Caroline Lucas on Question Time tonight

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, will appear on BBC Question Time at 10.35pm this evening, alongside Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, Stephen Twigg MP, Labour's shadow education secretary, Germaine Greer, feminist writer and academic, and Charles Moore, columnist and former editor at the Telegraph and the Spectator.

The programme will be available to watch again here once it has been broadcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b3cdw

Preston Library Campaigners Fight On

A great message on a gloomy day:

Pay London Living Wage, supermarkets told

Darren Johnson, Green Party London Assembly Member,  has called on supermarkets, the Mayor and Government to make work pay for all workers in London, following an investigation by the Fair Pay Network into low pay in the four largest supermarket chains.

Last year the National Minimum Wage fell further behind the cost of living in the capital, rising 2.5% while the London Living Wage – calculated to cover basic living costs in the capital – rose by 5.7%. The higher rise in the London rate was attributed to benefit and tax credit cuts, and rises in food costs, average rents and public transport fares.

Darren Johnson commented:

The minimum wage isn’t keeping up with the rising cost of living in London, forcing more parents to work two jobs to make ends meet. The Government needs to ramp the minimum wage up to be a genuine living wage, but instead they are letting the gap grow wider.

The Mayor of London needs to get on his bully pulpit and call for all employers in London to prioritise pay rises for the lowest paid above bonuses for chief executives. In this age of obscene inequality we cannot leave it to employers to make sure they pay their staff enough for a basic standard of living.

Jenny Jones calls for St Paul's Camp to Stay

Responding to news reports that the City of London Corporation has won its High Court bid to evict protesters from outside St Paul’s Cathedral, Jenny Jones, London Assembly Member and Green Party candidate for London Mayor, has made the following statement:

The Occupy camp outside St Paul’s has for the last three months given a voice to the frustrations felt by many over the current economic situation. The protest has forced issues up the agenda and into the news, such as high executive pay. It’s a pity a completely peaceful protest drawing attention to the inequality in our society is not allowed to continue. 

The Occupy Camp may have lost their court case but they have succeeded in changing the debate – they have drawn attention to ideas such as the introduction of Tobin Tax, abolishing the City of London and sensible banking regulation. When I joined the camp I met articulate young people concerned about the current economic situation with ideas for a different way of doing things. The Mayor has made some harsh and unfair criticisms of the Occupy protesters, and I believe that we should allow this camp to remain rather than stifle protest because it’s inconvenient.
 

Spread the word on Willesden Bookshop - Area Forum tonight

I am unable to attend the Willesden Area Consultative Forum this evening as I am attending another meeting. The Forum is at 7pm, College of North West London, Denzil Road. I hope others will get there early to book a Soapbox to speak on Willesden Bookshop, the regeneration of Willesden Library Centre, and the loss of the locally listed Victorian Willesden Library, a much appreciated local landmark. Cllr Crane told the Brent Executive on  Monday that none of the developers who submitted bids could find a way to incorporate the listed building into the new development,.

As I write there are 186 signatories on the Willesden Bookshop e-petition. Please encourage people to sign and circulate the link. E-PETITION LINK

Many thanks.

'Scrap the whole Brent Cross Regeneration Plan'- Brent Cross Coalition

The Brent Cross Coalition has  welcomed the collapse of what they call  'the grotesque, car-based Brent Cross scheme'. However. they say it is totally unacceptable to still go ahead with the 'easy-profit shopping centre expansion', which they have been told  told is a 'possibility'. Neighbouring Brent Council fought this successfully in the late 1990s, and is likely to again. 

The Coalition for a Sustainable Brent Cross-Cricklewood Plan say:

We demand the whole plan is scrapped, and the arrogant local developers, and their ineffective PR company, are removed from the project.

Measures in the new Localism Act mean that over-bearing property companies, in alliance with the conceited Barnet Council, cannot get away with “business as usual”. This is a great day for people-power – not Hammerson plc and not Mike Freer (former Barnet leader, now MP).

We want development based on people’s aspirations for a sustainable, low-carbon, exciting regeneration of the area. This means starting from scratch, and will also obviously have to wait for improvements in the economy.

The developers have wasted many years – not ONE home has been built, not ONE transport improvement. Barnet Council has also wasted many hours of work in promoting something nobody wanted - their web site still estimates 29,000 extra cars every day in the Brent Cross area, which would cause traffic misery.

The developers have just received planning permission for a small building at Brent Cross – but have resorted to making the application from a tax haven in the Channel Islands. They have no shame, and are behaving no better than bankers.

Lia Colacicco, Co-ordinator of the Brent Cross Coalition, said:

“The regeneration was always a mirage; despite the PR spin, the developers were only ever committed to building a few hundred new housing units anyway. In return for cheaply purchasing large swathes of public land, their main return to the local population would have been gridlocked traffic. I hope the next deal is more transparent, and involves a stretch of light rail to link to local tube lines.”

Alison Hopkins, Dollis Hill resident, said:

“What we are being offered now is little different from the rejected shopping centre planning application of 13 years ago. We will still get lots of extra traffic, but no transport improvements. The developers want to 'pick the low-hanging fruit' of what pays out quick profits. The Brent Cross Waste Incinerator seems to be a dead project now, but we will continue to campaign, to make absolutely sure.”

David Howard, Chair of the Federation of Residents Associations of Barnet, said:

“The Brent Cross Cricklewood development would have had a negative impact on the infrastructure and the environment of much of North London and for generations to come. Brian Coleman cannot quote my phrase of “hobbit homes”, since he has done nothing to stop the scheme, and we have. We need the public land at Brent Cross to be kept out of the hands of the developers, and corridors across it reserved for future light railway to Brent Cross Northern Line station, and to other local areas.”

Councillor Shafique Choudhary, London Borough of Brent, said:

"Unfortunately, this probably means that the developers and Barnet council are trying to get what they wanted all along, which is the expansion of their Brent Cross 'out-of-town' shopping centre, with no other benefits. This is something that my borough, the neighbouring London Borough of Brent, fought long and hard, but successfully against, in the late 1990s. That included making a convincing case at an appeal inquiry to a Planning Inspector, who found in our favour. The Brent Cross Coalition and Brent Council may have another fight on their hands!

Willesden Observer on Willesden Green Library and Bookshop

Follow this LINK

Burying Brent Council at the Wembley Consultative Forum

In what at times seemed to be a valediction for Brent Council, Cllr Ann John told the Wembley Area Consultative Forum, that by 2014 the Council would be much smaller. It would have withdrawn from the provision of many services, schools would be out of local authority control and school services would be greatly reduced or have gone completely. In what she said was a 'bleak picture' she said the Housing Benefit Cap would move many families out of the area.

In reviewing the cooperative arrangements with other West London boroughs through the West London Alliance, she said that this opened the way for some to press for much bigger local authorities, a London Borough of West London, which would put local democracy as we know it at risk in the future.

There will be a further £14m cuts in the next financial year following the £42m this year. 540 council jobs have gone in the last 18 months. Ann John said that although the Budget Report had said that the freeze in Council Tax was undermining the long-term council finances but Labour had a manifesto commitment to keep it low and no London borough planned an increase. There were signs that attitudes may be changing with some Tory councils in revolt.

Challenged from the floor that given the Coalition cuts the Council was not able to deliver the services required by Brent residents and that the Council needed to campaign against the Coalition, she gave the example of cuts in the popular park warden services. She said that this contributed to children's and women's safety and had led to an increased use of parks but it was an optional rather than core service and so had been cut. She said that we needed a groundswell of opinion  to approach the government.

Asked about whether the new Civic Centre was now too large for the much diminished Brent workforce she said that it was much more than office space for council bureaucrats and would provide library, arts and retail space.