Pedalling Politics in Brent - Support for Space for Cycling

Green Party Assembly Member Jenny Jones toured the boorough with Brent Cyclists to see issues for herself

Earlier this week I spoke to Brent Cyclists at a special hustings on the Londond Cycling Campaigns election initiative 'Space to Cycle'.

I told the meeting about my experience of cycle camping in the US. Breakfasting in a diner a truck driver came and sat with me asked if I was the guy on the bike. I confirmed I was the cyclist and he growled, 'We don't call them cyclists here. We call them donors ...organ donors.'

I said that I often remembered that when cycling in Brent, especially when I tried to negotiate the canyon beneath the North Circular Road at Neasden Shopping Centre/Neasden Lane North.

I was pleased to tell the meeting that all Green party candidates in Brent has signed up to the Space for Cycling campaign and backed the six themes (above).. We supported the proposals for the various wards in principle but would want to examine them in more detail of elected.

Greens had been fighting for safe cycling and comprehensive cycle routes in the London Assembly and were frustrated by Boris Johnson's underspend of the cycling fund and the delay in cycling superhighways.

The meeting was attended by Labour, Lib Dem and Green candidates. It was rumoured that the absent Conservatives had been unable to find a place to park their cars.

In fact there was a great deal of cross-party consensus on the main issues. We talked about how to encourage more people to cycle and the importance of work in schools, specific issues around women cyclists including sexual harassment from motorists, and about the differences between the south and north of the borough.

Cycle usage is much more common in the south of Brent with easy access to Central London. In the North the distance into Central london is much greater with the North Circular a physical barrier. Car ownership is much higher in the north with concreted over front gardens serving as parking for often large numbers of cars - 'a car park with house attached'.

I told the meeting that when I was a headteacher and cycled to work and to meetings I was often given the impresson that this was inappropriate to my status - cycling was something poor people did. Turning up at a Conference at the Holiday Inn at Brent Cross I asked reception where I could leave my bike. 'Sir,  it is only our staff who use bicycles.' This stereotype did not seem to exist in south Brent and this was confirmed by the Queen's Park Lib Dem candidate Virginia Bonham-Carter who wanted a cycle path for mothers in the streets around Queen's Park.

Muhammed Butt said that the attitude was linked to cultural issues and reflected that for some people cycling was seen in the context of 'back home' where it was the poor who cycled and the car was a status symbol. He said that members of his own family questioned why he cycled when he could 'use the car'. There was an issue abut changing attitudes as well as improving infrastructure.

On infrastructure several members of the audience expressed disappointment that a chance had been missed in the Wembley Regenration to build cycling into the plans, despite submissions in the early stages by Brent Cyclists and the Green Party.

The full details of proposals for Brent wards can be found HERE

Declaratio of Interest: I am a member of the London Cycling Campaign

Victimisation, bullying, racial and sexual discrimination alleged in Davani case

From the Get West London website LINK Reporter: Hannah Bewley

A FORMER Brent Council manager claims she was discriminated against by superiors and “bullied and undermined” despite her years of experience.

Rosemarie Clarke, 50, resigned in April last year after four years as head of learning and development, and launched an employment tribunal claim against the authority and Cara Davani, now HR director but previously on a temporary contract, for constructive dismissal, racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, victimisation, bullying and harassment and psychiatric injury.

Lawyers for the Christchurch Avenue, Harrow, inhabitent wrote in her claim: “Ms Davani’s conduct made her feel like her managerial prerogative was being continuously and seriously undermined and that her professional integrity was also being undermined.

“The claimant asserts that the respondent treated black, female managers less favourably due to their race.”

Ms Clarke cited several incidents as part of her case, for which hearings began on Monday last week at Watford Employment Tribunal.

Her claim said she and Ms Davani had a disagreement about the termination of a contract of a temporary worker, Ms M, at the council.

Ms Davani instructed Ms Clarke to tell the Ms M her contract had ended while Ms M  was on holiday because there was an issue with her performance.

Ms Clarke attempted to persuade her boss to allow a few days for Ms M to hand over to someone else after her vacation.

The claimant told the tribunal Ms Devani said: “She Ms M didn’t say hello to me in the corridor the other week, which I thought was unprofessional.”

Ms Clarke added: “It was obvious Ms Davani didn’t like [Ms M].”

Ms Clarke’s claim form said: “Despite the claimant being of the view that Ms M had done nothing wrong, Cara Davani was insistent she had to go.”

Ms Clarke also said she received an e-mail from Ms Devani instructing her to contact learning and development expert Dr Yvonne Foster, who had previously worked with Ms Davani.

Ms Clarke said in reply she had adequate staffing levels and claims Ms Davani told her she should “find her [Dr Foster] something to do”.

Ms Clarke said: “I was being pressured to contact Yvonne Foster and offer her a job in my team.”

The claimant said she “wasn’t happy” about being shouted at by Ms Davani during an Investors in People accreditation meeting.

Ms Clarke resigned after being suspended in February over allegations of gross misconduct for alleged failure to follow reasonable management instructions.

'Parking, Potholes & Poo' or politics?

At a hustings in Mapesbury earlier this week a Liberal Democrat candidate said that the local election was about efficient emptying of bins and clean streets and not about 'political grand themes'. This was a swipe at my fellow Green Shahrar Ali, whose speech had identified the democratic deficit on Brent Council and the iniquity of privatisation and the bedroom tax.

The Lib Dem candidate was right in a way:  no one is going to say they are FOR fly-tipping, overflowing bins, litter strewn streets or pavements smeared with dog excrement. However the allocation of resources to deal with those issues is a political issue - both within the Council and in terms of government resources allocated to local authorities. The extent to which services are out-sourced and the wages and working conditions of sub-contractors are a political issues. The Council's stand on the privatisation of schools and whether it makes a principled stand on the undemocratic process of forced academisation is a political issue.

It is also important to consider how these decisions are made by councillors and that brings into consideration whether decisions are arrived at through debate and rigorous scrutiny or are mere rubber stamping of officer reports. Opposition and Labour backbenchers find they are excluded from this decision making and instead have to focus on the 'parking, potholes and poo' casework. How good they are at that is not a matter of political affiliation but of personal efficiency. An added, but reduced concession, is their role in allocating ward working money.

Lastly the controversy over the Davani affair brings into sharp focus the relationship between the political administration and officers. If the administration sees itself as a management organisation - managing the cuts, managing the school places crisis, managing procurement - it puts political principle aside and the Executive and Corporate Management Team become a single management entity.

In my view this is not a matter for personal attacks, although the current issue has become highly personal because of the huge impact it has made on people's lives and livelihoods, but of questioning why some of the most senior officer positions in the council are in effect out-sourced to people who have set themselves up as self-employed consultants.

This means that at its very core the Council has acquiesced in the Coalition's privatisation agenda - handing public money over to private companies.

A further dimension is the issue, discussed on this blog many times, of the relationship between the Council and developers, or more specifically the relationshing between the Major Projects, Regeneration and Planning Department and developers. With the Council seeing its role as smoothing the way for developers, local residents find themselves locked out of the discussion and the decisions. They become mere irritants in the joint projects of the council and its favoured property developers. Behind this is the political issue of reduced funding for local government and therefore the need for the Council to find other sources of revenue through increasing its council tax base through high density, often unaffordable, housing developments; Community Infrastructure Levy and the New Homes Bonus LINK

Of course it suits the Lib Dems to focus on street level issues and to be photographed pointing at fly-tips, because it takes attention away from their role as Coalition partners in undermining the financial stability and the viability of local authorities.

Take a stand against UKIP candidate's Islamophobia on Sunday

 ..and in the elections on May 22nd.

Demonstration against Nigel Farage in Gateshead

 Following the anti-Islam rant LINK  by the UKIP candidate in Dudden Hill ward, Stand Up to UKIP supporters are inviting residents, community groups, trade unionists, Hope Not Hate supporters, other anti-racists to join them at their stall in Neasden Shopping Centre on Sunday at 2pm.

They call on the community to join together to say 'No to racism and Islamophobia'.

Revisiting Christine Gilbert's appointment extension

In view of the current interest in senior officer appointments at Brent Council I reproduce this from a blog I posted in June 2013 LINK :

Christine Gilbert confirmed as Brent Interim Chief Executive for another year

Brent Council last night approved the extension of Christine Gilbert's appointment as Interim Chief Executive until after the elections in May 2014.  See my previous story LINK

The move was opposed by Paul Lorber, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition, who said that there was no reason why the appointment of a new CEO should not be made not. He declared that he did not accept the reasoning behind the officer's report which argued that a delay would provide stability and safeguarding of the Council's reputation over the period of the move to the Civic Centre and the May 2014 local elections.

He said that the interim appointment had been made by officers in consultation with the Leader of the Council and that members should be fully involved if a candidate capable of working with any prospective leader were to be appointed. He also said that the new post holder should be on the council's payroll rather than have his or her salary paid into a private company.

Labour's majority, assisted by the vote of Barry Cheese who appears to be a semi-detached Lib Dem at present, ensured that Christine Gilbert, wife of ex-Labour MP and Minister Tony McNulty kept her Brent job along with her second job with Haringey Council.

This is the Report and Recommendation voted through: LINK

Greens surge in Ipso MORI poll

Hot on the heels of the Greens surge in the polls ahead of the May 22nd European Elections, polling out today shows the Greens have jumped five points and are polling at 8% in non-European polling  ahead of next summer’s General Election.

Reacting to the Ipsos MORI polling, a Green Party spokesperson said:

“The Greens have not polled this strongly in non-European polling ahead of a General Election since 1989, the year the Green Party secured 15% of the vote. Our message of real change for the common good is clearly striking a chord.”

Reacting to the Ipsos MORI poll, The London Evening Standard  reported that, “today’s big winners are the Greens, whose support has shot up from three to eight points on the back of higher exposure in the campaign period.”

Green leader Natalie Bennett attributed the strong polling to the popularity of Green Party policies when given more media exposure and to voters’ disenchantment with the big parties. Speaking from Leeds, she said the polls “chime with what I am hearing around the country”.

According to ICM’s European Elections polling released on May 12th, the Green Party is polling at 10% ahead of the May 22 European Elections, putting it firmly in fourth place and three percentage points ahead of the ailing Liberal Democrats (7%).

The Greens are within touching distance of meeting their target of trebling their number of MEPs from two (Jean Lambert, London, and Keith Taylor, South-East) to six. Based on a national swing the latest poll would give the Greens five seats in England plus one in Scotland. The Lib Dems would have zero seats. Among 18-24 year-olds the Greens are the second most popular political party.

Copland strike against redundancies well supported today

Copland Communuity school was closed today except for examinations in a joint union  strike over redundancies. Mick Lyons, Past NASUWT President, Stefan Simms, NUT Executive and Hank Roberts, ATL Immediate Past President congratulated the staff for their continuing to stand firm against ARK and for their colleagues and the pupils.

Brent Greens will fight for the restoration of local library provision

A member of the libraries campaign has suggested that I publish the speech I made at the Preston Library Campaign hustings last week. This is the gist of what I said:

I am speaking primarily as the Green Party spokesperson for children and families, because I am particularly concerned about the impact of the closures on young children. I did child care for a pupil of Preston Park Primary who used the library regularly, did her homework there and always felt secure with helpful staff available. But of course it is not just Preston Library but five others that have been closed.

 I have seen eager children arrive at Neasden Library, only to turn home crestfallen when they realised it was closed for good. Without internet access at home they were dependent on that library to use a computer for their homework.

 Libraries are important for book borrowing, homework and a social space but most importantly are  'local'  - where older children can visit independently, families drop in and elderly people access with ease.

Labour realised belatedly that t the closures were a mistake and this led to a change of leadership and recent attempts to recover lost ground. However the damage has been done and a 'fresh start' cannot make up for that.  We believe in publicly funded, properly staffed, local libraries and will fightfor the restoration of local library provision.

Greens care about the quality of life and not just the quantity of goods. This is important not just in terms of  libraries but in educational provision public spaces and housing where we intend to enhance everyone's quality of life rather than focus on acquisition of goods.

Greens have been consistent in their opposition to the library closures as can be seen from the videos we produced above and from this piece I wrote for 'Voices for the Library' back in January 2011 LINK:

I have been a member of a public library continuously since before I started school (in fact the old Kingsbury Library now replaced). When I move house joining the library is the first thing I do once the electricity and gas are connected and the furniture in. As one of a large family with parents unable to give me a lot of attention, the library was in a sense my home educator, and librarians actually quite important in encouraging me to widen my reading tastes. Without a library I think I would have not progressed much educationally.

Currently I see queues of young and older people outside the Town Hall Library, waiting for it to open, not all just to keep warm but somewhere they can advance their education. Library staff could probably tell you that young children use local libraries after school as a place to do their homework, but also an unofficial safe place to be picked up by their parents when they finish work.

A lot of the youngsters on the Chalkhill Estate use the library, encouraged by the school and by class visits, and there is also a high usage of the internet there, for learning but also for job seeking. This is essential if we are to tackle the gap between those who have access and those who do not. They are fortunate in being near a library not down for closure – although it will be less accessible when it is moved to the new Civic Centre.
However youngster who currently use Barham Park, Cricklewood, Neasden, Tokyngton, Kensal Rise and Preston libraries, all down for closure, will be less fortunate. The proposal for the remaining six libraries to be ‘community hubs’ with other council services located there does not replace the local accessibility of these small libraries.

Brent libraries are also the source of much cultural input including Black History Months events and other activities that bring a diverse community together including language and nationalist test classes. The Town Hall library is currently running a reading club for primary school children and others have homework clubs for children without access to books or computers at home. As the recession bites this will become even more important.

As Greens local libraries are important to because we believe in easily accessible community resources which do not involve car trips. A local library is a place where children of 10 and over can easily walk to on their own rather than rely on lifts from parents – this encourages one area of independence in a period where children are more and more dependent on adults with few opportunities for independent activity.
Libraries even save paper, and therefore trees, through multiple lending of one book rather than individual purchases of many books – and the authors get a steady source of income, albeit it small, from public lending rights.

Martin Francis
Brent Green Party spokesperson on Children and Families and school governor