The positives and negatives of public health in Brent

Tomorrow's  Brent Health and Wellbeing Board will be discussing an important report on public health and the issues facing the borough in the future. The full report is available HERE

For each issue the report goes into details of some of the initiatives and projects that address the problem so here I will print some of the tables and graphs to stimulate interest.

Brent actually has healthier statistics than some of the areas with equal levels of deprivation but there are considerable differences between different parts of Brent.

The causes of premature deaths:

Differences in age expectancy in wards within the borough:

Increases in rates of dementia are a long-term issue:

As are rates of diabetes:

One area of success has been the reduction in teenage pregnancies:

The figures on child health indicate health problems building up for the future. I have been keen to persuade the Council to increase school nurse provision to address these issues and procurement is in process

Obesity of Year 6 child (11 year olds)

As they go into Year 7 at secondary schools the pupils are likely to use takeways:

To inform the Council’s planning policies, the Council public health team undertook a survey of secondary school students to explore associations between the presence of fast food takeaways close to the school and students’ use of takeaways and general food knowledge. In the seven schools that participated, all year 7 and year 10 students were surveyed. Nearly two and a half thousand students responded resulting in a unique insight into student behaviour. Students who attended schools less than 400m from a takeaway ate more takeaways at lunch, on the journey home from school and at home for their evening meal with their family.

The survey supports the policy of a buffer zone around schools which the Council is now implementing.

Dental health is a particular issue in Brent:

Some excellent preventative work is taking places from the Chalkhill Wellbeing project which ends in March 2015 unless further funding is found. I will return to this in some detail in the future.

Breakfast time queues of Romanians at Brent Civic Centre to vote in Presidential election

There were queues from 8am this morning as Romanians now resident locally queued to vote in the second round of the Romanian presidential elections.

Traffic slowed to a crawl between Wembley Park and Wembley Central during the morning as the election queue coincided with the new Wembley Market and the opening of the ice rink.

Turnout was reported to be up to twice as high as in the first round of the election.

If only Brent residents were so keen on voting!

Cats threaten to take over Willesden Green

The 'Cat Walk' mosaic abovewas unveiled on the bridge opposite Willesden Green station yesterday.  It is the first of a series of cat-motif mosaics inspired by the illustrations of Louis Wain, an early 20th century Brent artist.

Community involvement is encouraged through attending participatory workshops to complete the mosaics. Residents are encouraged to say where they would like to see future mosaics installed in the area.

Contact: contact@createmosaic.com

The Willesden Green Town Team are working on a number of projects in Willesden Green and Dudden Hill  to 'develop a thriving, vibrant and economically sustainable and uplifting environment for us to live and work in'. 

I am tempted to annouce a similar project but with a rat-motif and a rather different 'vision' to be installed around Brent Civic Centre but will resist. Miaow.

Council tables termination of funding for Stonebridge Adventure Playground before consultation closes

Dawn Butler, Labour General Election candidate for Brent Central, is among the playground campaigners

Brent Council yesterday published its Forward Plan for the December 15th Cabinet. Headed 'Revenue Funding to Brent Play Association which supports the running costs of Stonebridge Adventure Playground' LINK it proposes to terminate the funding to the Brent Play Association (BPA) at the end of the 2014-15 financial year.

It gives the reason for termination as 'Signficant expenditure/savings > 30% of budget for the function in question'.

The future of the Adventure Playground is currently the subject of a consultation  on proposals about the expansion of Stonebridge Primary School which involves building on its 40 year old site.  The consultation does not close until Monday but the funding cut appears to preempt the consultation outcome..

The threat of closure has created enormous concern on the Stonebridge Estate and a passionate campaign by local residents. Residents were unconvinced by Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt at a recent meeting to discuss the Council's proposals.  LINK

At the meeting Butt insisted, 'Nothing has been decided yet'.

The residents were clearly right.

To support the survival of the Stonebridge Adventure Playground fill in the on-line consultation:
www.brent.gov.uk/stonebridgeconsultation

Or email your response to stonebridge.consult@brent.gov.uk

And also sign the petition HERE 

Join the campaign's Facebook group  HERE

Stonebridge has a history of fighting back as this report from 2003 shows: LINK

More tall blocks for Wembley Park in Quintain Development Application

The Plan

The Artist's Impression

Despite earlier assurances from Brent Council and Quintain  Developments about the planning of the area around Wembley Stadium, open spaces and preservation of views, it appears to be rapidly becoming a haphazard high density development with the stadium gradually disappearing beind tower blocks.

The above is submitted as part of a planning application for the area behind the Quality Hotel  and Dexion House LINK. The latter is also due to be redeveloped although so far only a hole in the ground has been dug in front of the building and partial demolition started. . Although there is a signboard about Gateway Free School on the front of Dexion House it is not the school site - just where its closed down information office used to be. It is not clear what has happened to the plans for Dexion House which included student accommodation and a swimming pool open to the public.

Some of the blocks will be 20 storeys high. The Civic Centre and Quality Hotel  are nine storeys for comparison.

This new proposal is for land  (NW06) which will be behind the Civic Centre:

This is another mixed proposal (application spelling retained)

Proposed erection of 1- to 20-storey building comprising 370 residential units, 693 sqm of non-residential floorspace (use class A1 (retail), A2 (financial and professional), A3 (cafe/restaurtant), D1 (community) or D2 (assembley and leisure)) and associated residential parking spaces, private communal landscaped garden, ancillary spaces, and associated plant, landscaping, cycle storage and refuse provision.

As readers know many new development have very little parking space in order to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. Proximity to public transport is often cited as a reason for not providing parking. This site is close to Wembley Park station and several bus routes but has 115 parking places.

Only 10% of the residential units will be affordable, all in one block - and it is not clear what definition of 'affordable' is being used. All blocks will have access to the open space.

SELL OFF: the full NHS movie

Wembley & Willesden Observer closure a blow to local democracy

This week's edition of the newspaper

Trinity Mirror today announced the closure of 7 of its regional titles including the Harrow Observer and thus its offshoot the Wembley and Willesden Observer (WW0).

The WWO recently lost its well-regarded Brent reporter Tara Brady and the Brent brief was subsumed into the role of an existing Harrow Observer reporter, John Shammas.

For some time the WWO has mainly had one main Brent front page story and perhaps a handful of others in a paper dominated by Harrow news and Harrow letters. Its 90p price tag, where sold, thus represented poor value for money.

At the same time Trinity Mirror developed its Get West London website for digitial news and Wembley became just one of a long list of links on its news page. The Wembley link takes you to the page below which as you can see in no way replaces what a local newspaper can offer.

 

 Trinity Mirror said:

A radical new structure is being implemented across the west London titles in Uxbridge, Ealing and Hounslow that focuses on driving more traffic to the getwestlondon website. The newsrooms are being restructured to support a revised print portfolio while concentrating on accelerated digital growth.

We intend to withdraw from the Harrow market and the Harrow Observer will close.

The Press Gazaette, covering this story, publishes an extract from an article by Mike Lockley, who by coincidence write it to mark his 25th year as editor of the Chase Post which is now to close:

Occasionally, the national newspapers will be intrigued enough by a tale to write ABOUT the people of my patch - I write FOR them. Their reporters can get the facts wrong, ruffle feathers, then disappear into the distance. I can’t because there’s always someone in the street ready to loudly broadcast the inaccuracies.

I still can’t believe I get paid for spreading stories. You might call it gossip, but one man’s tittle-tattle is another’s key local information....

I’m something of a dinosaur. I know this because the exasperated IT expert who spent a week trying to teach me computer skills called me a dinosaur, or was it a fossil?
I may not have the new technology skills, but I have a contact book crammed with 'curtain twitchers' and devoid of numbers for gushing PR gals, usually called Gemima, Hannah or Suzi. Poor 'Hannah' rang, close to hysteria, this morning to proclaim: 'My client’s done something reeeeally exciting with milk.'

He hadn’t. It’s still white and hasn’t started coming out of cows’ noses.

And I, like every other weekly journalist, can play a part in the community I work in. I’ve helped save schools, stopped telecommunication towers being erected and even put pink custard back on a school menu.

Times and technology change, people’s desire to know what’s happening in their community doesn’t. A town without its own weekly newspaper is a town without a heart.

I have written before on this blog about the importance of local newspapers for ensuring accountability of local councils, particularly at a time when the council has an overwhelming majorority, an ineffective opposition and poor scrutiny.

In its heyday, which for me was during the libraries campaign, the Willesden and Wembley Observer did a terrific jon in supporting the local community. The Kilburn Times is currently backing the fight to keep the much loived Stonebridge Adventure Playground open.

The Wembley and Willesden Observer at its best

Now the Kilburn Times is left to do the job on its own but it too isn't unscathed in the present climate. News Editor Lorraine King's role has been changed with much more of it devoted to digital content and last week its most recent reporter, Myron Jobson, left for Financial Times feature writing. Nathalie Raffray from the Ham and High, another Archant newspaper, is filling in at present.

The Kilburn Times has seen a reduction in the number of its pages, as well as the number of reporters, and advertising takes precedence over editorial space affecting the number of stories carred as well as whether there is room for a Letters Page. The latter is again an essential ingredient of local democracy.

Down to one and a half people to produce the editorial content, the Kilburn Times, is only slightly over the staffing level of this blog!

Aside from the impact on our local community let's remember the 50 or so people who will lose their jobs as a result of this closure. I'd like to express my sympathy to them and their families as they face a dismal weekend.

Greens welcome new report showing net contribution of EU nationals in UK

At an event yesterday in the European Parliament to launch a new report, [1] Jean Lambert said of the study:

This study shows, yet again, that the Government’s portrayal of EU nationals in the UK as being takers rather than givers is just not backed by evidence.

Covering the period from 2007 – 2013, the findings from four countries: the UK, Austria, Germany and The Netherlands shows that EU migrants made a positive contribution to their respective state budgets. The total taxes paid in exceeded the total benefits received by EU migrants by between 0.2 and 0.9 % of GDP, on conservative estimates.

Directly responding to some member states, the UK included, who want to restrict the right to free movement of people in the EU, the new report from the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) [2] further showed that:

·      EU migrants received, on average, 50% less in terms of social benefit expenditure than the average citizen of the countries studied

·      Even when pension-related benefits and contributions are not taken into account, the net positive contribution remains for the UK

Hosting the launch event in the European Parliament, Green London MEP Jean Lambert concluded:

While these findings are welcome the conclusion isn’t new, and you certainly wouldn’t know it based on the reporting of the mainstream UK press.

If the Prime Minister really wants to reduce benefit payments, he should concentrate on ensuring people are paid decent wages so they don’t need state top-ups. Pay is a national responsibility.

[1] http://www.ecas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fiscal-Impact-of-EU-migrants.pdf

[2] http://www.ecas.org/

At an event yesterday in the European Parliament to launch a new report, [1] Jean Lambert said of the study:
‘This study shows, yet again, that the Government’s portrayal of EU nationals in the UK as being takers rather than givers is just not backed by evidence.’
Covering the period from 2007 – 2013, the findings from four countries: the UK, Austria, Germany and The Netherlands shows that EU migrants made a positive contribution to their respective state budgets. The total taxes paid in exceeded the total benefits received by EU migrants by between 0.2 and 0.9 % of GDP, on conservative estimates.
Directly responding to some member states, the UK included, who want to restrict the right to free movement of people in the EU, the new report from the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) [2] further showed that:

• EU migrants received, on average, 50% less in terms of social benefit expenditure than the average citizen of the countries studied

• Even when pension-related benefits and contributions are not taken into account, the net positive contribution remains for the UK

Hosting the launch event in the European Parliament, Green London MEP Jean Lambert concluded:
‘While these findings are welcome the conclusion isn’t new, and you certainly wouldn’t know it based on the reporting of the mainstream UK press.
‘If the Prime Minister really wants to reduce benefit payments, he should concentrate on ensuring people are paid decent wages so they don’t need state top-ups. Pay is a national responsibility.’
-ends-
Notes To Editors
[1] http://www.ecas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fiscal-Impact-of-EU-migrants.pdf
[2] http://www.ecas.org/
- See more at: http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/2014/11/13/eu-migrants-pay-take-another-study-finds/#sthash.OeInKzTv.dpuf