Getting mighty crowded

23 Apr

Image from The Economist

Despite the building boom across the borough the proportion of residents living in overcrowded households has risen by almost 50% in the last four years.

In 2010 the Office for National Statistics reported that 17.9% of households in Newham had fewer bedrooms than they needed, as defined by the ‘bedroom standard’.[1]

The 2014 report, published last week, showed that this is now 25.2%.

That’s not a happy statistic, especially when coupled with the fact that there are 24,000 families on the council house waiting list with almost no prospect of ever being offered a home.

So you have to ask how has this been allowed to happen? How can so many new homes have been built – look at the shiny new apartment blocks in Stratford, the Olympic village, the developments in Canning Town – yet the number of overcrowded households has gotten bigger?

Despite all the rhetoric about cracking down on rogue landlords and driving up the quality of housing in the borough, this is a damning record of failure by the mayor.

[1] ‘Bedroom standard’ is used as an indicator of occupation density. A standard number of bedrooms is allocated to each household in accordance with its age/sex/marital status composition and the relationship of the members to one another. A separate bedroom is allocated to each married or cohabiting couple, any other person aged 21 or over, each pair of adolescents aged 10 – 20 of the same sex, and each pair of children under 10. Any unpaired person aged 10 – 20 is paired, if possible with a child under 10 of the same sex, or, if that is not possible, he or she is given a separate bedroom, as is any unpaired child under 10. This standard is then compared with the actual number of bedrooms (including bed-sitters) available for the sole use of the household, and differences are tabulated. Bedrooms converted to other uses are not counted as available unless they have been denoted as bedrooms by the informants; bedrooms not actually in use are counted unless uninhabitable.

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Easter Sunday morning

20 Apr


via Instagram

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Planning ahead

11 Apr

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Sir Robin Wales surrounded by his 2026 re-election campaign team.

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Busy busy busy

10 Apr

Sir Robin unveils his new ‘Every Child a Chess Player’ initiative

It looks like Newham council’s PR machine is going into overdrive to promote the mayor ahead of May’s elections.

Of the ten news stories published on the council website this week eight prominently feature Sir Robin.

On Sunday – this is a seven-day-a-week operation! – they reported that

Sir Robin Wales and Madani Sow, Chairman of Bouygues UK and Bouygues Development, marked [the completion of the first concrete structure for Hallsville Quarter, the new centre for Canning Town] by placing a time capsule in cement on the site. They were joined by representatives from partners One Housing Group, Mountain Capital and Morrisons.

On Monday

Mayor Sir Robin Wales joined more than 160 children from 13 schools across the borough to launch the Newham Primary Schools’ Team Chess Tournament at the Old Town Hall in Stratford…

…Sir Robin said: “Chess is another skill that young people can learn. It improves their concentration and we believe it improves their cognitive skills. Giving children opportunities to find the things they enjoy builds their resilience, and that’s what we’re about.”

The start of a new ‘Every child a chess player’ campaign, perhaps?

Then on Tuesday ‘Every child a Chinese lion dancer’ took centre stage:

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales joined students at Beckton’s Kingsford Community School who got some expert lessons in traditional Chinese lion dancing thanks to Royal Albert Dock developer ABP… Sir Robin visited the school with ABP vice chairman Nancy Xu and London Executive Director John Miu to present a lion’s costume and some Mandarin books.

Later the same day

Mayor Sir Robin Wales helped launch an initiative that will see girls at Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford be able to choose their perfect prom dress thanks to a leading bridal and special occasion retailer.

The diary was packed on Tuesday, as our leader took inspiration for the soon-to-be-unveiled ‘Every child a cheerleader’ programme:

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales gave a big cheer to more than 350 young people from the Ascension Eagles cheerleading squads as they put on a show at their annual Spring Showcase event.The Mayor visited the ExCeL exhibition centre in the Royal Docks to applaud teams from 15 primary and secondary schools from across the borough, and children with special educational needs, who receive cheerleading and dance coaching from the Eagles funded by the council.

Wednesday rolled around and Newham PR kicked off with news about Workplace, claiming that it has now “secured employment for more than 20,000 Newham residents.”

Sir Robin Wales Mayor of Newham said: “We’re extremely proud of our highly successful employment service, Workplace. It has done an amazing job in supporting so many Newham residents into sustainable employment.”

Not letting the grass grow under his feet, the mayor went tree planting in Canning Town

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales joined Ian Sutcliffe, executive director of Countryside Properties, head teacher Violet Otieno, and 15 pupils to plant a tree in the new rooftop garden [at Keir Hardie Primary School]…

…[he] said: “We’re committed to providing our residents with great homes, excellent schools and new and exciting neighbourhoods as part of the Canning Town and Custom House regeneration programme.”

Despite it being the first week of the Easter holidays, this was followed by a report on visits to no fewer than four other schools in the borough

to see how the [building] works were progressing, meet head teachers and pupils and to perform topping out ceremonies…

… ”It was great to meet the teachers and pupils at these schools and see the breadth on teaching on offer. Our primary schools already provide a wealth of learning opportunities to inspire our young people and help them achieve their potential.”

It was of course simply a happy coincidence that this bustle of activity occurred just before the start of the election campaign and that the council’s slick PR team could report it all in such gushing terms.

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Fleet Air Arm memorial

9 Apr


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Personality crisis

8 Apr

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Back in October the Newham Labour party website went offline. The domain registration expired and no-one bothered to renew it.

It seemed no-one had any reason keep it – West Ham CLP set up their own WordPress site; Lyn Brown already had hers and Stephen Timms had his.

But with council and mayoral elections looming in May, it’s back!

And as before it features a picture of Sir Robin on every single page. No matter where you go, Sir Robin is always there, staring back at you. Inescapable. 

It is – quite literally – all about Robin.

Newham Labour a personality cult? Oh no. Not at all.

Let’s do the Time Warp again

2 Apr

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Back in October 2013 Forest Gate councillor Ellie Robinson and Plaistow councillor Forhad Hussain were appointed to the mayor’s cabinet as ‘deputy executive members for community affairs.’

Their detailed job descriptions have recently been published on the council website, along with the allowance they will be paid: £31,000 a year, on top of their £10,800 basic.

That might seem a lot, but every penny will be spent funding development of the time machine they’ll need to fulfil one of their key responsibilities:

“Inspire residents across the borough to ‘get the party started’ in 2012 and work closely with all Councillors to maximise enthusiasm and participation.”

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Tony Benn’s coffin is carried into St Margaret’s Church, Westminster

27 Mar

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via Instagram

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Whitehall Gardens

26 Mar

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via Instagram

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Love Newham?

17 Mar

Why would you build an app like this:

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When your mobile website looks like this:

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Apps are all well and good, but you need to build different versions for different phones – iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and so on. A properly designed mobile website will work on all phones, plus tablets (the Love Newham app is only designed for phones), and doesn’t require citizens to go through the extra steps of visiting an app store, signing in (assuming you already have an account – if you don’t setting one up is another step), downloading and installing. They just work.

And they provide access to the full range of online council services.

But if people really want a dedicated app for reporting problems, why not simply point them to MySociety’s FixMyStreet app? Point 2 of the Government Digital Service’s design principles says it best: do less. If someone else is doing it — link to it.

I don’t know who’s advising Newham council on digital strategy, but if it was me I’d put developing a mobile version of the website a long, long way ahead of building an app.

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