Lobby against library closures Monday 6.30pm Town Hall

"Escalate peaceful but forceful student protest" - Young Greens

The Young Greens, the youth and student branch of the Green Party have made the following comment on the student demonstrations.

Sam Coates, co-chair of the Young Greens, was at Millbank. He said:

"The anger at Wednesday's protests was remarkable, especially towards the Lib Dems who have left so many students feeling betrayed and unsure where to turn next. Students have begun the fight against the Coalition's dangerous and damaging policies. This is what you get when you condemn a whole generation to a lifetime of debt, unaffordable housing and a lack of decent jobs. Obviously we abhor violence against people, but the events at Millbank were a totally understandable response to pent up anger of young people who feel they are being jilted at every turn.

"Many of the protesters at Millbank were younger college and sixth form students worried they will be priced out of university by a trebling of fees. Hundreds of people went inside the building and thousands more were cheering from the courtyard. This was a spontaneous action uniting thousands of ordinary students."

He concluded by calling for an escalation of peaceful but forceful student protests:

"What happened yesterday generated momentum in the student movement that must be harnessed if these cuts are to be defeated and the movement escalated. We fully support direct action, occupations and other activities that utilise sensible tactics to show the Government we will not accept higher fees, and we will not accept cuts to higher education funding. Manchester University students have already begun a campaign of occupation, and we support them in their efforts to fight cuts to their education.

"The Green Party opposes cuts to public services and is calling for investment hundreds of thousands of green jobs to kick start the economy on a low carbon direction. With money markets desperate to buy government bonds, there is absolutely no reason to panic about Government debt in the short term. In 1945 public debt was 5 times larger than today and our grandparents managed to build the welfare state. The Tories have always tried to argue that we cannot afford decent education, health and housing, and they've been proved wrong."

Village Uprising in Roe Green

Roe Green residents have asked me to publicise their campaign on Wembley Matters:

  

Not again! Yes! Brent council has done it again. This time they have completely ignored procedures that should this have been Joe-public they would have descended on them breathing fire and brimstone.

Brent Council has granted itself planning permission to erect an ill-planned, poorly conceived structure that would shame any area within this Borough’s boundaries, let alone a conservation area.

The Council, in order to grasp a last-minute grant from the previous Government for an Intergenerational Centre, short-cut the public consultation procedure to secure this money, despite disagreements with the locals as to whether it was necessary.

The residents of Roe Green Village, one of the last few remaining examples of small First World War settlements just beyond the North Circular, are stunned by what they perceive to have been anti-democratic procedures adopted by Brent Council to put through a planning application for an insensitively proportioned and badly designed block, to be built on the edge of this small enclave of stone-white and mellow brick cottages that have survived all sorts since the First World War. 

What has come to the fore when this almost project was finally and properly revealed, was the Machiavellian way the Council went about finalising the planning permission for such a building.

 The argument rests whether Brent has the right to erect such a building without following procedures that their Planning Dept would not have correctly considered in other circumstances.

 The present Council has no deep knowledge or understanding of the area and its Senior Officers fail to properly advise them. 

Once we lose this unique and historical area, there will be no turning back, it will be gone forever.

BACKGROUND

Roe Green Village is a circa 1918 garden village styled residential conservation area, situated in the district of Kingsbury, which is part of the northern extend of the London Borough of Brent.

The Community is supported by a local association, the Roe Green Village Residents’ Association.

For  further information, please contact:

Debbie Nyman on debbienyman@talktalk.net

Liar, Liar by Captain Ska

Governors Go Ahead with Preston Manor Expansion Plans

Preston Manor High School governors have decided to go ahead with the next stage of consultation on expanding the school to include children from 4 to 11 year. This will ultimately in crease the population of the school by 420 Reception to Year places to give a total population of 1980 places. The pupil entry for Reception will be 60 and for Year 7 252. If the plans go ahead the permanent primary provision will be opened in September 2011. However 60 reception age children will start in temporary accommodation at the school in January 2011.

The statutory notice confirms that Year 6 pupils attending the primary provision would be prioritised for entry to Year 7 at the secondary school.

The plans were opposed by residents at their consultative meeting and again by residents and others at the Wembley Area Consultative forum. Opposition is likely to continue at this statutory stage.

Although the notice says that the consultation period starts from November 4th, the date of publication, the full documentation was not available on the consultation website today.

Extract from Statutory Notice

Copies of the complete proposal can be obtained from: Nitin Parshotam, Head of Assets Management, Children and Families, London Borough of Brent, 4th Floor Chesterfield House, 9 Park Lane, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 7RW.

Within six weeks from the date of publication of this proposal i.e. by 16 December 2010, any person may object to or make comments on the proposal in writing by sending them to Nitin Parshotam, Head of Assets Management, Children and Families, London Borough of Brent, 4th Floor Chesterfield House, 9 Park Lane, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 7RW. Email: Consultations.schoolorganisation@brent.gov.uk

House of Commons Burning Talks

Environmental groups opposing the Brent Cross incinerator took their fight to the House of Commons on Tuesday of last week.  Together with invited MPs, they heard leading waste experts spell out the dangers of incinerators, such as that proposed at Brent Cross, and the arguments for a “zero waste” alternative.  However, Mike Freer, local MP for Finchley and Golders Green failed to attend.

Brent Cross Cricklewood Coalition members from local Friends of the Earth (FoE) groups in Brent, Barnet and Enfield were invited to the seminar “Zero Waste – the Cost Effective and Sustainable Alternative to Incineration”.  The meeting, organised by Gloucestershire against Incinerators, part of the “UK Without Incineration Network” (UKWin), was attended by anti-incinerator groups from across the UK, as well as members of Parliament.  Keynote speaker Paul Connett, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Chemistry from St Lawrence University, New York State, had previously visited the Brent Cross site, and also recently addressed the United Nations.

Professor Connett said, ““The Brent Cross Cricklewood developers need to radically rethink their "energy from domestic waste" plans.  Putting a gasifying-incinerator, emitting unregulated and toxic nano-particles, into a built-up area, near schools and homes is madness.  Gasification is an unproven technology for domestic waste.  This has caused at least one evacuation of local homes in Germany, after which trials were stopped.

"It beggars belief that the developers continue to claim they are not planning an "incinerator".

"Instead of burning our domestic waste, we need to move towards a "zero waste system", where rubbish is considered a resource to recycle.

“Incineration and gasification detract from recycling, since they don’t work without burning good recyclable materials.  They also emit more greenhouse gases than when the organic component is treated by digestion."

Viv Stein, Brent Friends of the Earth Spokesperson, said, “Incinerators are a dead technology, sold on spin.  No new plants have been approved in the United States since 1995.  The UK is now being targeted by companies keen to make a profit here – at the expense of the public purse, local communities and the environment.

“Incinerators bind local Councils to costly and inflexible long term contracts which are bad news anytime, but madness when Councils are so strapped for cash.  Councils sometimes even have to pay penalties because they are not providing enough material to burn.

“Brent Cross Developer Jonathan Joseph and former Barnet leader, now MP, Mike Freer, strongly defended incineration at Barnet planning committee, promising  information was readily available that these plants are safe.  Yet one year on we have yet to see any independent evidence this is the case.  We challenge Mike Freer and Hammerson to tell us why.  If Freer wants to stick an incinerator amongst his constituents, he should have joined us to listen to experts’ concerns.”

Phil Fletcher, Barnet and Enfield Friends of the Earth Co-ordinator said, “Far from producing “energy from waste”, incinerators are a “waste of energy”.  Electricity from burning waste is extremely inefficient.  It is actually better for the climate to landfill plastic - and not incinerate it - if it cannot be recycled.

“There is no safe level of toxic nano-particles from the incineration processes.  They are small enough to get into our bloodstream, and can do long-term damage to our health.  The ash created from incineration still has to be sent to landfill [8].  We learnt how monitoring of these toxic particles at hazardous waste landfill sites can be flawed – it depends where detection points are actually positioned.  It was quite shocking to see these are operating as open sites - here in the UK - with clouds of dust visibly affecting the local area.”

Julian Kirby, Waste Campaigner, Friends of the Earth [9] who also addressed the meeting said, “The UK buries or burns over £650 million of recyclable materials every year.  That’s not just bad for the environment, it’s a massive waste of resources and a huge cost to our cash-strapped economy.

“Over seventy thousand new jobs would be created if the UK recycled 70% of its business and Council-collected waste.  Given the Belgian region of Flanders exceeds that already, and Wales and Scotland have both set 70% as a 2025 target, why must England be left behind?

“As the latest statistics show, we are producing less waste every year, and recycling more of it.  That is the direction we need to be heading – there is no need or place for incineration in a genuinely zero waste future.”

Other speakers at the meeting were Barbara Farmer from Sward, a Gloucestershire group opposing incinerators, and Jonathan Essex from Bioregional who promote reuse of waste, which creates jobs and puts disused land into use.

This meeting follows recent news that North London Waste Authority – including Barnet - has lost its Government agreement to borrow around £700 million for its seven-borough PFI waste plan.

Rethink Afghanistan - film and discussion

Time for school students to organise?

PRECOCIOUS

In blue lagoons I once did play,

Tossing the surf,

Catching the spray.

Living my life as each day came,

Never looking for fortune or fame.

Clever and youthful,

Strong and brave,

Carelessly riding the tidal wave -

but I was only 4.

From BLOT magazine 1976

 

 There is a connection between my last blog on SATs and the previous one on young people and the cuts.

The connection is that the generation now experiencing the cuts, whether through their school buildings not being rebuilt, losing their Education Maintenance Allowances, having Kilburn College sold off from under their feet,  seeing tuition fees increased or facing unemployment, is the generation that has experienced the full force of the target culture in schools. They have been the most tested generation of pupils ever.

Yes, there has been investment in schools but often of the wrong kind: thousands spent on the SATs regime and national curriculum materials and all serving the purpose of meeting targets..  Throughout, the mantra repeated by the government, teachers and often parents has been, "Keep your heads down, do what the teacher says, work hard and you will end up with good qualifications, a good job and enough money to have a decent quality of life".

Back in the 70s and 80s I remember when that mantra was blown apart in the face of unemployment and we are approaching that point now. Youth will be arguing "What was the point?"  I remember very well back at that time, when a child in my primary class in Fulham remarked, after I had foolishly repeated the mantra,  "My brother worked hard and got qualified and can't get a job so why should I bother?"

This is particularly true now because the Blair government, and the Tories before them, have reduced education to individuals getting the employment skills to keep the UK ahead of competitor nations. Having narrowed the purpose of education and reduced schools to qualification factories they will face resentment and rebellion, disaffection and desperation.

In the 70s school students organised in the National Union of School Students and other organisations. One of their major campaigns was against the use of corporal punishment in schools. The NUSS publicised their activities through a magazine called BLOT and for some time they got a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation. At the height of their influence they had the support of 30 or so MPs.

Now such magazines are 'last century' compared with social networking sites and their power to mobilise large numbers at short notice. I wonder how many would answer a call such as this (taken from a 1976 edition of BLOT):

You've got no rights, none at all - you've got no voice. No-one will hear you complain. You haven't got a chance to change a thing - you're too young to hear, speak or think. 

That's what a lot of people think of us. 

Well we know different - we know we think and we've got a lot to say but nowhere to say it. No-one to listen. I, me, myself will never be heard. I've got to be louder so I can shout and if we all shout together then we'll be heard.