Category: Ealing and Northfield

Back in March I pointed out that the council’s scrutiny budget had been cut by £55K. This would result in the number of scrutiny panels falling from 9 to 5, a cut of 44% in outputs.

In May I reported on Labour’s housing commission. This looks like a Labour love in with two members drawn from the Fabian Society (the Jesuits of Labour) plus three current Labour politicians and one ex-Labour politician turned highly paid civil servant. No opposition voices whatsoever.

At the last council meeting I asked a few questions on this, see question 44 here.

Question: How much will the housing commission cost the council?
Answer: The Housing Commission has a budget of £25k in total. None of the commissioners are being paid or receiving expenses.

Question: When will it meet?
Answer: The Commission has met four times in total so far – with a further three meetings planned.

Question: Will there be any public meetings?
Answer: We are intending to hold appropriate public forum to review the commission’s recommendations and conclusions.

Question: When will it report?
Answer: The final report will be available towards the end of this year.

Question: Who will approve its Terms of Reference?
Answer: The Terms of Reference have been approved by the commissioners.

Regular people not invited.

Tonight at cabinet the council is talking about the libraries again. The Labour cabinet has signed off a draft libraries strategy that will see the four threatened libraries reprieved for the time being at least. Cllr Millican, the leader of the opposition, asked that the threatened libraries be specifically protected in the strategy. The Labour finance spokesman, Cllr Johnson, urged the cabinet not to include any such protection in the strategy and the paper was agreed without a definitive statement protecting all of the libraries from closure.

The Labour group have been dreaming about Cllr Millican. Cllr Reeves, the Labour whip, told the meeting that:

I have a dream of Cllr Millican being the chair of the friends of Northfield library.

Shortly after that the leader, Cllr Bell said;

I have a vision of Cllr Millican chairing a Northfield library trust.

Strangely Bell and Reeves are not dreaming about their future involvement in Greenford and Northolt libraries respectively. Neither have they worked out a common language to describe the future of libraries in the borough.

The draft strategy talks about spending the £570K receipt from the sale of the Birth of Eve painting on the libraries strategy. I am not sure that this is what the public was expecting. The money will be spent on a raft of sexy technology such as wi-fi, Apple Macs and Sony e-Book Readers. All of this kit will be junk in five years time. There is not is not a single word in the report about any user demand for these facilities and no hint of a business case. The Southall car park approach again on a smaller scale. Let’s do something flashy, don’t worry about whether it is good value.

The strategy talks about saving £53K by taking 25 library opening hours and justifies this by pointing out that 32% of consultation respondents agreed that hours should be curtailed. The report failed to mention that 52% disagreed.

Over a year into the new administration and all we have on libraries is a hugely flawed draft strategy. Labour are floundering, not ruling.

This press release got put up and taken down again from the council’s website this morning (text below). It talks about giving residents “FIRST SIGHT OF COUNCIL’S LIBRARIES REPORT” but does not point out that the council are refusing to publish the actual documents that will be discussed next Tuesday until Monday morning which will give people no time to actually read the documents and take part in the debate. You might have thought that the press release would include a link to the documents, but no. Labour councillors can read them and get their story straight in advance but the public will have to take part in the meeting with little preparation.

The Conservative opposition have forced this meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny committee specifically so that the changes to our library service can be properly debated before a cabinet meeting that will decide the way forward. Labour’s proposals have been rejected by residents and they seem reluctant to publish their way forward in time for it to be properly debated in spite of the fact that the documents have already been prepared. It is clear from council leader Cllr Bell’s comments that he has seen the documents but he wont’ let you see them.

Can we see them today please Cllr Bell?

Update: Apparently as a special concession we will get to see the documents on Friday. Labour councillors have had them for some days.

FIRST SIGHT OF COUNCIL’S LIBRARIES REPORT

Residents are being invited to review and discuss the council’s report on the future of the borough’s library services.

The council’s overview and scrutiny committee will meet on Tuesday,
28 June at 7pm in Ealing Town Hall to discuss a detailed report that outlines its proposals to develop the borough’s library services.

The report includes the results of a six-week public consultation that more than 3,000 residents and library users took part in. The committee will explore options for how libraries could be run in the future.

Leader of the council, Councillor Julian Bell, said: “The consultation highlighted two things, residents’ passion for the libraries and some interesting concepts for the council to consider working with community organisations to deliver the services. We will continue to explore these options over the coming months.

“We are determined to deliver a high-quality library service that serves all residents across the borough. This meeting is the first opportunity to look at how we can work with volunteers and community groups.

“We have been committed to asking residents’ views before making any decisions. This meeting is the next step of the process.”

The meeting being held in the Liz Cantell room of Ealing Town Hall is open to members of the public. Anyone wishing to ask specific questions or to speak at the meeting must contact Keith Fraser, head of scrutiny and committees on 020 8825 7497 or email fraserk@ealing.gov.uk by midday on Wednesday, 27 June.

Recommendations from the meeting will be presented to the council’s cabinet when they consider the report at their meeting on Tuesday, 5 July at 7pm in Ealing Town Hall.

ENDS

By coincidence the local Tories came out today against HS2, or the route at least, just as the Campaign for High Speed Rail took the opportunity of a new week to launch their new poster campaign. I don’t know how resonant their retro campaign will be. Stoking Northern resentment doesn’t seem very positive.

In my view spending £30 billion on a railway that fails to connect to either Heathrow or the Channel Tunnel is a bit silly. I suspect that we should be investing in our transport infrastructure but a programme to remove bottlenecks across the transport network would give way more bang for the buck.

The Conservative press release said:

Local Conservatives Reject HS2 Route

Local Conservative Councillors have considered the issue of HS2 and decided to reject the proposed route for HS2, which will destroy homes in Greenford and Perivale. Many homes along the route would also suffer from increased noise levels with trains travelling up to 155mph, without the benefit of any station accessing the route locally. In addition, building the route would involve severe disruption at the Hanger Lane Gyratory.

Councillor Anthony Young said:

“We know what happens when there is an accident on the A40, or at the Hanger Lane Gyratory – much of West London ends up in gridlock. If the present HS2 proposals are adopted, we shall have a similar traffic problem every day for at least 6 months, bringing misery not only for our residents but much of West London as well.

As local Councillors, we cannot support this route, which will cause long term and sustainable blight on residents’ quality of life. We will therefore ask the Government to think again about the proposed route.”

Nick Grant’s name appeared in three Gazette articles this week.

In an article titled: “School’s academy plan gets frosty reception” we have:

Nick Grant, secretary for Ealing NUT, said: “We fully support the community’s campaign lead against Featherstone High School becoming an academy. Our fears are over the loss of democratic accountability at the school should the status be approved. We hope that the governors will recognise the heartfelt views of the political leaders who spoke at the meeting.”

In an article titled: “Ealing teachers in bid to strike over pensions” we have:

Nick Grant, of Ealing NUT said: “Unless the government makes an immediate and fundamental reversal of its plans to make us pay more and work longer to get less pension in retirement, strike action will start with one day’s stoppage on June 30.”

In the print version, under the heading “’Community is key’ for libraries, council asserts in wake of defeat there is another quote:

Nick Grant, of Ealing Alliance for Public Services, said: “Ealing deserves high-quality, paid, professionals in its libraries, as much as in other services.”

Clearly Grant gets around. Grant calls himself a Marxist and is a member of the Socialist Workers Party. In his own words on his facebook page:

Current NUT National Executive member.
active on its Education and Membership committees.

Secretary of Ealing NUT
Ealing NUT Health and Safety advisor.
Staff representative on Ealing LA Schools Forum.

National steering group member of UNITE Against Fascism, and the Right To Work Campaign.

Local organiser for the Stop the War Coalition.
Member of the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union group.

Co-founder of the Anti Academies Alliance.

Regular union and public speaker on a wide range of issues and author of various articles on education policy.

A supporter of everyone fighting for global social justice and solidarity such as:

The NUT London Young Teachers’ ‘We Want To Stay’ campaign

All workers struggling to overcome Thatcher’s anti-union laws – which the Labout government has left intact since 1997!

I think that this piece was written before he became the convenor of the Ealing Alliance for Public Services.

Grant is clearly a very busy man. It is not clear to me though that he does any actual teaching. I would be interested to hear from him if he does teach and when he last taught. I also don’t know how he supports himself. Is he paid in any of his many roles? Is he on the council’s payroll? Could it be that he is paid out of the council’s trade unions facilities budget for teachers of £138,500? We should be told.

Note: The total budget for paid union facility time, or Pilgrims, in Ealing is £250K. This is due to go down to £200K next year, a 20% cut. Meanwhile frontline services such as envirocrime officers and rangers have been halved this year.

A couple of hundred residents gathered on the town hall steps from 6.15pm yesterday to protest about the threatened closure of four of the Borough’s libraries plus the mobile library service. It was a good natured but serious group of people. Many trooped into the gallery above the council chamber to hear the libraries debate. Just as I went in to the chamber I heard one of the security guards report that there were only two places left.

At the start of the council meeting the Mayor received seven library petitions from 8,000 residents.

Conservative leader, Cllr David Millican, presented an online petition gathered by Sean Ashcroft with 437 names regarding the whole closure programme.

Conservative Cllr Eileen Harris presented a petition with over 600 names gathered by Conservative activists working in the Northolt Mandeville ward regarding the leisure centre library.

Conservative Cllr Justin Anderson presented a petition of over 450 names gathered by Peter Fry regarding Perivale library.

The redoubtable Carolyn Brown of Hanwell Community Forum presented an awesome petition of over 2,900 names regarding Hanwell library.

Conservative Cllr Anita Kapoor presented a petition of 1,579 names gathered by Conservative activists in Elthorne ward regarding Hanwell library.

Sue New, an active Northfield resident, presented a petition of over 1,000 names gathered by her outside Northfield library.

Finally, I presented a petition of over 1,000 names on behalf of residents of Northfield and Walpole wards who use Northfield library. Much of the work collecting signatures was done by the Northfield councillors but we got a lot of help from traders on Northfield Avenue who gave up selling space to make room for the petition on their counters. We are very grateful.

The last four of these petitions, having crossed various thresholds, triggered a debate and I was able to speak for four minutes. Once I had finished the new portfolio holder responsible for libraries, Labour’s Cllr Ranjit Dheer, stood up to reply and promptly announced Labour’s U-turn. The four conventional libraries would be saved at which point there was a huge celebration in the gallery and on the opposition benches. Cllr Dheer did caution though that the council was still looking at alternative methods of delivery of the library service – and it seems the Labour councillors have all committed themselves to volunteering for two hours a week in the libraries.

Cllr Dheer announced that the mobile library service would not be saved and quoted a figure of £16.47 per book as its cost. As it happens he got this wrong. The mobile library service cost only £5.20 per book in 2009/10, it cost £16.47 per visitor but clearly these visitors are hard core readers who borrow roughly three books per visit. Cllr Dheer is new to this brief so can perhaps be forgiven for misleading the council on this occasion.

This is the speech I gave last night in the council chamber:

Mr Mayor I am pleased to present this petition from over 1,000 residents of the Northfield and Walpole wards. These signatures were collected by ward councillors supported by a number of local businesses who gave up selling space for the petition.

When Northfield library was re-opened in July 2007 after a £610,000 refurbishment its visitor numbers shot up by 65%. Local people thought that this would be a new start for a neglected corner of our neighbourhood. Local councillors have been working for two years to ensure that the Log Cabin charity next to the library is housed in a new £2 million building that also accommodates a children’s centre and the Scout hut and integrates with the library. The councillors have also led a £200K project to improve the adjacent Bramley Road Open Space and integrate that with the library and the new children’s centre development and residents have been happy to support devoting a large part of our ward forum budget to the project.

Residents were flabbergasted to hear in March that the council was considering closing our well-used and well-loved library. The 1,000 names on our petition show that these are not hollow words.

Picking on libraries is not new. Council officers have had some of the smaller libraries in their sights for some years. In the 2007 budget round they came for Hanwell. The Tories said no. In the 2008 budget round they came for Perivale. The Tories said no. Now they are back for four libraries and the mobile library service.

Northfield library is very cheap to run. It only employs 3.6 FTE staff. Closing it would only save £89K a year. It only takes about 50 of the 10,000 council taxpayers of Northfield and Walpole wards to pay their council tax to raise that amount of money. If we are not careful to protect universal services we will bring into question the legitimacy of taking £1,000 or £1,500 or £2,000 per household in council tax. The saving is only 1.3% of the £6.7 million cost of the entire library service. According to the council’s own consultation document Northfield is the 3rd cheapest library in terms of cost per issue and 5th cheapest in terms of cost per visitor. The staff in this tiny library match the productivity of the 27 staff at Ealing Central without the benefit of RFID automation.

There are other ways of taking costs out of the library service without closing libraries. There are something like 125 FTE staff still in the library service of which some 21.5 FTE are back office staff. Seven of those back office staff are very expensive managers who in turn report up through another three layers of management within the council. There are 62.7 FTE working in our four largest libraries compared to only 11.5 FTE working in the four slated for closure. It is very strange that we try to run what is in essence a retail business with staff on 35 hour weeks who expect special payments to work outside office hours. I know where I would look for the bulk of my savings and it is not in the small libraries. It is in staff Ts & Cs, large library productivity, the back office and the management.

There is a saving we could make in the small libraries. I think most Northfield residents would rather have a single-handed library than no library. Going back to our local businesses. They have to run their businesses single-handed most of the time. Why can’t the council run the small libraries that way?

Northfield has an identity of its own – it needs its own library. Its businesses need the library. This afternoon I took photos of 22 businesses on Northfield Avenue that were still sporting Save Northfield Library posters in their window three months after our campaign started. The businesses know that losing the library means a reduced footfall. Even though Northfield Avenue is a relatively robust shopping parade we still have 8 empty units. This Labour council is happy to give with one hand and spend £5.5 million to regenerate Southall with a car park but it wants to take with the other and degenerate Northfield by closing our library.

The council does have a choice. It needs to make the right one. Thank you.

On Sunday morning Northfield councillors got a couple of e-mails from residents who had been kept awake by a rave on the field just south of the council’s Warren Farm sports ground, just across the tracks from Trumpers Way. The rave was advertised here.

According to one resident who e-mailed at 3:53am the rave started at 2:40am.

At over a mile away my wife was woken up at 5am and I woke up at 6.15pm to a distant beat. Even on Sunday afternoon we could hear the beat in the Walpole Park playground. This must have spoilt the weekend for thousands of Ealing residents.

I was impressed that both Susan Parsonage, Ealing’s Director of Safer Communities, and borough commander Andy Rowell were replying to our residents’ e-mails during the course of Sunday. Thank you both. Residents acknowledged that the council in particular had done good work in strengthening the security of open spaces in that area to prevent raves. It seems that the police had control of the situation earlier in the night but stood down too early allowing the rave organisers to break into the site from Windmill Lane.

I attended the site at 4.30pm on Sunday with a couple of inquisitive robbery squad officers who arrived by coincidence. A sodden group of 30 or so zombie like creatures were jiggling in front of a sound system. It was clearly winding down. The policemen asked them to turn the music off, which they did. The Portuguese DJ claimed that it was a private party for a birthday.

The site, ringed in red, is elevated above the railway tracks and Trumpers Way. With a westerly wind blowing it was easy to see how the sound could be carried to Walpole park.

I would be very interested to hear residents views and experiences. David Millican, Conservative opposition leader on Ealing council, and the Deputy Mayor for London, Richard Barnes will be meeting with the borough commander on Friday so get in touch so that they can pass on your views to the police.

My view would be that the police should make it known to these people that all efforts will be made by the police to confiscate sound systems from anyone who tries to have an unlicensed rave in Ealing. The message should be “Not here”.

See note from Ealing Conservative Group’s leader, David Millican:

The Conservative Opposition has forced the issue of Labour’s proposals, to close libraries, to the top of the Council’s agenda.

Conservative Opposition Councillors have organised separate petitions, each with hundreds of signatures, to save each library. Petitions will be presented to Full Council next Tuesday 14 June, which will trigger debates.

Then, as Opposition, we have called a special meeting of the powerful cross-party Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which will meet at 7:00 pm on Tuesday 28 June. This will discuss the fate of all the Libraries under threat, namely Perivale Library, Hanwell Library, Northolt Leisure Centre Library, Northfields Library and the Mobile Library.

The date of 28 June has been selected because the Council’s Cabinet will decide the fate of the Libraries on Tuesday 5 July and the papers will have been published.

We ask concerned residents to congregate on the steps of the Town Hall next Tuesday 14 June at 6:30 pm to show their support to keep our Libraries open.

The Labour administration have appointed another councillor to oversee the proposed library closures, namely Cllr Ranjit Dheer; so I ask you to write to him with your views at – ranjit.dheer@ealing.gov.uk

Please forward this note to encourage others to help save our libraries.