This morning's Brent Council Cabinet agreed the Budget which now goers forward for ratification at the Council Meeting on February 22nd.
The far-reaching Borough Plan was approved without any discussion other than an introduction. This will also go to Full Council on February 22nd.
The Draft Borough Plan is below (click bottom right for full page version):
2 comments:
I can't understand how Brent hopes to become 'Better' when for example, the current cabinet
is clearly content to allow Brent's environment to remain in a poor condition.
In addition to that, the shameful scandal of Prospect House suggests to me that social housing isn't important to Brent council.
Also, how is it possible for Brent to be "a Borough where we can all feel safe, secure, happy and healthy"
when a teenager was recently critically injured, and a 22 year old man was murdered in Kilburn?
Only last month, Leon Street, age 48, was stabbed to death in Neasden, and ten minutes before, a 47-year-old man was attacked nearby by a man who fled the scene, while another male was stabbed in the same area.
As for being 'happy and healthy' in Brent, how does the council expect that to happen when many residents feel unhappy on so many levels such as those living in (typically) poor quality, insecure accommodation,
while a considerable number of Brent residents continue practicing unnatural, and extremely unhealthy habits such as smoking, vaping, misuse of class A drugs, excessive consumption of alcohol (despite lockdown measures)
(people buy crates of lager from local superstores, and I have witnessed that many times in Asda, Wembley Park) residents are regularly targeted by pizza outlets with leaflets for expensive, unquestionably unhealthy junk food, and there are still too many fast food fried chicken restaurants
throughout our borough and most people know that a diet of junk food isn't beneficial to their health and it exacerbates the litter problem.
Take a walk along Chalk hill Road and you'll see evidence of junk food consumption and the packaging strewn across the roads, pavements and even the kerbside bushes.
The daily sight of that doesn't make me feel happy, let alone seeing the way that the wider environment is treated and neglected by irresponsible residents and the local authority in terms of the miles of broken, misaligned pavements, let alone the potholes from one place to another.
All those things, and more make it increasingly difficult for me to feel happy, let alone healthy as every other person walks by blowing 2nd hand smoke into the air as I make my way along the standard, dirty, broken pavements to my poor quality flat where I feel even more unhappy and dissatisfied.
Brent council needs to open its eyes and see how things are outside
and then start again with a workable plan for the future
rather than the bog standard that says much but achieves little.
The only way that Brent stands a chance of changing for the better is when everyone agrees that the current situation isn't good and work together to change it for the better and strive to maintain it thereafter.
The current complacent attitude in Brent is negative and unhealthy
and must be changed.
I hope that no one will consider this comment racist - it is intended to be the opposite.
The Borough Plan document says: 'Brent is home to 329,800 residents, 64% of whom are from Black, Asian and other minority groups.'
Isn't it time that we moved on from that sort of description?
The truth is that if we classify ourselves in "groups", 100% of Brent's residents are from ethnic minorities!
Brent is a wonderfully diverse borough, and I have neighbours from a wide range of backgrounds, who I am happy to live among.
If I have to "tick a box", then I am "white British"; but like every other category that people in the borough may be asked to classify themselves as, I am someone who has made my home in Brent.
That is what we all have in common, and it does not matter that outsiders (and the Council itself, at times) may want to label us "Black", "White", "Asian" or whatever!
There are times when some of these labels may be appropriate, particularly if they are identifying groups of individuals who are disadvantaged, and may need some targeted support to help improve their lives.
In general, though, I would like to see a single Brent community where we can live together in respect for each other, recognising that we have so much more in common as human beings than the "label" which by accident of birth we have inherited.
I agree with Trevor, that attitudes need to change, so that life for everyone in the borough can be improved.
I offer my thoughts in this comment as a possible step along that path to a better Brent.
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