Treetops

It appears that the Treetops closure that I referred to earlier has been resolved.  What a curious turn of events. 

Treetops Nursery Closure

Treetops is threatened with being closed by Ofsted.  I remember when the current arrangements were set up.  Indeed I helped shaped them after some constituents contacted me.  To close the whole operation down over one unpaid invoice seems a massive over reaction.  I assume that there is a back story that has yet to be made public.

If Treetops does close, it will leave the Council the headache of an empty building for which there is no alternative use.

Desperate Liberal Democrat Bar Chart

I have mentioned before the notorious subject of Liberal Democrat bar charts.  The Liberal Democrats have made an art of distorting election results to mislead the voters.  Following the Kensal Green by election announcement, their first leaflet has an especially desperate example of the genre:

Whereas generally they show their opponents as way behind or about to be overtaken.  Here, they are reduced to pretending that their opponents don't exist.  I guess that they felt they still had to have some sort of bar chart in that place in their standard template, but the 2015 Brent Central General Election result just wouldn't do.  Nor would their dismal 2014 Kensal Green showing. 

Where is the New Brent Library Strategy?

Curious to see that Brent Council's Forward Plan still has no item on libraries.  The Libraries Transformation Project, which was effectively the Council's strategy from 2011 until now, has been completed with the opening of Willesden Library.  Officers should be given political direction on the long term future of the service so that they can plan service development, including whatever cuts councillors decide to make to the libraries budget.

The omission is curious, as the Budget included proposals to spin off libraries in some sort of undefined form.  Full scale privatisation would probably be politically controversial, and possibly technically difficult.  Certainly I think separating out the co-located libraries at Harlesden, Willesden and Wembley strikes me as a tricky issue.

The whole design of these three libraries is based on blurring the distinction between the library and the co-located service.  For example at Willesden Library, you have to go through the library to reach the Musuem, archives, one stop shop, art gallery and meeting rooms.  A new arms length arrangement goes in the opposite direction of trying to separate everything out again.

It reads to me as a line put in the budget by someone for financial reasons without really understanding how Brent Library services work. 

Brawl in Tubbs Road

Reports of a massive night time brawl in Tubbs Road.  Boris Johnson's massive cuts to local police in Brent and across London are hardly going to help deal with this sort of thing.  Andy Burnham has written to Theresa May to think again on the police cuts.  Lets hope she listens. 

Kensal Green By Election

Kensal Green is now gearing up for a by election following the sad death of Cllr Dan Filson.  There are five candidates standing, including what I think is the first ever UKIP candidate to stand in Kensal Green.  Only two candidates _ Labour and Liberal Democrat _ actually live in the ward.  Polling Day will be 17 December. 

Furness School Academisation

It appears that Furness primary school is drifting towards academy status.  I am not sure whether this is supposed to benefit the school or is merely a consequence of its linkage to Oakington Manor School.  Either way it doesn't seem satisfactory.

As I have pointed out before, the widespread conversion of schools into academies is making life impossible for local authorities.  They retain the responsibility for providing school places, but have almost no powers to create them.  They can't build new schools unless they create new academies, and they can't force an existing academy to take pupils.  If the academy fails financially (as some have) the local authority is left to pick up the pieces.

Brent Council sought to get around this by ensuring that new academies be part of the Co-operative network of schools.  Despite this being the official Brent Council policy, the Council appears not to be implementing it.  It is the closest that, under the existing government, we can get to the Labour Party's official policy of having schools under local authority control. 

I find it quirte baffling that the Council is not pursuing its duly passed policy.

New Exhibtion at Willesden Library

Willesden Library's gallery has a new exhibition called Déjà Vu.  I think it is greatly to the credit of the officers concerned, that this kind of project is still going forward despite the financial crisis.

Longer Library Opening Hours

No one seems to have noticed that, at a time when most authorities are reducing library hours as the only alternative to closure, Brent have extended them even further.  Seven day opening was introduced at all Brent libraries late in 2012, but now Wembley and Willesden Libraries open not from noon as in the other cases, but from 10am.

School Place Crisis

Among the reports at the next Brent Cabinet meeting is one on school places, with frankly terrifying implications.  It asks members to:

"Note that the demand for  Secondary Places will increase  from September 2016 with demand outstripping supply from 2018. depending on the size of sites, the equivalent of two or three additional secondary schools will be needed by the 2022/23 academic year."

I well recall the controversy over the building of the ARK Academy in Wembley which attracted some very strange debate.  The Lib Dem/ Tory administration in charge of the Council ordered a review of all the available sites, and none of them were brilliant.  I simply can't imagine where two or three secondary schools can be built.

It also illustrates a point I have made before that authorities still have a requirement to provide school places, but not the powers.  As the report says, Brent has no community secondary schools, and no power to demand an academy expands or ability to build a new school, except as an academy.  The Council is dependent on other parties to make things happen.  In the case of the Gladstone Free school, they simply didn't.  Altogether, it strikes me that such a system is unsustainable.

Play Streets in Brent

The next Brent Council Cabinet has an interesting piece on play streets _ temporary closures of a street to allow children to play in it.  This sounds like an interesting idea, and I look forward to seeing how it works in practice.

Ash Tree Die Back

Ash tree die back hit the headlines some time ago.  The melancholy fact appears to be that the UK will lose most of its current ash trees in the same way that Denmark already has.  I find the search for developing new strains of ash heartening as a solution to this problem, but it is sad to see that there is so much opposition to it simply based on the technology being new.  The Woodland Trust is quoted as saying that the "test tube" must be a last resort.  Why should it be presumed that the latest scientific research risks being disastrous?  Surely, whether a solution works or not should be assessed without worrying about whether it is based on old or new technology.

Boris Johnson Learns of Flooding Risks

Boris Johnson seems to be coming rather late to the the issue of surface water flooding.  As his Mayoral term peters out he seems to be desperately reaching round for some sort of legacy.  He has a reputation as something of a climate change sceptic, so that may explain why he has had so little interest in the subject.  Authorities like Brent have developed policies for reducing flooding over some years.  The effect of these can be seen in the use of permeable paving, tree planting, the use of sustainable urban drainage as a planning condition and the encouragement of soft planting. 

People sometimes blame the use of controlled parking zones for people paving over gardens, but I am not really convinced.  The expense of paving over a garden would take a while to recoup from the money saved on parking permits, and I suspect it has more to do with people wanting minimal maintanence for their gardens.

Scrutiny and Dumping

Thursday's scrutiny committee has a report on dumped rubbish, which is a model of what Scrutiny should be doing.  The Committee has taken a growing problem and major concern of residents, looked at in detail and with promptness, and come up with a series of imaginative recommendations.  That really is what the system is supposed to do, and it is a tribute to the recently deceased Chair that he got the Committee actively engaged in this way. 

Parking at the Willesden Sainsburys

In the Willesden Sainsburys recently, I saw they are advertising their car parking for customers.  I hope that they remember that they have a planning obligation dating back to the 1980s, they have to make some of their spaces available for general town centre use.

I have often argued that parking is not as central to town centre success as many people seem to think.  During the early stages of the Harlesden Town Centre regeneration, I was surprised to learn that 85% of shoppers travelling to a London Town Centre do not come by car.  I was less surprised to find that getting people to linger in a pleasant urban environment is seen as important to the success of a High Street.  Political debates about parking often fail to recognise these factors.

UPDATE

The comment below states that Sainsburys are ignoring their obligations on car parking.  If so the Council should remind them ofr their obligations and, if necessary, take legal action.  By the way, the land on the Willesden Library site was not "given away". It paid for the new library.  It is also worth remembering that it was not for general parking but specifically for users of the Library Centre.

Death of Cllr Dan Filson

I am sorry to hear that Cllr Dan Filson, Councillor for Kensal Green, has died.  As well as being known in Brent he was widely known and respected in the Labour & Co-operative Movement throughout London.  In Brent, he became Chair of Scrutiny and brought a much deeper level of seriousness to the scrutiny of Council business.  This would have come as no surprise to those who knew him.

In conversation, he would always treat the details of policy in depth pursuing the line of the enquiry to the end.  This is most true when he was discussing education (which he had been chair of during his previous time as a councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham), but was also true of many other subjects.  He is a great loss to the Council and the Party in general. 

Volunteers and Employment Risk

Public Libraries News, which is the leading source of information on UK public libraries, has an interesting piece about the risks of volunteer libraries.  These apply not just to libraries but also other kinds of "Big Society" solutions to public services.

I had quite a lot to do with various "Big Society" campaigns in Brent.  Some of these were proposals related to libraries, but there were other kinds such as the Charteris Sports Centre, that threw up much of the same issues.  What struck me about many of these proposals was firstly the very optimistic assumptions that tended to be made, and (more surprisingly) the refusal to consider the kind of issues in the PLN piece.  Such queries were often dismissed as "red tape" or "bureaucratic" when in fact they were sensible attempts to forestall potential problems.

The issues of responsibilities regarding volunteers is really crucial to any kind of "Big Society" solution.  I can't envisage how any such solution would work without a quasi-employment relationship for the volunteers.  In order to make sure a building was open at certain hours, for instance, you would have to have an obligation by volunteers to turn up at that time.  That then creates the potential legal issues mentioned in the PLN article.  These are on top of the various other issues that may crop up.

Access to Brent Civic Centre

It is good to see that Brent Council is now treating disabled access at the Civic Centre very seriously.  Positive action to enhance disabled access beyond strict legal requirements will strike most people as common sense, especially for an authority that regards itself as forward.  It also a change from the previous attitude which I blogged on at the time.  In that case, an elderly person using crutches was told that they had to provide their own wheel chair, which caused significant avoidable discomfit to her.  I was told that this decision was made at a political level and based on personal dislike of the individual.  I am glad that a new approach is being taken. 

Barham Trust Meets Again

There is yet another meeting of the Barham Trust today which conjures up some unexpected issues. 

There is an item on the Veterans Club that rents part of the building complex.  It would appear that a member of the public complained that the Club was not inclusive.  The Council decided to investigate the Club's activities with regard to equalities.

This surprises me, as I have previously argued that the Council (i.e. the Trust) is simply a landlord, and shouldn't worry about what its tenants are doing, aside from keeping to the tenancy agreement.  However, the Committee's legal advice appears to be slightly different:

"Although charities are not public bodies, they may still be covered by the general duty if they exercise public functions, and equality legislation does have an impact on their service delivery or charitable objects."

The recommendations involve various Council officers taking a very pro-active approach to promoting equalities issues in the Club.
 

I would have thought that this policy would have to apply not just to the Veterans club, but also to the other two tenants.  To implement the policy with regard to one tenant but not to the two others strikes me as irrational.
 

Although this is advice to the Trust, which is separate to the Council as a whole, I imagine it would also be applicable to other buildings where the Council is acting as landlord, which will unfortunately add to the complexities of management of such properties. 

Going to Plan
Otherwise, it sounds as if the Trust is progressing well according to the plan agreed some time ago after consultation.  Works to the buildings have progressed.  The bank of leylandi trees, which I understood have been the focus for anti-social behavior, are being removed and replaced with a path.  ACAVA have now moved in as a tenant, and their studios are fully occupied, which will surprise Paul Lorber who argued that there was no demand for artist studios in the area. 

The leasing of the community lounge, which is the only item I can see that deviates from the original plan, which was to allow ad hoc lettings, will generate further income _ reducing the Trust's dependence on Brent Council for funding. 

I am a little surprised by the detail that the Trust will ask the Charity Commission's permission to rent the Children's Centre building to the Council, but I assume that is just a technical detail. 

Altogether it seems that the Trust has made a lot of progress since the "years of neglect" under Paul Lorber. 

The Importance of Registering to Vote

The Labour Party in Brent and nationally had a number of street stalls promoting electoral registration at the weekend.  Speaking to some one at the stall outside Willesden Library, it seems many people don't realise the importance of this.  The Tory government has switch ed the rules to discourage registration in a tactic that is known in the USA as "voter suppression".  The register for December this year will then be used as the basis for redrawing constituency boundaries so that it is easier for the Tories to win future General Elections.  You can register to vote here.