Brent: Fairtrade Borough?

I hope that we will soon have a firm timetable for Brent to become a Fairtrade Borough. We have been trying to this for ages, since Peter Lemmon was Mayor, but (as with so much else) progressed slowed to a crawl under the Lib dem / Tory administration.

The most difficult parts are likely to be getting more schools to register an interest, getting a wide range of religious organisations on board, and finding at least one big employer to sign up.

Brent Recycling

Currently, I am doing a lot on Brent Council's new waste strategy. Indeed, I will be doing a presentation at the Harlesden Area Consultative Forum this evening on the subject. One of the issues people have asked me about is a reuseable nappy scheme. The Strategy has that as an option. the two things we need to find out more about are the costs, and how we would engage enough parents to make it worthwhile.

Fortnightly Bin Collections

I see Brian Coleman is denouncing fortnightly bin collections as a potential fire risk, but I don't see why. Our proposal is to replace the green box with a much bigger recycling bin, keep the grey bin and the organic bin (introducing a new food waste bin for those household currently without. Why would vandals be more likely to set fire to a larger bin than a green box?

Incidentally, the reports on Brian Coleman's comments make the common mistake of assuming that savings from the scheme are driven by fewer bin men and vehicles. In fact, the savings come from diverting waste from landfill disposal (the most expensive way of getting rid of it) to recycling (much cheaper). I don't think the total number of vehicles and bin men will be much different.

What will be different is that the proportion of waste that is recycled will go up enormously. If you look at the most successful recycling authorities in the UK, they almost all use some version of a fortnightly collection. Thus, Tories like Eric Pickles and Brian Coleman are denouncing the only policy that has been shown to be really successful in increasing recycling. At the same time, the Tory government has kept the landfill tax in place, forcing local authorities to recycle more. Of course this may just the Tories being muddled, not understanding that their policies are going in opposite directions, or it may be more Machiavellian. They may will the end of greater recycling, but want to put any political flak on to local authorities.

Urban Design Guide

Some time ago, Brent was going to pass a new urban design guide to give consistent standards in improving the public realm. Unfortunately, this has been delayed through another round of consultation, but it should come back in time for the October Executive, no doubt full of "naked streets" and "shared surfaces" type ideas.

Elms Court Allotments

Paul Lorber and his Liberal Democrat colleagues have reputedly been protesting about the de-designation of the Elms Court allotment site for housing. What makes this odd is that they were the ones who withdrew its designation, back in May 2009. You can find it in 2.10 of the report. Both Paul Lorber and James Allee are noted in the minutes as speaking on the report. The only deviation of the current decision that springs to mind from their decision is that replacement allotments have now been identified. Could it be another case of Brent Liberal Democrats doing one thing in office and the opposite in opposition?

Tubbs Road Clean Up Day

It had been planned that Tubbs Road would have a clean up day on 2 October. Unfortunately, the logistics mean that has to be postponed. We are still keen to do it, just at a later date. This is supported by the three Kensal Green Councillors through Ward Working funding (formerly Neighbourhood Working). There was quite a successful clean up in Rucklidge Avenue a short time ago, and this is the same sort of thing. It also gives us an opportunity to publicise the abolition of the £25 charge, which will no longer be charged from 1 October.

Littering

I was told recently of a Keep Britain Tidy survey that found that only 4% of people admit to littering at any time. This is interesting as it does indicate a widespread acceptance that littering is wrong, with almost everyone being ashamed to admit to it.

Alternatively, if all the litter really is being left by only 4% of the population then they must be a dedicated group of people who spend hours doing it, like Flanders & Swann's Broken Bedstead Men.

Liberal Democrat Economic Policy

Larry Elliot has a reminder of the Liberal Democrats' previous record European economics. What this indicates to me is not so much a wrong analysis as a tendency to follow fashions whithout analysis. During the election, the Liberal Democrats were similarly following a fashion in arguing for a fiscal stimulus. In government, it suddenly became fashionable to go for austerity, although I would have thought the weakness of the Eurozone and the petering out of Obama's stimulus actually strengthened the argument the other way. One could go back further to when Nick Clegg was calling for "savage cuts" only to backtrack later on.

Video on Flytipping

I went to see a video by BTSWC, working with Groundwork, on flytipping at the Unity Centre on Church Road. It is now online, and you can see it here.

HMOs

The Con Dem government is apparently taking another retrograde step. Landlords will now be able to create houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) for up to six people without planning permission.

This is likely to create much lower living standards for the tenants. Just before the election, the Planning Committee considered a case in Dennis Avenue in Tokyngton where the landlord wanted to convert to a HMO. The application was refused because he wanted to give some of his tenants as little as half the space normally allotted to people living in flats.

My colleague Cllr Lesley Jones has long been fighting HMOs in Willesden. She is particularly interested in how they change the character of an area, leading to fewer residents with a long term stake.

Harlesden Town Charter Now Online

The Harlesden Town Charter is now available online here. I gather this is a temporary address for it. Not quite sure why it has taken Brent Council so long to get it on the web site, but at least you can see it now.

More Liberal Democrat Confusion

Following my post of Monday, I was reflecting on the difficulties of the Liberal Democrats in their coalition. Nick Clegg explicitly rejected the idea of playing out Tory / Liberal democrat differences in public, although that appears to be exactly what Sarah Teather is doing as she struggles to justify herself to voters who thought she was a leftwing alternative.

Her piece in "First", the Local Government Association newsletter, argues that the pupil premium is a "real Liberal Democrat achievement". My understanding is that there is real fear that it could end up in Brent getting less money for its pupils, in which case Sarah Teather will no doubt declare it was all down to the Tories.

At Conference, Clegg rightly claimed that the two coalition parties constantly claiming credit for the good, and placing blame for the bad on each other would "poison" the coalition. I think he is right. I also think that, being two rival parties one with a history of permanent opposition, they won't be able to help themselves.

The Way of the Future

Ireland shows us the way of the future if George Osborne is allowed to pursue austerity to the full.

Sarah Teather and Free Schools

The Guardian reported on Sarah Teather being given a hard time over free schools at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference early on, and now the Liberal Democrat leadership have been explicitly defeated on the issue. Given the way Sarah Teather is now implementing a policy that she spent the election campaign denouncing, that is hardly surprising. I think it is more or less admitted that the Coalition government is going to pay no attention to what the Liberal Democrat Conference says.

As I see it Sarah Teather's central weakness is that the Tories are determined to push ahead with the free schools policy. The Liberal Democrats can only rebel against such a central policy if they are willing to break up the coalition, which would mean they no longer hold ministerial posts. Of course, had the Liberal Democrats agreed to support a minority Conservative government, they would still be able to oppose the free schools initiative.

I have seen comments from Simon Hughes suggesting that he does oppose Free Schools, even though he voted for them in the Commons as they were part of the coalition deal. I think that position would only seem remotely credible to someone of Mr Hughes' extraordinary level of moral manoeuvrability.

Meanwhile, Teather is stuck in an entirely subordinate position to Michael Gove, implementing a policy that she and her colleagues disagree with. In my imagination, he calls her Teather and she calls him Mr Gove. That is the kind of relationship they have.

Teather on her Conference Defeat

In response to her defeat, Sarah Teather has confessed:

"The Liberal Democrats are an open and democratic party and it is right that members should express their views on government policy. Our members respect that in a coalition government some of the policies that go forward will be Conservatives ones and some will be Liberal Democrat and some will be a blend of the two."

I don't recall her putting that on any her leaflets during the campaign: "some of the policies that go forward will be Conservative ones."

Shameless.

Illegal Immigrants in Illegal Housing

The story of a mini-shanty town for illegal immigrants in Strode Road is a depressing reminder of how desperate many people in Brent and elsewhere are for housing.

Good Riddance: A Message from Nick Clegg

Very struck by the Observer's piece on Nick Clegg yesterday and its implications for Sarah Teather in Brent Central. The great one more or less says sod off to those voters who have backed the Liberal Democrats since the Iraq War as being a "left wing" alternative to Labour. The piece quotes him:

"I am not denying that there is a chunk of people who turned to the Liberal Democrats at the height of Blair's authoritarism and his fascination with Bush and Cheney and said "Ha, these Liberal Democrats, they're the leftwing party I want. They're the leftwing conscience of the Labour Party." That was always going to unwind at some point."

The problem for Sarah Teather is that that is what her entire parliamentary career has been based on, positioning herself to the left of Labour. Now she finds herself implementing a Tory programme of savage cuts that goes completely against the more Keynesian approach that the Lib Dems had during the campaign, and a Leader who is explicitly rejecting the core beliefs of virtually all the Brent Central voters who supported her.

I wonder what she will do next?

More Water Leaks

Yet more water leaks. The leak at the traffic lights on Harrow Road (junction of Wrottesley Road) are being repaired (see picture above) which no doubt accounts for much of the traffic snarl up this morning. The leak outside Kensal Green Tube station continues, and is overdue for repair, and I am not sure of progress on the leak at the corner of Park Parade and Wrottesley Road.

St Marks Church Garden

Belated congratulations to St Mark's Church on their new garden (pictured). Hopefully they will soon go ahead with the expanasion of the Church Hall as well.

ASB Review

As I blogged a couple of days ago, I shall be interested in hearing the results of the Lib Dem / Conservative review into ASBOs. I don't recall Ms May's doubts being voiced during the election. Nationally, the Liberal Democrats did have doubts although here in Brent they didn't do anything about it. It was startling to hear Cllr Paul Lorber at the last Council meeting talking about how terrible ASBOs were as if he had not just spent four years presiding over a Brent Council that issued them fairly frequently.

From the BBC report, the review appears to based on the idea that ASBOs are just quickly approved without any thought. My experience in Hazel Road suggests that is by no means the case. In fact, the police need specific information and times from people, although they don't need to put up public statements in court. Use of ASBOs and Dispersal zones are also usually accom panied by lots of "soft" measures like theYouth work that Ward Working paid for in Hazel Road, as well as non judicial measures, like speaking to landlords, or even just cutting hedgerows back or making minor building alterations.