Wembley Park road changes update

 

A glimpse of the new Bridge Road- North End Road junction. At present it is a steep ramp but aggregate was being delivered this morning presumably to reduce the gradient. There are  reports that there will be weight restrictions when it opens. Brent Council has said it should be open to pedestrians by the end of the month.

The mural on Olympic Way is covered again apart from one section but correspondence is still taking place over whether planning permission for advertising is actually in place.

Behind the ramp on the right is 1 Olympic Way, former office accommodation being converted to flats.

The length of Olympic Way up to the infamous steps is nearing completion.

 

There is no word yet on when Engineers Way will be open again to traffic. 'Hostile Vehicle Mitigation Measures' have to be put in place.

Brent Annual Standards Report - 11 complaints against councillors of which 3 resulted in public apologies

 This afternoon the  Audit and Standards Committee will be asked to note the complaints received by Brent Council against councillors.  The Annual Standards Report  LINK 2020  states:

 

During 2020, 11 complaints were received against different Councillors for alleged breaches of the Members Code of Conduct. Of these complaints, two resulted in public apologies being made on the Brent Council’s website as follows.

 

a)    The first apology resulted from an upheld complaint arising from the sharing of a link to a video discussion on the Dudden Hill Mutual Aid Group WhatsApp group. It was held to be in breach of paragraph4 (high standards), para 5 (seven principles of conduct in public life and para 12 (conduct... in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or the council into disrepute) of the Member’s Code of Conduct.

 

b)    The second apology arose in relation to the attendance of two councillors at Ealing Road Temple during a prayer and reflection event. The complaint, that the councillors had brought their office into disrepute, was not upheld but both councillors acknowledged they had inadvertently breached the restrictions on such events in place at the time and were apologetic about how this may have appeared to the public.

 

 The first apology refers to Cllr Aslam Choudry (Labour, Dudden Hill)  who was alleged to have shared anti-semitic material. The final decision notice on the allegation can be read HERE

The second complaint was against Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council  and Cllr Sangani (Labour, Alperton)  and resulted in the apology below:

 

Apologies by Cllrs. M Butt and Sangani

Allegations were recently made of a breach of the Member’s Code of Conduct by Councillor M Butt and Cllr Sangani in relation to their attendance at Ealing Road Temple during a prayer and reflection event organised by the Brent Multi Faith Forum.  An allegation that the councillors had brought their office or the council into disrepute was not upheld.  Both councillors acknowledged that they had inadvertently breached the restrictions on such events in place at the time and were apologetic about how this may have appeared to the public.  Councillor Butt apologised both on his Facebook page and in a press statement.  Both he and Councillor Sangani have also given apologies to the Monitoring Officer, relevant extracts of which are set out below.

 

Apology from Councillor Butt:

On the 11th of June, Cllr Trupti Sangani and I attended a small and socially distanced gathering at the Ealing Road Temple in support of Brent’s Multi Faiths Forum. …………..As Leader of this Council, whilst I do of course accept that a mistake was made regarding the time between what happened and what was sanctioned, I do believe that an argument could be made for the actions of those in attendance being a positive demonstration of well-intended community leadership. …………… the idea that such a gesture would upset anyone had simply not occurred to me for which I am happy to apologise unreservedly.

 

Apology from Cllr Sangani:

On the 11th of June, I attended a small and socially distanced gathering at the Ealing Road Temple in support of Brent’s Multi Faiths Forum. ……………………I regret that in the confusion surrounding various government announcements that we were mistaken in how our brief moment of quiet reflection unfolded. I ……………. would like to apologise to them for what was a honest mistake made in good faith by well-intentioned people.

There are no details of the other complaints in the report.

 

Welsh Harp Clean up May 15th 11am-1pm

 

welshharpies.co.uk/events

Baghdad’s House of Wisdom - another online event from Brent Libraries

 

 Guest post by Philip Grant

Although I know quite a lot about local and English history, I have to admit that I had never heard of the “House of Wisdom” in Baghdad. So, when I saw that this was the subject of the next online “coffee morning” talk from Brent Libraries (on Wednesday 2 June at 11am), I had to “google” it to find out what the talk might be about.

 

At around the time that the Anglo-Saxon farmer, Wemba, was making his clearing in the woods, which would later give its name to Wembley, around the 8^th century, a Caliph of the Muslim  Abbasid dynasty was setting up a library in Baghdad. He and his successors added to their collection by having scholars translate books and manuscripts from Greek, Syraic, Persian, Chinese and Sanskrit into Arabic. Their library became known as Khizanat al-Hikma, the Storehouse of Wisdom.

 

One of the few Arab scholars from “the Middle Ages” who I had heard of, through my love of maps, was the 12^th century geographer, Al-Idrisi. Translations into Arabic of ancient Greek works, such Ptolemy of Alexandria’s “Geography”, coupled with information from travellers of his own time, enabled him to produce maps of the world (as then known) like this:

 

 

The Caliphs also invited scholars from across the Middle East, Europe and India to come and share their knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and a range of other sciences, as well as poetry and art. The House of Wisdom became a centre of learning, and this painting, by the artist Yahya al-Wasiti, from 1237, shows it in action, just a couple of decades before it was destroyed when a Mongol army laid waste to Baghdad:

 

 

The free online talk about the House of Wisdom will explore the discoveries of scientists like Ibn Haythm, Banu Musa brothers, Mariam Al-Ijliya and Al-Jahiz. It will be given from the perspective of an Iraqi woman growing up in the UK, who researched its story to help understand her past, in order to make sense of the present state of Iraq.

 

From my brief reading of the subject, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad has a story which deserves to be more widely known, in order to give us a better understanding of the world. I have signed-up online to participate in this Brent Libraries event on Wednesday 2 June at 11am. If you would like to get tickets as well, or to find out more, you can “click” here.

 

Philip Grant

Sudbury Town Residents call on Brent Council to withdraw Barham Park block of flats planning application Public Consultation

 Sudbury Town Residents Association have challenged Brent Council over the planning application to build a block of flats on Barham Park. LINK

They have received backing on Twitter from Wembley Central and Alperton Residents Association who say the plans affect their residents too.

 The application substitutes a bulky block of flats for the current two houses (776 and 778 Harrow Road).

This is the letter sent as a matter of urgency on Saturday:

 

'You can tackle unemployment and create jobs whilst tackling climate change at the same time' - opportunities in Brent

 New research shows that over 1,492 new jobs could be created in Brent Central, 1,401 in Brent North and 1,285  in Hampstead and Kilburn across green infrastructure and care work in the next two years/ten years. 

 

The data, compiled by Green New Deal UK, shows that  Brent Central is likely to suffer over  2,538) permanent job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brent North 1,607 and Hampstead and Kilburn 1,738 losses which could be replaced partly by jobs in new and existing industries.

 

The data includes jobs in sectors like solar energy, offshore wind, social care and energy efficiency - all of which are essential to the UK meeting its national and international climate targets. 

 

Such jobs are essential if local councils are to meet their Climate Emergency targets and also to cope with the rising demand for adult social care.

 

Previous research from Green New Deal UK found that 1.2m green jobs could be created throughout Britain in the next two years at a cost of around £68bn - far less than the £100bn infrastructure investment commitment made last year. 

 

This news comes at the same time that the Government has just cut air passenger duty on domestic flights, frozen fuel duty, invested £27 billion in a roads programme, tried to open a new coal mine and cut £1.5 billion from the flagship home energy efficiency programme. 

 

Paul Atkin local organiser, said:

 

Our research shows that you can tackle unemployment and create jobs whilst tackling climate change at the same time. 

 

We know that we can’t afford not to do this. There’s an unemployment crisis and a climate crisis and a Green New Deal can create thousands of good green jobs right here in Brent.  We all know that climate change is going to have a huge impact everywhere and we can’t let people just fall by the wayside.

 

The Government could invest in these green jobs right now to boost our economic recovery but they are refusing to. If you compare what we are spending to France and Germany and the US we are falling behind what is really needed to tackle unemployment and the recession, let alone sort out climate change.

 

More than 17,000 people vote for the Green's Emma Wallace in Brent & Harrow GLA poll - FULL RESULTS

 

The Green Party candidate, Emma Wallace won the support of 17,472 voters in the Brent and Harrow GLA constituency. This gave her 10.3% of the overall vote and nearly 3,000 more votes than the Liberal Democrat candidate. Krupesh Hirani had a convincing win for the Labour Party and will succeed Navin Shah.  At his victory speech this evening  he made it clear he would represent everyone in Brent and Harrow, and not just those who had voted for him.

Greens also beat the Liberal Democrats in the London-wide Assembly election so together the three results confirm the Green Party as the third party in Brent and Harrow.

The full results  for the constituency are below (click bottom right for full page view). The winner of the London Mayoral vote and the number of London-wide Assembly Members for each party will not be known until other constituencies have been counted tomorrow and may not be known until the count and calculations have been completed which could extend into Sunday.

Count agents were concerned that some voters seemed to have misunderstood the Mayoral voting paper. The layout was confusing as a result of having so many candidates. Some voters appeared to have thought the first column of names was for first preference and the second column of names was for second preference votes or that they could have first and second choices in each column of names. Two single columm sheets would have been clearer. As a result many votes were invalid. (Mock ups below from @london_rocklad) A total of 8,747 (5%) voted for 'too many' in the 1st preference vote.

 

 

Interestingly, more than 70% of the total votes were postal votes.

See LINK

Labour win Brondesbury Park by-election. Greens ahead of the Lib Dems.

 

Gwen Grahl, Labour Party, has been elected to Brent Council after winning a seat in the Brondesbury Park by-election that was held yesterday.

This follows the resignation of former councillor, Kieron Gill, earlier this year.

4,083 residents in Brondesbury Park ward cast their votes, marking a turnout of 42.5%.

Green candidate Sheila Simpson beat the Liberal Democrat to achieve third place in the poll with 11.7% of the vote.