Remembering Cyrille Regis - Sunday, The Pavilion, Stonebridge

Brent kids can be 'Super Heroes' - lessons from the St Raph's Movie Fun Day

I think readers will enjoy this video showing the Brent community at its best with children and adults from all communities having fun together with a serious intent behind the fun.

Hear Rashid Nix on Crisis in the Community - Stonebridge Hub tonight

Tonight at the Stonebridge Centre Green Activist Rashid Nix is speaking about Crisis in the Community, as part of The Mind Cafe's Black Mental Health Matters Event.

Born and bred in South London, Rashid Nix's background in housing activism and youth mentoring represents a fresh perspective on London's issues. Rashid is down to earth and one of The Green Party's most engaging speakers, so if you can get there tonight (from 6.30pm) - entry is free.

The Stonebridge Centre.
Address. The Hub, 6 Hillside, Stonebridge, London, NW10 8BN

Sam's Brent Super Cup a great community event

So good to see adults facilitating community and sporting spirit for our young people.

Brent 7 a side Supercup Tournament September 9th + Fun Day

From Cllr Van Kalwala

 Delighted to be organising the Brent Super Cup. Please come and support our young people who have shown great comittment and hard work to be the best in the borough.

Also loads of fun activities for the whole community including Arts and Crafts, giant screen Nintendo Wi games, inflatable slides and much much more!

A big thank you to Sam's' Kitchen and Hyde Housing for supporting the event.

Duffy calls for special Full Brent Council meeting on post-Grenfell action

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Cllr John Duffy has written to all Brent councillors seeking support for his call for a special Council meeting to review the situation in Brent following the Grenfell tragedy:

We are all aware of the fall out of the disaster of Grenfell Tower and the knock-on affect in Camden. Swiss Cottage is  not far from Kilburn and the issue is tangible on Kilburn High Road and is concerning residents.

I have spoken to officers who seem to be doing a reasonable job, however Brent have some decision we need to make particularly in South Kilburn and Stonebridge. 

I was shocked  when I saw the state of the internal repairs in the blocks in Camden, no fire protection on gas pipes and lack of maintenance on fire doors. Camden have questions to ask themselves who was doing the installation and who was signing it off.

Camden problems of poor maintenance maybe be reflected in our own maintenance programme. Therefore we need to take action, we also have to look at our regeneration programme and our housing stock to see if we can retro-fit sprinkler systems. I have heard on Sky News that Brent may be affected, but I have not heard anything from officers to confirm this.

We as a council need to meet to discuss options, like do we wish to ensure all new blocks in the regeneration areas are fitted with sprinklers, do we retro fit older blocks, the logistics of doing so, the cost  and the timetable. We also need to discuss our emergency planning operation to ensure we are able to decant residents ( we recently used in the evacuation plan around Brondesbury Park) and  do we have short and medium term accommodation available.

I am writing to the Mayor, Leader and CEO asking them to call an urgent meeting meeting for Monday 3^rd July , this will allow officers to prepare an options report  to update councillors and allow councillors to ask  relevent questions and to look at options.

I am aware we are having a calendered meeting on the 11^th of July, but I believe we need a dedicated meeting , without the usual political divisions. Janice Long sent us something recently about Social Housing in the aftermath, which highlight a lot of the problems we are about to face.

More questions than answers at Brent Council on school expansions and Bridge Park

I drew attention recently to the blackout on the apparent problems with some current Brent school expansion projects that the public have not been allowed to hear about. LINK

Information was withheld at the Cabinet meeting and the decision made in private session and now councillors have been told that the public will have to be excluded if the issue is raised at Full Council on January 23rd.

The issue is possibly about three current expansion projects at Byron Court Primary,  Stonebridge Primary and Elsley Primary schools. It is likely that the price agreed on the projects with contractors has not been viable and the Council is either left with having to pay out more or downgrading the designs.

The accountability issue is whether there was any fault by either side on the procurement of these works and at what financial or quality cost.

Item 9 is about decisions taken by the Leader and/or Cabinet because of their urgency before before Full Council.

Apart from the IT items clearly the Bridge Park Conditional Land Sale Agreement is important.  This involves Brent Council working with development companies registered in off-shore as covered on Wembley Matters LINK.

It is not entirely clear whether Full Council will be able to discuss this as the note above states, 'The matters before the Council are merely for reporting by the Leader of the Council.' Will the public me excluded from any discussion on this as well?

Information blackout on Brent school expansion design and build

Brent Cabinet will be getting an update on the design and build of school expansions in the borough at their next meeting but the public will not be allowed to see any report.

This is because the item has been restricted for 'commercial reasons' under the relevant legislation on the basis that:

Information is exempt to the extent that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

As this is 'commercial information' about a public resource it is likely to refer to building contracts, architects fees and other costs which may well be higher than the Council expected and thus require some modification of the building specification.  It could also mean a delay in completion of the expansions.

'Wards affected' are Northwick Park, Kenton and Stonebridge so my assumption is that the item refers to Byron Court and Stonebridge Schools.   The closed down Stonebridge Adventure Playground is currently being demolished.

I would argue that an explanation is in the public interest as the general public need to know of any budgetary implications and their impact on services and parents need to know when, or perhaps if, expansion is going ahead.

Dawn Butler MP expresses 'deep concern' over plans to decommission Brent Sickle Cell Support Service

Dawn Butler MP for Brent Central has added her voice to those challenging plans to decommission the Brent Sickle Cell Advisory Support Service (BSCASS). 

She has written the following letter to the Chair of Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Dr Effie Kong, calling on her to urgently reconsider the decision.

 

Dear Dr Kong,

I am writing to put on record my deep concern at the recent decision taken by Brent CCG to decommission the Brent Sickle Cell Advisory Support Service (BSCASS).

BSCASS provides a thoroughly vital and valued service to the communities of Harlesden and Stonebridge and beyond which has a high prevalence of sickle cell sufferers. This is a poorly understood condition and services such as BSCASS are vital in helping sufferers live normal and healthy lives.

It is also vital in providing assurances to sufferers who are discharged from hospital, that extra help prevents sufferers often immediately returning into hospital, for example if a person’s house is too cold.

In particular, I would like answers to the following questions:

What consultation, beyond the reported meeting due to take place on the 7^th September 2016, has been carried out with sickle cell suffers and service users within Brent?

Has an equality impact assessment been carried out ahead of the decision to decommission this service? And if not, why did you not feel it appropriate to do so?

Brent CCG’s own report suggests service users will be ‘signposted to advocacy and advisory services within the borough’. What assessment has been made of the travel implications of decommissioning for residents of Harlesden and Stonebridge where a majority of local sickle sufferers are based?

Have you conducted a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis in relation to the decommissioning of this service? I understand that the CCG acknowledges a reduction in admissions as a result of the service. Will you also publish any data you have on this point?

I should declare an interest as an MP who is sickle cell trait and my brothers have the full blown disease I understand the complicated needs around sufferers, I have always been so impressed with the service provided by Brent, recently the erosion of this service starting with the relocation of the services from Central Middlesex hospital has been extremely disappointing.

You have no idea how painful it is to sit when you are in crisis and to expect someone to travel an extra 60mins for help is very cruel. The decommissioning of this service adds further to the existing health burden of my constituents and represents a growing inequality in the provision of healthcare services within the borough.

Finally, if this is a question of fiscal constraints then I believe we need to look at new and innovative ways to ensure the preservation of this service. I would welcome the opportunity to meet with the CCG and community activists to explore alternate funding arrangements that would deliver this outcome. I am pleading with you to reconsider your decision.

I look forward to your reply,

Dawn Butler MP

Labour Member of Parliament for Brent Central


Anger mounts in black community over threat to Brent Sickle Cell project

For readers unfamiliar with the impact of sickle cell this video provides some background

There have been a number of angry reactions to Nan Tewari's guest blog LINK about the threatened cut to the funding of the Brent Sickle Cell project which highlighted the threat itself and the failure to adequately consult with the populations most affected in Stonebridge and Harlesden wards.

The decision of the Brent Clinical Commissing Group to hold a consultation meeting at an inconvenient time in Wembley Park drew this response:

The decision to hold the meeting away from Harlesden and Stonebridge is a deliberate and cynical act of tokenism by Brent CCG and renders the meeting as merely a 'paper exercise'. Why is Brent CCG treating this vulnerable group of patients in such a dismissive way?

It would appear that Brent CCG is increasingly showing itself to be incapable of performing it's functions with any degree of competence.

Time it was held up to public scrutiny.

One comment asked bluntly if it was 'because we are black?'

Nan herself put it in the context of the treatment of residents in Harlesden and Stonebridge and the perceived lack of action by local councillors.

As if it weren't bad enough that the Central Mid A & E was closed down.....

As if it weren't bad enough that sickle cell treatment was moved to Northwick Park, 2 buses away......

As if it weren't bad enough the Harlesden population lives a decade less than others in Brent......

I suppose after closing down the Stonebridge adventure playground, Brent's councillors are too embarrassed to take Brent CCG to task over this - if indeed the sleepy councillors can even be bothered about it - after all, Harlesden and Stonebridge are pretty much captive voters for them.

Leroy Decosta Simpson, Harlesden activist said that he would would like to see the paperwork and get his 'big bwoys' to look into it.

Philip Grant in his usual meticulous way looked at the documentation and wrote:

The report that went to the CCG's Governing Body on 6 July includes the following important paragraph:

'Overall the service is seen by service users as a valued and forward thinking service model that supports the management of this long term condition, in an area of particularly high prevalence. However, the agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) demonstrate a level of performance that requires improving. The service provider has cited a number of operational issues which has adversely impacted on performance and delivery of the KPIs.'

The first sentence confirms that the project, which had only been running for a year, was already providing a very valuable and worthwhile service to the people who needed it most.

The second sentence refers to the failure to meet some of the "Key Performance Indicators", showing that the service needed to be improved, while the third sentence shows that there were reasons to show why these KPI's had not been met in the first year.

Given the positive impact of providing the service in its "start-up" year, it is difficult to understand why it was not given at least another year to make the improvements that were needed. Instead, the CCG's Executive recommended, and the Governing Body accepted, the following option:

'Not to extend the pilot but explore alternative sustainable models for care for example a peer support model with Brent Council or the use of the PAM tool can be explored to support this cohort of patients.'

It appears that the CCG wants to pass some of its own responsibility for (and cost of) the care of sickle cell sufferers onto Brent Council, whose services are already stretched, without consulting with or considering the needs of 'this cohort of patients'.

Nan Tewari, referring to the last paragraph, responded:

A fellow patient rep who attended the CCG meeting said afterwards, that the Brent Council public Health rep on the Governing Body said flatly that the council had no money to support a project.

This issue, which disproportionately affects Brent's Black Caribbean and Black African population, is one that could cause massive disaffection.  The CCG's decision needs to be reviewed, proper consultation put in place and an independent Equalities Impact Assessment carried out.

Incidence of sickle cell trait is approximately 1 in 4 West Africans and 1 in 10  Black Caribbean.

The Brent Patient Voice submission to the CCG can be found HERE

The Brent CCG Governing Body papers can be found HERE

20% 'affordable' housing in new Stonebridge development

Artist's impression of the development in Knatchbull Road

A new development by the Hyde Group in Stonebridge will have just 20% 'affordable' housing, in the form of shared ownership, according to officer recommendations going before the next Planning Committee on November 18th. LINK

There will be 109 units (mainly 1 and 2 bedrooms) on the site of the former Craven Park Health centre. A community space is also proposed although planning officers are seeking clarification on the use of such space.

The development is part of the Stonebridge Regeneration Area which included proposals to increase the amount of private housing to provide social 'balance' to the area.

This proposal, taken on its own, fails to meet the recommended proportion of affordable housing but Hyde started with 0%. This was challenged by officers resulting in the 20% figure.

The report notes:

20% affordable housing is proposed as shared ownership, whilst below the policy recommendation the amount is supported by a viability report and the specific tenures proposed are supportive of the aim to diversify the housing supply in Stonebridge.

This is one of the first proposals to come forward to planning Committee since new guidelines on affordable housing were adopted.

Stonebridge councillors have made no comment on the proposal.

Brent Labour slams down the shutters over Council Tax debate

My grandad, brought up in the Victorian era, had a rich collection of' 'naughty' sayings and rhymes.   Apparently innocuous when said slowly, they were rude when spoken quickly. He delighted in encouraging his grandchildren to utter them at speed and would then gleefully accuse us of swearing.

One was 'I chased a bug around the room, I'll have his blood, he knows I will.'

Another, which came to mind today after I heard about last night's meeting of the Brent Labour Group, was:

'She shuts the shutters and sits in the shop.'

Well the shutters have come down on last night's meeting as the hunt for the leakers intensifies and I expect some councillors have been accused of s*itting in the shop!

The meeting was called at short notice to discuss the controversial issue of the possibility of a Council Tax increase before Monday's Full Meeting of the Council.

Cllr John Duffy had challenged the decision of Michael Pavey and Muhammed Butt to ignore the Group's vote in favour of a council tax increase  at the previous group meeting and wrote a letter of complaint to  the Constitutional Officer of the Labour Party at this affront to democracy.

Whether the short notice group meeting was a result of a ruling by the Labour Party authorities or the Cabinet trying to head off a public revolt is not clear.

There was clearly a possibility that there would be a split when it came to voting on the Council tax rise and even the potential for an amendment to raise the tax. Elsewhere on this blog I have listed some of the services that could be saved even with the comparative small sum of £1.4m over two years. This could include Energy Solutions, School Crossing Patrols,  Stonebridge Adventure Playground and the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre.

Anyway, with a little bit of what used to be called Kremlinology in the old days of the Soviet Empire (when I worked at Reuters, TASS the Soviet Union's news agency was in the same building so I am used to interpreting nudges and cryptic silences about totalitarian regimes) I guess that a formal vote on a Council Tax rise was taken and that it reversed the previous vote in favour of a rise.

I would conjecture that this was the result of pressure from the leadership and a bigger turnout from the 56 strong group than the 30 or so who had attended the previous meeting. I also assume that the leadership offered no crumbs in return.

I could be wrong and that really the meeting was about whether to support the Lib Dem amendment to reduce Council Tax for cat owners and aroma therapists,  or the Brondesbury Park Conservative's motion to reduce  Council Tax by 2.5% to be paid for by closing the Civic Centre's Melting Pot restaurant and replacing it with a Super Casino.

All will be revealed on Monday - or, more likely - all will be concealed on Monday.

You can watch the live streaming of the meeting on Monday from 7pm HERE

A 'mumble for Mo' as assault on children and young people is approved by Brent Cabinet

It is customary in government, when spending priorities are being decided,  for each departmental minister to make the case for his or her department to the Treasury and to the Cabinet. Their effectiveness can be gauged by their success,

Transferring that to Brent Council level it was clear at tonight's Cabinet meeting that Ruth Moher, lead member for children and families appeared to have been particularly ineffective. Putting aside Children's Centres, which are Michael Pavey's passion, the main losers were children and young people.

Another high-rise development for Wembley but where is the truly affordable housing?

From the planning document

Shortly after my article about the high rise 20 storey development behind the Brent Civic Centre LINK Quintain have put in their planning application (14/4931) for the South West Lands. This is the area along the Chiltern line going south from Wembley Stadium station which is crossed by White Horse Bridge (below) Full documentation for the Planning Application can be found HERE

New developments in white

This fills in the space currently occupied by shrubbery. The application leaves some options which will probably be decided by Quintain on grounds of viability (or better known as profit) in negotiation with Brent Council.

Some of the blocks are 19 storeys high, just one storey below the blocks planned behind the Civic Centre and three or so higher than the Orbis Hotel next to the White Horse Bridge.

Someone recently asked why, having demolished the tower blocks of Chalkhill and Stonebridge, the Council were now supporting the building of them in Wembley?

This is an artist's impression of the impact on the skyline:

Summary of Planning Application

A hybrid planning application, for the redevelopment of the site to provide seven mixed use buildings up to 19 storeys in height accommodating: outline planning permission for up to a total of 75,000sqm to 85,000sqm mixed floor space including up to 67,000sqm of C3 residential accommodation (approximately 725 units); 8,000sqm to 14,000sqm for additional C3 residential accommodation,

C1 hotel and/or sui generis student accommodation (an additional approximate 125 residential units; or 200-250 bed hotel; or approximate 500 student units; or approximate 35 residential units and 200 bed hotel); 1,500sqm to 3,000sqm for Classes B1/A1/A2/A3/A4/D1/D2; together with associated open space and landscaping; car parking, cycle storage, pedestrian, cycle and vehicle access; associated highway works; improvements to rear access to Neeld Parade; and associated infrastructure full planning permission for a basement beneath Plots SW03 - SW05 to accommodate 284 car parking spaces and 19 motor cycle spaces; Building 3A within Plot SW03 to accommodate 183 residential units and 368 cycle spaces at ground floor; and associated infrastructure, landscaping and open space

In the consultation last year, which got a low number of response, out of the 37 general comments the largest number on a single topic was nine (from Consultation summary):

Nine comments express ed the view that affordable housing/family housing should form part of the development and be delivered quickly.

Nine comments related to specific suggestions for provision of infrastructure/amenities as part of the development. These suggestions included schools, GPs and provision for youth, the elderly and disabled people.

So are the consultees going to get what they requested?  The application gives two scenarios for the amount and type of housing:

In Scenario 1 the proportion of social rented housing is 2.2% and in Scenario 2 5%. This is against Brent's 50% target for affordable accommodation. As usual the definition of affordable is unclear but for the developer seems to include the Intermediate category and is hedged by caveats..

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At present, the proportion of the affordable units is not known as this will be subject to negotiations, planning priorities and viability. Therefore, for the purposes of this assessment, a range of affordable housing provision has been considered to ensure the impacts at both ends of the spectrum are identified and,where necessary, mitigated. The range assessed is between 10% (Scenario 1) and 25% (Scenario 2) by unit. In the event that affordable housing provision falls outside these bounds, a review will be undertaken to identify any new impacts or significant changes to the impacts identified as part of this assessment.

Given the amount of housing Quintain's assessment of the number of children in the development seems low. The number of 3 bedroomed properties, a priority for many Brent families is low. Perhaps the developers are assuming most of the residents with be Dinkies (Double Income No Kids).

From this prediction they suggest there is already enough secondary school places if Gateway and  Gladstone Free Schools open (a gamble?)  and the development will have a 'negligible effect'  locally. However there they may be the need for some Community Infrastructure Levy contribution to primary school places as the development is deemed to have a 'minor adverse effect'. With GP's lists at capacity locally it also suggests a CiL contribution to health provision may be necessary.

It is worth reminding ourselves what was promised in terms of social provision for local people at the beginning of the Quintain development, aside from affordable housing:

Anticipated infrastructure is expected to include (inter alia):

· 2 x 2 forms of entry primary school; a new combined primary (2FE) and secondary school (6FE) on the Wembley Park site;

· Extensions to existing local schools; nursery places;

· At least 2.4ha of new public open space comprising of a new park (1.2ha min) and 3 pocket parks/squares (0.4ha each);

·Improvements to the quality and accessibility of existing open spaces;

·A new community swimming pool; indoor and outdoor sports facilities;

·Play areas; new health facilities with space for 14 GPs and 11 new dentists;

and  new multi-use community facilities.

I recommend that among the hundreds of documents you read the Socio-Economic Chapter of the application which covers some of these issues. LINK

Among the positives about the development are the provision of green space and play space for children although we will need to see details about public accessibility and quality. Some of the buildings will have green roofs.

However once again we have to ask, where is the benefit for the ordinary people of Wembley/Brent and what will the Council do to increase the proportion of truly affordable housing for local people?

Brent By-election possibility lessens but...

Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala at Stonebride Boxing Club

 The potential for the postponement of the next Full Council Meeting to catch three Labour councillors in the six month attendance rule and thus force them to resign appears to have subsided.

Cllr Ahmad Shahzad is reporting to have attendeded a Pensions Committee and Cllr John Duffy an Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing Sub-Committee.

This leaves Zaffar Van Kalwala who is on the Audit Committee which meets at 7.30pm tonight and Scrutiny which meets at 7pm on Wednesday.

That is of course as long as the meetings go ahead and are not abandoned, as Cllr Janice Long seemed to hint at Labour Group on Monday, by the Civic Centre fire alarm being set off.

If for some reason Kalwala does  not attend a by-election will be triggered in Stonebridge ward.

Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala has been active in support of the campaign to Save Stonebridge Adventure Playground which has also been backed by Dawn Butler, Labour's General Election candidate for Brent Central.

Sabina Khan selected to fight Stonebridge ward

Sabina Khan at the Defend London's NHS demonstration

Sabina Khan, who made a good showing for the Brent Central parliamentary nomination, has been selected by Labour to stand for Stonebridge ward in the forthcoming local elections.

A vacancy arose when one of the women candidates dropped out earlier this year.

Central Middlesex A&E closure announcement makes People's Inquiry even more important

Jeremy Hunt's announcement today that Central Middlesex Accident and Emergency ward is to be closed will come as a bitter disappointment to Brent health campaigners, particularly after the euphoria which greeted the Lewisham Hospital campaign's court victory yesterday.

Hunt's decision shows that that the Tories have absolutely no understanding of the needs of an area such as Harlesden/Stonebridge and the social and health inequalities that make an easily accessible local facility so important.

Campaigners will be considering next steps along with those fighting for Hammermith hospital but meanwhile after the announcement  it is even more  important that as many people as possible submit evidence to the People's Inquiry into the London Health Service. Details LINK and attend the local meeting of the Inquiry which will be held. Send your views using this LINK

• Friday Nov 8: 2pm-7pm, Ealing Town Hall, New Broadway, Ealing, W5 2BY. View map:

This is the trenchant evidence to the Inquiry submitted by Harlesden resident Sarah Cox:

I am a 76 year-old retired early years teacher. I worked for more than 30 years in Brent schools and have lived for more than 40 years in Harlesden. I am also an outpatient at Central Middlesex Hospital.

As such, I was extremely concerned about the likely effect of the changes enshrined in the Shaping a Healthier Future consultation and also about the consultation itself.

I followed the consultation carefully, read the documents and attended meetings called by NHS NW London and public meetings organised by local health campaigns. Overall, the consultation was more like a public relations exercise. Its questionnaire was designed to reach a desired conclusion rather than to look at the real health needs of the vast area it covers.

I am very concerned about accountability. NHS NW London made the decision to go ahead with the changes, but went out of existence before the process of introducing them had even begun. Who will be accountable if they turn out, as many of us believe they will, to result in damaging cuts to our health services, rather than improvements?

Although I will concentrate on the likely effects of changes to the area in which I live, I believe that all the changes will have knock-on effects on neighbouring areas and I am strongly opposed to the whole package. My husband was referred from Central Middlesex Hospital where he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, to Charing X where he was expertly treated. The co operation between the two hospitals was exemplary. Cuts to any of the hospitals will increase the strain on the others and on the ambulance service.

I believe that the case for fewer specialist hospitals further apart has been made for stroke, heart attacks and some serious injuries and services have been developed in line with that. Ambulance crews know the best place to take such patients and expert paramedics are able to stabilise them before transporting them to the best hospital. However, I do not believe that the extrapolation to other conditions such as serious asthma attacks, is justified. The surgeons want a concentration of expensive high-tech facilities in fewer, larger hospitals. What they ignore is the vital importance to patients' recovery of being in a setting that is accessible to friends and relatives. There has been a great deal of publicity recently about poor standards of care on understaffed wards. The best insurance against inadequate care is the vigilance of patients' families.

In fact, although we are told that the plans are based on clinical evidence, they are really based on a desire to cut costs. It the plans go through, nearly 1,000 beds and 3,994 clinical jobs will go from hospitals in NW London, saving £1billion over three years. The remaining hospitals will not be able to cope, the ambulance service will not be able to cope, the 111 service is already inadequate and yet we are told that it is crucial to the success of providing alternative services in the community. 

One of the declared aims of the Shaping a Healthier Future strategy was to reduce health inequalities, but moving health provision away from the areas of greatest deprivation and lowest life expectancy, will in fact increase health inequalities.

As a resident of Harlesden Ward and having worked on the Stonebridge Estate, I am most concerned with the loss of services at Central Middlesex Hospital and the impact on the people of Harlesden, Stonebridge and the surrounding area. The Brent Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and in particular the Harlesden Locality Profile (accessible through the Brent Council website www.brent.gov.uk) shows that Harlesden and Stonebridge wards are among the 10% of most deprived wards in the country. They have high levels of unemployment and of long term disease and disability. They also have a higher than average birth rate, and a larger than average percentage of young children and large families and higher rates of teenage pregnancy. Yet the maternity and paediatric services have been taken away.

Areas of poverty and poor housing like these have, it is widely recognised, higher levels of respiratory disease and mental health problems among other health problems. The government welfare cuts will increase these problems.

If health inequalities are to be overcome, health services should be provided where the need is greatest. If access to health services is difficult, people living in poverty and facing many other problems are less likely to seek help and relatively minor problems can become more serious.

Some of the reasons why it is wrong to close A & E departments at CMH and Ealing (these arguments apply to other hospitals in areas of deprivation):

·        A & E services are the first port of call for patients with mental illnesses and they are likely to find it harder to travel further for help.

·        When patients attend A & E, other problems e.g. cancer are often detected and can be treated before they become more serious.

·       There is no simple public transport link from the Harlesden or Stonebridge areas nor from Central Middlesex Hospital to Northwick Park and cabs are far too expensive for people dependent on benefits, so people who are taken ill or have an accident themselves or whose children are taken ill or have an accident will be forced to call an ambulance adding to the pressure on the ambulance service.

·       Transport difficulties not only affect patients, they make it hard for family and friends to visit patients. Support and care from family and friends are important for helping patients to recover. Negotiations with TfL even on the simple extension of the 18 bus route to Northwick Park Hospital have been unsuccessful, so patients and their families and friends from the area around CMH will continue to find access to Northwick Park extremely difficult.

Northwick Park is already struggling to meet targets and ambulances are being diverted back to CMH from there and from St Mary's. If all the proposed closures go through, how will Northwick Park cope with the added burden on A & E maternity, paediatric services, surgery and intensive care?

How will the ambulance service cope with the extra demand? It’s struggling already.

Has there been consultation with the Fire Service about the effect of the proposed changes? 

Schools were not consulted by the Shaping a Healthier Future team, yet during the school day, thousands of children become their responsibility and if any are taken seriously ill or have accidents, school staff will have to go with them to an A & E department further away.  

Out of hospital care

Of course it is always best to keep people out of hospital if appropriate alternative care and treatment can be provided in the community and of course we need more preventive services. We are promised all sorts of out of hospital care to take the place of the lost hospital services, but will the resources really be there? There is already a shortage of trained, skilled community health workers, health visitors, midwives and specialist nurses as well as GPs. Will the CCGs really be able to train and pay for those we need when they are facing constant budget cuts? Successful treatment and care for patients out of hospital demands integration with decent social care services, but the swingeing cuts to Local Authority budgets mean that social care services are at best barely adequate and unlikely to aid recovery and recuperation for patients who have been treated out of hospital or discharged early from hospital.

Getting information about the CCG’s commissioning decisions before they are made is extremely difficult. There are massive documents with quantities of acronymic alphabet soup and a hierarchy of meetings, some useful, most completely opaque to the interested patient or campaigner and suddenly, before you know it, another service has been outsourced and privatised.

However often we are assured that the changes to the NHS are clinically driven, it seems clear that the real drivers are financial the transformation of the NHS into a cash cow for the private sector so that even if it remains free at the point of use for patients, it will be run for profit.

Sarah Cox

Should a BANG Free School be supported?

The list of proposed free schools elicited by the British Humanist Association includes a real mixed bag for Brent. They are:

Ysgol Gymraeg Llundain, London Welsh School
BANG Edutainment Ltd
London Ballet School
Sakutu Montessori Organisation School

The London Welsh School already has premises in Stonebridge and the application merely means a change of status.  The BANG Edutainment application is also in the south of Brent and is an interesting proposition which may meet the criteria set by Brent Council for partnership.  However the application has only 76 signatories on its on-line petition. LINK

I am opposed to Free Schools (as designated by the Coalition) on the grounds that they undermine local authority provision, take a disproportionate share of public funding which would otherwise go to ordinnary schools, are not democratically accountable and open the way for privatisation of schools.

I query whether,  given those overarching reservations, free schools can be used for progressive aims. However  it is only fair to let the proposers speak for themselves. I would be interested in what readers think. This is what their petition asks for:

We the undersigned declare support for BANG Edutainment’s proposal for a Free Secondary School for young people in Brent and surrounding boroughs.

The school will offer places to young people with poor choices of schools because of their area of residence.  

The school will target those young people whose needs are not fully met my existing mainstream provision and who at risk of failing to achieve academic success and not reaching their full potential.

The school will offer a holistic provision of personal, social, work and life education alongside the established curriculum.

In a way those goals refer back to the free schools of the 1970s and the supplementary school movement both of which I worked with. They succeeded with many children that local authority schools had given up on. One question for me is whether our current schools are still failing to that extent with London schools performing above the national average in terms of examination and test results.. To answer that question we would need to look at exclusion rates, staying on rates and a breakdown of examination entries and results by ethnicity and social class. The statistics quoted by BANG indicate that a problem continues.

The preamble to the petition sets out BANG Edutainment's rationale:

BANG Edutainment is proposing a Free School that will target young people from the South of Brent and the boroughs surrounding. The target areas are characterised by housing estates with some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK. (e.g. Harlesden, Stonebridge and Church End fall within the top 10% of the UK's most deprived wards. Residents in these communities suffer from poverty, deprivation, social and economic exclusion with high rates of unemployment.

Many people are from Black and Minority Ethnic groups with many refugee and asylum seeker families. Children from these communities experience a challenging home life, limited parental support and a lack of effective role model. In 2007 the Learning and Skills Council identified over 8.6% of young people in Brent as Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET); amongst White and Black Caribbean it was even higher at 18.2% and amongst Black or Black British 17.7% against 2.1% for Indians. It is estimated 1 in 16 young people complete year 11 without qualifications, 17% of 16 - 25 year olds have literacy problems, 22% have numeracy problems and the number of 15 year olds identified as at risk in Brent alone is more than 15,000.

For the past 10 years BANG has worked very successfully with young people from these areas; young people considered hard to reach and socially excluded. And we’ve had a 75%+ success rate in terms of qualifications and progression to Further Education with limited resources! Our model of working with these young people includes: engaging them at their point of interest, working with them in small groups, building their motivation and aspiration, one to one support to overcome intensive issues, coaching and mentoring, peer education, building skills through practical and real life work and developing skills to prepare them for life and work. We are successful because we care about every young person we work with, we listen to them and we are flexible in how we meet their individual needs.

BANG proposes to adapt its existing model in delivery of a Free School and in partnership with local partners provide a real route to success for local young people.

The Centre for Staff Development building in Brentfield Road, which is soon to be vacated when staff transfer to the Civic Centre, seems the most obvious site for the proposed school if it goes ahead. I have long supported the idea of a secondary school in the area but always assumed that would be provided by the local authority.

I would be interested to hear your views. Please comment below.