Cllr Revd Clues must resign after attending only one meeting in 6 months

Rev David Cues, Liberal Democrat councillor for Dudden Hill, now resident in Brighton, has attended just one council meeting or committee in the last six months out of eight that he was supposed to attend.

Councillor Gavin Sneddon, another Liberal Democrat, who has also moved out of the borough -  albeit not so far, attended 5 out of 8 meetings.

The best attender was Cllr Pat Harrison (Labour) with 19 out of 19, closely followed by Cllr Lesley Jones (18/18) and Cllr Janice Long (17/17).

Former Labour leader Ann John managed only 8 out of 13 meetings. However Pat Harrison attended 19/19 with one extra meeting, closely followed by Lesley Jones 18/18 and Janice Long 17/17. Ketan Sheth appears to have over-stretched himself managing only 16 of 3 expected attendances.

Liberal Democrats Paul Lorber and Barry Cheese both attended 8 additional meetings out of personal interest or to represent their constituents.

Obviously the number of meetings is not necessarily a guide to how effective a councillor is. If they sit there like a bag of potatoes and make no contribution except to rubber stamp decisions and do little case work they are not doing a good job.

However, Clues' 12.5% attendance rate is an insult to democracy and a betrayal of the electorate, and must reinforce the call from Brent Green Party that he should resign with still a year to go before the next council election.

Full attendance details for all councillors can be found HERE

Efficacy of dog walking limits need to be reviewed

Dog walkers on Barn Hill earlier this week

I spoke at the Brent Council Executive in November last year LINK on the proposed restrictions on the number of dogs one person could walk in Brent parks. The proposal was to restrict the numbers walked by 'professional dog walkers' who earn upwards of £10 per dog per walk, to six. I had witnessed one dog walker with 15 dogs.

I suggested that enforcement would be a problem with the number of wardens cuts and many of the walkers coming from outside Brent.  I was also concerned that they would bring along a friend and thus reduce the ratio to the prescribed limit.

At the same meeting Cllr Powney agreed to a suggestion by Cllr Gavin Sneddon that the dog control orders should be reviewed after 6 months.  This appears not to have been done yet.

Last week I came across the dog walkers above on Barn Hill in Fryent Country Park  (there is another dog out of the picture) and two women who appeared to be waiting for them to move on.  The  women told me that the previous day they had been jogging around the field and were pursued by a pack of dogs, they thought there more than in the above picture, and that the solitary dog walker with them was unable to call them off.  A confrontation ensued about her lack of control.  As a result the women were now fearful of jogging when large numbers of dogs are around and it had spoiled their enjoyment of the park. They did remark that the walkers in the above picture appeared to have their dogs under better control but they were not taking any chances.

I am concerned that if this situation continues the public will be put off using the park and, in the worst case, there could be a serious incident. One dog walker who contacted me by e-mail to berate  Brent Council for introducing the ban quite unselfconsciously referred to 'my pack' of dogs. We really shouldn't be in the position of having packs of out of control dogs roaming in one of our Green Flag parks.

A review of the effectiveness of this policy is urgently needed.

Local MPs and Councillors speak on green issues

Photo by Jon Goldberg www.jongoldberg.co.uk

For those of you who missed last week's Brent Green Fair, or wish to relive every minute of the proceedings, videos of the politicians' contributions are now available on the Brent Greens Blog LINK  Many thanks to Pete Murry of Brent Green Party who did the filming and stayed loyally behind the camera for several hours.

There are appearances from Sarah Teather MP (Brent Central), Barry Gardiner MP (Brent North) and Willesden Green Councillors Lesley Jones, Ann Hunter and Gavin Sneddon.