The case presented by Friends of Barham Library to lease Barham Park Lounge for community library

October 6th: Lyon Park Infant and Junior Amalgamation Consultation

From Brent Council

Brent Council in partnership with the governing body of the Lyon Park Infant School and Lyon Park Junior School is consulting about proposals to amalgamate the schools to form one primary school.

If the proposals are agreed the two schools, which are on the same site, would amalgamate to become Lyon Park Primary School from April 2016 - an all-through primary school for 80 nursery pupils and 840 children.

Lyon Park Infant School in Vincent Road, Wembley, is at present a community school providing 360 school places for children aged from four to seven; there is also a nursery with 80 part-time places.
Lyon Park Junior School, also a community school, currently has 480 school places to boys and girls between the ages of seven and 11.

Two consultation meetings are taking place for parents, staff and residents to attend and discuss the amalgamation proposals. They will take place on 6 October at 3.30pm, and 7pm in the junior school hall.

For more information, call 020 8937 1061 or email judith.joseph@brent.gov.uk. The consultation closes on 9 November.

Details

Fly-Tipping in Brent - Has the Task Force addressed the important issues?

Scrutiny Committee will be deciding the scope of the Fly-Tipping Task Force at its meeting on October 8th.  I get more complaints about fly-tipping than any other issue in Brent as do most councillors.

Does the Scoping Report cover the most important aspects of the problem?

Brent 'mini-Cabinet' to decide on Friends of Barham Library building bid

Paul Lorber with Volunteer Library supporters and users

The saga over the letting of part of the Barham Park Building Complex is due to reach a conclusion on October 8th when the Barham Park Trust Committee will decide which of the two short-listed applicants will be chosen to occupy Unit 4, the Lounge.

The Committee is not quite as neutral as it sounds as it is peopled entirely by Brent Cabinet members Pavey, Denselow, Hirani, McLennan and Southwood. In essence it is a 'mini-Cabinet'.

The applicants who would pay £7,000 per annum for up to 15 years are Pivot Point Community Development Fund and the Friends of Barham Park Library.

The Trust's Property Adviser has recommended Pivot because of its strong record of community engagement but this needs to be set against the Friends of Barham Library who have been successful in running two community libraries in Sudbury and Wembley High Road and gaining support from the local community.

The full report is HERE.

Former Brent Liberal Democrat leader Paul Lorber has been an active member of the campaign against library closures since the closure decision was made by the Ann John administration and is a major force behind the Friends of Barham Library.

In the circumstances the Trust's decision will be under intense scrutiny for transparency and objectivity.

It appears Brent Council recognises the issues involved as this note on the Forward Plan indicates:

Decision maker:  Barham Park Trust Committee

Decision due:   8 Oct 2015

Lead officer:  Richard Barrett

Notice of proposed decision first published: 30/09/2015

Reason for urgency:

It is impracticable to defer the decision until the usual Forward Plan period, i.e. 28 days, has expired because it was only recently decided that, in the interests of openness and accountability, the delegated authority given to the Property Advisor to the Trust Committee and the Chair of the Trust Committee to select a successful bidder should not be exercised and instead the decision should be made by the Committee itself. As it is in the best interests of the Trust and the prospective bidders that this decision is made as soon as possible, providing the full Forward Plan notice is impracticable.

Have your say on Brent NHS services: October 7th

From Brent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)  LINK
 

You are cordially invited to attend our next Health Partners Forum, The Big Brent Health Debate that will take place on:

Wednesday, 7^th October 2015 @ Sattavis Patidar Centre, Forty Avenue, Wembley Park, Middlesex, HA9 9PE

Buffet will be served from 5.15pm with the evening’s discussion starting at 6.00 – 8.30pm.

Brent CCG’s vision is to improve the quality of care for individuals, carers and families by empowering and supporting people to maintain independence and active lives.

·      How do you want NHS services to be delivered in Brent?

·      What services matter most to you?

·      Is there anything you would change if you could?

Come and find out more about our draft commissioning intentions for 2016/17 and our key priorities for next year at the Health Partners Forum.

It is your opportunity to have your say on helping to shape the healthcare priorities for the year ahead.

Your opinions will help GPs decide what services work well, what doesn’t work so well and where we need to make improvements to healthcare services in Brent.

To RSVP and for more information please email: brentccg.engagement@nhs.net  or call 020 8900 5376.

You can also register for the event by visiting: https://hpf-oct2015-brentccg.eventbrite.co.uk

Please provide own translator if required. There will be live captioning for the hearing impaired.

We therefore look forward to seeing you on the 7^th October 2015.   Please share this communication with your family members, friends, neighbours and community.

Let’s work in partnership to make our 2015 Health Partners Forums rewarding events for us all.

The beginning of the end of partisan politics?' message for Labour from Brighton Greens

The article below was jointly written by Caroline Lucas MP, Cllr Phelim  MacCafferty (convenor of the Brighton Green Groupof councillors) and Tom Druit (Chair of Brighton and Hove Green Party) on the eve of the Labour Party Conference. Their focus is ways in which  Greens and Labour could work together on a local basis in terms of common commitments.

The article was first published  in the Brighton and Hove Independent LINK
 

Jeremy Corbyn’s election as the leader of the Labour Party is good news for progressive politics. For the first time in living memory, the Labour Party is led by someone willing to challenge the political and economic consensus. It’s particularly encouraging to see a Labour leader in place who rejects the so-called “logic” that says everything around us should be bought and sold on the free market.

For us, as local representatives, Corbyn’s election presents us with a possibility to work across party lines for the very best for people in Brighton and Hove. In parliament, there is the chance for Labour MPs to be part of a serious opposition to the government’s pernicious attacks on the welfare state, their short-sighted slashing of renewable energy subsidies, and their economically-illiterate austerity programme.

Locally, there is an opportunity for Labour and the Greens to work together. The flourishing of the People’s Republic of Brighton and Hove shows that the majority of people in this city reject the Tories and yearn for a new start where all progressives work together. By doing so, we can reject austerity, rising inequality, and the relentless attack on the poor – and we can work together towards a fairer, more sustainable society.

As Greens, we won’t hesitate to express our support for Corbyn’s policies when we agree with them. In the face of attack from the mainstream media – and with few friends in the political establishment – he will need all the support he can get when articulating the bold policies upon which we agree.

Our challenge to Labour in Brighton and Hove is to dare to live up to what Corbyn’s win means. When Labour are bold and when they stand up for the voiceless, we will support them. We could start by standing together to safeguard council tax relief for the poorest.

We will stand side by side with Labour in voting to rid our country of nuclear weapons, calling for a fair deal for public-sector workers, and trying to protect people from the spiralling cost of rent. In Brighton, politicians from across the political spectrum should support long-suffering train passengers by calling for the railways to be brought back into public hands.

Politics is starting to change from the ground up. To ensure that change is meaningful and long-lasting, we need to transform radically our democratic structures – redistributing wealth must go hand in hand with redistributing power. In the Green Party, we are committed to leadership as the honest sharing of power, to organising locally, and to working co-operatively. To this end, it is encouraging to see that Corbyn has appointed Jon Trickett to lead for Labour on constitutional reform – and that the trade unions voted last week to support the growing campaign for reform of our anti-democratic electoral system.

Greens won’t always agree with Corbyn’s Labour – and when we don’t we will say so. More important, however, is our role in moving beyond Labour’s policies and calling for the radical overhaul of the political and economic system that lies at the heart of the social and environmental injustices we face. That means working with local communities that are already demonstrating it’s possible and positive to do things very differently, from neighbourhood planning and housing cooperatives to community-owned renewable energy and social enterprises. It means reaffirming our vision of an economy that provides enough for everyone – but doesn’t require people to work all of the hours of the day to stand even a chance of feeding their families.

Greens will continue to act on the belief at the heart of our politics: it’s only by tackling climate change and environmental degradation that we will secure our future prosperity, and security for our children and grandchildren. Recent events, of increasingly-extreme weather events across the globe, flooding in the UK – and the global refugee crisis – show the urgent need for Green policies.

The tide of progressive politics and ideas is surging, and it’s refreshing to see policies that many of the ideas Greens have promoted for decades now being articulated by a leader of the Labour Party. The Green Party will continue to show people that we offer a radical alternative to business-as-usual – but that we’re open to working with others to further our shared goals, and we believe politics is better when we do.

This could be the beginning of the end of partisan politics and the flourishing of a people’s movement that goes beyond political parties. We must not let this opportunity pass us by.

Greens Back Junior Doctors' Industrial Action

Green Party health spokesperson and GP Dr Jillian Creasy has given her party's backing for junior doctors currently fighting health secretary Jeremy Hunt's plans to change their contracts.

Creasy accused the government of 'locking in' the crisis in the NHS with the changes, which could see junior doctors' pay cut by up to 30 per cent, as 'sociable' working hours are extended. Her comments came after talks between Hunt and a junior doctors' leader broke down last night.

Creasy said:

This short-sighted government is constantly expecting the NHS to do more with less. Our NHS is in crisis, and by failing to invest in junior doctors, the government is locking this crisis in for years to come, as more junior doctors move abroad or simply quit.

The Green Party stands with junior doctors, and supports their plans for industrial action over the planned changes to their contracts. These changes would be detrimental to the health of both junior doctors, who already work very long hours, and patients, whose safety will put at risk.

Jeremy Hunt must urgently change his position on this, and listen to the professionals who understand the implications of his politically-motivated plans.

How should Greens ride the Corbyn 'elephant in the room'?

From the Elephant and the Bad Baby

Bright Greens LINK reviewing the Green Party Conference refers to the election of Corbyn as being the (rather over-worked) elephant in the room. I certainly had lots of informal conversations about the leftward move of Labour during the four days and its repercussions for the Green Party. It is clear that some of those who moved to us from Labour as part of the Green surge are now moving back as Corbyn pushes for some policies (railway nationalisation, bringing academies and free schools under local authority oversight etc) long advocated by our party.

Caroline Lucas in her Conference speech talked about the need for alliances:

The future we want for our children is not going to be created through the politics of the past. When everything has changed so much, and the threats we face as a society and a planet are so deep and complex, we need a new kind of political life.

From Obama’s first election, to the Arab Spring, from Spain to Greece, from Scotland to the Green surge, and now Corbynism – politics is increasingly defined by waves of energy that swell up – seemingly from nowhere – and coalesce around people, parties and decisions.

These waves are not, sadly, the monopoly of those who believe in a better world. The future can also be more brutish and authoritarian, if we let it. 

But by being open to doing politics differently, we can ensure the future is about change made by and for people, in places and ways that make sense for them.

Of course, we need an effective state to intervene on many issues such as the regulation of global financial markets. But more than anything, the politics of the future must be about the creation of platforms, spaces and spheres in which people can collectively change the world – from workplace democracy and self-management, to civic engagement and generating our own community renewable energy. 

But these efforts will be fatally undermined if the neoliberal deregulating zeal of the Tories remains the dominant force in British politics.

Slashing public services; stamping out trade union rights; and environmental vandalism on an epic scale – ripping up energy efficiency measures, privatising the Green Investment Bank, and taking a wrecking ball to what was once our thriving solar industry.

Conference, we say enough. We are working for something better.

And Conference, being in a position to actually deliver that vision of something better is what, I believe, makes it so imperative that we see a realignment of progressive votes to maximise electoral impact.

Finding and cooperating with others with whom we share a belief in a much more equal, democratic and sustainable world.

Of course we will have differences. But we also know that no one individual, no one party, has a monopoly on wisdom. Cancelling out each other's votes is bad enough, but fighting in essentially the same terrain for the same issues and fundamentally the same belief set is madness, when it simply lets the Tories in. 

We share a commitment to a much more equal, democratic and sustainable world.  It is beholden on us to find a way to make the desirable feasible. In a world as complex and rich as ours, we need an equally complex and rich political response. To create a different mood, culture and sentiment to our national politics – one where we see that our differences can become a source, not of division, but of strength.

Conference, the truth is, we need a progressive Labour Party – if that's what Jeremy Corbyn transforms it to be – to do well. Because, like you and me, it’s part of the movement for change.

Progressives are spread about the political battlefield – often more intent on fighting each other – and not the real enemy. But things are changing fast. Old tribal loyalties, that are blind to the good in others, are dying away. We can – we must – respond to that change.

Members of Green Left put forward an Emergency Motion that provided a practical framework for progressing some of the ideas. Unfortunately Conference ran out of time before it could be debated:

Preamble

The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party has struck a blow at the prevailing neo-liberal orthodoxy. Whilst welcoming this we call for a fundamental change in the political system through a Constitutional Convention and instruct GPEX to take a lead in encouraging other progressive parties to achieve this.

Motion:

Conference:

1.     Congratulates Jeremy Corbyn on his election as leader of the Labour Party.

2.     Welcomes the support this represents for many of the progressive policies of the Green Party.

3.     Looks for a more constructive relationship with the Labour Party in future.

4.     Calls on GPEX to approach other progressive parties to agree on a Constitutional Convention, which will examine and agree proposals for change at local, regional and national levels of government involving all sectors of society.

During the Conference weekend Red Pepper took an initiative to try and set up a network wider than the Labour Party to support the changers underway. Unfortunately it used Corbyn's name rather than something describing the wider movement but it was something I felt able to support while remaining, as an eco-socialist, a member of the Green Party. 

This is their statement now signed by many actvists:

As campaigners, grassroots activists, trade unionists and members of social movements, we believe the overwhelming election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader presents a great opportunity. Jeremy has campaigned tirelessly over decades for social justice, and we share his vision for rebuilding democracy, respect and community. This election means we can start building a better country and a better world.

Some of us are members of the Labour Party and others not. Jeremy’s victory was made possible by people inside and outside the Labour Party who share a common hope in the future. There is an alternative. Things can get better.

But there is a steep road ahead, during which the government and its allies will attempt to spread fear and division. Parts of the media will attack him because they do not like his agenda of hope and participation. Many MPs will try to limit and constrain the process of giving power back to the people. This will be resisted.

As Jeremy himself has said, rebuilding this country cannot depend on one person. It demands that all of us take our share of responsibility. We commit ourselves to supporting this attempt to rebuild democracy in Britain.

We call on like-minded people to join us, creating a democratic and diverse network through action across the country - we will support each other’s campaigns at a local level as well as support the development of progressive changes at a parliamentary and legislative level.

Jeremy Corbyn provides space to once more allow people to make their voices heard. We must take it.

The full statement and signatories can be seen here:LINK

Signatories include Amrit Wilson, Selma James, Zita Holbourne, Sujata Aurora, Shakira Martin,  George Moonbiot, Nick Dearden, Lee Jasper, Jeremy Hardy and Michael Rosen 

Clearly we are only at the beginning of what could be a major shake-up of the left but Greens need a strategy to guide them as the future unfolds.

An exhilerating ride ahead?