Willesden Green Library Regeneration: the case against

Guest posting  from Sophia MacGibbon, a Willesden resident who spoke at the recent Willesden Area Consultation Forum. There will be an Executive report on the Willesden Green Library Regeneration at tonight's Council Meeting, 7pm, Brent Town Hall

I have a number of concerns about the Willesden Green Regeneration proposal as outlined by the Council

I find it hard to see what exactly is being proposed. The document is full of good sounding phrases, but short on what they actually mean. Because of that I cannot see whether the proposed development is going to give the people of Brent more than they are getting now. In fact all the vague proposals could be delivered in the existing structure with better management and some investment in improved technology. 

I am worried about the proposal for a number of specific reasons:-

1 The proposal will, I believe result in the demolition and loss of the original library building, currently housing an Irish Advice centre. This building is an historical and architectural gem and these are in short supply in Brent. It would be an act of vandalism to destroy it      

 2. The loss of car parking space. I know it is environmentally fashionable to knock car use and proposals that appear to make bringing cars into the town centre more difficult should be the current good thing to do. However I believe the councillors should study the finding of the survey undertaken for the Government by Mary Portas.  She argues strongly that for local high roads to stand a chance against shopping centres etc, there has to be parking provided at minimal cost. While it is possible to park at Sainsbury’s, the space is limited and I fear that many of the shops further along the High Road will lose custom if the car park at the library were to go. Many people park, use the Library centre and then nip out to the local shops. What rate benefit the council might accrue from residential development of the parking space may well be offset by the loss of business rates if yet more shops close down. And the negative impact on the High Road could be devastating.

The closure of 6 of the borough’s libraries has meant that may people have to travel considerable distances to get access to a library. The loss of the car parking facility will hit the elderly and people bringing young children to the library to enjoy the under5s sessions, etc. These sessions are an important way of developing a love of books and a confidence in using libraries. The closure of the car park could be argued as discrimination as it will impact on some sections of the population more than others

3. The loss of the open space at the front of the library centre will be a shame, especially as there is beginning to be a real effort to use the space more frequently and imaginatively. There is an ongoing attempt to establish a regular market there that has the potential to become successful, there things take time, and the current sculptural art work is a delight.  The High Road is mainly narrow and quite dark, the open space around the library is a welcome break of light and air.

4. What is wrong with the current building? I read in the proposal document that it is expensive and not fit for purpose. In what way is it not fit for purpose? Everything that seems to be being proposed could go on in the existing centre if it was properly managed. Currently many of the features of the current building are idle. Why? How come people have been able to establish a successful cinema in most unlikely premises in Kensal Rise, (The Lexi) while the purpose built cinema with a car park is unused? Good management should have dealt with that in a way that could have been profitable to the council. Likewise the bar/cafe area.  Cafe culture is rapidly growing all round the borough and that cafe should have been a successful and profitable business, bringing rent revenue in for years. A recent successful art/craft project showed the real potential of the space. The underused upstairs spaces could have been utilised in ways envisaged in the proposals for redevelopment.  The current centre is expensive because it is underused and little imagination has been shown both to exploit the space and make money out of it. If a new centre is built what guarantee is there that it won’t be poorly, expensively and unimaginatively managed.

5. The loss of the bookshop. Bookshops are struggling across the country and having one still surviving on the High Road is to be applauded. The High Road is increasingly reducing to pound shops, all hours’ grocers and fast food outlets. Any shops that provide variety and in the case of the bookshop, culture should be encouraged and supported. While attempts to get current unused shops available at reduced rents, there are only to be for a limited period and this proposal is not a permanent solution for a shop such as the bookshop. The shop provides an invaluable service to many local schools as it deals with their book orders. The schools will struggle if the shop goes.

6. I fear for the future of the library aspect of the proposed centre when I see the current provision described as “warehousing books”. What is being proposed, a library without books? Already much of the library space is taken up with the provision of a free internet cafe. While I think the provision for study space, including internet provision is invaluable, much of the current space is not used for that, but by people sending emails. Moreover student study space is not the only use of the library and despite the increasing use of eBooks; hard copy books are still the central purpose for libraries and will be for many years to come. If in the future technology proves me wrong, it will require a small investment to upgrade the provision.

7. I worry about the council’s belief in the value of public/ private partnerships. Is there a real guarantee that the Brent citizens and ratepayers will get as much out of this proposed development as the developers will or will they at the end not quite be able to deliver the state of the Art space that was envisaged in the original proposal? The disruption and poor provision that will last for months if not years may at the end mean that we land up with something not much better than we have now, while losing valuable local assets.

Note: More than 250 people have now signed the epetition asking the Council to allocate space in the new Cultural Centre (if it goes ahead) for the Willesden Bookshop. Please encourage friends and contacts to sign. LINK

A campaign is also emerging to preserve the old Willesden Library building which is locally listed.

This is what a real community school looks like! Support Downhills' fight against Gove

I don't mind telling you that this video moved me. It sums up all of what is best about primary schools and how they can bring a community together. Michael Gove doesn't know what he has taken on!

There's a demonstration supporting the school's fight against being forced to become an academy next Saturday January 28th

Labour the 'Third Tory Party' on cuts - Lucas

Is a council tax rise to protect services an option?

Local government is faced with real dilemmas regarding funding cuts imposed by the Coalition which they then have to pass on by cutting public services. Implementing cuts but 'protecting vital services' or 'protecting the most vulnerable' became the policy of many councils . When it was pointed out that the scale of the cuts made that impossible and they should refuse to make the cuts, they said that if they did that the cuts would then be made by people less sensitive to local needs. Early on Brent Council seemed to be arguing that they were making the cuts so cleverly that people would not notice the difference. However recently they have painted a much bleaker picture and admitted that the cuts threatened the very existence of viable local government.

No council, including the Green led Brighton and Hove City Council, have yet refused to make the cuts or set an 'illegal budget'. Clearly such a policy has to start somewhere and will only really be effective if it is a start of a movement by many councils. Someone has to take the lead and perhaps Brighton should have done. I have argued that Brent Labour should initiate such a campaign amongst London councils. Whilst not advocating refusing to set a budget  Cllr Ann John, leader of Brent Council,  recently conceded that if there was a groundswell of opinion there could be a joint approach to the Coalition government.  There is little time now for such a campaign ahead of the 2012-13 budget setting.

However, some councils, starting with Brighton and Hove, have taken a different step to protect services, albeit still implementing some cuts. The have decided to spurn the government's grant for freezing council tax, and gone ahead and tabled increases. The Budget Report that went before Brent Council, warned that a council tax freeze over several years would seriously erode the Council's revenue base. Cllr Muhammed Butt,  lead member for resources, said that the government grant was a 'trap' and would result eventually in a loss in revenue but Ann John said that Brent Labour had made a manifesto commitment to keep the council tax low. She noted however that some Tory councils were now in revolt and things might change.

According to Brent's figures the impact of raising the Council Tax by 2.5% would be significant (figures in bold in brackets below):

Budget Gap	2012-13 £m	2013-14 £m	2014-15 £m	2015-16  £m
Annual	4.4 (4.4)	6.4 (1.1)	22.5 (19.7)	16.1 (13.1)
Cumulative	4.4 (4.4)	10.8 (5.5)	33.3  (25.2)	49.4 (38.3)

Brighton and Hove has led the field with a council tax rise of 3.5% but have been followed by Darlington Borough Council. Leicester City Council. Middlesbrough Council. Nottingham City Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Stockton-on Tees Borough Council and Stoke-on -Trent City Council who are all Labour authorities. They have been joined with lower increases by Tory authorities, Chelmsford (2.46%), Peterborough City (2.95%) and Surrey County Council (2.99%).  Whilst losing the government grant the rise enables them to have a net increase in revenue and this safeguard some services.

Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government Secretary, has lost no time in denouncing these councils. He said that 'a vote against the council tax freeze is a vote for punishing tax rises.....councillors have a moral duty to sign up to keep down the cost of living'. Councils also have a moral duty to maintain services for their residents. A council tax rise can be seen as a different way of shifting the cost of the economic crisis on to ordinary people and it is not a particularly progressive tax, but at the same time it shares the cost of preserving services for the most vulnerable amongst all residents.

It is certainly a strategy that deserves debate and Greens in Brighton and Hove have had an extended consultation with local residents about its budget which was opposed by the 'Purple Opposition Coalition' of Labour and Conservatives.

Breaking ranks with Labour,the GMB in Brighton which represents many council workers, has given its approval to the Greens' council tax proposals.


Branch secretary Mark Turner said:

The GMB agrees that the plans to increase council tax by 3.5% this year are in the best long term interests of the city.

The Coalition government offer of a freeze in council tax is a bribe that would quickly leave the city much worse off, and less able to provide the services that residents expect and need.

It seems that Brighton Labour and Conservative parties have not grasped the financial realities of the long term damage taking the council tax freeze would create.

The city already faces extreme challenges because of the Coalition's huge reduction in the grant to the council - taking the freeze offer would make the situation even worse.

While the increase may seem unfair to residents, the truth is that we will all be much worse off without it, not just the council staff who will lose their jobs, but the whole city would suffer as services deteriorate needlessly.

Because Brent Council made a decision to freeze council tax before putting forward a budget we have not been able to have a debate about this in Brent. A decision to raise council tax can be seen as still making ordinary people pay for the economic crisis caused by the bankers and hitting them when incomes are frozen and inflation rising. It can also be seen as the only way to preserve vital council services and spreading the load across the population.

Next year I believe Brent Council should have a full and open debate about the options available as the Brighton Greens managed recently. Formulating a 'needs led' budget with local people, trades unionists and voluntary organisations would give a firm basis for going out and campaigning against Coalition cuts and would be a way of preserving local democracy.

An independent comment on the Brighton budget process can be seen HERE

Brent Council Meeting on Monday January 23rd

There is a full Council meeting tomorrow at 7pm at the Town Hall (Link to Agenda on side panel).
 The Council Executive  will be reporting on:

1. Willesden Green Redevelopment Project
2. Cross borough working on sports and leisure facilities
3. Waste and recycling
4. School places
5. Update on Customer Contact Project
6. New Civic Centre

Brent Labour takes on fight for community schools as secondaries consider academy options

The academies battle field

It was a busy day on the academies front in Brent yesterday.

At lunchtime a joint meeting of unions at Alperton High School voted unanimously for strike action if the school's governing body decided to apply for academy status. They called for the governing body to support the unions' opposition to academy or trust status. If the decision was to consider academy status they demanded a fair public debate and a secret ballot of staff and parents.

In the evening the Alperton governing body decided not to go ahead with academy conversion at this stage but instead agreed to invite the Cooperative Trust to handle a consultation process with five options:

1. Seek other partners to become a Cooperative Education Partnership which would require no change in the school's status.
2. Become a single school Cooperative Trust School which means that the school would remain maintained but change from a Foundation to a Trust school.
3. Become a Cooperative Trust in partnership with other schools (eg neighbouring primary schools). The schools would remained in the maintained sector with one Trust Board bur separate governing bodies.
4. Become a Cooperative Trust as a lone school or in partnership with others with a view to moving on to Cooperative Academy conversion. This would gain the 'benefits' of academy status but embed Cooperative values and ethos.
5. Maintain the status quo, maintained Foundation school.

In the South of Brent, Queen's Park Community School governing body, is concerned that it will be the only secondary school not looking at academy status, but has made it clear that it would like to stay as it is - a community school in the Local Authority. Though they are keeping abreast of the Coop moves in the borough they will have been heartened to hear that Alperton has not decided yet whether to go down that route.

While the Alperton Governing Body was meeting, down in Stonebridge, Labour Councillors and Labour nominated governors were meeting with some local teachers to discuss the current issues in school organisation with particular reference to academies. I attended at the invitation of Cllr Mary Arnold, lead member for children and families.

Melissa Benn, who is the parent of a child at a local community secondary school, gave an over-view of the current situation and some of the contradictions of Coalition policy. Academies had been able to boost their results by using vocational qualifications but Michael Gove had criticised such qualifications. By changing the rules to convert 'good' and 'outstanding' schools to academy status, the government had made academy results look better. Michael Wilshaw had been appointed as an independent chief of Ofsted but was also linked with academy provider ARK. She suggested the long-term aim was destruction of local authorities with a substitute unelected 'middle tier'. Academy chains were likely to move in to fill that space with 'for profit' schools not far behind. Labour had been stuck for 18 months, failing to react. She quoted an overheard conversation between Labour MPs 'we don't have an education narrative any more'.

Mary Arnold said that they had to recognise the pressure for academy status for short-term gain. It was important to recognise the impact on the whole Brent community of schools of fragmentation and the financial loss to the authority through top-slicing of the budget. The latter would affect the LA's ability to provide viable services. She said that present academies cooperated in the Brent 'family of schools', one less so than the others. She said that the role of the LA was essential and needed to be publicised by governors. These included:

• strategic planning of school places
• tackling underperformance of schools and particular groups of pupils
• meeting the needs of vulnerable children including looked after children, those with special education needs and those who had been excluded from school

In a key passage in her briefing paper she said:

The local authority believes that there will be overall adverse effects on children and young people if strong collaboration and collective responsibility is not maintained and if the LA education function reduces to the extent that statutory responsibilities cannot effectively be fulfilled.

Cllr Arnold said that she expected a good take-up of the council's traded services for schools in 2011-12 . (Schools 'buy-in' these services but can also go to other providers). I pointed out that it was hard to back-up calls to remain with the local authority when they were cutting their services and staff reductions were making them less efficient. The campaign against academies and campaign against cuts were part of the same struggle.

Hank Roberts said that the issue was one of democracy and the right of staff and parents to have a secret ballot on academy proposals, with the unions taking strike action if the demand was not met. I added that schools did not belong to individual headteachers or even governing bodies, but to the whole community. In a sense academy conversion meant that our schools were being stolen from us. The need to involve parents and inform them of the negative issues association with academies was stressed by a number of contributors with calls for joint meetings of parents and governors. I asked if the database of parents held by Brent Council could be used to initiate ballots of parents if schools refused to hold one.

Among the suggestions to make Labour more proactive on the issue were:

1. Support for the right to hear a balanced debate pro and anti-academy and a right to an indepenent ballot, for and against, or parents and staff. Governing bodies would be expected to take the result into consideration. There was also a sugegstion that student actionm such as that at Kingsbiry High, hould also be supported.
2. A leaflet about the issue for distribution to parents.
3. Lobbying by councillors of schools where there was no nominated Labour governor if they were considering conversion.
4. Promotion of the services offered by the education authority.
5. A Brent Governors' One Day Conference on the academies and free schools issue with a 'for and against' debate and information available.
6. The relaunch of an Association of Brent School Governors
7. The formation of a broad-based campaign to defend community schools in Brent.

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: