Barry Gardiner wins parents' meeting with minister over Byron Court school expansion

Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, yesterday agreed to try and arrange a meeting with parents from Byron Court Primary School either with her or the Minister for Schools to discuss their concerns over expansion of the school.

She was responding to the following question in the House of Commons from Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North:

The Secretary of State said that her policy is that all “good and outstanding schools” should be able to expand to meet “the needs of parents” in their local areas. Byron Court primary school in my constituency is being forced to expand against the needs and wishes of parents in the local area. I shall not go into the details now, but will the Secretary of State meet me, parents and local residents who are desperately concerned about the state of this school’s expansion programme?

Brent Council has backed the expansion despite the parents' objections and a letter to the Cabinet from Barry Gardiner representing the parents' and residents' concerns. LINK

It became an issue during the General Election campaign. LINK

Brent youth service cut savagely with barely a whimper

The out-sourcing of the remnants of Brent's  youth services which will be left after savage cuts was approved by the Brent Cabinet tonight with barely a murmur of opposition.  It was in stark contrast to the fightback by youth in the last major round of cuts in 2011 LINK

Cllr Wilhemina Mitchell Murray from the public gallery asked why a solution had not been found similar to that for the Children's Centres which would have preserved the jobs of Brent's skilled youth workers. Cllr Butt made a rambling and incoherent response.

Cllr Roxanne Mashari hoped that the youth workers might make proposals during the procurement process.

Cllr Pavey feared for the future of the Poplar Grove Youth Centre in Chalkhill (it is in his ward) and said that he had been impressed by the high regard in which it was held by local youth.  He also praised the Brent Youth Parliament which has been spared the axe while at least two centres and possibly three are to be closed. BYP officers were present but did not contribute to the discussion, although they had attended a Scrutiny Committee discussion.

Following on from the closure and demolition of the Stonebridge Adventure Playground, whatever the gloss the Council PR team try and put on it, the decision marks a new low point for the youth of the borough.

They deserve better.

Save the Wildlife Garden at the Natural History Museum

Prospect ('The Union for Professionals'*) has launched a petition to save th wildlife garden at the Natural History Museum in London.

The petition can be found HERE

This was the briefing Prpespect published in August 

As the Natural History Museum’s unique urban wildlife garden celebrates its 20th anniversary it faces seeing more than half of its dozen or so individual habitats lost or uprooted under plans for a multi-million pound revamp of the institution’s grounds.

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Prospect, which represents specialists at the museum, welcomes plans to transform the “sterile” lawn frontage to recreate historic British habitats, including a Jurassic area, which will see the return of the much-loved “Dippy” dinosaur cast.
However, the architect-led plans for the compact one-acre wildlife garden on the west side of the building propose what amounts to a metres-wide driveway arcing right through the middle, where visitors currently enjoy its iconic central pond, associated wetlands and other threatened habitats including heathland and meadow.

Established by scientists

Responding to the plans, Prospect negotiator Mike Weiler said: “The wildlife garden was established by a team of scientists and ecologists 20 years ago, to illustrate the diversity of lowland habitat in the UK, many of which people – especially city dwellers – will never have seen. Many of the life scientists are still very much involved with the garden, which is managed by ecologists and a group of 30 dedicated volunteers.

“The plans that we have seen seem to be all about efficiently channelling large numbers of people through the garden towards the Darwin Centre and the other museum buildings, rather than enhancing the wildlife or encouraging any interaction. They could be easily modified to utilise the existing bricked pathways that run around the perimeter, to minimise disruption.
“In their existing form the plans will see the large pond filled in and replaced with a circular pool.

One small pond will be destroyed while another will remain. The museum’s answer to many of our current concerns seems to be ‘translocation’, to use the technical term – in other words digging up habitats and moving them. The academic literature gives a mixed review at best on the success of this process.

Educational role

“The Wildlife Garden has evolved over two decades. It can’t be replaced overnight. It has taken many years to build up the 2,600 species of plant and animal life that can now be found there and careful management and dedication is required to maintain each distinct habitat.”

The garden was established in part with a £50,000 grant from English Nature (now part of Natural England), the largest ever made by the agency at the time. It is the only area of the grounds that currently nurtures natural history and plays a vital role in both education and research. It attracts thousands of school children annually, many of whom attend museum-led workshops, as well as charting local climate change impacts by recording the annual variations in flowering times of plants.

Despite all this the museum complains of low visitor numbers, though a gate linking the lawn and garden is now permanently locked and the only way to access it is by passing through the busiest parts of the museum building. Even then, there is a complete absence of signage inside the museum.
Journalist Kate Bradbury recently toured the garden and was enchanted. In an article for the Telegraph to mark the garden’s 20th anniversary, she described it as a “Narnia...bursting with adventure.”

Mike Weiler added: “The simple fact is that if the garden was better advertised it would be a magnet for visitors seeking a calm oasis of nature just a stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of Cromwell Road.”

Embracing positive change

Despite its concerns about the museum’s ill-considered plans, the Prospect branch at the NHM is keen to embrace change for the better and is floating the idea of a raised walkway to attract greater visitor numbers without disrupting the garden.

“Those who run the gardens have always been keen to embrace new ideas and technology to improve the visitor experience. The use of webcams to reveal the secret life of bees, birds and bats has been a recent example of this and there is considerable scope to make use of advances in camera technology,” said Weiler.

A recent “town hall”-style staff meeting at the museum showed high levels of opposition to the current plans and Prospect is now seeking urgent, meaningful talks ahead of any attempt to seek planning permission.

* Declaration of interest. I am a member of Prospect in my role at Brent School Without Walls which provides nature walks for primary children in Fryent Country Park.

Brent Central Labour reject Trident in boost for Corbynistas

After an address by Kate Hudson of CND and a debate, Brent Central Constituency Labour Party overwhelmingly voted against the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system.

This brings them into alliance with Jeremy Corbyn (and the Green Party).  The recent Labour Party Conference decided not to discuss the issue.

'The Invisible Woman' tonight at Preston Library. Children's show tomorrow

Tonight's film at Preston Library, is The Invisible Woman, about the secret love affair between Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan. Doors open at 7.15, and the film will start promptly at 7.30. Our films are free to members of the library, and you can join at the door. We will be collecting donations towards the work of the library.

 "This is an engrossing drama, with excellent performances." Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian

Charlie Pottins' funeral and celebration details

From Friends of Charlie Pottins
 

The funeral of our comrade and friend, Charlie Pottins will take place at 1pm on WEDNESDAY 21st OCTOBER, at Northwood Cemetery, Chestnut Avenue, Northwood, HA6 1DE.

Nearest tube: Northwood Hills (Metropolitan Line)

Buses: 282, H11

Post-funeral venue - The dining room in the Pinner Arms, Whittington Way, Pinner, Middlesex HA5 5JS. We have asked theme to cater for 50. It is a short bus ride (10mins or less) from the cemetery on the H11 bus (buses come every 15 minutes. Or alternatively it is one stop by tube from the station near the cemetery and then a 10 minute walk

Brent comes together to challenge the Trade Union Bill

Brent Central Labour Party and Brent Trades Council will be holding an event against the Conservative Government's  Trade Union Bill on Thursday 29th October, 7.30pm at the Learie Constantine Centre Dudden Hill Lane (Nr Dollis Hill) tube. Speakers to include Dawn Butler and Ian Hodson (President of the Bakers Union).

This is what Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said on the issue on Huffington Post back in July:

The government last week set out its proposals to further reduce the rights of our trade unions, already labouring under the most restrictive laws in Europe, to cut away at rights that the Tolpuddle martyrs, who were being commemorated over the weekend, fought so hard for in the 19th Century.
These plans are dreadful, and must be fought tooth and nail, which the Green Party will be doing. And so will many others, I believe, with a swell of support already evident around the country. The strong support for TUC leader Frances O'Grady from the BBC Any Questions audience on Friday (17 July) night was encouraging.

But in raising this debate, the government is also opening up an opportunity - a chance for a debate about what unions are for, how important they are to economic stability and to an effective, productive economy and safe workplaces - a chance in short to argue for the reverse proposal, to call for the strengthening of the power and influence of unions, for the benefit of our economy, society and environment.

This debate is also a chance to tackle lazy stereotypes about unions so often promulgated by the right-wing media about "extremism", and "greed". The sort of stereotypes that the government wants to perpetuate, yet don't reflect the experiences of communities around Britain.

And it is a chance to highlight - as the Blacklist Support Group campaign has been doing - how even legal union activities and essential whistleblowing has not been protected by the state but instead been illegally repressed and spied upon by the authorities, a misuse of power reflected in the behaviour of undercover police operating against the environmental movement.

The debate comes at a time when we are seeing a resurgence in union activity, a growth in new areas - and when - perhaps most usefully of all in campaigning terms - Chancellor George Osborne has left some real chinks in his armour in his portrayal of the state of our low wage economy.

For even the Chancellor has identified low wages as a problem, and is calling for businesses to pay their workers more - £9 an hour by 2020. (The Green Party in the recent election was calling for £10 by 2020, and that had a lot of Tories I was debating with spluttering.) Osborne's acknowledged that the minimum wage should be a living wage, that workers should be paid enough money to live on, even if what he's proposing isn't really a living wage.

He's saying this at a time when organisations as apparently unlikely as the IMF and the World Bank are acknowledging that economic inequality, the rising wealth of the 1% while the rest of us get poorer, is a threat to future economic stability.

Yet it's those industries where unions have maintained their strength, and held together against the odds, that wages have best been maintained. Conversely, it's in industries where unions have been weak and membership low - the retailing sector leaps to mind - where wages have remained at or very barely above the minimum wage. If Osborne wants to see wages rise and be maintained, he needs strong unions.

And the Chancellor is calling for a big rise in the productivity of our economy, up towards German levels - in the very economy where unions have far more legal powers and rights, where their partnership with management is seen as essential in the levels of productivity that have proved so elusive in Britain.

Further, the government proposals come at a time when the need for health and safety in the workplace - the maintenance of which is an important role that unions can play when corner-cutting management fails to live up to its responsibilities - is being dreadfully demonstrated.

There have been far too many horrific workplace incidents recently: in the last few days two factory explosions left six dead, the horrific death of a Crossrail construction worker under tonnes of concrete, the tragic death of an inexperienced young worker on the Crick Institute beside St Pancras station.

That calls into question the government's slashing of health and safety provision, but strong unions could help to stand up for worker protection. No worker should die as a result of safety lapses anywhere, but particularly here in Britain, an advanced, wealthy economy that has the capacity to ensure safety. As the Hazards at Work campaign says, "Better red tape than red bandages".

It's clear that a healthy society, an economically stable and balanced society, needs strong unions. This government has given us a chance to put that case, and it is time to do it loudly and clearly.

Yellow box junction to be installed at Wembley Asda crossing

Asda junction at quiet time - in morning peak the junction is blocked with traffic (Google View)

In a twitter response to posts on Friday LINK and Tuesday LINK Brent Council has promised action on the Asda crossing (above).

Initially this will be installation of a yellow box junction and further proposals are being developed. These proposals should also cover the junction of Bridge Road/Forty Lane/ Forty Avenue where multiple pedestrian crossing places used by school children present a hazard.

Forty Lane, Bridge Road, Forty Avenue, Barn Hill junction

 Videos of the Asda junction danger are available HERE and HERE.