Pilgrims Way ward 'walkabout' tomorrow

Saltcroft Close this morning

Barnhill councillors will meet up with residents of Pilgrims Way, Summers Close and Saltcroft Close tomorrow for a Ward Working 'walkabout'  to hear views on how the area can be made better. They will be joined by representatives of Brent Housing Partnership, Brent Parks Department and the Safer Neighbourhoods Team.

The meeting place is the Robert Hartley Centre which is between Saltcroft Close and Kings Drive with a 2pm start. If the weather continues to be snowy and cold most of the discussion will take place in the Centre. Tea and coffee with be available.

"We can't continue to deliver these services"-Brent police chief on closure of Willesden Green Police Station

The Brent and Kilburn Times LINK is reporting that Brent's police chief is considering closing Willesden Green Police Station.  At a meeting at Brent Town Hall last night Chief Superintendent Matthew Gardner, in what appeared to be a political comment, said:

There are currently three officers behind the front counter at Willesden police station which I am looking at closing.

Do I have officers behind a desk and not doing anything?

As soon as you start taking away libraries and closing up police counters people get angry but we can’t continue to deliver these services.

We need them to listen and to understand. It is going to be difficult.

Willesden Green campaigners get organised

KEEP WILLESDEN GREEN

 Please join us to discuss the development of the

WILLESDEN GREEN LIBRARY

and the impact the proposals may have on Willesden Green

FEBRUARY 16TH 2012 7pm

KINGS HALL, 155 Harlesden Road, Willesden Green, NW10 2BS 

 
Residents have organised a meeting to discuss the Willesden Green Library development proposals and the impact on the Willesden Green area for Thursday of next week (details above)

Details of some of the issues involved can be found on the Keep Willesden Green website LINK but among the issues are:

• Lack of consultation over the original proposals and the 'offer' to be made in the proposed Cultural Centre
• The handing over to developers of council land to finance the development with all profits from housing going to the developer
• The Council-Private Partnership which leaves a lot of decision making to the developer
• The developer's apparent decision that retail in the Centre would not be viable (despite provision for a cafe when there are many available in the vicinity)
• The subsequent loss of premises to the much valued Willesden Bookshop
• The developer's advice that the historic old  locally listed 1894 Willesden Library could not be accommodated in the new plans
• The subsequent loss of  a base for the Brent Irish Advisory Service
• The apparent lack of public meeting rooms in the new Centre when the current rooms have been well-used and are essential to local democracy
• The adequacy of the council's alternative arrangements during the 18month-2 year building period and proposals to reopen some of the closed libraries instead
• Loss of the open space in front of the library
• Lack of parking spaces for disabled visitors

Meanwhile ePetitions are gathering support on the council website and paper versions are also gaining support.

The ePetition calling on the council to allocate space for the Willesden Bookshop currently has 417 signatures and can be accessed HERE 

The ePetition calling for the retention of the Old Willesden Librray building currently has 474 signatories and can be accessed HERE

Wembley Park cut off again this weekend

Despite all the promises from TfL, Boris etc we have no trains AGAIN from Wembley Park station this weekend. There is no Metropolitan Line service Rickmansworth/Watford to Aldgate and no Jubilee between Stanmore and Willesden Green.

Brent 'transforms' Town Hall Library into a rubbish dump

In January I posted an article, 'Town Hall Library invaded from the south' LINK about the books stock and shelves from the closed down Neasden Library being off-loaded into the Town Hall Library and the subsequent over-crowding and mess. The library is still in chaos as the pictures above,  from the Preston Library Campaign website LINK, show.

Local people have begun to complain bitterly about the state of the library and it is clear there aren't enough staff available to clear it, and more importantly, make the stock available to the public as promised.  Instead it is  in boxes on the floor, sometimes stacked at a dangerous height; on trolleys and in the staff work room. In addition there are empty shelving units, and some books from the usual stock, such as those in Hindi, are no longer accessible. Windows and blinds are inaccessible because of the additional material and parts of the library are cordoned off.

Is this a comprehensive and efficient library service?

As well as the state of the library itself, local people are having misgivings about the move to the Civic Centre next year. The library, despite being based at the Town Hall, also serves a community function as the local library for the families of the Chalkhill Estate (and its primary school), Pilgrims Way Estate, and the flats on Kings Drive. They use the homework club,  half-term activities and the Summer Reading Scheme. All will be far less accessible to them  when the library moves all the way to the new Civic Centre. Older chidlren wil no longer be able to go there independently and it will be further for school trips from Chalkhill Primary and Ark Academy's primary phase.

A further question being asked is, 'Will the Civic Centre Library be closed on event days?' . Having seen the crowds of fans in the triangle formed by the Civic Centre, Stadium and Arena my answer would be that even it is open, it will hardly be the place for families to battle against the mass of boisterous fans to go and change their library books. This will mean that the new library won't really be open the promised 7 days a week. If you take the current period until May the stadium will be in use for sports activities on 8 weekend days and one evening. There may be other events in addition to these as well as those on at the Arena.

Dollis Hill By-election likely on March 22nd

It appears that the Dollis Hill by-election  will be held on Thursday Match 22nd but this is subject to confirmation over the next few days. A by-election in Barnhill will be on Thursday May 3rd if Cllr Judith goes ahead with her resignation in March and yet another 'hill', this time Dudden, will come up if the Rev David Clues reisgns after moving to Brighton.

Major disruption on Forty Lane

Following a road accident outside Brent Town Hall Forty Lane has been closed off and traffic is being diverted via Kings Drive and The Paddocks.

Brent and Kilburn Times coverage LINK

Rage against these cuts

The Budget document going to Brent Executive is a massive and dense tome with pages of technical information and is unlikely to be read in its entirety by any of the councillors or commentators, let alone understood by them. The most you can do is try and glean some kind of overview on the financial plight of the council and some detail (from Appendix D) of where the axe is going to fall but there are major headings with no elaboration. I have covered the latter in previous postings.

Cllr Krupesh Hirani in a letter to the Brent and Kilburn Times this week asked 'Is it fair that Brent has to make cuts in the region of 27 and 28% of our controllable budget whilst other councils are not being hurt as badly as Brent? Brent is losing out on £73 per resident whereas Guildford faces a cut of £10 a person and Richmond £5.39 a person'.

The answer is of course it's not fair but the next question is, 'What is the Labour council doing about that if they recognise a cut of this magnitude is going to seriously damage local people and threaten the Council's ability to provide effective and efficient services?'

That is where the answers so far have been unsatisfactory and often contradictory. Despite Ann John telling people at Area Consultation Forums that the situation is dire,  her consultation, to the frustration of the audiences, did not contain any details of the cuts her administration are going to make - only the global figures. They were available on the council website in time for the Kingsbury and Kenton ACF but I doubt that many had accessed them. At the same time the cuts are dressed up in the misleading guise of 'transformation', 'savings', 'One Council' and 'efficiencies' and do not contain any details of their actual impact on real people. We need to be honest - a cut is a cut and cuts hurt.

If the cuts are as horrendous and as unfair as some Labour people claim then surely we should not 'be going gentle into that good night'. We should be standing up for the people of Brent, combining with other councils in a similar position, and taking on the Coalition. Instead Labour nationally, under the leadership of the two Eds. seems only to be concerned about what happens in 2015 and not the damage that will rip the heart out of many families and ruin the lives of the young, disabled, the mentally ill, the homeless and the elderly before that election takes place. Labour councils are left to find their own way through the maelstrom with no national leadership.

As Dylan Thomas went on 'rage, rage against the dying of the light'. Is Brent Labour so frightened of the shadow of the old 'loony left Brent' stereotype that they cannot see that they must rise up, enraged, at the injustice that is being perpetrated against its citizens?

Okay, after the rage some bare statistics from the Budget Report beyond 2012-13

Savings required 2013-14 £9.3m   (Cumulative £9.3m)
                             2014-15 £11.6m (Cumulative£20.9m)
                             2015-16 £5.3m   (Cumulative£26.2m)

This includes no allowance for price inflation but assumes a Council Tax rise of 3.5% in 2013-14 and 2.5% each  in the following two years. If council tax is frozen then further savings will be required.

How did we get there and what is being cut?

Service area Budgets (reductions in red increases in black)
 

Service Area	2011-12 £’000	2012-13 £’000
Children and Families	57,831	51,402
Environment and Neighbourhood	42,567	34,073
Adult Social Services	92,165	89,552
Regeneration and Major Projects	21,974	33,277
Central Services	12,543	10,074
Finance and Corporate	13,864	22,256