreed to my suggestion that we both attend a meeting with Shelter to hear about their comprehensive research on the subject. She is our Borough’s Cabinet Member for Housing.

On 18th January 2011 Cllr. Ivimy and I met Shelter’s Rachael Orr and Kate Webb who presented the study Shelter had commissioned from Cambridge University’s Centre for Housing and Planning Research. Rachael and Kate also kindly agreed to give up their time and present Shelter’s findings at the Housing Select Committee on the 15th February.

I was therefore concerned to see that the Chair of that Select Committee had decided not to include the Cambridge University research in the Committee papers for that meeting. Instead, and once again, he allowed his committee to be presented only with a flimsy and inadequate paper written solely by H&F Council officials. Indeed, there was no independent information whatsoever despite there being plenty from government and other bodies as the links in this report demonstrate. The Chair then surprised all as the meeting began by admitting he had only “flicked through” CU’s research.

The reaction of Nick Johnson, was even more extraordinary. He is the interim housing director/consultant. Following the initial presentation from Shelter’s two policy experts he abruptly announced “I deal in facts. Not predictions!”. Then, with an indignant shrug he folded his arms, leant back in his chair and turned his gaze away from the two women.

Rachael and Kate then performed a master class in professionalism. They gave a dispassionate explanation of how the research was undertaken, why it was not a series of “predictions” and how a local authority keen to do all it could to minimise problems for those affected could apply it usefully to their own work. They finished by offering to assist H&F Council officials in any way they could. I asked another official from the housing benefits team if H&F Council had any information that was anything as "thorough" or based on such "robust evidence" as Shelter’s CU report? “No” came the reply.

I then questioned Nick Johnson on his highly unusual approach to our guests and the information they had commissioned. “Can we explore your definition of ‘facts’: how many landlords has H&F Council spoken with in each of the different categories listed on page 61?” Mr. Johnson started quoting from his council papers. So I asked again “What ‘factual’ information does this council have about the 1,916 households listed on the graph at the top of page 61 (click to enlarge attached photo) and in particular, not those [317] households placed into direct lettings by your department?” A few moments passed and then Nick Johnson admitted he didn’t personally have any factual information about this group – which is the largest category of local people finding themselves with shortfalls in the money needed to pay their weekly rents. He asked his colleague for the answer. “We’ve spoken to a handful of landlords in that category councillor.” “A handful?” I asked. “Yes councillor no more than ten and it’s bad news I’m afraid as they indicated they wouldn’t cut their rents and would look to evict”, he responded.“Ten out of over 1,500 hardly justifies the boast of ‘I deal in facts’ does it?” I asked. Nobody answered.

Prior to this meeting Cllr. Ivimy had launched a rather bizarre attack on Shelter’s CU research at the Council meeting on 26th January. This is a direct transcript of Cllr. Ivimy’s comments made during that meeting:

"I did go with Councillor Cowan to see Shelter. I have never been as disappointed and unimpressed in my life. I thought Shelter was a reputable organisation. It presented us with a report based on false assumptions and deeply flawed analysis - coming to alarmist conclusions - coming to alarmist conclusions - yes obviously some 26-year-old undergraduate who had no knowledge or understanding of statistics and had no idea what he was doing. That's who obviously did it."

This was followed up with a more restrained attack during which Cllr. Ivimy set out H&F Conservatives' official position about Shelter’s research on their website.

The last Housing Select Committee turned out to be a disaster for H&F Conservatives’ official position. Shelter demolished it by doing no more than politely and deftly demonstrating the quality of their research while allowing those present to contrast it with the shoddy information produced by H&F Council. Before the meeting Shelter had responded to Cllr Ivimy's attack saying "We look forward to seeing Hammersmith and Fulham's own independent assessment of the impact these cuts will have on child poverty and homelessness within the borough.” H&F Council proved incapable of presenting any information that came even close to that standard.

So, why are H&F’s Conservative Administration taking such little interest in what will happen to the thousands of low-income Borough households who could find themselves homeless? Why did they and the Borough’s senior housing “consultant” pour scorn on the best independent research available? You only have to consider this administration’s wider approach to housing and homelessness to conclude that the answers to those questions are really very alarming - especially if you’re a Hammersmith and Fulham resident who could shortly be threatened with homelessness.

Notting Hill Housing Group To Blight Northern End Of Hammersmith Grove

2011-03-02T09:15:00.004Z

Residents in the northern end of Hammersmith Grove will have more in common with those at the southern end than just living on the same street. Both neighbourhoods have major developments being considered by H&F Council’s Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on March 9.

The once excellent Notting Hill Housing Group (NHHG) is hoping to build a six storey block of flats which doesn’t have one single affordable home to rent contained in the application. In fact NHHG’s planning application (see page numbered 60) states that this so-called affordable housing provider is applying for a “mixture of market housing and affordable housing in the form of shared ownership units” but then states that the project will only contain “29% shared ownership units on the basis of the Council's tiered affordability criteria.” That means a large proportion of the miserly proportion of homes NHHG classify as "affordable" won’t actually be affordable to H&F residents on even average incomes. This is a sad reflection on the current approach of Notting Hill Housing Group.

It's also an indictment of H&F Conservatives for agreeing the structure of this scheme. They famously turned their noses up at providing affordable homes to rent long ago. Now, they've turned their backs on all those hard working people on average incomes that are struggling to get a foot on the property ladder.

Meanwhile, the scheme they are proposing is ugly, will overlook surrounding homes and is too big for that part of Hammersmith Grove. The Conservative Administration has developed a close relationship with NHHG. It’s no surprise that H&F Council recommends approval.

Local residents associations suggest another course of action. “Turn this application down!” I shall be at the Planning Committee arguing that point on Wednesday, March 9. Feel free to join me in Hammersmith Town Hall at 7.00pm. The application for the NCP car park site will be heard as well. It will be a big night for Hammersmith Grove.

H&F Council's Hammersmith Grove Double Whammy Planning Blight - Meeting 9th March

2011-03-01T16:03:00.009Z

The application for Development Securities' two Hammersmith Grove, super-sized skyscrapers will be heard by the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on Wednesday, 9th March. The office blocks will change the face of Hammersmith forever. Hammersmith Grove itself will be blighted with these ugly buildings overshadowing the residential area and bringing added nuisance, extra traffic and damaging property prices in this relatively quiet neighbourhood.

Local residents associations are calling on people to show up to the Hammersmith Town Hall meeting to let the councillors who make up the PAC know their objections. The meeting will begin at 7.00pm.

Nicola Lesbirel, a resident of Hammersmith Grove, has run a determined campaign against this scheme and tells me "My neighbours and I are very surprised with how this has been handled and with the lack of response by our council to our concerns. We urge the elected representatives that are members of the planning committee to withhold their consent until the issues about the size, function and impact on our local community have been addressed." Rosemary Pettit of the Brackenbury Residents Association said "It's hard to see how these two huge glass blocks and wedges will add to the amenities of Hammersmith. We already have a mass of unlet office space. Residents are being offered no community space whasoever. The Brackenbury Residents Assoiciation has particular concerns about the development blighting the lives of the surrounding residential neighbourhood." The Hammersmith Society and other local groups have also submitted objections.

It's interesting to note that Development Securities have not included any photographic constructions of how the buildings will look from the residential aspect of Hammersmith Grove. Their images only provide views from Hammersmith Town centre, in what is seen as a deliberate attempt to down play the fact that these buildings will sit in a residential street. This drawing (click to expand) gives an idea of how much bigger the proposed buildings will be compared to the surrounding homes - although that too fails to include any of them to demonstrate the difference in scale.

H&F Council itself has been accused of going out of its way to help Development Securities whilst giving scant regard to the effects on local residents. Few residents are therefore surprised that the official Council report (see page 8) predictably recommends that permission is granted for the skyscrapers.

The Conservative Administration has actually built a close relationship with Development Securities. This became evident in 2007 when they initially mislead the public about fourteen secret meetings they had with the property speculator prior to permission being granted for the now famous Hammersmith Grove Armadillo. Development Securities then found it impossible to raise finance and that scheme was halted. Last May Skyscraper News reported that the company had "managed to raise £94 million in new equity through an offer and has a reported £42 million worth of deals on the cards which has seen its position improve dramatically." I know of two of those deals in Hammersmith and Fulham. Not only are they expecting permission to be granted on the Hammersmith Grove site but they also expect to have their plans to demolish Shepherds Bush Market nodded through later this year.

Consider the Goldhawk Industrial Estate palaver, the shenanigans residents are currently being put through with the £35million Town Hall office development, this NCP application and what's happening on Hammersmith embankment and it's understandable why many residents complain that the Conservative Administration's relationship with property speculators is far too close for comfort. That's not surprising given that in 2007 the Administration released this video which said the planning department would now seek to "remove the uncertainty around planning applications." That's one reason why property speculators are queuing up to do business with H&F Council. And that's also the reason why residents associations across Hammersmith are calling on people to attend the Planning Meeting on the 9th March.

Incompetent? A Spotlight On H&F Conservatives' Debt Strategy

2011-02-28T00:11:00.005Z

Cllr. Andrew Jones (Lab), taking the Tories
to task on their wasteful approach

Cllr. Andrew Jones (Lab) is an economics professor. He is also H&F Labour's Shadow Cabinet Member for Value for Money and has written this piece below for HFConWatch:

Like the Tory-led government, H&F Conservatives should stop using debt as a smokescreen to do what they want to do ideologically – cut down the state.

Tory Hammersmith & Fulham councillors are justifying their decision to slash with abandon by saying there is an urgent need to pay off the council’s debt. They either believe this, in which case they are economically illiterate, or they don’t, in which case they are dishonest. We thought we’d ask our own economic policy guru, Labour councillor Professor Andrew Jones, to explode a few Tory myths.

Myth No 1: H&F’s debt is unsustainable.
It isn’t, any more than a mortgage on a home is. Another word for debt is borrowing. And just as people borrow money through mortgages to have somewhere to live, councils of all colours borrow money (incur debt) to provide facilities and local services. A previous Hammersmith and Fulham Tory administration increased the debt to build the unloved Town Hall extension and the now defunct Janet Adegoke swimming pool. Labour borrowed to build affordable local homes for rent. Both parties borrowed to improve schools.

The difference between a council’s debt and ordinary people’s is that councils can get much better deals, such as 20-year fixed rates, and they can switch deals when rates fall. It may not suit the Tories’ political purposes to publicise this but Hammersmith and Fulham council officials have rightly taken advantage of record low interest rates in recent times to make much of the council’s borrowing very cheap by historical standards.

Myth No 2: Paying off debt quickly is always best
.When the economy is doing well, paying off debt more quickly can be a good idea. This is why the last Labour administration in Hammersmith and Fulham paid off £12 million in 2005/6 – more than the Conservatives in four years – without damaging services.

But when times are hard, just as most people can’t afford to increase their mortgage payments without having to cut back on basics like food, heating and clothes, the only way that councils can repay their debt quickly is, as Hammersmith and Fulham is doing, by cutting essential services such as child protection and Sure Start and by selling off community buildings.

This brings us to Myth No 3: H&F Tories are practical, not ideological.

Far from it. Hammersmith and Fulham's debt is more affordable than ever due to low interest rates, which means the pain being caused by over-rapid debt cutting is impractical and unnecessary. So why is the council inflicting it? The answer is that they are using debt as a smokescreen to do what they want to do ideologically – cut down the state. Cut it nationally and cut it locally.

You can disagree with this ideology while accepting that an honest difference of opinion here is possible. What isn’t acceptable is the Tories’ dishonesty in hiding behind the smokescreen of economically illiterate arguments about council debt to make ideologically-driven cuts.

Finally, there's Myth No 4: H&F Tories achieve value for money.

On any measure, they don’t. What they are doing is asset stripping at a period of low return after a recession. They consistently fail to look to the long term or to undertake any cost-benefit analysis of their actions.

Take the sale of community buildings. This will bring in a mere £800,000 (at best and more likely to be no more than £250,000), around one half of one per cent of the council’s borrowing. Our community will lose out today, and if a Labour council wants to expand services in the future, buying new buildings will cost more than if we had kept the ones we have. And even if the sell-offs were necessary, it makes no sense to make them now at the bottom of the market.

Equally, while cutting voluntary sector grants saves trivial amounts of money, taking away this Big Society safety net will increase demand on Hammersmith and Fulham council from the most vulnerable in our society. How will the council find the extra money to meet the demand? By cutting services to those on middle incomes? Or – despite all their fine words – by leaving the most disadvantaged to suffer?

H&F Conservatives are also quite prepared to spend money with reckless abandon when it suits them. Their plan to replace the Town Hall extension, which they themselves built with debt, is likely to cost millions and benefit only property developers.

It is time to look beyond the myths.
Whether you call it debt or borrowing, there is no economic requirement to cut services and facilities in order to pay off what Hammersmith and Fulham council owes at this reckless pace. Politics is always about choices. H&F Tories are making an ideological choice and they should come clean about it.

Boris Sneaks In And Out Through Side Doors Despite £15,000 Hammersmith Police Security Operation

2011-02-26T13:40:00.014Z

"Listen to us!" Hammersmith protest at Tory convention today

There were just short of fifty police officers providing a cordon of protection around Hammersmith Town Hall today but Mayor Boris Johnson (Con) still arrived and left the London Regional Conservative Party Conference through side doors.

What he was afraid of was hard to tell. Was it the disabled people objecting to H&F Conservatives putting lives at risk; or parents objecting to the closure of Sure Start; or was it the other Hammersmith residents objecting to the £35 million Town Hall monstrosity the Administration is trying to force on the people of our Borough? One thing was clear. Mayor Boris Johnson didn't feel up to meeting them. Indeed, one photographer told me that the Mayor was so nervous when caught sneaking out of the Town Hall from a disused delivery entrance that he nearly fell off his bike when another photographer ran to capture the moment on film.

Tara Flood campaigning against the Conservatives'
harsh treatment of disabled people

Parents and students campaigning to Save Education Maintenance Allowance were there along with a wide assortment of other protest groups. Andy Slaughter MP (Lab) and several of my fellow Labour councillors attended to show their support for local residents. Later the police told me they had been very happy with how the 150 strong crowd had behaved while asserting their objections to the Conservatives' agenda.

Many of the residents there were surprised that not one single Conservative politician would engage with them. They had wanted a chance to explain their views and thought they would be listened to. One senior police officer told me he roughly estimated the cost of the large police presence at £15,000.00 of public money. So it's hard to understand why Boris and other leading Tories didn't think the tax payers that had attended today at least deserved to a chance to have their concerns heard and noted.

Boris And Conservative High Command Come To Hammersmith To Worship At The Altar Of Tory Cuts

2011-02-24T18:19:00.012Z

It's the things people do that tells you what they really think. So it's telling that, in the week that Hammersmith and Fulham's Conservative administration agreed its controversial budget Mayor Boris Johnson has chosen to host the regional Conservative Party Conference in Hammersmith Town Hall (Click to view invitation).

He will be joined at the Altar of Tory Cuts (I understand it's in a small, dark room in the Town Hall basement) by Conservative government ministers and Council Leaders from across London.

An adviser to Eric Pickles MP, the local government secretary, will be a keynote speaker and all this in the week Cameron's favourite Council added an extra 3.7% cut to the 11.3% blow Mr. Pickles handed to the residents of Hammersmith and Fulham.

As well as the cuts, regular readers will recall that the Conservatives have:

Offered property speculators the opportunity to demolish up to a third of all council homes and successfully argued for 'near' market rents and an end to secure council home tenancies
Are blighting Hammersmith with a £35 million Town Hall, office and tower block monster
Shut down big society groups by selling off their buildings
Closed Sure Start in all but name
Introduced record stealth taxes

Indeed, Mr. Pickles even saw fit to turn a blind eye to the what the Mail on Sunday calls the "highly unusual" circumstances that allowed one Hammersmith and Fulham Council "consultant" to claim £310,000.00 of public money.

All this appears popular stuff in the body politic of the modern Conservative Party. There are even rumours that David Cameron may make an appearance. At least we know where they all stand on such controversial matters.