Civic Centre: Thank you Brent Labour...

I thought readers might appreciate this  posted on Save Preston Library Facebook  page earlier today. Brent Green Party has been raising questions about the £100,000,000 plus cost of the new grandiose Civic Centre for several years now. The prime site is adjacent to Wembley Arena and Wembley Stadium which will make the Civic Centre Public Library unusable by the public on event days.

 To be fair the project was mooted under the previous Lib Dem-Conservative administration and agreed at the time by Labour. There have been doubts expressed by all three major parties since, at various times, usually during elections, but the project (championed by ex Chief Executive Gareth Daniel) lived on.

The fight against austerity a major focus for Green Party Conference this weekend

I will be off to the Green Party's Spring Conference this weekend and hope to see the party strengthening its opposition to austerity, privatisation and cuts and committing to building broad alliances with others fighting on these issues.

In that regard one of the most important fringes will be on Saturday afternoon on Building the Movement Against Austerity and Privatisation with Sylvian Savier of Front de Gauche and Peter Allen of Green Left. An emergency motion will propose the Green Party  support the Coalition of Resistance's People's Assembly Against Austerity which will take place on 22nd June 2013.

Cuts will remain a controversial issue in the light of the decisions facing the minority Green Council in Brighton and Hove and support for Councillors Against the Cuts. There is a fringe on Sunday which will focus on 'the way the Greens (in Brighton and Hove) have sought to resist town hall cuts, the compromises that have to be made and how the wider party in the city has been galvanised into taking the arguments back to Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities Eric Pickles and the city's Tory MPs.'

Significantly the blurb adds, 'This won't be a debate about the merits or otherwise of the council's budget decisions'. It may not happen in that forum but the debate will certainly take place.

I will be hoping to gather support for my own emergency motion on forced academies which I reproduce below:

Conference recognises that Michael Gove has recently escalated his policy of forcing primary schools to become academies so that now only one poor Ofsted report is required to trigger such a move. This has currently resulted  in several strong parent-led campaigns in defence of  community schools.

The Green Party believes forced academisation:

• Undermines the role of local authorities and school governing bodies in school improvement
• Undermines local democratic accountability of schools
• Ignores the wishes of major stakeholders including governors and parents
• Hands over local assets to an external provider without recompense
• Opens the school to eventually being run on a profit-making basis

Conference therefore instructs the GPEX campaigns coordinator to facilitate a campaign against this policy at national level over the next 6 months and calls on  local parties to take up the issue where appropriate.

The failure of the Green Party to make much impact in the polls despite the Coalition's unpopularity and Labour's lack lustre performance will merit some soul-searching. The fact that an ex-Green Party parliamentary candidate for Eastleigh, Dr Iain Maclennan,  is standing for National Health Action in the current by-election and gaining broad-based support is also worth discussion.

The Green Party holds conferences twice a year and remains a conference that actually makes and debates policy rather than one which merely  showcases the leaders which is increasingly the case with the major parties.

Residents and developers will battle over Willesden Green at planning committee tonight

The  controversial Willesden Green unaffordable housing and developer's land grab in exchange for a smaller library  battle will come to a head tonight when the planning committee considers the application from Galliford Try/Linden Homes.

Only the main planning application will be decided on. The application regarding the conservation area will go straight to the Secretary of State.

The Keep Willesden Green campaigners will be among the speakers at the committee meeting which begins at 7pm sharp at Brent Town Hall.  It is expected that many KWG supporters will be in the audience.

Further delays in completion of Chalkhill Park

The view from one of the park entrances

Mud and flooding in the children's playground

People attending a planning meeting for the Festival to mark the opening of the new Chalkhill Park were dismayed to hear that there is likely to be further delay to the completion of the park - none more so than the local children who attended the meeting to feed in their ideas.

One begged, 'Can't it be ready for us to use in the Easter holidays?'

It appears not.

The Festival was due to take place on May 3rd and May 4th but the park now may not be ready until mid-June.  At one time it was promised to be ready by November 2012 after earlier delays.

After the wet winter much of the ground is waterlogged as can be seen from the picture of the children's playground (above) which was taken only yesterday.  Sand is being scattered on some flat areas to soak up the water that is covering the clay before turf can be put down.   Turf takes 6 weeks or so to bed in before it can be walked on

Clearly there is a balance to be drawn between rushing to get the park finished quickly and ensuring that turfing and planting takes place in the best conditions - otherwise further problems of flooding and subsidence of grass and asphalt surfaces will be emerge in the future.

Asked for a comment, Cllr Michael Pavey (Barnhill ward) said:

I was shocked to hear of these delays. It's an absolutely terrible shame. I'll be pushing the Council hard to ensure the Opening isn't delayed a day longer than absolutely necessary.

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Should a BANG Free School be supported?

The list of proposed free schools elicited by the British Humanist Association includes a real mixed bag for Brent. They are:

Ysgol Gymraeg Llundain, London Welsh School
BANG Edutainment Ltd
London Ballet School
Sakutu Montessori Organisation School

The London Welsh School already has premises in Stonebridge and the application merely means a change of status.  The BANG Edutainment application is also in the south of Brent and is an interesting proposition which may meet the criteria set by Brent Council for partnership.  However the application has only 76 signatories on its on-line petition. LINK

I am opposed to Free Schools (as designated by the Coalition) on the grounds that they undermine local authority provision, take a disproportionate share of public funding which would otherwise go to ordinnary schools, are not democratically accountable and open the way for privatisation of schools.

I query whether,  given those overarching reservations, free schools can be used for progressive aims. However  it is only fair to let the proposers speak for themselves. I would be interested in what readers think. This is what their petition asks for:

We the undersigned declare support for BANG Edutainment’s proposal for a Free Secondary School for young people in Brent and surrounding boroughs.

The school will offer places to young people with poor choices of schools because of their area of residence.  

The school will target those young people whose needs are not fully met my existing mainstream provision and who at risk of failing to achieve academic success and not reaching their full potential.

The school will offer a holistic provision of personal, social, work and life education alongside the established curriculum.

In a way those goals refer back to the free schools of the 1970s and the supplementary school movement both of which I worked with. They succeeded with many children that local authority schools had given up on. One question for me is whether our current schools are still failing to that extent with London schools performing above the national average in terms of examination and test results.. To answer that question we would need to look at exclusion rates, staying on rates and a breakdown of examination entries and results by ethnicity and social class. The statistics quoted by BANG indicate that a problem continues.

The preamble to the petition sets out BANG Edutainment's rationale:

BANG Edutainment is proposing a Free School that will target young people from the South of Brent and the boroughs surrounding. The target areas are characterised by housing estates with some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK. (e.g. Harlesden, Stonebridge and Church End fall within the top 10% of the UK's most deprived wards. Residents in these communities suffer from poverty, deprivation, social and economic exclusion with high rates of unemployment.

Many people are from Black and Minority Ethnic groups with many refugee and asylum seeker families. Children from these communities experience a challenging home life, limited parental support and a lack of effective role model. In 2007 the Learning and Skills Council identified over 8.6% of young people in Brent as Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET); amongst White and Black Caribbean it was even higher at 18.2% and amongst Black or Black British 17.7% against 2.1% for Indians. It is estimated 1 in 16 young people complete year 11 without qualifications, 17% of 16 - 25 year olds have literacy problems, 22% have numeracy problems and the number of 15 year olds identified as at risk in Brent alone is more than 15,000.

For the past 10 years BANG has worked very successfully with young people from these areas; young people considered hard to reach and socially excluded. And we’ve had a 75%+ success rate in terms of qualifications and progression to Further Education with limited resources! Our model of working with these young people includes: engaging them at their point of interest, working with them in small groups, building their motivation and aspiration, one to one support to overcome intensive issues, coaching and mentoring, peer education, building skills through practical and real life work and developing skills to prepare them for life and work. We are successful because we care about every young person we work with, we listen to them and we are flexible in how we meet their individual needs.

BANG proposes to adapt its existing model in delivery of a Free School and in partnership with local partners provide a real route to success for local young people.

The Centre for Staff Development building in Brentfield Road, which is soon to be vacated when staff transfer to the Civic Centre, seems the most obvious site for the proposed school if it goes ahead. I have long supported the idea of a secondary school in the area but always assumed that would be provided by the local authority.

I would be interested to hear your views. Please comment below.

 

Will Duckworth: Green Party needs to build links with unions to fight injustice

From the Green Left blog (Virtual Water Melon) LINK

The Green Party’s deputy leader Will Duckworth has called for stronger links between politicians, the general public and unions to fight workplace injustice.

Mr Duckworth spoke out after attending a demonstration against a series of forced redundancies at Halesowen College, which is close to his home and the area he represents as a Dudley Metropolitan Councillor.

He said:

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Governments in the last 30 years have been working hard to try to destroy unions, and the result is that it’s now too easy for management to bully individual employees, who don’t have the protection they need and deserve. Standing up for workers’ rights is vital, especially during times of economic downturn when increasingly desperate employers look for ways – some of them unfair – to reduce outgoings including wages and sick pay.

The current government is working hard to destroy the collective bargaining power held by unions – one of the only ways employees can safeguard pay and conditions, including basic rights to safety in the workplace. Only by standing together can we protect these basic, necessary rights.

Mr Duckworth joined union members and members of the public to protest against the dismissal of four Mathematics lecturers from the College. He was one of more than 12,000 people who signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of the lecturers.

College management argues that the lecturers have been ‘underperforming’ but many, including union leaders, college students and the lecturers themselves, fear that financial pressures and the lecturers’ union membership may have played a part in the decision.

They also expressed concern about the way the redundancy process has been handled by the College.

Mr Duckworth said: 

We’re very concerned that the proper disciplinary processes haven’t been followed: if the College was unhappy with the lecturers’ performance, it should have issued them with notices to improve before taking this very strong action.

He added that he hoped to build stronger links between the Green Party and trades unions.

He said: 

My attendance at the demonstration was to show support for workers who I believe may have been treated very shoddily. It was also to help to build links between the Green Party and trades unions, so we can work together in future to combat and prevent such injustices.

NW London NHS vote to close Central Middlesex A&E with potentially life threatening consequences

Hospital campaigners from Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham assembled at a chilly 8.30am today outside the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster in the shadow of Parliament's Victoria Tower. They were protesting against Shaping a Healthier Future plans to close A&Es at Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Ealing and Central Middlesex Hospitals.

Their pleas were ignored just as were their letters, petitions and marches and the Trust went ahead and voted for all four closures.

Campaigners warned that the decision will hit many of the area's most vulnerable residents and could result  in life threatening delays for urgent treatment.

The ITN report on the demonstration and decision can be found HERE

A wonderful facility for children - let's see it widely used

Brent has some resources that deserve to be more widely known and used.  One such is the Brent Play Association on the ground floor of Peppermint Heights (formerly Middlesex House) adjacent to the Grand Union canal and opposite Sainsbury's in Alperton. It is close to Alperton Station. The BPA's John Lyon narrow boat is moored close by.

The Peppermint Heights facilities are  used for holiday and weekend play schemes for children with special needs. However, the facilities would be useful for organisations working with young people during the week including play therapy, art therapy, one to one contact, sensory work, group work as well as for voluntary organisations or community groups wanting a meeting place.


I will let the facilities speak for themselves through the images below:

Art Room

Multi-sensory room for stimulus or calming

TV Room

Play area

Large kitchen

Conference space (up to 100)

Small meeting space

Safe outdoor play

As one of the trustees of the Brent Play Association I would like to see these wonderful facilities much more widely used. The BPA would be pleased to show you what they have to offer. Contact details are HERE