Costa vs Customer Centre:? Willesden Green Cultural Centre: Have your say on Monday

The saga of the Willesden Green Library redevelopment continues.  Another promise made to sell the redevelopmet appears to have bitten the dust. Here is an update fron Make Willesden Green LINK

Last month we blogged about the rumours that there would be no Customer Services (previously known as the One Stop Shop) at the new Willesden Green Cultural Centre and that, despite several enquiries from both Make Willesden Green and from individual residents, there was little knowledge of the plans from our councillors although they did promise to keep people informed if, or when, they found out more.

Having not heard anything further we were surprised to see the issue on the agenda at Brent Cabinet last week, hidden within a long document on Community Access Strategy. Two local residents spoke at the Cabinet meeting and raised several queries and objections but the document was approved unamended. There were no representations from any local councillors at the meeting.

The document presented a case to say that, since more residents were using the online service rather than seeking face-to-face contact, there was no longer a need for a dedicated Customer Services space within the Cultural Centre. Instead, self service computers and telephones with a direct line to the Wembley Civic Centre would be placed in the library and a weekly "by appointment only” surgery would be held (in an unspecified space within the Cultural Centre) for those who could not travel to the Wembley Civic Centre. 

The (approx 210sqm) space on the first floor that was to have housed Customer Services is now subject to a “local dialogue” about its alternative use but that use, says the council, will need to be both "of public benefit” and “income-generating”.

It’s a great shame that while the strategy document contains some positive proposals to improve the quality of the council’s online service to residents it seems to have come at a high cost, both to those who are unable to use that mode of communication and to library users who will see their facility further reduced.

Some of the points raised by residents at the meeting were:

• a significant proportion of people still do not have online access, they are most likely to be poorer, elderly, disabled and more vulnerable residents. These are the very people who have complex needs that need to be dealt with face-to-face, rather than via a self-service computer or on the phone.
• the majority of the council’s high need residents live in the south of the borough.
• the housing of the Customer Services self-service computers and telephones within the library will represent a further reduction in the actual library facility – library users will be jostling for space with self-service customers and librarians will be expected to facilitate both sets of users.
• the redevelopment of the library site was “sold” to residents on the basis that the old building couldn’t house an enlarged Customer Services facility, yet we are now going to end up with less than we started with.
• there has been no consultation with local residents on what they feel their needs are relating to Customer Services provision.
• how will the "alternative use" of the space be determined? Is there a contradiction between the need for it to be both “of public benefit’ and “income-generating”? Will the “local dialogue” be nothing more than giving us a choice between a Costa and a Starbucks?

Despite these concerns the proposals were nodded through. The broken promise that the Cultural Centre will mirror services at the Wembley Civic Centre  leaves us yet again feeling like the south of Brent is the poor relation of Wembley and that we are subject to a two tier service when it comes to council provision.

Having made this decision without any reference to residents views, Brent Council is hosting a meeting next week, the agenda is to include:

• An update on progress with the building and services
• A presentation from the building designers and a chance to take part in design workshops for the interior
• A chance to give your views on how the community can be involved and put this building at the centre of life in Willesden

Monday 27 October 2014  6:30-8:30pm
St Andrews Parish Centre, 2 St Andrews Road, NW10 2QS

All residents are invited to attend and we encourage you to do so.

The original Brent Council offer for the Cultural Centre is worth revisiitng ahead of this meeting. It can be found in the Equality Impact Assessment HERE

BrentARC steps up rights campaign over Operation Skybreaker

Brent is one of five London boroughs to be chosen as the target for Operation Skybreaker. This follows targeting of the borough by racist organisations such as the BNP, Britain First and the South East Alliance and by the UK Border Agency and Home Office through the racist van and raids on tube stations.

Today the Brent Against Racism Campaign (BrentARC) will be in Wembley Central  distributing the leaflets below informing the public and businesses about their rights regarding Operation Skybreaker.

The leaflet below is particularly aimed at small business owners:

Guest blog: Left Unity and the Green Party - time to talk?

 Sean Thompson is a former member of the Green Party and Green Left, who left the Green Party to join Left Unity. Ahead of LU's November Conference he has written an article about the organisation's relationship with the Green Party.

He has given me permission to publish this as a Guest Blog. I do this to encourage debate. I do not endorse everything he says but I do think he raises some important issues for both Left Unity and the Green Party.



Two resolutions to our national conference in November mention the Green Party; one calls for ‘structured collaboration… between serious forces on the left at the 2015 election, including the Green Party’, while the other states that
‘we will not call for a vote for… the middle class Greens’

Clearly, we need to get our act together and decide on the sort of relationship we want to develop with the Green Party. In my view, it is essential that we not only have a realistic understanding of the party’s politics and its support base, but that we develop a positive (but critical) working relationship with them wherever we can.

It’s only a bit more than eighteen months since our Ken, appearing on BBC’s Question Time, said that what Britain needed was a ‘UKIP of the Left’ and so kick-started the initiative that was to become Left Unity a few months later. However, since May it has started to look more and more as if it is the Green Party which is beginning to match that description. Membership of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) is booming: it now stands at around 23,000 – a near 60% increase since the beginning of this year. Membership of the Young Greens (party members under 30 or full time students) has more than doubled over the same period and now stands at over 8,000. In the week since the TV companies announced that UKIP would be invited to take part in the election debates between the party leaders next May but that the Greens would not be, the party received an incredible 2,000 membership applications and in five days an online petition demanding its inclusion in the debates received over 185,000 signatures. Given our very modest size and limited visibility and the utter irrelevance of all the old far left sects and (except for a couple of areas) TUSC, the Green Party is increasingly being seen as the only alternative to the left of Labour.

Council sells Brent House for £10 million

Brent House

Brent Council has sold Brent House, Wembley High Road, for more than the £10m asking price.

It has been sold to Henley Homes who have plans for up to 265 homes on the site subject to Brent Council giving planning approval.

Brent House is close to the old Copland High School, now Ark Elvin, which  is also the subject of an extensive planning application.

The sale follows plans for the conversion of  the  high rise Wembley Point at Harrow Road/North Circular into homes.

The City of London and TTIP - meeting Saturday Oct 25th

Barry Gardiner: Injury prevented me from voting for recognition of Palestine

I have received this reply to a message I sent to Barry Gardiner MP (Labour Brent North) asking him to vote for the recognition of Palestine on October 13th and a follow-up email asking why he wasn't present for the  vote:

Thank you for contacting me about the debate regarding the recognition of Palestinian statehood that took place in the House of Commons on the 13^th of October. 

You will, I am sure, be aware that the House of Commons voted in support of the motion with a significant majority of 276-12. Labour voted for the motion because it reflects our support for the principle of recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Unfortunately, I sustained an injury on the Sunday evening and had to go to the hospital, so I was not actually present for the vote. Had I been able to attend, I would have voted to recognise Palestine along with my colleagues in the Labour Party. I believe the events of recent months have made it clear that such progressive steps are essential to avoid further violence and bloodshed.

I also believe that recognition of Palestine at the United Nations would be a further tangible step along this route. That is why I have supported the Labour Party’s consistent calls upon the Government to commit Britain to supporting the Palestinians' bid for recognition at the UN, in 2011 and in 2012, in order to restart peace negotiations.

Police Appeal: Do you recognise this butt?

Deadline for nominations for Staff Achievement Awards extended as Council leaders ‘snatch   dogs off the streets’ in desperate bid to boost Davani vote.    
                               

Guest blog by E.Tribunal

Earlier rumours that Brent Council leaders have reacted to the avalanche of support for Rosemarie Clarke by selecting, as their own favoured nominee, HR  supremo  Ms Cara Davani, seem to have been confirmed.  Leaks from Civic Centre staff tell of receiving scores of nomination forms bearing a paw mark where the nominator’s name should be ( see earlier report HERE, and that almost all the dogs involved appear to be Kerry Blue Terriers, Lakeland Terriers, Irish Terriers or Welsh Terriers, the breeds which Ms Davani  and her partner Andy Potts specialise in at Kebulak Kennels LINK , the business Ms Davani runs when things are a bit slack in her other jobs. 

Now, in a new development, it seems that Cara and Andy’s kennels have not been able to supply enough supporters to swing the vote in the HR supremo’s favour and last Thursday’s deadline for nominations has been extended to give the Butt/Pavey/Ledden/ Davani/Potts  gang one last chance to deny Rosemarie Clarke her rightful award.

Desperate for extra votes, it seems that supporters of Ms Davani, having exhausted their own canine support, are now snatching other people’s  dogs off the streets and, with promises of mountains of bones and endless  walkies, or simply by crude threats of violence (see below,) forcing the unfortunate mutts to put their paws on the form and vote for the shamed HR chief who was recently found guilty of racial discrimination, victimisation and workplace bullying in her role of Human Resources lead and figurehead in equal opportunities Brent.  

Local police, who are understandably keen to trace the perpetrators of this particularly cruel and insensitive practice, have issued a CCTV image of a suspect  reproduced above in the hope that someone out there will recognise him. Detective Inspector Sturmey Archer of Wembley CID  made this plea:

‘If anyone in the community recognises this butt, don’t hesitate to get in touch. The man is described as below average height and bearded. Do not approach him. He is desperate.’  

Witnesses said that when he spotted the CCTV camera, the suspect seemed at first to react by smiling broadly into the camera and looking for someone’s hand to shake. However, when he realised what he’d been filmed doing he immediately ran off at great speed throwing away the rope and a half-eaten takeaway meal. Police later said they had sent away a quantity of akee and salt-fish for analysis. 

Meanwhile they have urged residents to keep their pets safe indoors until the extended deadline passes today.

Warning: Robbers posing as builders in Wembley Park

I tweeted about this yesterday evening and my neighbour who was the victim popped in this morning to give me more details.

Yesterday evening around 7pm a white English man, 30-35 years old with no discernible regional accent knocked on my neighbour's maisonette door to say he was doing some work in the flat below and to apologise for any noise nuisance.

He returned 30 to 45 minutes later to say the work had been completed and my neighbour assured him that he had heard nothing. The 'workman' turned to go and then, Colombo style, stopped and asked if he could just check the water pressure which might have been affected by the work he had done.

He went into the kitchen to the stop-cock under the sink and then asked my neighbour to hold something while he checked elsewhere. My neighbour's suspicions were aroused when the man then closed the kitchen door on him.

Coming out of the kitchen he discovered all the cupboard doors open and the man investigating a tin box. Simultaneously another man, black baseball pulled down, came through the front door which must have been left ajar by his accomplice.

My neighbour, no Spring chicken, managed to kick them both out.

Be warned.