Sulivan Primary School Deserves Better Than This

It was the Full Council Meeting last night. Nearly all of the meeting was taken up with H&F Conservatives' highly controversial decision to close Sulivan Primary School - recently graded the 233rd best out 16,884 in the country. My Labour colleagues and I urged all councillors to vote for this "motion":

"This Council congratulates Sulivan Primary School on the recognition received from both Boris Johnson, the London Mayor and David Laws MP, the Minister of State for Schools, in respect of the school’s excellent academic results. The Council supports the addition of a high quality secondary school in the south of the Borough but agrees that the excellent Sulivan Primary School should remain open and a new site found for the free school that does not involve cannibalising Sulivan Primary School".

Cllr. Georgie Cooney (Con), the Cabinet Member for Education moved a wrecking amendment which changed the subject and removed any reference to agreeing "Sulivan Primary School should remain open". That was voted through by a majority of Conservative councillors.

Then there was another vote on Sulivan Primary School. As reported, the Sulivan School closure has been called into the Borough's Education and Children's Services Select Committee.  This is the first time a call-in has ever been issued in the history of H&F Council. But Conservative councillors decided to book the meeting at a highly unusual start time of 10.00am next Wednesday morning. To put that in perspective, no Select Committee meetings ever happen at 10.00am. They're always at 7.00pm so the public and councillors can easily attend. Now consider that that Administration broke with long-standing custom and practice and did not ask Opposition councillors or co-opted committee members if this time or date would be suitable. Instead, they just went ahead and announced it after, I am reliably informed, they had consulted with enough Conservative committee members to ensure the committee would be quorate. So it is evident that they are deliberately trying to make it difficult for the teachers, parents and governors to attend and are clearly trying and fix the vote by also making it hard for opposition councillors and co-opted committee members to attend and vote. The Chair of the School's governors formally complained. Her request to change the timing was clearly reasonable. My fellow Labour councillors called a vote and presented the wording below.

Cllr. Stephen Hamilton (Con) a school governor at Sulivan Primary School had earlier expressed support for our first motion so we were all more than a little surprised when he slunk out of the room and failed to argue for or vote in favour of this:

"The Council notes with concern the email sent at 1.38pm today by the Chair of Governors, Sulivan Primary School to the Administration, which reads.

“I would like to formally register my complaint to the Council for the timing of the meeting. I have looked back over Council meetings and I have struggled to find any examples of Council meetings scheduled for the morning. I put it to you that this time has been selected specifically to make it difficult for both members of the Committee and the public to attend the meeting.  I would ask you to consider postponing the date and time, selecting a new date in the evening, as has always been the practice by the Council, when its officers, councillors and the public, have more opportunity of attending.  Do you think this would be a more democratic approach? I also would have appreciated the courtesy of an email to the Governing Body and the Head Teacher at Sulivan, informing us of the meeting, given the meeting has been called to discuss Sulivan Primary.  Another example of an unjust and at worst, flawed consultation process and administration by the Council. I hope you will consider my request and advise me of the date when the meeting will be rescheduled.”

Sewing as school's
future is debated

The Council urges Cllr. Donald Johnson, (Con) the committee chair, Cllr. Tom Crofts (Con) , Cllr. Charlie Dewhirst (Con), Cllr. Belinda Donovan (Con), Cllr Harry Phibbs (Con), Cllr. Matt Thorley (Con) to work with opposition and co-opted members of the Education and Children’s Services Select Committee in recognising the reasonable nature of this request, to consult with governors of Sulivan Primary School and other stakeholders to agree a more suitable time and date for the issues raised in the call-in to be properly considered".

The meeting finished late. Those members of the public that attended were very disappointed. Conservative councillors appeared uninterested in making any worthwhile points about Sulivan Primary School. Cllr. Helen Binmore (Con), the Cabinet Member for Children's Services didn't turn up despite being one of the people that engineered the closure. Many people complained that the Borough's Deputy Mayor Cllr. Adronie Alford (Con) was apparently engaged in embroidering a piece of cloth with what a member of the public identified as a picture of a cheetah. She was clearly uninterested in any of the facts presented about the school but voted with her Conservative colleagues on the school's future at every point throughout the evening.

Meanwhile, here are some children from Sulivan Primary School singing "Save Our Sulivan". They deserve better than this.

Conservative Councillors Agree To Turn Quiet Residential Avenue Into Route For 77 Foot Long Lorries Into Europe's Biggest Building Site

Larry Culhane, Cllr. Daryl Brown and Alistair Dixon of
Kensington Hall Gardens campaigning for a Council re-think

Earlier this month H&F's Conservative councillors voted through a plan to turn residential streets off the North End Road in West Kensington into the central 24 hour delivery route for articulated lorries and other heavy vehicles into what is planned to become Europe's biggest building site. Residents were more than a little shocked not to have even been consulted. In contrast, the developer was extensively consulted by our self confessed, "developer friendly Council".

The Council report can be read here on page 74. It details how:

• “Heavy vehicle access to the depot during the Earls Court development will be from Beaumont Avenue and emergency access will be from Aisgill Avenue.”
• “Large 77ft long articulated lorries will access/egress the LUL depot site approximately 6-9 times a day from Beaumont Avenue.”
• “Very long 99ft lorries will need to access the site approximately 4 times a year.”
• “There are also 60 parking spaces on the LUL depot site for transit vans that will need to access/egress the site throughout the day.”

This Wednesday, at the Full Council Meeting, Larry Culhane will ask the Leader of the Council to think again, work with local people and come forward with better proposals. You can read his question on page 474 of this report. My Labour colleagues and I will then vote to side with residents and overturn this decision.

This shouldn't be a party political matter. It's common decency for a local authority to consult residents and work things out with them - especially, in these circumstances.

The situation is best summed up by Alistair Dixon, the Chair, Kensington Hall Gardens residents association. He says “As you’d expect, I was astonished to learn the Council’s plans for Beaumont and Aisgill Avenues. This would bring intolerable amounts of extra traffic from heavy vehicles, we are told some will be as large as 99ft. The council has not properly considered residents’ needs or the danger of increased road accidents, extra noise, extra dust, extra pollution or damage to properties. They must stop this and I call for an immediate re-think”

We hope Conservative councillors will join my Labour colleagues and I to ensure these plans are voted down on Wednesday night. We will let you know how we get on.

Unprecedented: Borough Select Committee Calls In Conservatives' Decision To Close Award Winning Sulivan Primary School.

Last Monday’s decision by the Borough’s Conservative Cabinet to close the award winning Sulivan Primary School has been suspended after an unprecedented “call-in” issued on Friday by a majority on the Borough’s Education and Children’s Services Select Committee.

All four independent co-opted voting members of the Select Committee joined with three Labour Opposition councillors to produce a majority of one. The controversial closure will now be reviewed at an emergency meeting.

There is much that needs to be considered about the curious goings on behind all of this. Here's just two of the most important questions:

1. Why close a primary school whose latest SATs results place it as 233rd out of 16,884 primaries in England and put it firmly into the top 2% of schools in the country?
2. Exactly what does this closure have to do with the proposed Fulham Boys School (FBS)?

On Monday, Cabinet Members Cllr. Helen Binmore (Con), Cllr. Georgie Cooney (Con) and Cllr. Nicholas Botterill (Con) all claimed the answer to that last question is absolutely nothing. But here’s what we know:

• Sulivan Primary School has been set aside by the Conservative Administration as the site for the FBS.
• There was a well organised campaign during the statutory consultation on the closure of Sulivan Primary School to encourage people to write in and state their support for FBS.
• Conservative councillors agreed to count around 950 of those FBS statutory consultation responses amongst those they claimed were backing Sulivan’s closure in the report that was presented to the Borough's cabinet.
• Sulivan is the preferred site of those behind the FBS bid. On 24th November 2013, a council official wrote an email which stated: “I spoke to Alex Wade, the founder of the Fulham Boys’ School last week… He also confirmed that, should the proposals go ahead, he did not see your alternative plan as workable and that the clear preference of the Fulham Boys’ School governors and Head teacher would be for a new secondary school on the larger and more suitable Sulivan site.”
• Conservative councillors have taken legal advice: one on whether or not to publically declare a "friendship"; and two on whether to declare a “number of people they know” behind the FBS bid. They have been advised "this declaration is not a declaration of interests required under the code" and they have "no interest to declare". While nobody is suggesting anything improper has happened, we do now need to see a full list of all dates that elected representatives met with people behind FBS and discussed or referred to the bid or potential sites.
• Minutes from a meeting on 20th November 2013 with Greg Hands MP for Chelsea and Fulham, allege other excellent schools were also considered for closure so FBS could take their sites. The minutes state: “Greg commented that it was extremely difficult to find sites for new schools within the Borough. Greg was aware that FBS has looked at many sites over the last two years. Greg personally had tried to help FBS to find a site controlled by local or central government including the MOD site in Rylston Road, All Saints vicarage, All Saints School and The Moat School – none of which has proved suitable for FBS.”

It appears that the FBS proposals have absolutely everything to do with the proposed closure of Sulivan Primary School.

It is also apparent that the pupils, teachers, parents and governors of other Borough schools could have faced the same calamity as those currently befalling Sulivan with every likelihood that the Conservative Administration would have put up other similarly spurious reasons for closing them.

The seven Select Committee members who called in this decision appear to have done the Borough a very big favour. This is the first time any Select Committee has ever called in a cabinet decision. I know it won't have been done lightly. This is a summary of the reasons they gave:

• The Cabinet has not properly considered the school’s excellent performance.
• The Council have miscalculated the detrimental effect the closure will have on the children’s education.
• The Council effectively blocked attempts to increase the school’s numbers.
• The Council has misled the public during the consultation on the schools results, popularity and the reasons for its closure.
• The Cabinet has given undue consideration to the views, requirements and preferences of the founders of the Fulham Boys School.

It would be unwise for the Conservative Administration to play down this call-in or try to bulldoze the process through. It would also be a huge concern and raise questions about their credibility if the six Conservative councillors on the Education and Children's Services Select Committee (one of whom is the Conservatives' newly selected prospective parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith) failed to properly take up their responsibilities to look into and act on these matters.

If you'd like to write to any councillors on the committee please follow these links:

There's no good reason to mess with these
children's education

Conservative Select Committee members

Cllr. Donald Johnson, (Con) the committee chair, Cllr Tom Crofts (Con) , Cllr Charlie Dewhirst (Con), Cllr Belinda Donovan (Con), Cllr Harry Phibbs (Con), Cllr. Matt Thorley (Con)

 

Labour's Select Committee members

Cllr Caroline Needham (Lab) the committee vice-chair, Cllr Elaine Chumnery (Lab) and Cllr Mercy Umeh (Lab).

 

I was one of the people behind bringing the Hammersmith Academy to the Borough and I have been very impressed by the excellent West London Free School in Hammersmith. I think it is important to provide an additional, and high performing, secondary school in the south of the Borough but I do not believe this is any way to go about it.

 

It is highly questionable that anyone should think turfing very young children out of the wonderful Sulivan Primary School, or any other high performing local school, is reasonable or sets a good moral example for young people of what is a decent way to behave.

This Wednesday is the date of the next Full Council Meeting. It's a public meeting which you can attend and view the papers for it here.  Sulivan's parents, teachers and governors have submitted questions to Conservative cabinet members which you can read from page 475, 476, 477 and 478. My Labour Opposition colleagues and I are calling for a vote on the school and you can read what we're proposing on page 536.

It is ironic that the Conservatives', now suspended, decision to close Sulivan, was made almost a month to the day after the school received a letter of recognition by the Government's Minister of State for Schools. On 17th December he congratulated Sulivan Primary School on the “excellent performance of your pupils, particularly your disadvantaged pupils”. The Mayor of London also awarded Sulivan Primary School the Gold Club distinction, “recognising good work for disadvantaged pupils”. Those awards alone should have given food for thought. Now the Conservative cabinet have an opportunity to revisit their decision and do the right thing - which is keeping Sulivan Primary School open.

Over To You Now Boris After H&F Conservatives Force Through Unnecessary Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf Development

Will the Mayor call for a re-think on damaging
Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf Scheme?

Despite the public expectation that the Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf planning application had already been agreed by H&F’s Council leaders, there was still a palpable shock from the seventy or so strong audience, when all the Conservative councillors raised their hands in unison to formally give the go-ahead. The arguments for refusals and delay had been overwhelming. Now it falls to Mayor Boris Johnson (Con) to force a re-think. 

You can review the GLA's planning papers here. This is the team considering all aspects of the application.

GLA Planning Decisions Unit:

Colin Wilson, Senior Manager - Planning Decisions

020 7983 4783
colin.wilson@london.gov.uk

Justin Carr, Strategic Planning Manager (Development Decisions)

020 7983 4895

justin.carr@london.gov.uk

Lucy Bird, Case Officer

020 7983 5826

lucy.bird@london.gov.uk

If you'd like to also raise your concerns directly with the Mayor you can email him here: mayor@london.gov.uk.

This was just one of two of the Borough’s most important development schemes that went before a hastily arranged Special Planning Applications Committee (S-PAC) meeting just six days before Christmas. By 11.00pm there was still the BBC Television Centre application to start. I don’t think anyone seated around the Council Chamber believed the Conservative Administration's denials that they had insisted the Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf scheme was rushed through before the New Year in the hope that time would dull the memories of such a controversial approval long before May's local elections.

Here’s some of what we have learnt:

Loss of a community arts centre

The theatre and community arts facilities essential to the current Riverside Studios appear downgraded in the design. Instead, the media business interests of Riverside Television which also occupies the current site, appears to have been prioritised. While last minute changes had been made, planning officers admitted that negotiations were still on-going to deal with concerns about this. It obviously would have been better to conclude those negotiations to secure the community arts centre first, before granting planning permission and thus weakening the hand of H&F Council to strike the best deal. But that hasn't happened and many leading theatre luminaries are still not convinced.

Putting the profits of the developer over the housing needs of residents

If H&F Council is not yet not confident it has protected Riverside Studios as a community arts centre, why allow Mount Anvil and A2 Dominion to duck out of their planning obligations to build homes “Londoners can afford”? In fact, the developers have been granted permission to build luxury investment units targeted at speculators in China, Russia and the Middle East. That contravenes both the London and Borough's own planning guidelines and is reason enough for the Mayor to now block this planning application.

Another questionable viability excuse

All but one of S-PAC’s Conservative councillors admitted they hadn’t read the “independent viability report”. I guess they felt they knew what it would say as its conclusions were much like every other such report produced for H&F Council, predictably saying it isn’t viable to build the homes they are obliged to do which “Londoners can afford”.

 

So let’s consider what we know about this scheme.

 

We know A2 Dominion had purchased Queens Wharf for the knock down price of just £12.8m. We know H&F Council owns the freehold for the Riverside Studios. A2 Dominion told me that it would cost them about £25m to build their original Queens Wharf scheme. So we have a good idea of what it will cost to build across the whole site. Consider that the previous owner of Queens Wharf had paid well over £30m for the site alone.  Now consider how this planning permission spectacularly changes the value of the land at a stroke. It’s easy to understand how lucrative this project is for the business interests behind it and how badly the administration has negotiated on behalf of residents.

Meanwhile, according to Nationwide, Hammersmith and Fulham has seen property price rises of 25% during the year ending 31st January 2013. That's the fastest rise in the UK but H&F Council's assessment was based on inadequate valuations carried out months ago, last summer.

 

It is clearly possible to strike a much better deal that protects the arts centre and the neighbourhood.

Damaging the immediate neighbourhood and local businesses

Officials admitted that the removal of the theatre entrance on Crisp Road and replacement with large garage doors including a delivery depot would damage that neighbourhood.

 

Officials also admitted that it was likely that the newsagents, café and pub would lose business as footfall took alternative routes but said they hadn’t done any assessment of how badly those businesses would be affected.

The same officials indicated that the extra height, particularly viewed from Chancellors Street would be worse than what is there at present. To counter this they unconvincingly argued that there was a precedent for sticking a large ugly building at the end of roads containing residential housing near the river.

Damaging “the Borough’s most sensitive site”

On 3rd August 2011 a senior planning official told the PAC that the Queens Wharf site viewed from Hammersmith Mall and the west of Hammersmith Bridge was “the Borough’s most sensitive site”. It was therefore very odd that two years later none of the photo reconstructions that were shown to the S-PAC contained any image from Hammersmith Mall.

 

It also became apparent that there had been insufficient consideration of the heritage of the conservation area and the damage this scheme does to it particularly the aspects around Crisp Road and Chancellors Street. Residents alleged they had been told this had purposefully been left out to avoid spotlighting planning concerns. Officials denied this.

A remarkably cynical consultation

The developers’ consultation and approach to residents appeared cynical and uninterested. They refused to come to meetings or answer the most fundamental questions and even consistently refused to respond to allegations that the Remarkable Group, their consultation advisor, had been investigating local residents who had objected to their scheme.

Height, massing, density, affordable homes, un-neighbourliness

After nearly four hours it was clear that there were many reasons for this scheme to be blocked. In fact, H&F Council could have used these reasons below which are the exact same reasons they used to block the original Queens Wharf scheme in 2011:

“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.”

More time to fix the inadequate and rushed design
Lord Richard Rogers, one of Britain’s world famous starchitects, joined critics of the design. Along with film director Sir Richard Eyre, actress Francesca Annis, architect Will Alsop and others, Lord Rogers wrote to The Times on the day of the S-PAC to say: “We believe that there has been insufficient consultation for such an important site, next to the Grade II listed Hammersmith Bridge, and on this rare riverside location, in a development in which arts facilities look likely to play a secondary role to privately-run TV studios.” They called for a “more informed and constructive discussion about the future of this important arts centre”.

These views should have been taken on board but were bushed aside, with one Conservative councillor attacking Lord Rogers' views as being those of just another "Labour Party member.”

What needs to happen now?

I think everybody wants a good scheme to be developed across the two sites. One that protects the Riverside Studios as a community arts facility, adds to rather than damages the immediate neighbourhood and is good value for residents.

 

The only real deadline for planning permission is that Mount Anvil have a contract with A2 Dominion that says they need to have gained planning approval for their joint scheme otherwise A2 Dominion can go ahead and build the Queens Wharf scheme they already have  permission for.

 

The Queens Wharf scheme does not have any affordable housing in it. Instead, A2 Dominion have chosen to build luxury flats targeted at overseas investors. That is very peculiar because A2 Dominion are a housing association who are obliged to build and manage affordable homes. I believe we can get a better scheme agreed within any contracted deadline between A2 Dominion and Mount Anvil. But even if there are difficulties contracts an be re-negotiated and I find it hard to believe that any reputable housing association would push ahead with a its own project that not only ignores its responsibilities to tackle London's Housing Crisis but would kill any chance of maintaining a much loved community arts centre.

 

Mayor Boris Johnson needs to block this scheme and force the developers and H&F Council to think again.

People At Austerity's Sharp End Deserve A Smarter Approach From Their Council

It’s not the most festive graphic you’ll ever see on a Christmas card. The picture of a pound coin fizzing away in a glass is not a pleasant yuletide metaphor. It's worse for those struggling with the consequences of the bedroom tax, the council's inflation-busting rent hikes or other personal cost-of-living traumas because the image darkly sums up the cash nightmare they find themselves in. So who could have sent this Christmas card horror message to roughly fourteen thousand Hammersmith and Fulham residents?...

 

It was a relief to see that Cllr. Andrew Johnson (Con), H&F Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, had not donned a full Santa Claus get-up when he appeared on the BBC to explain his actions yesterday. Maybe he had decided that his latest threatening missive should be delivered straight-up, without a seasonal theme? Cllr. Johnson soberly told the BBC that his Christmas card had carried a "deliberately hard-hitting" message, reassuringly adding, "It would give me no pleasure to evict people in the New Year because they're behind on their rent".

 

I have sympathy with Cllr. Johnson's desire to tackle the staggering 46% rent arrears he is responsible for. It is also good to note that 54% of tenants pay their rent on time. But it is hard to believe printing and posting that Christmas card to all council tenants, irrespective of whether the recipient had ever been in rent arrears or not, was the cleverest plan he and his team could come up with - especially in these tough economic times.

This Christmas there are record numbers of local residents relying on local food banks to feed their families. There are record numbers of local homeless people, with many more threatened with homelessness. We need a better, smarter, more compassionate approach. This is not the first Christmas the currently Conservative-run local council has fallen short of that measure but I really hope it will be the last.

Let's Make This Christmas Small Business Christmas

Manjit Rana of the Tipsy Toad, Hammersmith Grove.
Where would our neighbourhood be without
independent shops such as this?

Last Saturday was Small Business Saturday. It’s a great initiative but with the Centre for Retail Research reporting that 22% of Britain’s current independent retailers will disappear by 2018 we should try and make this Christmas, Small Business Christmas.

 

Take, for example, the wonderful Tipsy Toad on Hammersmith Grove. Manjit Rana has stocked up. The store is packed with fine wines, organic luxury Christmas cakes, artisan breads and some of the most delicious chocolates you’ll ever eat. And, as it’s Christmas, I advise trying their locally distilled Sipsmith’s gin and vodka. As well as offering an excellent choice of organic, gluten free and everyday groceries, Manjit’s many kindnesses has put the Tipsy Toad at the centre of the Hammersmith Grove neighbourhood. It is a local institution - you can even buy your Christmas tree there from this Saturday.

 

Stocked up for Christmas

But each time small businesses like the Tipsy Toad stock up in this way they take a risk. Cash flow is vital for small businesses and getting it wrong can be fatal.

 

This shop, which I wrote about in 2007, has since disappeared. But our neighbourhood still benefits from great independent stores such as SISI (which is the best DIY store I know), the amazing Stenton’s Butchers, the lovely Brackenbury’s Deli, Bertotti’s Gelato Café and the many others who exemplify why small retailers are so important.

 

Ben Coleman with Alan De'Ath, Sharon Holder
and local residents in Fulham Broadway

Last month I asked Ben Coleman to be H&F Labour’s small business champion. Ben has worked on small business policy since the mid-1990s and is currently a key member of Labour’s national small business task force.

 

Consider that the government's own report, Understanding High Street Performance, shows that in "2000 49.4% of retail spending took place on the High Street" and predicts this is likely to fall to just "39.8 in 2014".

There are measures that can be taken locally. Ben Coleman will be considering how to reduce council red tape, lower business costs, encourage start-ups and make it easier for small firms to compete. Part of Ben’s work will involve consulting local businesses and residents. So what would you like to see as local small business policy in H&F Labour’s manifesto? Please email me here if you have an idea or want to contribute to the discussion at a manifesto meeting.

 

Meanwhile, you can contact the small independent, neighbourhood shops mentioned in this report here:

 

Tipsy Toad, 91 Hammersmith Grove, Hammersmith. Phone 020 8741 9358

 

SISI DIY and Hardware, 139 Brackenbury Road, Hammersmith W6 0BQ. Phone 020 8741 5463

 

Stenton's Butchers, 55 Aldensley Road, Hammersmith W6 9PL. Phone 020 8748 6121

 

Brackenbury's Delicatessen, 22 Aldensley Road, Hammermith W6 0DH. Phone 020 8748 7388

 

Bertotti Gelato Café, 87 Hammersmith Grove, Hammersmith, W6 0NQ. Phone 020 8616 7973

 

Happy Christmas and I hope you have some very happy Christmas shopping.

The Standard: "Stars Queue Up To Reject New Riverside Studios Project By Hammersmith Bridge"

Concerned about the Riverside? Read this piece in The Standard

More on how plans to demolish and rebuild the Riverside Studios, as part of a luxury housing complex for overseas investors, threatens its survival as a community arts centre with this piece in The Standard. The paper is reporting that "Harriet Walter, Francesca Annis and Peter Blake have joined the founding director of the Riverside Studios arts complex in condemning plans to replace it with a new centre and giant block of flats." 

The Standard quotes Peter Gill, the artistic director when the Riverside opened in 1976, who explains how the proposed new media complex will be no more than a "fig leaf" for a property development. It's a shame Riverside did not attend the Residents' Consultation Meeting back on 18th November as Mr. Gill was there and they lost another opportunity to hear his valued opinion.
 
The Remarkable Group's controversial consultation came in for more criticism with the The Standard telling how, "Writer Stephen Poliakoff, who lives nearby, said the silence around the plans was “suspicious”. He added: “I knew nothing about it until the last 48 hours, and I was in the foyer in September." The solution to all of this is simple as you can read here.

H&F Conservatives' Self-Confessed "Developer Friendly" Approach Is Killing Twentysomethings' Dreams Of Home Ownership.

See this excellent article in today's Independent

Today's Independent is reporting "Labour councils are building twice as many homes in their areas as Conservatives local authorities, new research reveals today. Since the last election, an average of 403 social and affordable homes have been built in each Labour council area, compared with 201 in each Tory-held authority." Well, it's even worse in Conservative run Hammermith and Fulham who have allowed no genuinely affordable homes to be built once they controlled the planning process.

In fact the biggest group of beneficiaries from H&F Conservatives' policies are international investors based overseas. London's land has become one of the most lucrative commodities to invest in at the moment. Its returns are better than many hedge funds. Our local Conservatives are all-to-happy to oblige this process by voting through changes of land use so former industrial or business sites become prime luxury real estate - devoid of any affordable homes to buy or rent.

This failure to properly use local planning policy for the benefit of residents means that St. George's Glenthorne Road and Fulham Reach sites have no affordable homes to rent, The Town Hall scheme has no affordable homes whatsoever and the current Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf commitment to providing residents with genuinely affordable homes to buy or rent is zilch - despite one of the developers being A2 Dominion, a housing association that's meant to be committed to providing affordable homes.

A2 Dominion's approach offers wider insights. On 3rd November 2010 they told me how they we're not going to propose building any genuinely affordable homes on the Queens Wharf site because H&F's Conservative administration had made it clear they didn't want that. Meanwhile, H&F Conservatives' wider plans to demolish social housing across the Borough has been well documented.

Few doubt there is a housing crisis in London at the moment. A critical part of the solution locally is for H&F Council to use its planning powers to ensure that a wider variety of homes are build with the priority being affordable homes for residents to buy or rent. H&F Conservatives' self-confessed "developer friendly" record speaks for itself. As long as they run this Borough the ultimate beneficiaries of their approach are more likely to be in Moscow or Shanghai than Fulham or Hammersmith.

The New Yorker: "By George, Britain’s Austerity Experiment Didn’t Work!"

The culprits? This piece in the New Yorker is well worth a read

It's always thought provoking to hear what our friends in other countries think and this view from The New Yorker magazine about George Osborne's handling of the UK economy is, to say the least, interesting.

It reports that Mr Osborne, whom it christens "the patron saint of austerity enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic" has cost "the average U.K. household a total of about £3,500 over these three years." because "after Osborne introduced his austerity drive, economic growth slowed down" having been on target to "expand by 1.3 per cent in 2010".

The author doesn't pull his punches adding "From an economic perspective, Osborne’s argument is hogwash. His effort to cure the patient by subjecting it to the equivalent of leeching—big cuts in government spending and higher taxes—a return to pre-Keynesian policies watched closely the world over, failed abysmally. Imposed at a time when the U.K.’s economy was recovering from the financial crisis of 2008-09, it subjected his countrymen and countrywomen to three more years of slump-like conditions, and it produced a dearth of public-sector and private-sector investment that will hobble Britain for years to come. It even failed to meet its own targets of drastically reducing the budget deficit and bringing down Britain’s over-all debt burden."

This isn't the first American analysis to contrast with the spin Mr. Osborne is currently giving: On 21st October 2010, Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Paul Krugman wrote this prediction and on the same day, Professor Brad De Long gave this critical view and called Mr. Osborne and his colleagues "clueless dorks". How the economic situation plays out politically, we'll have to see but the best economist are pretty clear that Mr. Osborne et al have made Britain's situation much worse and may well do so again.

Nelson Mandela

Reports of Nelson Mandela's ailing health over recent months did nothing to curtail the shocked sadness that I think all of us experienced at the news of his passing away on Thursday night. Not only was he the greatest political leader of our time, he set a mark of how to be the finest human being - even in the most adverse and cruellest of circumstances.

I was privileged to hear him speak in 2000 at the Labour Party Conference. He spoke briefly to a small party of us and delivered this uplifting and moving speech at the conference. As with everything else he said and did, the lessons of that speech are as important now as they were then.

Come On Riverside Studios - You're Better Than This!

This theatre frontage to be replaced by large garage depot-doors

It's now apparent that the application for the Riverside Studios/Queens Wharf scheme will be heard at a specially arranged meeting of the Planning Applications Committee on 19th December. At just six days before Christmas it appears this date has been chosen to curtail the numbers of local residents likely to attend. I encourage anyone who is interested to come along. It starts at 7.00pm and will most likely be held at Hammersmith Town Hall.

The shame of this project is that rather than go for a scheme that protects Riverside Studios as a community arts centre and protects all that's good about the immediate neighbourhood the developer has stubbornly opted to turn the site into an über-commercial media centre and property speculators' dream - with high end flats targeted mostly at international investors.

By building too high and replacing the current theatre frontage with large garage depot-doors, the developer apparently finds it acceptable to downgrade this currently vibrant neighbourhood into a darker cut through for local traffic - damaging the trade of small independent retailers in the process.

The public consultations have been unnecessarily fearful of genuinely consulting the public. They flatly refused to attend this residents' public meeting. All indications being that this remarkably naff approach was simply because their communications advisor, the Remarkable Group, hadn't organised it. 

Meanwhile, H&F Council looks set to nod this through despite having the conflict of interests of being the planning authority, owning the freehold and having been in private negotiations with parties behind this scheme for many years before it ever announced to the public what was going on.

Come on Riverside Studios, you're better than this! Come back with some amended plans.

Send Them Your Comments About The New Application To Privatise Hammersmith Park

The Council’s Conservative Administration and their partner Playfootball are bringing their application to turn a third of Hammersmith Park into a commercial business venture back to the Planning Applications Committee (PAC). Residents might want to send their comments into the planning officer by emailing her here and quoting the reference 2013/04980/FUL.

 

This is very unusual as planning permission has already been granted for everything Playfootball wanted by a majority vote of Conservative councillors on the PAC as recently as 31st July 2013 - as you can read here.

 

This new application is almost certainly the result of H&F Council’s fears around its likelihood of losing the Judicial Review which has been organised by local residents opposed to this awful scheme. This new application is virtually the same project but this time H&F Council will try to better explain why they didn’t bother to consider the damaging effects on the local environment, why they used the cynical ruse of leasing the site for 35 years knowing that if they’d sold it (which they are doing for all practical purposes) that would need that decision to be signed off by the Secretary of State and why they deliberately chose to take a very limited consultation ignoring many local residents and residents associations. H&F Council wants all comments in by 19th December but it is actually possible to send comments in after that and up until the PAC sits to consider the application.

This scheme is in a conservation area and will affect its character and appearance. These are the details of the application:

• A third of Hammersmith Park is being leased to a private firm that will charge an estimated £50 per hour fee to use their facilities.
• Part of the park will become a bar and a car park for 19 vehicles.
• The bowling green will be ripped up.
• The tennis courts will be bulldozed.
• The playground will be built over
• The current basketball pitch will eliminated.
• Twenty four mature tree will be felled.
• Valuable flower beds will be destroyed
• New powerful floodlights will pollute the neighbourhood
• An ugly 12 foot high fence will surround the third of the park that the commercial venture takes over
• Noise from people playing football will go on late into the night.
• H&F Council and Playfootball say they want to extend the opening hours of the 'pavilion' until midnight on Saturdays and until 11.00pm on Sundays.

To see more details please click onto the attached letter.

Residents who care about the Borough's other parks may want to take note of what's happening here. In the past H&F Conservatives have tried to turn local parks over for a wide variety of events such as wrestling shows, raves and other private ventures. I imagine that they won't want to admit to any  more alarming plans this close to the council elections but few doubt they have them.

Please forward this article to anyone who might be concerned about this and might want to let H&F Council know their views by emailing the planning officer on the above link.