Shan Oakes endorses Romayne Phoenix for Green Party leader

Shan Oakes, Equality and Diversity Coordinator on the Green Party Executive endorses Romayne Phoenix for leader:

Warning: Navin Shah's email account hacked in scam

Navin Shah's office has sent an urgent message after his contacts received an e-mail purporting to be from him asking for money after he had been held up by armed robbers  in Spain. This is a version of a fairly common scam that is sent out to all the people in the victim's address book after the account has been hacked.

IGNORE NAVIN SHAH'S E-MAIL

Dear all,

Navin Shah's personal account has been hacked so please delete it and take no action if you received it. Navin is currently in India, in case you have tried to contact him to tell him about the fraudulent.

Apologies for this.

Kind regards,

Sophie

Sophie Kimber
PA to Navin Shah AM
London Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow
London Assembly Labour Group
City Hall
The Queen's Walk
London SE1 2AA

New Kensal Rise campaign video released

See the website HERE

Old Library may be retained, rest of 'consultation' just tweaking

Details of the new round of consultation on the Willesden Green Library redevelopment published today LINK show how limited any rethink is likely to be.

The Keep Willesden Green group demanded that the Council and developers Galliford Try 'stopped.listened and reflected' on the proposals with the suggestion that they go back to first principles and involve local residents and users from scratch.

Instead it appears that the housing development,  loss of the Town Square and the bookshop are still taken for granted. There is a concession over the Old Library building which goes only as far as that new early sketches will be on display and 'will show how the old library may be retained as part of the building'. These sketches will be on display throughout August for feedback and 'developed proposals will be ready in September'.

The second phase of the consultation to take place between September and October is limited to 'details like how the library space will be divided or what could go inside the old library'. Brent says stoutly, 'We know where we think each activity shold go (e.g. the library, museum etc).  So no consultation on housing, council offices, cafe, Town Square, car park, bookshop space, or the size of the library.

They have organised workshops for specific target groups, which run the risk of setting different groups against each other, rather than working out priorities through face to face discussion:

Tuesday, September 4 - Seniors
Thursday, September 6 - Small and medium enterprises
Tuesday, September 11- Community groups
Thursday, September 13 - Ethnic minority groups
Tuesday, September 18 - Teens
Thursday, September 20 - Families with young children

 Although of course many people will cover several categories so may end up attending 3 or 4 times!

The Council says it will carry out outreach in local schools and will develop details with schools in the Autumn.

The third phase is the 'Interim Strategy: October-November' and the Council say that core services will continue to be delivered at the Willesden Library Centre as well as non-core such as the markets. Unfortunately one vital 'non-core' service, the Willesden Bookshop, has already closed when the Council could have extended its lease during this period.

Reviewing this timetable it seems clear that the Council's intention is to get planning approval in December and  hand over the site to the developers by January 2013.

Meanwhile I am sure Keep Willesden Green campaigners will be considering their next moves in the light of the above.