SUSTRANS DITCHES COUNTRY PARK CYCLE ROUTES

Following the campaign by Barn Hill Conservation Group, Brent School Without Walls and others, Sustrans has announced that it will not propose a cycle route through Fryent Country Park/Barn Hill.

In a letter to Barn Hill Conservation Group, Sustrans say they have received a 'great many' responses regarding the proposal and that 'many respondents have clearly stated that they do not want the greenway network to run through Fryent Country Park and Barn Hill. We will suggest alternatives.'

Sustrans also say that they never proposed a hard surface path through the Park and reaffirm their commitment to biodiversity.

Opponents of the scheme were not hostile to cycling but thought that the unique character of the Park and its designation as a nature reserve and site of metropolitan importance for biodiversity meant it should be protected. They will await the final report to see what alternatives Sustrans proposes before relaxing their vigilance.

ARK on the rocks?

Tuesday April 7th has been fixed as the date when the Planning Committee will hear the revised Planning Application for the permanent ARK Wembley Academy. Letters went out on the 6th March giving 14 days to respond giving a deadline of Friday March 20th. However the Council said later submissions will be considered if a decision has not yet been made.

However, potential respondents soon found that the promised revised documents were not available on the council website www.brent.gov.uk/planning.nsf (reference 08/2842) as of Sunday March 8th. The planning application is also available for inspection at the One-Stop Shop on the ground floor of Brent House, 349 High Road, Wembley, HA9 6BZ (9am-5pm Mon, Tues, Wed and Friday, 9am-1pm Thursdays). The Planning Service is also open on Wednesday evenings between 5pm-7pm at the One Stop Shop to give advice to the public on town planning matters. There is no reference to the documents being available at other One Stop Shops or Brent Libraries as is normally the case.

The documents were revised following criticism from individuals, the Wembley Park Action Group, Barn Hill Residents Association, Brent Green Party and other local groups, and the GLA. They include the Design and Access Statement, Flood Risk Assessment and Landscaping and most importantly, according to the Council, the Transportation Assessment and Travel Plan.

SUSTRANS CONSULTATION CLOSES MARCH 6TH

This is your last chance to respond to the consultation for possible cycle tracks across Fryent Country Park. Consultation closes tomorrow.

Follow the title link to fill in an on-line copy of the form or paste this into your browser:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ARPLAq0Cxsce0uMDSLzayA%3d%3d

PALESTINE: CONTINUOUS SUPPORT - NOT JUST SHORT-LIVED RAGE

Monday's meeting on Palestine could well have been an occasion for hyperbole and ranting after recent events in Gaza, but instead was impressive, sober, passionate and educational.

Sarah Teather who was in Gaza last week with a parliamentary delegation showed a film of her trip which gave ample evidence of the huge amount of damage done by the Israeli attacks, not least the destruction of schools, hospitals and mosques. Her accounts from families showed the intimate, personal affect on ordinary people. Sarah told the story of a family whose home and possessions had been destroyed. The young son held on to a football, his remaining possession, for dear life. Sarah equipped only with the usual parliamentary gifts described the helplessness she felt when she left the boy sitting amidst the ruins holding on to a tin of House of Commons biscuits, the only thing she had to offer the family. Sarah stressed how important it was to support MPs making a stand on the issue and said that the wave of public pressure on MPs had contributed to David Miliband eventually coming out and saying that the Israeli action had been 'disproportionate'.

Audrey Bomse, from the National Lawyers Guild, who was on the second Free Gaza boat, said that as a child of holocaust survivors she had no hesitation in likening the situation to the Warsaw Ghetto. She said Israel had the ability and technology to target accurately so that the killing of civilians that took place was either deliberate or the result of indiscriminate firing. She said that however illegal the rockets fired at Israel may have been, there was no justification for the collective punishment of the Gazan population. She described the various possible legal remedies via different international courts and said Israel was already bracing itself for such action, describing them as 'legal terrorism'. She finished by saying the people of Gaza need medicines, they need food but most of all they need friends.

Sultana Begum, who spent seven months as a Human Rights Observer for a World Council of Churches programme described the work she had undertaken in Hebron on the West Bank. This included escorting Palestinian children at the Cordorba School who faced attacks from settler children on the way to school. 69 different check points in the inner city area created huge problems for routine movement of Palestinians who lived under military law while 400 settlers, subject only to civilian law, were protected by up to 2,000 soldiers. She described brave non-violent action by Palestinians to try and get access to the agricultural land on which they depended for sustenance. She told stories of ordinary families and the immense struggle they faced to maintain daily existence.

A Gazan from the audience said that it was important that there should be long-term. continuous support, not just rage that flares and dies out, leaving the situation as before.

There will be a lobby of MPs to take action in support of Palestine on March 11th at the House of Commons. Brent PSC will be lobbying Sarah Teather (Brent East), Dawn Butler (Brent South) and Barry Gardiner (Brent North). For more information and to write to your MP click here or e-mail brentpsc@hotmail.com

Brent PSC is on Facebook

ARK GETTING DESPERATE?

"Cor! You must be really desperate!" I couldn't help exclaiming when I saw the shivering figure armed with glossy brochures in the entrance hall of Wembley ASDA today. She was vainly attempting to get busy shoppers to apply for a place at the Wembley ARK Academy - just down the road from the store.

This year the Academy failed to fill all its Reception places and there were vacancies in other local schools. Applications for admission in September 2009 close on Friday. Perhaps ARK is failing to persuade parents to send their children to a school which consists of temporary huts in the middle of a building site. It would be fun if all the infant and primary schools in Brent set up a stall in ASDA - there would be no room for shoppers!

The brochure states that ARK will launch the admissions process in September for the first secondary cohort due to start in September 2010 'if planning permission is granted'. This is an important caveat as Brent Council is still waiting for revised documents that it commissioned following the GLA's rejection of the Stage 1 Planning Application for the permanent academy. The revised traffic report will be crucial and the council will be re-opening consultation only when all the documentation is complete. This adds up to a significant delay for a process that was supposed to be completed earlier this year. The earliest possible date for the application to go to committee now looks like March 24th but it it more likely to be April.

Meanwhile shoppers at ASDA should be wary of adding a pig in a poke to their shopping trolley.

CAMPAIGN TO DEFEND BRENT'S HEALTH SERVICES

The Campaign to Defend Brent's Health Services was set up originally to bring together health service workers, patients and trade unionists in opposition to the massive cuts in Brent's community health services made by the Primary Care Trust in response to their 2007 financial crisis. Now the NW London Hospitals Trust have announced that they need to make "saving", i.e. cuts, of £32 million. Although they say that they hope to make these savings without compulsory redundancies, they admit that up to 400 jobs will be lost, and campaigners are convinced that such job losses are bound to impact on patient care and lead to greater stress for the workers who keep their jobs. People's health deteriorates in times of economic recession like the one we face now, so we need more and better health services, not cutbacks.

Supporters of the Campaign gathered outside Central Middlesex Hospital on Valentine's Day, Saturday 14th February, to declare "We love our NHS". This was one of many protests across London and the country as a whole called by Keep Our NHS Public declaring support for the ideals of the NHS and opposition to cuts and privatisation. The campaign will be organising more events and activities as the effects of the cutbacks become clearer.

If you are interested in joining the Campaign to Defend Brent's Health Services, you can email Sarah Cox, the coordinator, on roundwood@redmail.com or ring 07951 084 101

LET CHILDREN ENJOY LEARNING AGAIN

The Cambridge Review of the Primary Curriculum is a chance to expel Big Brother from our classrooms.

The Review’s recommendation that schools should be freed of SATs and league tables is in line with Green Party policy on education. We want children to become eager, empowered learners who are given the chance to explore their own individual needs and interests. As a primary school headteacher I strived to promote learning but had to constantly battle the dead hand of government targets and league tables. This 'Big Brother' presence in the classroom narrowed the curriculum and turned teachers into stressed target chasers and children into passive recipients of lessons geared to maximising SAT results and the school's league table position.

Research for the report has been extremely thorough and I was pleased to meet up with its authors, alongside other local headteacher, some time ago. Its recommendations have been backed by teaching unions and major educational organisations. The government must take notice and return the encouragement of a love of learning to its vital place in primary education.

GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM PALESTINE - MEETING THIS MONDAY

Brent Palestine Solidarity Campaign is holding a meeting on Monday February 23rd 7pm at Willesden Green Library. Speakers will include Sultana Begum, a human rights observer who was recently in Hebron; Audrey Bomse, from the National Laywers' Guild who was on the Free Gaza Boat, and Sarah Teather who has just returned from a visit to Gaza and has witnessed the devastation first-hand.

On March 11th the PSC is asking local people to lobby our MPs to ask that they support the call to:

End the blockade on Gaza
Suspend the EU-Israel Trade Agreement
Bring Israeli war criminals to justice
End the arms trade with Israel
Urge the government to act to implement international law, including an immediate end to Israeli occupation