Councillor Jean Campbell

Councillor Jean Campbell

It is with profound sadness that I announce Councillor Jean Campbell died on Saturday.

Jean had represented the nearly 8,000 citizens of Wormholt and White City ward since 4th May 2006. She was also an active member of her local church, a member of the Hammersmith Labour Party’s general committee and an executive member of the White City Tenants and Residents Association - having been re-elected as its treasurer just last Wednesday night.

Jean Campbell was a part of that great pioneer generation and having been born in Belmont, St. Andrew, Jamaica on the 6th March 1947, she arrived in Britain in 1970. She worked as an auxiliary nurse in the West London Hospital, then as a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry and did all of this while volunteering in her local community and bringing up four sons.

For Jean, looking out for others was just how she lived her life. Accompanying her on a walk around White City could be a leisurely affair as she would be stopped by neighbours and constituents all keen to pass the time of day, discuss some issue of concern or shout a friendly greeting as they dashed by. She was a captivating speaker in the Council Chamber – always sticking up for those most hard done by or for people whose voices were being ignored. She was the original community leader and organiser, always thinking how she could get something done and working to make things better.

Flag flying at half mast over Hammersmith Town Hall today
out of respect for Councillor Jean Campbell who gave
a lifetime of service to others

For the last seven years Jean was the carer for her partner Jones Delauney who sadly died in July after a long illness. Jean lived with her mum.

Recently, Jean was campaigning for better care for elderly residents in sheltered housing, for better youth services and was in the process of sending food parcels to Jamaica after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.

I had last spoken with Jean on Friday night. She was on good form and looking forward to the future – even joking about going dancing again. Jean was much loved and respected by all of us. Her death is a terrible shock and a dreadful loss.

I know the thoughts of everyone who knew Jean will be with her mum, her children, their partners and her grandchildren, all of whom she was very proud - as were we of her.

H&F Conservatives Side With Property Speculator And OK CPO Powers To Demolish Shepherds Bush Market

Conservatives agreed to CPO Cooke's and
the surrounding shops so their
property speculator colleagues
can go ahead with the demolitions

On Monday night, Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s Conservative Administration met to vote through compulsory purchase orders (CPO) for the shops on the Goldhawk Road. They did this against the wishes of the small retailers who have long run those businesses  - many fearing that this will finish them off.

In agreeing the CPOs the cabinet also chose to ignore a ruling from the High Court that their Administration had acted unlawfully and they strengthened the negotiating position of the large property speculator who is currently discussing terms with the small retailers for the demolition of their premises.

I asked the Conservative cabinet members why they had placed hundreds of thousand of pounds of tax payers’ money, their officials’ time and other resources at the disposal of their chosen property speculator. They explained they believed it was necessary to push this deal through.

Cllr. Mark Loveday. Enjoyed a £12,000.00 tax
payer funded jaunt to the French Riviera
where he hawked the Borough's
"Contentious development sites."

Councillors Andrew Jones (Lab) and PJ Murphy (Lab) urged the Conservatives to refrain from allowing the use of CPO powers and asked about details of the scheme that was missing from the reports and about the vague assurances being offered to the small retailers. Officers and Conservative councillors were unable to answer many of their questions. At this point, Cllr. Mark Loveday (Con) made a somewhat emotional interjection involving shouting personal insults at my colleagues. In part this was his usual technique to try and stop a line of questioning. But, Cllr. Mark Loveday had been responsible for many of the unhappy deals the Conservative administration has made with big property speculators across the Borough. Regular readers will recall how he enjoyed a £12,000.00 tax payer funded jaunt to the French Riviera where he met many property speculators while hawking the Borough’s “contentious development sites.” He was also exposed as having misled the public about dealings with the same property speculator on another site. So Loveday’s ill-considered personal defensiveness is perhaps understandable.

What is unforgivable is that despite the warm words offered by the Conservatives they are undermining the small businesses on that site and doing so during George Osborne’s double dip recession. It’s likely the decision they made on Monday night will force many to close. Like many residents before them the retailers are asking why H&F’s Conservative run Council is building relationships with large property speculators that are too close for comfort and detrimental to their interests? You can read more about the background to this deal on the Shepherds Bush Blog.

H&F Conservatives’ £2m Gift Of Public Cash To Barclays Bank/Boris Scheme Stinks

Bungling H&F Conservatives have handed over £2m of public
money for their mate Boris' Barclay's bikes scheme

“Have they lost their minds?” one local resident asked me on hearing that Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives have agreed to hand over a staggering £2 million of council funds for the Barclay’s Bank/Boris Bike Scheme.

Why they are giving away any public money to anything to do with the recently discredited Barclays Bank is hard to fathom. But this looks like a grubby favour done to help their close friend Boris Johnson - the Mayor of London.

You also have to ask yourself what type of incompetent, spendthrift, public-money-squandering bozo negotiated such a deal that it can only go ahead if a small Borough like Hammersmith and Fulham hands over £2m of extremely scarce resources?

Hammersmith and Fulham’s Conservative Administration says that the residents shouldn’t be too bothered because the council received this £2m as statutory planning gain from a property developer. But, that conveniently ignores all the lost opportunities of other important things this money could have been used for such as improving local infrastructure, investing in critical services or sorting out the Borough’s finances.

This deal stinks. It appears to be done for no other reason then to help out a political mate. Why weren’t Barclays Bank asked to pay? As much as I think it would be good to have a scheme such as this in our Borough, I do not think it is worth £2 million and neither do any of the residents who have contacted me about this.

H&F Council Spent £10m Of Tax Payers' Money On Homes It Now Plans To Demolish

Hammersmith and Fulham Council has admitted that over the last nine years it has spent over £10,000,000.00 of hard-earned tax-payers' money refurbishing two estates it now plans to demolish.

In an email to Cllr. Lisa Homan (Lab), the Borough's director of housing wrote: "I can confirm that the total capital expenditure on West Kensington and Gibbs Green Estates between the financial years of 2002/3 - 2011/12 was £10.34 million, which includes work undertaken as part the Decent Homes programme, together with environmental improvements."

This £10.3m improvement scheme had been the first major investment into improving those council homes in decades. They were brought up to scratch with new environmentally efficient windows and doors, new kitchens. new bathrooms and improvements to the public space.

But all of that money has been wasted. Within the last two weeks the Conservative Administration has sold the two estates to a favoured property speculator at a knock-down price. Then Conservative councillors granted them permission to demolish the 800 families' homes that form the community on what is now viewed by the Conservatives as no more than a development site. 

Has H&F Council Been Complicit In Offering Homes For Support Of Their Demolition Scheme?

Hammersmith and Fulham Council has admitted that it has long been aware that new homes were being offered to residents of the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates in return for support of the Council’s controversial scheme to demolish both of those estates.

While it blames its partners for compiling the “VIP list” it has consistently refused to investigate why its officials didn’t immediately stop it and to what level, if any, they were involved in agreeing it. We therefore have a situation where at the very least H&F Council appears to have turned a blind eye to a hoodwinking exercise designed to falsely win support and it did this while it was carrying out the necessary statutory consultations about this scheme.

On 31st January 2012 two directors of the limited liability company, H&F Council had helped establish, resigned. The company had been formed for residents supporting the demolition of the two estates but both directors became disenchanted when they concluded the scheme was flawed and bad for their fellow residents. In his resignation email to H&F Council, one of the former directors stated "remember the list of about 120 VIP estate residents who have been promised priority in the move to Seagrave Road (if it ever happens) irrespective of if their homes are required for development."  He alleged that the VIP list had been compiled “to garner resident support” and that a council official had “agreed” all of this.  If that has happened the Council will have acted unlawfully.

I had previously heard rumours of such activities but when this document was forwarded to me in March it was the first time I had seen anything specific or in writing. Coming from such a prominent person, I believed H&F Council would naturally want to investigate what had actually occurred.  I asked Cllr. Andrew Johnson (Con), the Borough’s cabinet member for housing and Mr. Melbourne Barrett, the director of housing about this alleged bribery and to tell me what actions they have taken to investigate it and how they intend to deal with it?

I did not get a straight answer to any of those questions - despite my persistence over the following months. This smelt like a cover up. Andrew Johnson didn’t even bother to respond. On 16th August Derek Myers, the Council’s Chief Executive, emailed to me to say following his "enquiries" he considered that I have “no independent information which forms the basis of any allegation of dishonesty or impropriety.” The evidence from the former company director was dismissed on the bizarre basis that he no longer “believe[s] the council should enter into an agreement with CapCo and he has expressed his opinion on this in a variety of correspondence.”

At the Cabinet Meeting on Monday 3rd September, Derek Myers informed the Committee that the full extent of his investigation was no more than to ask Mr. Barrett about what had happened. Melbourne Barrett told us that the full extent of his investigations were no more than to ask a project manager about it.

Meanwhile, Melbourne Barrett agreed that there is a "longstanding" and "close and fluid" working relationship between CapCo, the Council's residents group and the Council - adding an assurance that this was all above board and beyond reproach. I cannot see how he was able to make such an assurance given the Council's complete failure to properly investigate or take seriously these alarming allegations.

Melbourne Barrett went on to admit that the Council had known about the VIP list since at least January of this year but he refused four times to confirm exactly when they first became aware of it. He did volunteer that the Council does have an "early leavers list" but said officials had not considered the possible correlation between that and the VIP list. At 10.15 the next morning Derek Myers emailed me stating “I now regard the matter as closed.”

Yesterday morning the West Kensington and Gibbs Green residents associations delivered a dossier to my office. It contained further and similar allegations of a VIP list which they compiled after listening closely to the council officials' unsatisfactory answers at last week’s cabinet meeting. They have also handed a copy to the Borough’s police and appear to have press released it. This matter is clearly far from closed.

If council officials believe they can white wash this or continue to obfuscate and consistently refrain from answering questions or that this matter will just go away, they are wrong. I am calling for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to arrange for a full independent investigation and to tell us what has happened. That investigation must report:

• Exactly how was this VIP list compiled?
• When did this begin and is it still happening?
• Which people were involved in compiling it?
• What were the terms and requirements for getting onto the VIP list and how was it used to "garner support?"
• Which council officers knew of the VIP list and exactly when?
• Were any council officers involved in compiling it or agreeing it in any way - as alleged?
• What measures did H&F Council take to stop it and when did they do this?
• Exactly what correlation is there between the 120 people alleged to be on the VIP list and the Council's own "early movers list?"
• What conclusions did council officers and their legal advisers reach about this potential illegality and unlawfulness?
• To what level has this affected or invalidated the statutory consultations H&F Council carried out during this period?

I am sure there are plenty of other questions that need to be answered about the homes for support allegations but these are the very least Hammersmith and Fulham Council needs to come clean about.

Conservatives Suffer 11.5% Swing To Labour In One Of Their Safest Seats In London

It was chucking it down with rain from yesterday afternoon onwards but Labour’s Ben Coleman still secured an 11.5% swing against the Conservative Party in the Town by-election in Fulham. I am grateful to all of those residents that voted for us and to all the volunteers that campaigned for us. Thank you.

Town is one of the safest Conservative held wards in Hammersmith and Fulham and across London. The 11.5% swing compares to the last hard fought by-election in that ward which had taken place on the 15th October 2009. Compare yesterday’s result to the London local elections result, which took place on the same day as the last General Election on the 6^th May 2010, and it’s still an excellent 7.2% swing to Labour. Here’s how the numbers of votes break down:

Conservative 768,

Labour 416

Liberal Democrat 331

UKIP 39

These results underline how my Labour colleagues and I have a good chance of winning control of the Council in 2014 and putting an end to the awful things the Conservatives are doing. If we do win, we will stop the Conservatives’ wasteful use of taxes payers’ money such as: £70million for new Town Hall offices; £5million on propaganda; £12m on so-called “consultants” and even £1.5m for legal fees they need to fight local residents and businesses objecting to their dubious building schemes. We will redirect all that money into cuts to council taxes, investing in modern, efficient services and we’ll put extra police onto the streets. Full details to follow when we publish our 2014 manifesto.

“Send The Conservative-Run Council A Message” In The Town Ward By-Election

Labour's Ben Coleman campaigning against police cuts
in the Town ward by-election

The Town ward by-election has been called and will take place on 12th July 2012. Labour has selected local entrepreneur, Ben Coleman as its candidate. He is also a long-standing governor of Jack Tizard School for severely disabled children, where he chairs the finance committee.

It promises to be an interesting election. Firstly, it is taking place in “Cameron’s favourite Council” in a ward vacated by the former council leader.  Secondly, the Conservatives have a vast majority of thirty-one of the forty-six seats on Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Labour has the rest, forming the fifteen-strong Opposition. So, even if Labour wins in Town as I hope it will, this election will not change the balance of power in our local politics. It does, however, give residents a chance to send a message to those running the Council and to the Conservative/Lib Dem government running the country.

Ben Coleman said, “Residents can use this by-election to send the Conservative-run council a message about their cuts to local police, waste of public money and new hikes to stealth taxes on parking, elderly care and using personal trainers in local parks.”

He added, “We can also send a message directly to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The Tory/LibDem government has taken a gamble with our economy and failed. The UK is back in recession and small businesses and families are suffering. The public expect better and voting Labour in this by-election sends that message direct to Downing Street.”

You can email him by clicking here. You can like his campaign on Facebook here or follow his campaign on Twitter here.

Disappearing High Street - Another Pub Closes

The Wheatsheaf, Fulham as it is now

The Wheatsheaf pub on the Fulham Road has closed down. This adds to the growing list of establishments that have shut up shop in our Borough in the last few years. What will happen to the site remains to be seen but residents fear it could be turned into another of the many local supermarkets springing up in the Borough.

How it looked until recently

Around the corner, the Salisbury Tavern in Dawes Road, Fulham closed its doors within the last couple of years. It re-opened as a Tesco mini-store months later.

There is little doubt that our high streets are changing with independent retailers and pubs disappearing only to be replaced by identikit supermarkets. There has been much talk of action being taken, as I report here, but little has actually been done.

It’s important that local councils and the government consider the planning rules, market forces and sometimes questionable practices that currently facilitate this process. If they don’t and this trend continues then we will have lost much of what’s important to our local neighbourhoods.

Update On Local Hospital Closures

Charing Cross Hospital's A&E up for closure.

There is more news on the likely closures of local accident and emergency services. As previously reported, the government have charged NHS North West London with undertaking a health service reorganisation. That will see all north west London's hospitals competing with each other and eventually losing some crucial services.

Residents in our Borough will be particularly interested in the proposed cuts being considered for Charing Cross, Hammersmith and Chelsea & Westminster hospitals.

Rory Vaughan is H&F Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Services. Hammersmith and Fulham Council sent him as a representative to NHS NW London’s regional meeting to find out more about what’s being planned. Here’s his report.

Cllr. Rory Vaughan (Lab)

Councillor Rory Vaughan’s Report on the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of 17th May 2012

NHS North West London have carried out more work on the government's proposed cuts to local health services since they last presented their views to Hammersmith and Fulham’s Borough select committee on 17th April.

NHS NW London say they will be consulting on three options for change. All three involve closing Hammersmith Hospital's Accident and Emergency department - although they claim it will remain as a ‘specialist’ hospital.

They are considering cuts to hospital services across the north west London administrative area but these are the particular closure options which will have the greatest affect to our Borough residents: 

1. Their preferred option will be to close Charing Cross Hospital’s accident and emergency department rather than Chelsea and Westminster’s.
2. Their second option is the reverse of that and end A&E services at Chelsea and Westminster but keep those at Charing Cross. 
3. Their third option is again to close Charing Cross Hospital’s A&E and not Chelsea and Westminster’s but that plan also involves keeping Ealing Hospital’s A&E instead of the one at West Middlesex.

Consultation on all three options will start on 2nd July 2012 and end on 6th October 2012. They have extended the consultation period to fourteen weeks, from the usual twelve, due to the summer holidays and Olympics.  There will be two consultation sessions in each borough and one in each of the London boroughs of Wandsworth, Richmond and Kingston - whose residents are also affected.

No Resignations Yet After Judge Says H&F Council's Shepherds Bush Market Plans Are Unlawful

H&F Conservatives indicate they still want to demolish these
much loved shops despite High Court judgement.

H&F Conservatives’ terrible scheme to demolish Shepherds Bush Market has been ruled as unlawful in the High Court. The judgement was made on Friday after the Goldhawk Road Shopkeepers successfully brought a judicial review of H&F Council’s planning processes. However, H&F Council have indicated that they are likely to try and ignore Mr. Justice Wilkie's judgement in this press statement also released on Friday morning.

Even by the Council’s low standards, that is an astonishing position to take. The finances alone are hard to justify when you consider that H&F Council have spent £600,000 on legal fees, propaganda and officers' time - a sum equivalent to a 1% council tax cut for every Borough household.

The Administration's position is sadly consistent with their long-standing approach of ignoring the views of all that are against this scheme - as happened when the Goldhawk Road traders brought a petition to this Borough Cabinet Meeting in November 2010.

Mr. Justice Wilkie has handed down a damning indictment of H&F Council's behaviour. It has made the roles of the leading Conservatives and lead officials behind this scheme untenable.

It is worth noting that it is the same gang of individuals in the Council behind this scheme as were behind the Town Hall Skyscrapers scheme, the West Kensington scheme, the Fulham Reach scheme, the Goldhawk Industrial Estate scheme, the Hammersmith Grove office towers and many others. They have also introduced dubious new planning rules to make it harder for elected representatives to examine their all-too-close relationships with property speculators. Those responsible for all this in the Administration must listen to the traders, to Shepherds Bush residents and to the judge or they should resign. I will be perusing this with the authorities.

Meanwhile, here is the press release from the Goldhawk Road traders. And, if you're prepared to register, this is a very interesting report too.

Hammersmith Flyover Re-Opens But It's Time For A Tunnel

Hammersmith Flyover: H&F Conservatives reluctant to
seriously consider A4 tunnel as they calculate cost
of  losing advertising revenue

The engineering works to enable the full re‑opening of the Hammersmith flyover has been completed and the flyover is now open to all vehicles. The flyover was dramatically closed on 23rd December last year and had only been taking limited traffic since January.

An investigation is now taking place by H&F's Labour Opposition to find out why H&F Council had failed to prepare for the possibility of closure when they had admitted they knew about this since last summer. Hammersmith residents suffered traffic gridlock and heightened levels of air pollution, even in residential streets, as cars and lorries sought new rat-runs to get off the A4. 

The flyover has about seven years of life left in it. After that it will need a refurbishment or there will need to be another traffic solution. My fellow Labour councillors and I are now campaigning for an alternative scheme involving sinking the A4 into a tunnel. At the Full Council Meeting on 25th January this year we called on the Council to present a united cross-party front and to:

• "Request the Greater London Authority to carry out an investigation into the circumstances regarding the deterioration and closure of the flyover.
• Request that the Mayor carry out a feasibility study into putting the A4 into a tunnel through central Hammersmith."

Sadly, H&F Conservatives voted that proposal down. I guess they're not interested in doing that as they don't want to lose the £1m revenue they get from H&F Council's new electronic advertising beacons as you can read here.

Transport for London now report that the current works to fix the Hammersmith Flyover have involved "the installation of concrete barriers as well as 22 kilometres of new cables within the structure to supplement the load capacity." 

Further updates about London’s traffic information can be found here.

Increased Hardship Looms For Most Needing A New, Decent Home To Buy Or Rent

Chances of a new home diminish for most as
H&F Conservatives' housing strategy prioritises
part-time homes for international investors

Keen to find out more details behind H&F’s new housing strategies both Colin Aherne (Lab) and I attended Monday night’s Borough Cabinet Meeting. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of detail on offer.

We began by asking about changes to social housing. Cllr. Andrew Johnson (Con), H&F’s Cabinet Member for Housing, was quick into the rhetoric and stuck with it throughout. “The new housing allocations measures will allow people on the housing waiting list to stand a realistic chance of getting a new home” he proclaimed. But H&F’s Conservative Administration have actually become infamous for drastically cutting the supply of affordable social housing. There are currently 10,000 households on the waiting list but H&F now only lets just a few dozens of new local properties each year so “what number crunching had his housing officials come up with that meant his use of the word 'realistic' is true?” I asked. Cllr. Johnson gazed back dumbfounded. The looks on his officials' faces expressed a surprising nervousness as it gradually became apparent there has been no serious analysis of the current allocations system or any detailed forecasting of how things will be if changed.

Cllr. Colin Aherne tried to find out about the expected numbers of homes available to local residents now that H&F Conservatives were pulling out of LOCATA (which is a mostly West London scheme used for allocating social homes across the area). “Would it be more or less and if so what are the estimated numbers?” he queried. Cllr. Johnson's face went blank and after a few too many seconds had passed he said he thought it would be more but he didn’t have any figures. His officials weren't able to help him either.

I then asked about what analysis had led Cllr. Johnson and his cabinet colleagues to pick the round number of £40,000 as a household income limit which would be used in future to block those families earning above it from getting onto the social housing waiting list. That had been the key feature of the publicity the Council had trailed last week. “Why that particular figure?” “How many local people did his estimates say that would affect?” “How had he and his officials specifically categorised those families this is likely to affect?” Did the £40k ceiling have a disproportionately negative affect on any local groups?” - such as families with two working parents - “and if so, how many?” Cllr. Johnson said he didn’t know and joked about plucking that figure out of thin air before admitting that no such analysis had been undertaken on any of that either. There is certainly no number crunching in the Cabinet Report (see page 124 here) or in the impact assessments (see page 12 here).

By now almost 25 minutes had passed and Cllr. Mark Loveday, H&F Conservatives’ Whip, could see the hole Cllr. Johnson was digging for himself. So, he leaped right into it alongside him. “Why are you asking all these questions?” he shouted up at my Opposition colleague and I. “What’s your figure?” he said jabbing his finger. I suppose picking an unnecessary row is one method of deflecting attention from a colleague’s dismal performance but it’s not necessarily a good one. It turned out Cllr. Loveday didn’t know the answers to those questions either.

It is the job of oppositions in all democracies to hold those in power to account. I’m genuinely interested to see any evidence they used as a base for their conclusions. Going by Monday night’s performance, that is minimal at best.

In fact H&F Conservatives are trying to end social housing in this Borough. They are removing over half of all people from the social housing waiting list. They are also ending the rights of others to get onto it. New tenants will no longer be secure in their homes as they will be evicted from two to five years. The council housing that does become available (and isn't sold off) will be let at near market rents which will exclude those hard working families even just above average incomes.

From now on H&F Council will place the majority of the families, it has a legal requirement to help, into expensive private flats supported by housing benefits which will often be hundreds of miles from home. The Council is already signing up leases in places like Nottingham, Margate and Reading. Meanwhile, while supply is diminishing, those left on the social housing waiting list will struggle to get one of the handfuls of homes offered out each year.

There is a housing crisis in London at the moment. At one end, the average twenty-something will be in their 50s by the time they buy their first home. At the other end, increasing numbers of people desperately try to overcome chronic overcrowding and homelessness and there are many different groups, such as key workers and young professionals, struggling to get a secure, decent home in between. There is a strategic urgency needed to fix this. Much of this rest at the door of the government and London Mayor. H&F Council's new Borough strategies could have a lot of influence too but do not even attempt to fix any of those problems.

In Hammersmith and Fulham virtually no genuinely affordable homes to buy or rent are being built at the moment. There are no serious measures to improve conditions in the private rented sector. Instead, H&F Conservatives' housing strategy prioritises building new luxury flats for international investors often in new, ugly tower blocks detested by local residents. That's hardly the right approach which is why my Labour colleagues and I will change that if the public vote us into office in 2014.