Library Campaigners Make Their Case to Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary

Brent Library campaigners spoke out about the imnpact of library closures when they presented letters to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP. Video from YourNewsUKTV.

Campaigners are calling for a public inquiry into the closure of six out of 12 libraries and claim that Brent Council is no longer meeting its statutory obligation on library provision.

Many characters in search of a library - March on Saturday

Preston Library campaigners are staging a protest march on Saturday to draw attention to the distance residents will have to travel to their nearest library now that Preston has been closed.

The march will begin at South Kenton station at 1.30pm and go to the 'Wall of Shame' at the boarded up library to arrive around 1.50pm. It will then proceed to Kingsbury Library. 

The campaign says:

We’re going to walk to our "nearest library" - Kingsbury.  Join us and show the politicians just how close it really is. Everyone is invited - come dressed as your favourite book. there will be water stations and helpers along the way. See how far you get!

Show Jeremy Hunt why Brent’s 21st Century library service is miles out. Kenton, Preston and Barn Hill ward councillors have been invited – let’s hope they join us and show where they stand/walk!

Campaigners have been infuriated by the chutzpah of Brent Council's statement in the current magazine that every resident lives within 1.5 miles of a library.  It is a measurement that only seems to apply to bats, birds and Brent councillors.

Petition lauched on £1000 councillor ACF expenses

Following revelations in the Brent and Kilburn Times that Brent councillors who chair  Area Consultative Forums ( held 4 times a year) receive more than £4,700 a year for doing the job, a petition has been launched on Brent's e-petition website. It calls for the payments to be reduced to £100 per session. The recent forums had low attendance following the council's decision to stop sending out postal reminders to residents as a cost-saving and environmental measure.

The petition can be signed HERE

It says:

We the undersigned petition the council to reduce the allowance given to chairs of Brent's Area Committee Forums to no more than £100.

At a time when the people of Brent are:
- Having to accept reduction in services such as street cleaning
- Having to accept losing half their libraries
- Having to (accept) a fall in real terms wages because employers either give below inflation pay rises, or no pay rises at all

It is not fair that chairs of area committees continue to receive large sums of money for chairing these forums. Some reports have claimed that chair people receive £1000 per session.

One would think that these individuals would be happy to carry out this important public service for free. Indeed I'm sure that a lot of residents would be happy to do so for no more than their bus fare.

Upcoming Brent Executive Decisions

Somewhat surprisingly, given the need for proper scrutiny of Executive decisions, the Call In and Scrutiny Overview Committee due to be held this evening has been cancelled.

The Executive meets again on November 14th and the most controversial item is likely to be consideration of options for the redevelopment of the Willesden Green Library Centre site. No details of proposals are available as yet but I will try to publish them as soon as possible. There has been only internal council  consultation on this so far. Redevelopment would mean the closure of the library for at least two years and thus will add to the impact of the recent closures of  six of the borough's 12 libraries.

There may be organised protests by dog walkers against the Dog Control Orders due to be approved that night. Dog walkers will be limited to a maximum of six dogs per person. Dogs will be excluded from playgrounds, multi-use games areas, tennis and netball courts and bowling greens. Other areas will be specified where dogs must be kept on a lead. (See my earlier post LINK)

The Executive will be asked to approve the awarding of a Design and Build Contract to rebuild the Girls' and Boys Crest Academies and a joint procurement of council Human Resources through the Oracle system led by Lewisham and Lambeth.  This aims to rationalise back office support systems within London's local councils.

The December 12th Executive will be presented with the Quarter 2 2011/12 - Performance and Finance review which may have repercussions for spending for the remainder of this financial year. The same meeting will consider alterations in fees and charges for council services,  The most controversial decision at the January 16th 2011 meeting will be over the future of children's centre childcare provision.

JOIN THE FIGHT FOR A FAIRER TAX SYSTEM

A message from Caroline Lucas MP

Everyone understands the relationship between public spending and tax. The taxes we all pay are spent on the public services we all benefit from. But do enough people understand the relationship between public spending cuts and tax avoidance, tax evasion and unpaid tax?

It's pretty straightforward. People and companies that fail to pay the full amount of tax that is expected of them are starving our public services of funds. If we want to fight spending cuts, we must tackle that failure to pay the right amount of tax.

That's why, earlier this year, I tabled the Tax and Financial Transparency Bill in Parliament, which is due to have its second reading in the Commons on 25 November. The main aim of the Bill is to require banks, companies and trusts that operate in the UK to publish details of how much tax they pay in all the jurisdictions where they operate.

That means requiring them to reveal what use they make of offshore tax havens. Full transparency will enable the tax authorities (and the public) to make sure that these companies are paying the right amount of tax, and make it easier to close loopholes and crack down on tax avoidance. Who could argue with that?

Well, just because it's fair and it makes sense, doesn't mean it won't need a huge amount of campaigning momentum and political will to challenge the vested interests that do so well out of tax dodging. To help channel that momentum, I've set up an e-petition on the Government's website  that echoes the demands in the Bill.

Everyone who's opposed to cuts in public services, and who thinks the same rules should apply to everyone when it comes to paying tax, should sign it. It's another way to push tax justice up the agenda in Parliament - e-petitions that gather more than 100,000 signatures have to be considered for debate in the Commons.

A recent example was the e-petition to release documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster, which successfully secured a debate, and prompted the Government to agree to petitioners' demands.

Even with enough signatures, e-petitions are not binding for the Government, but as Hillsborough shows, they can achieve a lot by helping to build pressure for change. Please do sign the petition and keep circulating the link. With a coordinated effort, we can reduce tax avoidance and reduce the terrible harm it does to our vital public services.

Caroline Lucas MP

SIGN THE PETITION HERE 

New Brent Cross planning application would scupper light rail

We, the Brent Cross Coalition, bitterly criticise the just-released planning application by the Brent Cross Cricklewood developers, Hammerson (Brent South) Ltd. and Kleinwort Benson (Channel Islands) Corporate Services Ltd. It intends to build on top of yet another of the possible light-rail corridors at Brent Cross, despite the threat of massive road congestion. 

We believe that the developers must rethink their 14-million-square-feet, 20-storey, incinerator-fuelled, car-choked scheme, and we believe general political support for their current plan is leaking away – yet Barnet Council is currently encouraging them to go ahead, regardless. The Channel Islands low-tax company now wants new development to jump from the stalled ‘Phase One’ Brent Cross plan to build on Phase 7 land.

Various transport solutions at Brent Cross remain possible, but we think that passenger numbers would be high enough for a new “Docklands Light Railway” here. This could then be expanded, as an east-west rail line across the whole of outer London, from west London, to Brent Cross, then via Colindale, Mill Hill East and Finchley Central, to New Southgate and Arnos Grove. It would be “off-road”, so no high streets would be dug up.

Any new Thameslink station would certainly mean closing Cricklewood and maybe Hendon stations, since they would be so close together on a very busy main line. Temporary work from the developers at Cricklewood would not change that.

In doing this, it would destroy the only feasible light-rail route into the site from Cricklewood station that avoids Phase One buildings. It could also bring into Brent Cross thousands of passengers from the planned “High-Speed-Two” and Crossrail stations in west London, via stations on the Bakerloo and Jubilee Lines in neighbouring Brent.

Dollis Hill campaigner Alison Hopkins  says:

“The Brent Cross developers surprise us. We keep pointing out that car grid-lock will not be a ‘plus point’ in their future marketing, and will not enhance the future profitablity of their development. That is why we keep suggesting a viable alternative. Perhaps we need to set up tents in the Brent Cross car park to finally get through to them.”

We, the Brent Cross Coalition, point out that Barnet Council’s web site still predicts over 29,000 extra cars every day in the Brent Cross area, if development goes ahead. Later, lower car estimates totally lack credibility.

We know that the developers are planning to physically raise the Brent Cross development "ground level" by three or four metres above the current ground level, so a light railway on the EXISTING level of land could be built around, in due course.

Lia Colacicco, Convenor of the Brent Cross Coalition says:

“Due to the arrogance of the developers, we are unable to stop them going after their quick profits, but they have never properly consulted local people. Many house-owners remain in fear of compulsory purchase of their perfectly adequate homes, many of which have gardens.

“Overall, we are opposed to the current complete, off-shore-funded Brent Cross plan.

"Development should be exciting. It should be designed with local people and the environment in mind. The developers are no better than greedy bankers. We need to work on a new master-plan for a sustainable development fit for the 21st century, not one that is twenty years out-of-date.”

We, the Coalition, accept that the new planning application is for only a small (catering) building on the Phase Seven land, but it is the thin end of the wedge, and it could be proposed elsewhere instead. 

The light-rail line is needed at the start of Phase One, certainly not as late as Phase Seven! We will continue to fight for a sustainable development that will improve the needs of the residents and local town centres, while improving the transport network over much of west and north London.

Readers can go to the web site of another Conservative Council, Hammersmith and Fulham, and search for “Old Oak Video”.
 

They will see an alternative, brighter future – large-scale, high-density development that is properly designed around public transport, not Barnet Council’s apology for the concept.

If the government backs the “High-Speed-Two” railway between London and Birmingham in the next few months, the proposed “DLR light railway” shown on the video at Old Oak may well be built. Will extensions of that light-rail line merely permanently stop at the borders of Barnet?

http://brentcrosscoalition.blogspot.com/2011/10/hammerson-and-kleinwort-benson-ood-make.html

How I Saved Our Local Nursery

This is a guest post on UK Uncut by Lucy Reese, mother of Angus (6), Stanley (2) and Max (6 months)
A few years ago, like all good New Labour voters, I was obviously all for public services, but other than the bins and the NHS had very little need for them. Then I had kids. And everything changed. I’d always worked and was determined to do so after I had kids. My job as a TV producer paid quite well, but even so forking out nearly £400 a week in childcare – for a fairly bog standard private nursery – was pretty eye-watering. It was much more than my mortgage. By the time my lovely son was two and a half I knew I couldn’t carry on working the hours I did without going completely bat-shit mental. A ghastly programme about The Spice Girls was the tipping point. I had no work life balance and had to change the way I worked.

Fortunately, by this time my son had moved to a brilliant council run nursery called Caversham Children’s Centre, in Kentish Town, North London. I loved everything about it and it was affordable – the fees were about half what we’d been paying before. It gave me the breathing space to work out how I could change direction. I found I could do some TV stuff from home and also began to pick up work in F.E colleges, which I loved. I had another baby, started a PGCE and got more hours in the college. Throughout all these changes the nursery was a constant – our second boy went there too.

Since both my husband and I are self employed – he makes websites – we can’t afford to turn down work just because it doesn’t fit in with school holidays. I got work teaching summer schools so we started using the brilliant holiday play schemes run out of Camden Square Playcentre. It may sound cheesy, but these services are like extended family for millions of people like us. We can’t plead abject poverty, but to keep working, we need good quality affordable childcare. We want to spend some time with our kids and provide them with emotional security – we just couldn’t do this and pay private sector childcare fees.

Fast forward to the 2010 election. THEY got in and I remember saying to my husband that I reckoned the nursery and the playcentre would be for the chop. People like Cameron have never needed public services and think only lazy scroungers use them. By the end of 2010, it was announced that the playcentre would close in 2012 – then we found out in January of this year that the nursery would be closing in August.

When I got the letter about the nursery closing I burst into tears. Pregnant and hormonal, I just couldn’t handle the news. But I refused to go down without a fight. Fortunately all the other parents felt the same and to cut a long story short we worked together and although the nursery did close in August, it has recently reopened as the Caversham Community Nursery after we convinced the council to transfer management to a local community association.

The campaign was draining and involved dozens of meetings, hassling local councillors, standing in the street outside the Co-op and making a series of deputations to Camden Council. I gave birth in the middle of the campaign – baby Max has been to more council meetings than you could care to mention, both in and out of the womb.

So why did the campaign work? First off, we decided to work with our local Labour councillors, rather than harangue them for closing the nursery. We also pooled our skills. One of our group was a management consultant and produced an amazing business plan. Another mother is a PA and a brilliant organizer – with access to free printing facilities for leaflets! I used my contacts in local politics and media and gave the campaign focus with a Facebook group. The group’s leader, another TV producer, created amazingly convincing documents and sat up till the early hours refining our deputations to the council. It was bloody hard work but it paid off and though the process was at times frustrating, it was also incredibly empowering and shows what can be done if you work collectively. It made me understand the importance of local government and the experience has made me keen to stand as a local councillor – something that previously would have had about as much appeal as drinking a bucket of cold sick.

I’m now back on the campaign trail again and have started an action group to save Camden Square Playcentre – yes, it is just down the road from the Amy shrine. This is a truly amazing place that provides holiday play schemes, after school clubs, breakfast clubs and under 5s drop ins. Black kids play with white kids, posh kids play with poor kids and disabled kids play with able bodied kids. The brilliant staff are trained in everything from child protection to child psychology – the idea that they could be replaced by some “Big Society” volunteers is frankly insulting. The playcentre keeps single parents off benefits and keeps stay at home mums with toddlers sane. It gives boisterous six year old boys somewhere to let off steam after school and kids in wheelchairs the chance to make friends with kids from mainstream schools. If this sounds like utopian bullshit, sorry, but it’s the kind of service that actually makes the world a better place.

We’ve had our first meeting and are hopeful that there is a chance that we can do what we did with the nursery and get a voluntary sector provider to take over the running of the service.

Please sign our petition - http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-camden-square-playcentre.html - we still need all the help we can get. Thank you for reading.

This post represents the views of the writer and does not necessarily reflect my views or those of Brent Green Party. It is posted as clearly of great interest in light of the closure plans for Treetops and Harmony nurseries.

Weighty message delivered to Jeremy Hunt

From Save Preston Library Campaign:

At 10 am, on October 26th,  we went to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in central London to present 12,000 signatures and hundreds of letters to the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt.  400 were by kids alone. We demand he fulfil his responsibility to.investigate whether Brent’s new library service is “comprehensive and efficient” (as it should be under Museums.and Libraries Act 1964).

He met the council in June, but has he heard our side? Nope. The sheer volume of complaints to him should persuade him to do so.