Northwick Park Pavilion Covid19 Test Centre opened today - for those with symptoms

A new walk-through coronavirus testing facility has opened for those with symptoms to book appointments at Northwick Park Pavilion in Brent, as part of the Government’s UK-wide drive to continue to improve the accessibility of coronavirus testing for local communities.

 

Testing at this site is only available for those with coronavirus symptoms – a high temperature, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste. Anyone with one or more of these symptoms should book a test at nhs.uk/coronavirus or by calling 119. The government is committed to continue expanding the capacity of the network of UK test sites and laboratories to make it even easier to get tested and reduce the time it takes to receive test results.

 

The new site is situated so it is easily accessible without a car. Those being tested will be required to follow public health measures, including social distancing, not travelling by taxi or public transport, practicing good personal hygiene and wearing a face covering throughout, including while travelling to and from the testing centre. 

 

Anyone attending an appointment at a walk-through test site will be provided with guidance on getting to and from the test site safely, with additional support for vulnerable groups and people with disabilities.

 

Testing at the new site started today, Tuesday 9 February, with appointments made available each day.

Barnhill Election Petition goes to the High Court on February 19th

More than a year after the Barnhill ward by-election a court hearing in relation to the Election Petition submitted by Stefan Voloseniuc and Kanta Mistry (Conservative candidates) is listed to take place on the morning of February 19th at a time not before 10.30am at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand,

Carolyn Downs, Brent Returning Officer, has applied to the Court to request that the Election Petition be determined by special case and to effectively approve the outcome of the by-election.  The application will be considered by two High Court judges in the Queens Bench Division of the High Court on the morning of February 19th.

A recount of the by-election took place at the Royal Courts of Justice on July 16th 2020 and the provisional result of that recount cannot at present be divulged.

The Defendants in the case are Carolyn Downs (Returning Officer) and Mansoor Akram and Gaynor Lloyd the Labour candidates who were declared the winners of the by-election and are currently sitting as councillors for Barnhill ward, alongside Shafique Choudhary. 

The by-election was caused by the resignations of  Labour councillors Michael Pavey (former Deputy Leader) and Sarah Marquis (former Chair of the Planning Committee).

 BACKGROUND

 

Declaration of interest I was one of the Green Party candidates in the by-election (the other was Peter Murry). We are not parties to the petition.

Brent Council Cabinet agrees Budget and Borough Plan

This morning's Brent Council Cabinet agreed the Budget which now goers forward for ratification at the Council Meeting on February 22nd.

The far-reaching Borough Plan was approved without any discussion other than an introduction.  This will also go to Full Council on February 22nd.

The Draft Borough Plan is below (click bottom right for full page version):

 

 

Only 10% of on-line respondents agree with Brent's budget proposals as Council Tax rises by 5.99%, but to be fair only 29 people responded!

 

 A key table from the on-line consultation

Tomorrow morning's Cabinet meeting will approve the budget proposals set out earlier which includes an overall Council Tax rise of 5.99% and £15.1m cuts. 

 

Council Tax

 

GLA Precept

In theory the budget is not approved until it goes to a full council meeting but in effect it will be approved tomorrow as Labour hold 94% of Brent Council seats and most Labour members won't say 'Boo to a butt.'

Usually the three person Conservative opposition fail to put forward anything like a fully costed alternative budget. This will be the first time the lone Liberal Democrat will have contibuted to a budget debate.

Often the debate turns into a fairly predictable political dogfight with initial grandstanding by the Council leader degenerating into political point scoring as if he is on the national stage - which is where he wants to be, of course.

The interests of residents get lost in the sound and fury.

 Much will be made of the fact of consultation - a Scrutiny Task Force, Audit and Standards Committee, two virtual Brent Connects Meeting and an on-0nline consultation but the Report by Minish Patel, airily states:

Having considered the various comments made, including through the consultation, scrutiny and equalities processes, officers have been instructed to proceed with the budget proposals as previously set out.

It's not entirely  clear who did the considering and who issued the instruction.

The fact that 59% of the on-line respondents disgreed with the budget proposals makes no difference and might explain why so few take part. Even if more did, the Council has things covered:

Comments and feedback on the budget consultation demonstrates a wide range of views, many common viewpoints and emphasises the fact that Brent residents are concerned over what the expenditure reductions mean not only for them but also for the wider community. 

And anyway:

All of these consultation responses are important. Members need to have regard to them, but are not obliged to follow the suggestions made. It is relevant to note that the consultees are, statistically speaking, “self-selecting” and therefore not necessarily reflective of opinion in the borough as a whole, nor are they necessarily statistically significant.

Although...

On the other hand, the people who have responded have chosen to take the time to review the Council’s proposals and to contribute their thoughts, and often their views will be representative of the views of a much larger number of people.

Notice that individual councillors and backbenchers are not mentioned in the list of consultees - that would have happened at a Labour Group meeting behind closed doors with attendees instructed not to leak to blog writers.

Concern over the plight of residents faced with another increase in their Council Tax is addressed in this paragraph:

While it is acknowledged that increasing Council Tax will be difficult for some households, it should also be recognised that the Council continues to invest in the Council Tax Support scheme, which provides over £30m of support for around 28,000 households who are financially vulnerable. In addition, the Spending Review announced £670m of new funding in recognition of the increased costs of providing local council tax support. Brent’s share of this has been confirmed as £4m and will be used to support economically vulnerable people and households in the borough.

Suggestions are made each year that the Council should use some ots reserves to fund basic services rather than increase the Council Tax. Finance Officers address the issue of reserves in this section of the report:

Brent held total reserves of £398m as at 31 March 2020. On the face of it this would appear to be a high figure, but the following analysis shows that in practice the figure for all practical purposes is substantially lower. £264m (66%) of these reserves are for the funding of the Council’s ambitious capital programme. £30m (8%) is legally ring fenced for bodies such as our maintained schools and the Housing Revenue Account. £69m (17%) of reserves have been earmarked for a specific purpose or future expenditure commitment. This includes reserves managed by departments (for example unspent government grants with ring fenced commitments set aside to meet expenditure pressures) and reserves used to smooth out expenditure that by its nature will vary considerably from year to year and avoid uncontrollable under and over spends, for example insurance claims, PFI contracts, redundancy and pension costs. £21m (5%) are reserves that are earmarked to manage the future funding risks and it was primarily set aside to manage the potential impact of the Fair Funding Review. As a result of the impact of COVID-19, this reserve may be required to manage any one off pressures arising that cannot be met through the growth built into the budget, as set out in section 5.16. Finally, £15m (4%) is a general reserve which is held as a contingency against unforeseen events (for example unexpected in-year overspends, failure to identify sufficient savings to balance the budget in-year or future funding risks) and to ensure that the Council has sufficient funds available to meet its cash flow requirements. The general reserve is relatively low when compared to other London Boroughs and is only c5% of the Council’s net budget.

The Cabinet Meeting is on Monday February 8th at 10am and can be viewed via this LINK

 Details of the savings (cuts?) and other documents can be found HERE 

Food Market organised by the Sewa Day charity exposes the hardship caused by the ravages of Covid19 on an already disadvantaged population in Alperton

 

The above video has been widely distributed on social media. It shows the queues for the Food Market held in the grounds of Alperton Baptist Church in Ealing Road on a cold Saturday morning. The volunteers are organised by the Sewa Day North London Charity. 

In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, Sewa means Service – a unique concept of Service – Selfless Efforts for Welfare of All. Sewa UK is a humanitarian non-profit service organization.

The Sewa Day describes the origins of 'Sewa':

Sewa is a universal concept, which involves performing an act of kindness without expectation of reward. It is performed selflessly and without ulterior motive. As a concept, Sewa in embedded in Indian traditions, and is actively promoted by different cultures and faiths – as the core belief is the same – to sacrifice your time and resources for the benefit of others without expectation of anything in return.

The queues along Ealing Road speak for themselves about the cruel impact of Covid19 and the resulting loss of jobs and closures of businesses  The many volunteers from different backgrounds  shows the Brent community at its best.

It is criminal that years of cuts in the welfare state have made such projects necessary.

If you would like to support Sewa North London's work donations cane be made here:  https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sewaday-northlondon

Lib Dem councillor complains to Brent CEO over Labour Council Leader's 'abuse and personal intimidation'

Back in 2014 when Labour won a large majority in the Council election Barry Gardine MP for Brent North recognised the dangers of the almost 'one party' council.

 The Kilburn Times quoted him regarding the result of the election:

I’m thrilled, of course I’m thrilled but we need to be very careful.

It is a huge responsibility because a majority this big for any party means that we have to look within ourselves for the sort of scrutiny that we need of the policies that we ourselves are proposing.

All of these people got elected because they managed to persuade voters they wanted to represent them in the civic centre on the council. They must remember their job is to represent the people to the bureaucratic (sic) of the council and not to represent the council bureaucrats to the people. 

We are here to be a critical voice to say where things are wrong and to set policy to change Brent for the better.

Gardiner wanted that scrutiny to come from Labour backbenchers but that has not been successful because critics are harshly dealt with (cf John Duffy, Abdi Abdirazak, Zaffar Van Kalwala) and opposition opponents resented and often insulted. Muhammed Butt does not have the same control over the opposition (although he has managed to co-opt the remeaining three Tories to a large extent) which is why he gets so angry when a young, energetic councillor (as it happens a Lib Dem) makes a splash and gains a huge amount of public support and respect - particularly when that happens as a result of a by-election after particularly grubby behaviour by the Labour candidate.

That is the background to the current spat between Cllr Butt and Cllr Georgiou (see yesterday's article.

I have no love for the Lib Dems or the Tories but in an almost one council state it is right for democracy that their right to have a different view to the administration is respected and that they are not undermined by snide comments and personal insults, and more than a hint of ageism. I am sure if our young and very able Green candidate had won he would have received the same treatment.

Wembley Matters has carried contributions from Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Greens about local issues as I believe in debate and democracy. 

Cllr Anton Georgiou has now written to Brent CEO over the letter he received from Cllr Butt: (click on image for larger view)

 

Cllr Butt, Leader of Brent Council, demonstrates the dignity of office

Cllr Anton Georgiou wrote to Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, three weeks ago to express concern over the impact of the Council Tax rise on low income families. Cllr Butt responded (click on image to enlarge):

 

This is Cllr Georgiou's letter:

 

Cllr Butt, Leader of Brent Council,  posted this on Twitter this evening:

 

“Memoir from Mugsborough” – free online events from Brent Libraries.

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

With the current lockdown restrictions because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us are having to stay at home, with the internet our main contact with the outside world. Our Brent Libraries are currently closed, but a small team from the Service is working hard to provide free online events for residents of all ages. You can find the details by “clicking” here.

 

  

Events in the programme include “Storytime & Rhyme” sessions every Tuesday morning for under 5s and their parents, "half-term" events for older children, "Coffee Morning" talks for adults on the first Wednesday of each month, and a number of evening talks. Before the onset of Covid-19, there were plans in place for me to give three more local history talks during 2020 at Kingsbury, Wembley and Willesden Green Libraries. 

 

I hope that these will all happen at some future date, but in the mean time I have plucked up the courage to give my first “live” talk online! This free event will be on Thursday 18 February, from 6.30 to 7.45pm, and anyone from Brent, or elsewhere, who is interested will be welcome to attend. You can get a few more details and register to attend the talk by “clicking” on the “link”.

You will see that this is not a Wembley local history story. It is about a book that is very special to me, written in, and about, my home town of Mugsborough (not its real name!). It is about the lives of working men and their families, in a south coast town, in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The author, in the preface to his only book, which he never saw published, describes it here:-

 

 

You may wonder why an “old book”, written by a painter and signwriter more than 110 years ago, should be of any interest now. I would suggest that it has stories which still resonate today.

 

·       Building firms who cut their price to get a contract, then force their workers to rush and cut corners on the job, in order to make a profit, without a care for the consequences for those who will use or live in the building.

·       Working people who are not paid enough to allow them to enjoy a decent life.

·       Children who could go hungry for lack of a relatively small amount of expenditure, and a lack of care from those in power.

·       Working people who are “conned” into voting for candidates whose main concern is in looking after their own interests, and those of their rich friends.

 

 

Like all of my library talks, and articles, this one has plenty of illustrations. If you think it may be of interest to you, please check out the details, and sign up for this Brent Libraries online event. I look forward to sharing my talk with you on Thursday 18 February!

 

Philip Grant.