Affordable housing

21 Jan

ClaptonUltras 2015 Jan 18

Will the council stand up for local people or just let Galliard get away with it? I think we all know the answer to that question.

To rub salt into the wound, the developer is proposing that just 51 of the 838 homes to be built on the Boleyn Ground site will be ‘affordable’ housing. That’s made up of 5 studios, 8 one bedroom flats, 25 two bed units and 13 three bed homes. These will be offered on a shared ownership basis: there will be no affordable homes for rent.

As bad as that seems, things are even worse in Stratford.

CBRE are proposing to redevelop Morgan House – an office block – and part of the shopping centre to provide more than 500 new homes. These will overlook the Olympic Park and provide easy access to both east London’s best connected transport hub and Europe’s largest shopping mall. 

Given the high prices such a prime location will attract, it comes as no surprise that, according to the developer:

There are a number of unique and exceptional site-specific circumstances which result cumulatively in the proposal site being entirely unsuitable for on-site affordable housing provision.

The reasoning is that Newham’s priority is family homes, and a town centre location surrounded by busy roads would not be the right place to house families.

So what about the option of providing affordable homes on another site? That’s not going to happen either.

an initial review of site availability in the area has not identified an appropriate donor site for affordable housing provision. Further, the applicant does not have any suitable sites that could be identified for affordable housing provision.

The only option the developer will consider is bunging the council some cash:

Subject to viability, given the very special circumstances involved with the existing site and emerging proposals, it is considered that a commuted payment towards affordable housing provision would be the most appropriate mechanism for the provision of affordable housing.

Of course once the council has the cash – assuming the viability assessment even requires it to be paid – there’s no obligation to actually spend it on providing affordable housing. It can just vanish into the general pot and pay for whatever the mayor wants.

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Frosty

17 Jan


via Instagram

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Image

Solidarity

7 Jan

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Stepping out

6 Jan

Not my actual feet

As part of my ongoing attempts to live a slightly healthier life I’ve been trying walk a bit further everyday, with the aim of doing 10,000 steps a day.

According to the pedometer application on my phone, in 2014

  • I walked a total of 3,526,983 steps, which was 2,716 kilometres
  • My daily average was 9,690 steps, or 7.5 km
  • I exceeded my 10,000 steps-a-day target on 227 days (62% of the time)
  • On my best day I walked 20,732 steps – 16 km
  • My worst day was just 378 steps (I think I must have left my phone on the charger all day)

My target for 2015 is to get my daily average over 10,000 steps and to exceed the daily target 270 times (about 75% of days).

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Heroes and villains

6 Jan

E15 com photo

In the Guardian Aditya Chakrabortty named the Focus E15 mothers as his ‘Heroes of 2014′

Jasmin Stone has the body language of a shy person. Meeting people for the first time she tends to look down. Her speech at an anti-cuts rally this summer kept dissolving into giggles. Yet as a leader of the Focus E15 Mothers, Stone has kept her family and 28 others from being moved out of their east London neighbourhood. She and her group have faced down an intransigent council – and done more than perhaps any other campaign group this year to force social housing up the political agenda. She is not yet 21. Last year, Stone and 28 other single mothers faced being moved out of their hostel, in Newham, to Birmingham and Hastings. They fought – and all are still in Newham. In September Focus E15 took over a flat in an otherwise empty council estate which the borough had long ago cleared for a (failed) land deal. Despite court action and the water being cut off, they left of their own accord – and wrested both apology and concessions from the mayor of Newham, Robin Wales. Focus E15 is still fighting evictions and for social housing. Sometimes it takes a crisis to turn a shy soul into an accomplished radical, but that’s what Stone and her crew now are.

By contrast, the Morning Star nominated Sir Robin Wales to its list of ‘Villains of the year’

The Labour Mayor of Newham was investigated for misconduct after storming off when mothers from the Focus E15 campaign confronted him about their housing plight.

A YouTube video of his tantrum was shared extensively when the women used the London borough’s family day to highlight his support for social cleansing. Their banner at a later protest summed it up perfectly: “Sheriff of Newham — Robin the poor!”

Both nominations are richly deserved.

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2014 in review

30 Dec

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Maud Street

16 Dec

This was posted as a comment on my About page a couple of days ago (I’ve tidied up the punctuation a bit so it’s easier to read):

Please someone help.

Maud Street car park is closing due to another bit of incompetence by the councillors. We gave 1800 objections to the closure; Ian Corbett blocked these objections.

This will put business and jobs at risk. Guess who carried out the consultation? Helen Edwards.

This is money scheme by the council as the proposed social housing was sold to Chinese investors.

This morning Andrew Boff, the leader of the Conservative group on the Greater London Assembly, submitted a string of FOI requests to Newham Council about the consultation:

  • When is the parking order (dated October 1st) for the provision of On Street parking on Malmesbury Road and Oak Crescent due to commence?
  • When were local residents and businesses consulted with regard to the appropriation of land at Maud Street car park?
  • Please supply a list of businesses and residents notified with regard to the appropriation of land at Maud Street car park.
  • Please supply a list of all responses to the consultation process related to the appropriation of land at Maud Street car park.
  • What were the costs of the consultation process related to the appropriation of land at Maud Street car park.
  • Please supply a list of all responses to each of the notices to revoke the (Off Street Parking Places) (Maud Street)(No1) Order 2007.
  • Of the responses to each of the notices to revoke the (Off StreetParking Places) (Maud Street)(No1) Order 2007, how many were infavour and how many against?
  • When is the parking order (dated October 1st) for the provision of On Street parking on Malmesbury Road and Oak Crescent due to commence?

I’m not sure why all of these couldn’t have been submitted as a single request, but the questions seem pertinent in the light of the allegation that the overwhelming public response to the consultation was rejection of a proposal that has gone ahead regardless.

If anyone knows any more about this, please post in comments.

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Brass neck

12 Dec

The Newham Recorder has finally got round to reporting on the Newham Collegiate 6th Form and East Ham Town Hall debacle.

And entirely predictably it has regurgitated the mayor’s line that this is all the fault of officers.

It even has a quote from Lester ‘3 jobs’ Hudson: 

“There has been a complete and utter failure by senior officers in the governance process in this project.”

That’s some brass neck you’ve got there, Lester!

Are we really expected to believe that governance has nothing to do with elected members? That the executive mayor, his cabinet lead for finance and chair of the audit board have no responsibility for ensuring that major spending projects are running to budget, or that the authority pays heed to leading counsel’s advice on the legal status of a new school?

The supine and pointless Recorder obviously does. 

If our deputy mayor were being honest he’d have said “There has been a complete and utter failure by elected members to do the jobs residents elected them to do and for which they receive extremely generous allowances.”

That would be swiftly followed by the words “I am very sorry and I resign.”

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Equalities

9 Dec

Corbett Crawford

 
What does the mayoral advisor on the left have that the cabinet member on the right doesn’t?
 
The answer is a not ‘a fucking clue’.
 
Thanks to a recent FOI request we know that it’s a special responsibility allowance on top of his basic councillor’s pay.*
 
Richard Crawford advises on ‘Resident Experience’ – whatever that means – and gets a handsome £33,395 a year extra for his trouble.
 
Jo Corbett looks after the Equalities portfolio but “there is no renumeration linked to this post.” She gets nothing.
 
If this were anywhere but Sir Robin Wales’s Newham you’d think that was some kind of joke, but it’s par for the course here.
 
Of the mayor’s nine cabinet members five are men and four are women. Of the men, four get top whack – an extra £33,395 a year. The fifth, the Rev. Quintin Peppiatt, has declined to take an extra allowance this year.** Among the women only Ellie Robinson gets the full allowance. Frances Clarke and Lakmini Shah get £6,679 each; Jo Corbett gets nothing.
 
Outside the cabinet it is no better. Mayoral advisors Andrew Baikie, Clive Furness and Ian Corbett join Councillor Crawford in the top pay bracket. Terry Paul and David Christie each get £13,358. Joy Laguda is paid what Sir Robin clearly thinks a woman’s work is worth – £6,679.
 
It beggars belief that Newham Labour members allow their leader to get away with this year after year, apparently without question.
 
Equalities, my arse.
 
* The current basic allowance for councillors is £10,829
** Cllr Peppiatt hasn’t always been so self-denying. Between 2010 and 2014 he accepted an annual SRA of £18,624 on top of his basic.
 
 
 

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Yet another matter of interest

2 Dec

In my previous post I described Councillor Lester Hudson as double-jobbing, being both Newham’s deputy mayor and its cabinet member for finance.

It appears I did the poor man a disservice: he is triple-jobbing!

He combines his other two roles with being chair of the council’s audit committee.

Yes, that’s right. The cabinet member for finance also chairs the audit committee. Which surely amounts to a major conflict of interest, especially when there are serious questions to be answered – as there are right now with the East Ham Town Hall campus overspend and the unlawful expenditure on the new 6th form college.

Councillors would be remiss if they did not challenge this very peculiar and unhealthy arrangement.

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