Housing Impacts

The gloomy effect of the government's benefit cuts are covered by Dave Hill in the Guardian.  The picture he paints is of small localised communities desperately trying to keep together to the bemusement of the government policy makers.  Recently, David Cameron opined that policy research, in that case into equality impacts, was unneeded because"smart people in Whitehall" knew best.  This seems to be an example where the narrowness of backgrounds of the smart people in Whitehall, and their failure to ask the people on the receiving end of their policies directly contributes to policy failure.

New Highways Contract

The upgrade of Harlesden Town Centre that has just begun is the first to be done under the new Lohac contract.  That may seem an unexciting fact, but the important thing about it is that it allows costs to the taxpayer to be driven down without loss of service quality.

The new contract comes after years of work by TfL to develop a common London wide specification for Highways work.  Brent is one of the first Boroughs to come on stream. The common specification allows costs to be compared across Boroughs so if one is markedly higher than another, the difference will be clear.  It also means that contractors that have performed well under the contract will have an entree into a much wider pool of work than they could get from one contract alone.

Mammoth Curiosity

The BBC is reporting that frozen mammoth remains have been found with liquid blood inside.  I am intensely curious as to how liquid blood is found in frozen remains.  The idea of cloning the creature strikes me as extraordinarily cruel for such a social animal, so I hope no one attempts it.

Wembley Library Wordfest

Details of the opening festival of the new Wembley Library are now announced.  The sheer variety of the events is what impresses me the most.  Of course, the whole Civic Centre. Building was designed with performance in mind, making spectaculars like this far easier to mount.  Thus our libraries transformation project transforms not only our library service, but also our arts strategy.

Another Library Note

I thought I would add another library note as the Libraries Transformation Project draws to a close in One Council terms.

One of the aspects generally well received in my experience has been the home delivery service.  The number of books lent via this service is enormous, although the user number is small.  I have always thought it a good illustration of how our priorities accord with Labour Party values.

The reason is that the users of the home delivery services are so disabled as to be housebound.  In many party debates on budget cuts, people have said that protecting the most vulnerable is the key priority, and I think this is a good example of us protecting the most vulnerable.  The only case I can recall of someone disagreeing with this was when the then Secretary of the Friends of Kensal Rise Library came to my surgery one Saturday, and when I trotted out the home delivery service as an aspect of the Libraries Transformation Project of which I was proud, he told me that in his opinion disabled people did not matter.

That statement left me rather gobsmacked.

Whatever the feelings of non users, the people using the home delivery service appear to be among our most enthusiastic borrowers; each borrowing more than one hundred books a year.

UPDATE

The comment was made in front of a number of people.  Of course, as I have pointed out before, I would never publish anything I considered slanderous on this blog.

UPDATE AGAIN

There appears to be concern around who made the comment disparaging disabled peoples' concerns.  It was certainly a person who identified himself as a secretary of FKRL and who I know by name, although it may be for all I know that his statement that he was secretary was untrue.  He is certainly an active member of that organisation.

Personally, I am far more interested in the success of Brent Library Service overall.  Constant queries from a few individuals over a building that the Council has no control over other than as a planning authority seem to me to be only relevant in planning terms.  There is a much more exciting story in the success of our library staff in driving Brent libraries forward.

Wembley Library as the Library of the Future

Phil Bradley, the current President of CILIP, has a long post responding to the ACE libraries report from last week.  His vision of what a modern, forward looking library should look like sounds to me very much like the soon to open Wembley Library.

One Council Round Up

Last night I went to the One Council Scrutiny committee, of which I am now a member. I ended up chairing it as both the Liberal Democrat Chair and Tory Vice Chair were absent.

The first item was a presentation on libraries, a topic with which I am tolerably familiar.  The actions that we decided to undertake in our 2011 decision are now either in place or due to be during the coming year.  The Committee was impressed by the progress made, and suggested that a similar presentation should be made to the various Brent Connects forums.  We also congratulated the officers on the success of the Libraries Transformation Project.

The other major item was the staff restructuring, where there was a lot of disquiet.  We agreed to have a fuller report on this in July as there appears to be a danger of considerable delay and cost overruns.  It certainly sems that the use of interims, the nature of the staff structure and progress in achieving whatever our goals are supposed to be could all do with fuller scrutiny.

London Ambulance Cuts

I am glad to see that Seema Malhotra MP has been raising concerns about the ambulance service in London.  Ambulances in London have been slated for severe budget cuts for some time.  I am always surprised at how little publicity the cuts tot he ambulance service are getting.

More Transport Schemes

At the start of the Harlesden Town Centre scheme I was chatting to some of the engineers, who thought TfL might be attracted to doing other schemes around the main one in order to maximise the impact of the spend.  I do hope this turns out to be the case.  As far as I can tell, it is the first major public investment in Harlesden Town Centre for about twenty years.

Recycling Aside

As a short aside on recycling, I note that Ashford in Kent is now adopting a system very similar to Brent's.  Given the appallingly low level of recycling the BBC reports, it should be able to give them an even bigger boost than we got.

Harlesden Town Centre Update

I notice that the first red bags are now out as part of the anti-dumping scheme I blogged on earlier.  However, the most notable piece of news is that earth moving equipment is now on the old service station site.  This has a long and controversal history.  The approved scheme now being implemented is on a far smaller scale than the previous proposals.  Along with Park House now underway just behind the Harlesden Tesco, and the hoped for redevelopment of the Dust Club site, it really looks as if Harlesden Town Centre is benefiting from significant regeneration quite independently of the TfL regeneration.

Help to Buy

Red Brick has another condemnation of George Osborne's Help to Buy scheme.  It is striking that such a flawed policy can be put forward with so little criticism.  Not only will it help boost a property bubble, it drags the government into expensive liabilities at a time when the Chancellor is claiming we all need austerity.  It is also totally contrary to all the rhetoric about rebalancing the economy.

Work Begins on Harlesden Town Centre

The highways engineers will actually start work on the Harlesden Town Centre scheme tomorrow.  It feels a very long time since the scheme was first mooted, so it is quite a milestone for the work to actually begin.  Although the work is phased to avoid as much trouble as possible, there will inevitably be some added traffic congestion from the roadworks.  The important thing is to get an improved town centre at the end of it.

A Further Note on Wembley Library

I forgot to note in my earlier posting on Wembley Library that it will not only have better facilities than the Town Hall library but also longer opening hours.  Currently, the Town Hall library is open up to 8pm on Monday and Thursday, but closes at 6pm on other weekdays.  The new Wembley Library will open until 8pm every week day.

Universal Credit Failing Confirmed

The FT reports that universal credit is indeed struggling to be achievable, according to a report by the government itself.  This follows various denials by Iain Duncan Smith that anything is wrong.  I also enjoyed the statement after the Francis Maude quote.

ACE and Libraries

The Arts Council has finally published its libraries document "Envisioning the library of the future".  It is quite long, detailing examples of best practice, including from Brent.  I have yet to have had a chance to digest it, although I enjoyed participating in the research.

UPDATE

In answer to the comment, the proposals put to the Council (even on their own terms) all involved significant costs at a time when we very much need to reduce costs.  I am not aware of any Council that claims to have reduced costs through volunteer libraries.

Dave Hill on the Boris Bus

Dave Hill has some justly critical comment on the Boris Bus here.  As always, I am amazed at how the media generally allows Boris to get away with anything he likes.

Learie Constantine Centre

A piece of good news coming up is the redevelopment of the Learie Constantine Centre which came up at the last Executive.  The plan is for a renewed centre with some additional housing which should boost that part of Willesden High Road.

Liberal Democrat Bar Charts

For those looking for light relief on this Tuesday morning, these examples of Liberal Democrat bar charts may be worth looking at.  This sort of thing is practised by the Liberal Democrats at every election.  Indeed, I suspect they have a standard handbook, which includes standard steps you always have to use, no matter what:

1) Always make personal attacks on your opponent(s). Truth is unimportant. Imply everyone else is on the fiddle in some way.
2) Always imply that your opponent(s) come from some place other than the constituency, and that you are local.  This is very much a Sarah Teather favourite.  She tries this smear even when her opponents actually live in the constituency.  Ken Livingstone once argued that Sarah Teather could be described as the most local candidate of all, since she had previously described herself as "local" in elections in Barnet, Brighton and Islington.
3) Always claim that the election is a two horse race, and that the gap is closing in the last week of the campaign.  This can be done even if the Liberal Democrats are widely recognised not to have any hope of winning.

As well as these generic, I have listed some more Brent specific examples here.

Street Trees on Buchanan Gardens

I have just walked down Buchanan Gardens on the way to an appointment at Gracelands Cafe.  The trees are well established now, but I remember the controversy in 2006 when their predecessors were removed.  The previous trees had all been London Planes, which were the subject of numerous insurance claims for undermining peoples' houses.  The new ones are much smaller.  Although it was a big kerfluffle at the time, I don't think I have had any complaints since.