Tory Councillor: Armed police raiding my house behaved 'superbly'

Early yesterday morning armed police raided Cllr Reg Colwill's home in Kenton as part of four drugs raids according the the Harrow Times.  Two men staying at the house were arrested by the Herfordshire police who siezd a quantity of cash from the house.

Cllr Colwill said the two men were staying at his house and were not family members. He said the raid was nothing to do with him or his family. He commented that the police were absolutely superb and did very little damaage.

"Conservative-Lib Dem cuts will hit the poorer people in society”, says Lucas

Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion, has warned that the coalition government's cuts to housing benefit could result in increasing social problems with serious debt and homelessness. Crisis estimates that Brent is one of the most seriously impacted areas in the country with 9,650 households affected.

The report also warns that cuts to housing benefit could have hidden costs in the future, in order to deal with the social problems of homelessness, including health problems and providing accommodation.

Housing benefit cut is equivalent to big increase in income tax for poorer people

Caroline Lucas MP said:

“Consider someone earning £16,000 (after tax-free allowance) and receiving housing benefit. If they lose £728 that would be the equivalent of paying an income tax rise of over 4.5 per cent.

“These particular Tory-Lib Dem cuts will leave more people struggling to pay the rent, more people falling into serious debt and ultimately more people becoming homeless.

“This is very unfair, coming at a time when many of these people are facing economic uncertainty or even redundancy.

“Once again we see the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition’s cuts hitting the poorer people in society. The government could avoid these cuts by properly tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion perpetrated by some of the wealthiest, which could raise billions of pounds a year.”

Teather must stand up for Brent children

 

Brent children were involved in the Playbuilder consultation on playground improvements

Coalition cuts have again hit Brent children with Michael Gove's announcement of a stop on Playbuilder schemes for new and improved playgrounds. Sarah Teather, MP for Brent Central, will be under renewed pressure as Gove's cuts have already stopped building improvements in four Brent secondary schools, although articulating the Coalition's bias towards academies, he has announced that the Crest Academies building works will go ahead. Teather as 'Children's Minister' is having to defend the indefensible.

I declare an interest here.  I am passionately committed to enhancing children's opportunities for play.  Only one third of 7-14 year olds now play outside compared with 90% of their parents in their own childhoods. In our local election manifesto Brent Greens pledged a 'good local school and safe play facilities a for every child'. Play is vitally important for children's psychological, emotional, social and physical development.  I am a trustee of the Brent Play Association, a member of Play England, a governor of a primary school and run Brent School Without Walls which provides activities for children in Fryent Country Park.  I was one of the facilitators for the children's consultation which took children around Brent's play areas to put together ideas for the implementation of the government's Playbuilder scheme.  The enthusiasm of the children and the range of their ideas was absolutely amazing and inspiring.

All that is now threatened with the Department for Education's bland statement: "The coalition inherited unrealistic spending commitments for 2010-11. Play is important - but investment has to be affordable."

The council's Park Strategy makes it clear that the priority is to provide play facilities in areas where there are deficiences but one of the first areas to be hit is Harlesden and the Bramshill Road site. Two weeks ago I attended another consultation, this time at the Chalkhill Community Centre, where local residents put forward their ideas on play equipment for the new Chalkhill Park which is due toe be built on the old Chalkhill Health Centre site. Local people have already lost the Wembley Park  playing fields now occupied by the ARK Academy, will these cuts mean that they will lose their promised new park?

195 reception pupils without a school for September?

Recently Sarah Teather visited 10 Downing Street with a group of pupils from Braintcroft Primary School to urge the government to do more to ensure every child in the world received an education. Back in Brent the council is wrestling with the problem of rising pupil rolls which at present mean that 193 4 and 5 year olds need a reception school place in September with only 21 vacancies - so 172 Brent children may not be receiving education The council attribute the rise in demand to an increasing birthrate, new housing, inward migration, parental choice and rising standards and achievements in primary schools.

Some schools such as Robert Southwell and Park Lane are due to expand and others will have temporary 'bulge classes' which may not be able to move forward through the school.  The chart below sets out clearly the problem the council is facing. FULL REPORT HERE

Plans for the Quintain regeneration area around Wembley Stadium at one stage included a new primary school and further housing is due to be built there. No Section 106 agreements have yet been triggered by building milestones although Wembley City is now occupied. A new primary school there seems to be something worth urgent consideration.

Brent to introduce high emissions-high charges parking policy

Tomorrow's Brent Executive is due to discuss a proposed emission-based charging regime for parking permits in Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs).  Currently there is no charge for vehicles below 1200cc registered before 2001 and no charge for vehicles in DVLA bands A,B and C registered after 2001. All other vehicles are £50 for the first permit, £75 for the second and £100 for the third. Visitors' permits are £100 each. The proposal is seen as a way of combating climate change and raising revenue.  In addition to the new charges it is suggested that residents could be awarded a 'permit surrender prize' and car club users could have a free permit allowing them to park in any CPZ in the borough.

The proposed new charges are set out below:

Currently 25% of Brent is covered by CPZs and the estimate of vehicles in each band based on renewals and new permits in July 2010 are (Above Brent Bands):
1-6%, 2-6%,  3-21%, 4-31%, 5-22%, 6-11%, 7-3%

After consultation the charges would be introduced from April 1st 2011 or as near to that date as possible.

FULL REPORT HERE

Brent envisages fortnightly waste collections

 What will be the impact on fly-tipping?

A Briefing Note for Brent Council's August 11th Forward Plan Select Committee suggests substantial changes in the Council's Waste Strategy.  The aim is to save £500,000 annually and increase recycling rates to 50% by 2020, reduce reliance on landfill and reduce the carbon footprint of waste collection services. It will mean that most households will now have three bins. The 'savings' will presumably include job losses as a result of the move to fortnightly collections.

They propose for low rise properties:

• Alternate weekly collections using existing wheeled bins with a 'no side waste' policy( Nothing left next to the bin will be collected.  The health and safety implications of fortnightly collections will have to be examined)
• A new bin to collect mixed dry recyclable materials to include cardboard on alternate weeks
• Green bins for organic waste to be retained for 60,000 properties and extension of the weekly scheme to cover the remaining 28,000 properties. New properties to receive food waste collection only (What will happen to their garden waste?).  Cardboard will no longer be collected from green bins as it will be included in the new dry recycling bin All 88,000 households to receive a kitchen caddy.

For high rise properties:

• Extension of the scheme to cover all flatted properties (something Brent Green Party has been pressing for)
• Delivery of some estate  refuse directly to a MRF (material recycling facility) for sorting and subsequent recycling
• Organic waste to be collected from suitable properties only (what will be the criteria?)

The compulsory recycling policy will be retained and there will be targeted work to remove trade waste from the household stream and to minimise contamination of kerbside containers. (Contamination means that the contents cannot then be recycled).

If the paper is approved there will be public consultation from August until October 2010. Interestingly one of the channels  listed for consultation  is BRAIN which the council has decided to close down in September.

FULL REPORT HERE

Brent Open Spaces Win Green Flag Award

 An appreciation of Fryent Country Park

Fryent Country Park and the Welsh Harp Open Space have both won Green Flag Awards for 2010/11 and join several other Brent parks in the category. Earlier this year the Welsh Harp Open Space was threatened by housing development which was seen off by a spirited cross-party, community-based campaign.

Fryent Country Park is a surviving remnant of Middlesex countryside and contains the remains of Repton's Wembley Park landscape work.  It is a Nature Reserve and its hay meadows have organic farm accreditation. Horses are still stabled on the site of Bush Farm.

Brent Parks Service and the volunteers of the Barn Hill Conservation Group deserve recognition for the great work that they do in the park and congratulations on gaining the award. I hope the award will help Brent people realise what wonderful open spaces they have and encourage them to use and preserve them.

CHILDREN TO BE UPROOTED AT SHORT NOTICE RATHER THAN DETAINED

The decision to end the detention of children in immigration centres, more than 1,000 in the last year of the Labour government,  was one of the few made by the Coalition government that I welcomed. The detention of children and the physical and psychological damage done to them was a national scandal.

However the Guardian reports today that the UK Border Agency is launching a scheme to deport families within a two week period, preventing them from having enough time to organise the move, seek legal advice, settle their affairs and prepare their children for the move. The UKBA document leaked to the Socialist Worker expresses fears that ending detention could result in more community campaigns against deportation supported by the media and MPs.

In a previous post  last year I put forward the view that the authorities preferred to detain children because if they attended school there was a possibility of campaigns in their support:

I believe that one of the reasons that detention is favoured by this Government, and previous ones, is that schools as institutions have become highly effective at mounting campaigns against the deportation of pupils as well as supporting their needs. Schools are legally required to support racial equality and often have policies committed to social justice. Refugee and asylum seeker's children establish friendships in the school and their families begin to make links with the local community. These friendships and connections challenge negative stereotypes as refugees and asylum seekers become real people, with names, characters, emotions and histories and earn the respect of the host community.

The Guardian confirms this view:

'Nicola Rea (the author of the document and head of service, asylum, refugee and immigration services),  also raises concerns that children will continue to attend school once a family has been warned of removal, which could cause problems with other children and teachers campaigning to stop the deportation'

Too right!