Resistance Against Tarmac launches 38 Degrees petition

Residents campaigning against Brent Council's polict of replacing  paved footways with tarmac  have launched a petition opposing the policy on the 38 Degrees website HERE.

They state:

In this (Chandos Road) instance it wastes £129,000 of Brent residents money - on our street it would have cost about £3,000 to repair the paving stones after many decades of use. This type of project is taking place across the UK under the guise of making economies under austerity and health and safety implications both of which can easily be refuted. There has been no consultation and Brent and other councils need to be challenged. 

Tarmac is a pollutant to our environment and aesthetically pollutes our urban landscapes where most people live. It is sad that the contractors are taking up paving stones that are fit for purpose and allowing them to be crunched up for aggregate which flies in the face of reuse and sustainable practices. Trees have been damaged and others removed with little justification.

Tarmac adds nothing positive to the public realm package and will require more upkeep than our existing pavement. 

The money could be spent where it really is needed.

 Supporting the petition local resident Mike Baker comments:

The initial and ongoing environmental and financial costs of replacing perfectly good pavement by tarmac are shocking. While making savage cuts elsewhere, Brent Council is forcing through this wasteful and destructive policy againt the vocal opposition of the majority of residents affected. It must be stopped.

Stop Funding Hate

Granville & Carlton Centre users assured that they will be included in plans for the future of site

I was unable to make tonight's Cabinet meeting where the Granville and Carlton Centre plans  were on the agenda.  However an observer tells me that Cllrs Conneely, Duffy, Jones and Warren spoke for the occupants of the buildings. Lesley Benson, head of Granville Nursery Plus amd Momata from Granville Kitchen also spoke.

Several contributors said that it has been the worse decision making process that they had every seen.

Apparently the Cabinet was contrite and Cllr Butt and Cllr Mashari said that they wanted to reassure the Granville and Carlton users that they would be included as contributers in the future, rather than just consulted.

The Cabinet approved the report. LINK

STOP PRESS: Harrow School Sports Hall Planning Application deferred tonight

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 16TH I UNDERSTAND VIA TWITTER THAT THIS ITEM WAS DEFERRED THIS EVENING


From Harrow Hill Trust

11 Nov 2016 — The planning meeting is set for 6.30pm Wednesday 16th and the planning officer is recommending approval. Please contact the Councillors below, especially those of you who live in a Ward represented by them and especially the Labour Councillors as they hold the vote via the Chairman. Please remember they only hold their position of representing you by a few hundred votes. We just want the Sports Hall built approximately 60 metres to the North using a brownfield option which has never been shown or debated with residents. It is a clear fudge of planning policy and the Metropolitan Open Land ‘openness being maintained’ is pure spin. Please ask them to listen to 1,450 voices and come along to the Harrow Civic Centre to show your concern. Many thanks.

Click on image to enlarge

Background:

Quality open Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) will be lost if the Harrow School replacement Sports Hall is relocated, and enlarged to include a conference suite, as proposed.  Residents and visitors access to appreciate the current wonderful views is restricted to footpaths and London's Capital Ring walking route and they will be blocked or blighted by the proposed positioning. This includes the views of our only Grade II Listed Park which was set out by Capability Brown in 1768.
The solution is to redevelop the existing brown field site, use more subterranean construction and a green roof/ walls. Also to use a temporary sports 'Bubble' and the nearby John Lyon swimming pool, during construction.
The conditions for developing on MOL have not been met and the public have not been consulted on the MOL aspects. If we can’t protect a site which is MOL, in a Conservation Area, an Area of Special Character and alongside a Grade II listed Park then what can we protect?

THE RIGHTS OF EU NATIONALS IN THE UK - FACT SHEET HERE

With EU nationals' rights considered a legitimate bargaining chip by the Government in the Brexit negotiations, JeanLamber MEP  and other Greens are showing we are firmly on the side of EU nationals and will stand up for their rights and for freedom of movement.

Written with a barrister, the factsheet contains important information about existing rights (see below)

Please note that this factsheet is designed to provide information only. The law may have changed since this was produced in November 2016 and you should always seek up-to-date legal advice. The author and publisher cannot accept responsibility for any reliance placed on the information contained in this factsheet.

Click on bottom right corner for full view

Developer withdraws presentation of 27 storey Dollis Hill tower block development for later scheduling

The Kilburn Times reveals today that Brent Council has told them that the developer has withdrawn the pre-planning presentation for the 27 storey tower block in Dollis Hill from Wednesday's Planning Committee agenda. LINK

It will be rescheduled for a later date.

This follows a posting about the plans on Wembley Matters on Wednesday LINK  and subsequent comments on The View from Dollis Hill Facebook LINK

The block along witha banqueting hall and swimming pool would replace the historic Admiralty Chart House.

Residents call for wider and extended consultation on controversial Ealing Road Library plans

Ealing Road Library (centre) set back from Ealing Road

Residents around Ealing Road Library, Wembley, are calling for the consultation plans on the development of the Ealing Road Library site in Ealing Road to be extended on the grounds that few residents knew about the plans and the very limited circulation of letters asking for views on the plans.  In addition the notice of the planning  application posted near the library was obscured.

 The plans envisage bringing forward the boundary of the library to the pavement edge by building a community enterprise hub on one side and a 'tea house' cafe on the other  with a courtyard between the two that could be used for community events, a market or an outdoor cinema.

According to the application the aim is to bring more outside visitors into an area that residents advise is already congested.

As with many such developments residents feel that the application has been hidden from them and now that they have found out about it there is too little time to respond. They question whether the Council has fulfilled its statutory responsibilities in terms of consultation.

One of the application documents found on-line states:

The investment will deliver a new cafe, a new public space and a community and enterprise hub which will be used for gathering, extended library activities, performance, market days and other events that will attract local and London wide visitors.  The project is the first element in the wider series of Gem Chain projects which aim to attract visitors London-wide to Ealing Road and reinstate the place’s status as a premier high street place.

 Local residents concerns  are as follows:

The poorly promoted consultation with poorly sited planning notice dated 27th October which states deadline for comments on the application is 17th November - just three weeks?  Also the planning notice states docs would only available to view on line from 2nd November – so not even the full three weeks to study the docs and comment if you are able to access them on line, a lot of older residents are not?  Why such a short amount of time for local people to comment? When pushed the library finally had hard copies to view on from 11th November, over two weeks already into the consultation period.

Developing the library space and re-promoting Ealing Road as a major shopping destination could have a further serious impact on the environment for local residents who are concerned about the potential of even more traffic in grid locked Ealing Road, more pollution, more noise pollution and more rubbish on local streets.  Ealing Road is already gridlocked most weekends.  If shoppers are coming to buy in bulk or buy gold or buy expensive clothes they will want to come by car – they will not want to come by bus or tube!  Yet Montrose Crescent car park is being closed to build flats, so if they also close the small library car park and also loose around 10 spaces from the slip road outside the library due to the forecourt being extended what other parking provision is going to be offered – will they take away resident only parking bays and allow shoppers to use them?

These plans have clearly been drawn up and put together over a considerable period of time and considerable expense with no apparent consideration for these issues and their impact on local council tax-paying residents who believe the consultation needs to be re-promoted and the deadline for comments extended:

(a)       there are lot of local people who would not have seen the planning notice due to the poor location of the planning notice;
(b)      there are lot of local people who would not have heard anything about this development due to lack of information locally;
(c)       there are lot of local people who do not have Internet access to view the plans on line - if they do go to the library to view them on-line it is very time consuming to try and look through the 42 individual documents on your website, these should be printed out and put on display in Ealing Road Library;
(d)      there are lot of local people who are not able to get up to the Civic Centre to view the plans at all (lack of mobility, traffic problems, parking restrictions, etc);
(e)       there are lot of local people who are not able to get to the Civic Centre to view the plans between 9-5pm during weekdays (people who work, have childcare or family commitments etc);
(f)       some local residents don’t even know how to use a computer yet there is no address on the planning notice for people to write to should they wish to comment on the application.

The Planning Application(Ref 16/4527) can be found HERE

This is one of the main documents supporting the application:

Click bottom right for full view

Action on school funding and staffing crisis needs your support

Slide from presentation at Brent governors' meeting with Brent senior officers

 Brent schools, which out-perform other schools nationally, are going to have to fight to maintain their position in the future as a result of cuts to their budgets and a crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers and senior staff including headteachers.

Although changes to the national funding formula have been delayed, the eventual changes will be to the detriment of urban areas, unless the whole national education budget is increased. This seems unlikely as there is zero growth at the moment which means a cut in real terms as funding does not make up for rises in national insurance payments, pension contributions, price inflation and an increase in pupil numbers.  Increasingly schools have to 'buy in' services that were previously supplied by the council.

The crisis in recruitment and retention is due to  number of factors of which the main ones are the constant changes in curriculum and assessment introduced by the government and the high cost of housing in London LINK. The latter means that when young teachers start a family they have to move out of London to find an affordable place to live.

One way Brent Council could tackle this is by planning more affordable social housing for key workers such as teachers and national health workers.

School governing bodies are finding it very difficult to recruit headteachers in the present climate as the job becomes harder as a result of high stakes expectations from Ofsted and the government. Primary schools have expanded in size as a result of the government not allowing local authorities to build new schools where they are needed.  Managing a large school is more akin to being a chief executive of a large organisation and many prospective heads see this as moving away from the 'leading educator' role that was their impetus to join the profession.

Most Brent primary schools have remained with the local authority rather than be tempted by the false delights of academisation but that means Brent Council has a job to do in championing its own schools as well as trying to positively change the context in which they work.  This was the subject of a recent motion at Brent Central Labour Party.

On Tuesday the London NUT will be holding a march and lobby on these issues and more and would welcome parents, carers and others concerned to join them.Assemble for March: 17:00, Whitehall, (Opposite Downing Street) Rally: 18:30, Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, SW1P 3DW

If you are interested in how your school will be impacted by cuts, which usually hit teaching assistants first, type the name of the school into the map below. Teacher assistants play a vital part in the progress of London primary school children and these days are often trained to teach small groups of children in intervention projects, enabling them to catch up with their peers. They are under-paid and sometimes under-valued. Nevertheless, they are a vital ingredient of Brent's success story.