'Capital West London' marketing venture launched by Brent and 6 other West London boroughs

I missed this last week but also cannot recall the decision being discussed by Full Council, perhaps someone will put me right.

Pic from left to right - Cllr MuhammedButt, from Brent Council; Katharine Glass, Director, White Label Creative; Cllr Julian Bell, from Ealing Council; Cllr Steve Curran, from Hounslow Council; Dan Gascoyne, West London Alliance

From Brent Council website:

Seven west London councils have revealed ground-breaking plans to unite their areas as one huge investment opportunity, promoting its combined £69billion economy to a worldwide audience under the brand Capital West London.

Capital West London, the brainchild of the West London Alliance - made up of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow councils, was successfully launched at the Hilton Hotel Wembley on Wednesday morning.

The ambitious three-year programme will transform West London's reach to the global market, providing a hub of information and allowing potential investors to tap into the second largest economy in the UK with just one call.

The novel and innovative venture is fully endorsed at the most senior level by the officers and members of the local authorities involved, and will work in partnership with the Greater London Authority and London & Partners, with the backing of the Department for International Trade.

Capital West London will bring together a collaborative group of public and private sector stakeholders and centre on the region's key assets with a programme focused on connectivity, investment and trade.

The programme, delivered by regeneration marketing specialists White Label Creative, will ensure the continued success and growth of West London and raise its profile as a one of the world's leading investment destinations, while helping companies within the sub-region reach new markets.

Dan Gascoyne, West London Alliance Director, said:

This is the latest ground-breaking collaboration between our seven local authorities and provides a fantastic platform from which to secure West London's future prosperity. By working together, we can present an opportunity of significant scale to investors combined with the local connections, intelligence and expertise necessary to turn that opportunity into reality.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, said:

West London is already great. With Wembley Stadium, Westfield, numerous high-quality parks and green spaces, Brent Cross and an impressive educational offer at the universities, colleges and schools, it's a great place to live. And the array of prestigious HQs and global companies, including Sky, GSK, Disney, and L'Oréal, are testament to its appeal as a business destination. This new collaboration will help it stay that way.

Butt suggests combined West London Authority as 40% central staffing cuts sought in Brent budget

The  Report for the First Reading Debate on the Council Budget LINK was up on the Council website by 23.45 last night. It includes a section on the Borough Plan Consultation which is fast work as the consultation only closed at 5pm yesterday.

Full Council was changed from November 17th to December 8th ostensibly to enable a report on the Borough Plan to be made.

The report states (4.3)

Between 16 September and 28 November the council, with its partners undertook a major consultation exercise to gather information on local people's views of:

• The area where they live
• Their aspirations for the future of the borough
• Their spending priorities, including those services they felt should be protected and areas where they felt we could do less
• What more they, the community group, or others could do to help build strong communities in Brent in the context of shrinking public resources 

SEN children uncollected while others delivered to wrong locations

Brent Council has apologised for the problems special needs pupils and their  parents encountered with the new school transport system introduced this term LINK. They admitted:

We know that many families have not had the information they needed, when they needed it, about the services for their child. We also know that in some cases transport has failed to arrive when it should have, some children have been delivered to wrong locations, and there have been problems with route timings. To compound these problems it has been extremely difficult to get through to the (West London Alliance) Transport Bureau on the phone. We understand how upsetting, inconvenient and difficult this is to all those affected and can only apologise. 

They went on:

It is clear that the Bureau was over optimistic about the timetables for implementing the new IT system on which they were relying and that serious problems about data transfer from former IT systems, incomplete testing of the system, and the relative inexperience of staff led to the problems that have occurred.

As a result of this failure Brent and Harrow Councils' transport staff temporarily took back the responsibility for designing routes last week and 'will develop new and reliable routes and schedules for their Boroughs based on last term's routes, using their previous software packages'.

Apology over new WLA bus service for special needs children

Monday's meeting of Brent Council will be debating the West London Alliance.  Ian Nichol, Chief Executive of the West London Alliance will speak on the progress being made on the work of the Alliance after which members will debate the issues arising. The WLA shares services across several boroughs (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow) LINK  in order to save money through rationalisation, sharing of resources and reductions in backroom expenses. Last year the then Brent Council leader Cllr Ann John expressed mixed feelings about the WLA remarking that it moved services one step further away from direct local accountability.

Coincidentally Brent Council has had to issue an apology today to special needs children after problems with the new WLA Transport Service:

Many children with Special Education Needs (SEN) will have experienced difficulties in their school transport arrangements this week. 

We apologise for the inconvenience and upset that we know these problems will have caused to children and their families.

The new transport system operated by the WLA Transport Bureau has experienced some significant problems in these early days. 

We are reworking transport arrangements to ensure that they work more reliably from Monday 10 September and will ensure that parents and carers have written confirmation of the arrangements for their child over the weekend.

This confirmation may be hand delivered.

In the meantime, if you experience problems, please call the WLA Transport Bureau on 020 8583 5530 / 5531 / 5536 / 5537 and we will work with you to resolve them.