Zadie Smith speaks our for South Kilburn's Granville and Carlton Centres

Author Zadie Smith, whose novels White Teeth and NW show how well she knows the needs of the local community, spoke in support of the threatened South Kilburn's Granville and Carlton Centres last night.

Smith read extracts from an essay she has written about the defence of local services to an audience of more than 100 people.

Brent Scrutiny Committee has called in the plans for examination at their meeting on Wednesday November 30th, 7pm at Brent Civic Centre. LINK

SUFRA offer free tickets to see 'I, Daniel Blake', at the Tricycle Cinema on December 10th

From Mohammed S Mamdani of Sufra NW London

If you haven’t had a chance to go to the cinema and watch the most coveted film of the year (give me credit, I’m trying to convince you), Sufra NW London invites you to an exclusive, private screening of “I, Daniel Blake” in the presence of the Mayor of Brent on Saturday 10th December at 10:30am at the Tricycle Theatre. Book your tickets here.

You regulularly hear my rantings about the welfare system and the reality of poverty in the UK. “I, David Blake” is a heart-wrenching drama about an elderly gentleman who suffers a heart attack and resorts to applying for government benefits.

The film follows his journey, attempting to navigate the red tape of the benefits system, alongside his new friend, a single-mother, who relies on a food bank to survive.

There’s also plenty of comedy – including Daniel’s attempt to use a computer for the first time to apply for Job Seekers Allowance. No offence to old people None taken - Martin), but trust me, it’s hilarious. And if you’re in any doubt about who is to blame for poverty in the UK or how difficult it is to survive on benefits, this film will convince you.

FREE tickets are available to all Friends of Sufra. If you’re a volunteer or a regular donor (that means you make a monthly donation of at least £5/month by standing order) you can come for free AND also invite an UNLIMITED number of guests at no cost! (We ask for a refundable deposit of £2, but that’s just to make sure you turn up. You won’t even see it appear on your debit/credit card bill). 

Book your tickets HERE using the promotional code "FRIENDS TICKET'.  We just want as many people as possible to gain an insight into how the current benefit system works.

Scrutiny to examine alleged flaws in South Kilburn Granville consultation

There is to be a Special Meeting of the Brent Council Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday 30th November LINK to examine the situation around the proposals on the redevelopment of the Granville and Carlton Centres in South Kilburn. The issues has been covered extensively on Wembley Matters and the Cabinet discussion was reported HERE

The published reasons for the call-in are:

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·      That the process has been flawed with mistakes, warnings not heeded and lack of early consultation. 


·      That insufficient notice has been given to the views of the two Centres, local Councillors and other interested parties.

 
A member who has supported the call-in has provided further reasons for the call-in: 


·      The failure of the Cabinet to ensure that consultation took place with the users of the Granville Centre including the Granville Plus Nursery School.

·      The failure of the Cabinet to consider (ignored) warnings from a local councillor, that no consultation had taken place with the local community the Head of a popular local school and the parents who use it. Therefore putting valuable community assets under the unnecessary threat of closure and demolition.

·      The failure of the cabinet to adequately question the officer (consultant) who prepare the report on whether proper consultation had taken place, as it seem likely the consultant ever (sic) visited The Granville /Carlton centres or spoke to stakeholders.

·      The failure of the cabinet to engage with the South Kilburn Trust putting £2 Million at risk for a local employment Hub.

·      The failure of the Lead member for Regeneration to visit Kilburn or talk to stakeholders from May to the present day to re-assure local residents that there would be adequate consultation.

·      The failure of the Lead Member for regeneration to response to email requests for a meeting between Local councillors the Leader and CEO, between July and November.

Another blow to Brent and Kilburn Times

I wrote previously LINK about the decision of Archant, owners of the Brent and Kilburn Times, to make redundacies through doing away with News Editor posts on its papers, instead merging web and paper roles and centralising news gathering.

I now understand that the three sports writers on the newspaper are to be made redundant and a new post created which will essentially mean one person doing the job of three.  As the sports page, reporting on local fixtures, are probably one of the more popular features of the paper, this seems rather short-sighted.

It saddens me as someone who values the contribution of local newspapers to democratic accountability and building a sense of local community to see their gradual demise.

With few staff they are likely to rely on lightly edited press releases and shared copy rather than original stories.

At present local newspapers are helped to keep afloat by local government advertising in the form of statutory notices (see above). This ensures a steady income independent of the ups and downs of the local economy. However there have been reports that the government is thinking of removing the requirement for such advertising, allowing councils to put the information on-line only.  Given councils' budget constraints they are likely to go along with the proposal and withdraw such local newspaper advertising, dealing another, possibly fatal, blow to the local press.

Frolicking dog exposes King Eddie's Park drainage failure

A Wembley Matters reader has supplied this footage of flooding earlier this week in King Edward VII Park, Wembley.

A large area of the park was out of use for a long time when Brent Council spent more than £350,000 on drainage and other works. LINK

 

Last Lib Dem on Brent Council explains why she has become an Independent

Cllr Helen Carr has issued the following statement explaining why she has opted to become an Independent councillor having been elected on a Lib Dem ticket:

Political parties are not reflecting the full range of interests – in fact, some serve to obscure them. The system is degenerating into the preservation of a status quo and a political elite. We all need to put an end to that political and social exclusivenessjavascript:;. The principles on which the parties nominally divide and were formed are increasingly blurred. A group of people, however powerful, without political principles is not a party, but a faction.

Inevitably, the public is furious – interest groups are focused too often on private ends, and we have seen this last six months how popular improvement is lost sight of in particular aggrandisement, and politics and politicians, local, regional and national, are increasingly viewed with contempt. There is a lack of interest in democracy and democratic processes. The public know exactly why they voted for Brexit and it is not because they do not like foreigners, but because they do not like smug, superior and self-regarding career politicians of all persuasion who are contemptuous of the decisions of the people they purport to serve, telling them they did not know what they were voting for.  The public do not like political parties filling the Lords with the unelected whose sole purpose seems to be to sabotage the decisions of elected MPs. They do not like political parties that exploit the ambitions of the young, the fears of the fragile and the vulnerable for votes.

The residents of Brent pay my salary. I look forward as an Independent Councillor to representing and promoting democracy in my ward, and the Borough, in particular to those groups who are an under/ unrepresented socio-economic demographic in the political process because they tend to be excluded and avoid participation. 

I look forward as an Independent Councillor to continuing my human rights work and protection of minority groups, especially important in the current toxic climate because historically, groups I work with such as Gypsies, Irish Travellers and Roma have suffered deprivation, discrimination and in the Roma case especially, persecution and genocide. Those times are upon us again.

This documentary was aired on my birthday the year I was asked to stand as a Councillor. I am involved in similar activities at the moment. It is 10 minutes of your time.

Brent disabled charity threatened as NHS increases rent to market rates

My article on plans for the 'NHS Estate' elicited a comment about the future of Brent Advocacy Concerns LINK who are faced with a possible increase in their rent at Willesden Centre for Health and Care  LINK to market rates as part of the monetisation of NHS property.

BAC is a charity run by disabled people themselves.

John Healy, a South Kilburn resident and volunteer at Brent Advocacy Concerns, has provided further detail about the situation BAC faces:

Today at 12.30pm our landlords have called another 'building users meeting' (5 previous ones so far) but we have never been invited to attend any of them, including that meeting.  I intend to attend it as we have been there since the centre opened and on the previous site in Harlesden Road since 1991 and we are tenants of sorts.  The problem is we were tenants of BADP, a limited company who were dissolved on the 1st March this year. 

We have been surviving on our reserves and without knowing if we can stay in our office, it has been impossible to plan anything.  We are still solvent but have not received any income since the 2011/12 financial year.  We have no waged staff any more and now only use volunteers including myself.  We decided a couple of years ago to have a 'new' website which we now have and we are able to give advice and information to people who email or phone us.  We can no longer provide advocacy itself so we are only a shadow of our former selves.  But if we lose the office, it is more than likely that we will close down.

Both the council and the NHS have both been saying they are finding it difficult to reach 'marginalised groups' like disabled people but they have never contacted us, even though we are in the council's own directory.  We also help people with The Care Act 2014 in providing some disabled people with information they may need to understand it. Now our work is limited by the uncertainty about our future.

Just to conclude, there are approximately 50,000 disabled and people with a long term illness in Brent (refer to borough's diversity plan 2015-19 which is in The Wellbeing & Scrutiny Committee and the 2011 census) but we are the only disabled charity left.  The council might argue that is not the case but all the other services are companies first, with a charitable part to their business.  There are other charities as well but they cater for specific ethnic groups.

Lib Dems down to zero on Brent Council and Tories play political musical chairs

Lib Dem councillor Helen Carr introduces herself to Tim Farron

Tonight's Brent Council meeting began with an announcement that the only Lib Dem councillor had decided to become an Independent - ending Lib Dem representation on a Council where they were once senior partner in a Coalition with Paul Lorber as their leader. Carr gave no explanation to the meeting but celebrated her independence by abstaining on most of the votes that took place tonight.

My prediction before the meeting

Joel Davidson after his recent attack on Tory Leader John Warren announced that he was moving to the Kenton Tory Group who now (for how long?) have 4 members to Brondesbury Park's 2. At one point the Kenton Tories were split 2-2 on a vote so three Tory groups may not be faraway.

Tories Kansagra, Davidson, Colwill and Maurice

I am not clear who is now the leader of the opposition, if wonder if the Tories are?

Davidson, the only person who comes close to a Brent Council version of Hugh Grant, was in his element making drawling contributions to the meeting but Cllr Warren once more provided the only real opposition.

Warren raised the fact that the Brent Development Plan hadn't been legally compliant at the time of its approval by the Council and had only been saved by suggested modifications from the Planning Inspector.   He cited the Auditor's acceptance of 5 objections to Brent Council's accounts for further investigation as extremely unusual with most local authority accounts sailing through through the process without challenge.

Perhaps his most powerful intervention was in a motion calling for the CEO to prepare a report on the possibility of Brent returning to a Committee system of governance for consideration by the Full Council. He explained that only eight people, the Cabinet, were really involved in decision making and the other 55, of all parties, excluded.

Warren suggested that the South Kilburn Granville debacle would not have happened if a cross-party committee had examined the proposal.

Rather than actually debating the merits of the proposal Cllr Butt, Labour leader, denounced it as a political ploy to 'take us back to the 80s' and his councillors duly voted it down.

Cllr Warren during the debate had said he had heard that the Labour Group held 'votes on whether to vote' but one of their number told me afterwards that they seldom had votes at all - 'everything is decided by acclamation'...