The Egg Whisk

Remember that yellow Planning Notice I spotted down at Gants Hill a few days ago? Well, I've found a computer generated graphic of what it's going to look like, see below. It was on the Planning section of the award winning council website - Redbridge-i, the one that is really difficult to navigate and find what you want unless you happen to be a nerd. Mrs Blogger says it looks like an Egg Whisk which is how it shall be known henceforth. It is accompanied with a description [reproduced below] presumably written by the council's Public Art Officer [yes, we have one] but being a complete art dunce I always thought that art should speak for itself - you know, a picture paints a thousand words, or in this case generates them. It is the sort of language that our resident art critic is always banging on about, so I'll let him do his bit in the comments. If you are wondering about how much it is costing in these austere times, I'm afraid I don't know, but I suspect it is being funded by TfL [the body that ran out of money and didn't provide lifts at Newbury Park Station] and if we want to know it will be via a Freedom of Information request. Nevertheless, I actually quite like it.

Click on graphic to enlarge

The artwork was selected following the invitation of Expressions of Interest from artists experienced with work in public realm. 4 artists were shortlisted to develop proposals and a selection panel comprising local councillors, members of the LBR Public Art Advisory Panel and some residents local to Gants Hill.

The approach to this artwork works on various levels – physical, contextual and practical. The idea was to create an iconic artwork which also works on an intimate level celebrating local context and looking forward to the future.

The sculpture takes the shape of an abstracted egg growing out of the oviod shape of the island in the centre of the roundabout. Symbolic connotations of growth, beauty, hope and rebirth are alluded to. Although the form has been directly inspired by the context and the shape of the roundabout it is important that the form of the sculpture has a timeless elegance and the simplicity of its abstract form allows for personal interpretation and dreaming.

It is important that although the sculpture has a real presence it also sits gently and quietly on the site. Laser cut stainless steel and stainless steel wire will allow views through the artwork as well as reflect light beautifully both day and night, in sunshine and mist. By allowing the structural elements to be integrated into its form there is a realised harmony and tension between its mass and the views allowed through it.

The work will be lit by LED uplighters placed at its base so that it is visible at night as well as during the daytime. During twilight and the hors of darkness the appearance of the sculpture will change and it will rise mysteriously over the surrounding streetscape.

The roundabout surface will be planted with low level shrubs in broad bands to add interest and to compliment the sculpture. The brickwork of the station buildings will be cleaned and possibly painted so that the whole roundabout has the appearance of a new lease of life and becomes the focus of positive attention rather than being seen as an unattractive and uncared for necessity.

The sculpture will be visible from all of the approaches to the roundabout. The central roundabout island, however, is not accessible to the public for reasons of road safety so the view of the artwork will always be at a distance. However, it will be enjoyed by drivers and pedestrians alike.

Cornered Shops

Last Wednesday, 28th July 2010, the Greater London Authority's Planning and Housing Committee published a report “Cornered Shops – London’s Small Shops and the Planning System”. Below is a summary of the report prepared by Valerie from the Green Party of England and Wales.Since the 1960's, there has been a massive shift from shopping at local, specialised independent shops -- such as green grocers and butchers -- to purchasing at larger conglomerates.

A new report from the Greater London Assembly's Planning and Housing Committee warns that if these habits continue, we could see the total eradication of small shops as early as 2015. The numbers reflect this; London lost more than 7,000 individual or family-owned shops in the period 2001 to 2007.

This is problematic for many reasons, besides the sense of community and local cohesion they lend; local stores provide a wider social and economic role and one that is central to a sustainable neighbourhood. For example, over 50% of the turnover of independent retailers goes back into the local community, compared to just 5% per cent from supermarkets. They also meet the needs of the disadvantaged, socially excluded and elderly, particularly those with a lack of mobility who cannot access more distant shops.

The main threats to small shops come from the supermarkets and rising rents. The recent shift from retail to service-based vendors also poses a threat. Businesses such as coffee shops, internet cafes, sandwich shops, or beauticians do not require planning permission and are taking over retail spaces.

The report states it is lawful, and perfectly acceptable in planning terms, for local planning authorities to seek to protect and strengthen established shopping centres through specific planning policies. This legitimacy must be recognised, and boroughs must be confident that they can act to protect their small shops. A number of London boroughs are actively looking at measures to protect small shops through the planning system by defining some retail uses as "essential services."

Following a six month investigation, the committee recommends that all boroughs ensure that they have policies to:

- Protect retail uses in neighbourhood parades within walking distance;
- Protect small retail units from adverse impacts from new retail development; and
- Reflect the need for local small shops to be easily accessible via a full range of sustainable modes of transport.

Ultimately, the fate of London’s small shops rests with their ability to persuade Londoners to use them on a regular basis. Many London communities have made use of unique initiatives to encourage local spending, such as the Brixton pound or the Wedge card. There is scope for improvements in policy at all levels; national, London wide, the borough and local levels. If the report’s suggestions can be recognized in the development of London Plan policy, it will go some way to helping support London’s small shops and neighbourhood centres.

-------ooOoo--------

Also last Wednesday we learned that the Barkingside Business Partnership had been re-constituted [again, that’s at least 5 times since we’ve been going]. There were 5 businesses present out of 105. I can only remember 3 – Red Banana, a solicitors and the new Chinese Herbal shop. Area Committee 3 allocated £5,000 each to Manford Way shopping Centre and Barkingside High Street for Christmas. This will not necessarily been spent on Christmas decorations and lights as it was generally agreed that what you get for even double that amount is crap. It may go towards a Christmas Tree which was well appreciated in Manford Way last year or a market of some kind. But we do still have the lights on the Fairlop Oak at Fullwell Cross roundabout. Oh and it has been agreed that 11 of the 15 lamppost advertising boards are to be removed.

Now can we have a look at saving some pubs please?

August, Die She Must

“..the autumn winds blow chilly and cold.” I really must get myself one of these so I can play my old vinyl records again.

So, I did a what’s on in May and one for June, but not July. I had one planned “July she will fly” but it didn’t materialise and I got earache from a few for not doing it. So, I will endeavour, Mr Morse, to try and do a monthly preview, but it does rather depend on you peeps out there telling me what you’ve got planned in good time.

Like Maureen for example, who with the regularity of Haley’s comet opens up her rear garden each August to visitors with proceeds going to a charity. Last year she had over 100 guests and raised £400 for St Francis Hospice. This year its on 8th August, more details here.

Exactly a week later we have the Redbridge Sky Ride. No doubt our resident Dandy will be all togged up and sticking two fingers up to Sky TV and Mr Murdoch. There was one in Ealing on July 18th and if you want a preview of what to expect you can take a look at Real Cycling or Bicycle Slut.

Gants Hill, Wednesday 28th July

A deserted Woodford Avenue, 28th July

Gants Hill remains off the map [picture 1 above] having started the 8 week extravaganza of resurfacing the roads down there on 12th July. The outside lane in a deserted Woodford Avenue has been coned off due to the droppings of a passing dinosaur [picture 2 above] but you will be pleased to note that on completion we will have [picture 3 left] “a steel and bronze wire public art structure comprising 16m high column topped by irregular shaped feature 9m long by 4m wide uplit with base lights and associated landscaping”.

The High Street buses have been diverted onto the 169 route down Horns Road and Ley Street and the Woodford Avenue buses into Beehive Lane. Some people though are having problems getting back home from Ilford. They just don’t know which stop to catch the bus back as some of them are going in the opposite direction. Confused? You won't be, after this week's episode of...B21s Soap.

Elsewhere I am invited to a birthday party by a long standing mate by the name of Alan – there were lots of Alans at the time which made life rather confusing. This one’s claim to fame was that at his 21st birthday party everybody turned up rather glum because Elvis Presley had died that very day, 16th August 1977.

The council meetings calendar is usually empty in August but this year I am surprised to see that some councillors will be around for the scintillating subject of Planning. I’m surprised these meetings have anything left to do given the relaxation of the planning rules a couple of years back. The rest, no doubt, will be sitting in deck chairs pondering how to make ends meet when they get back.

Oh and the Premier league starts on August 14th at White Hart Lane.

But the month starts with the end of free swimming for the under 16s and over 60s, and a big question mark over the replacement pool scheme.

More here, and here.

Redbridge Life

Last Thursday at Area Committee 4 our Chairman had er, a debate with the council Leader, Keith Prince [Conservative], on the subject of the council’s monthly publication Redbridge Life. I was not there so I only have one side of the story but am trying to piece things together. That morning the Ilford Recorder published an item [see left, click graphic to enlarge] on the subject from a debate at the previous Thursday’s Full Council meeting at which Cllr Filly Maravalla [Labour] likened the publication to Pravda, the former Soviet publication, and asked the council to shut it down on the advice of Eric Pickles [Conservative] the Secretary of State for Local Government.

The trouble is that the ‘headline’ doesn’t really convey precisely what the Leader was saying and the history of the publication. There was a time when every issue featured photos of several cabinet members and I stopped skimming it and started putting it straight into the recycling box. But I have to admit that has changed [I had to go onto the council website to have a look] which may have something to do with Keith’s criteria of “the last 10 editions” which coincide roughly with his tenure as Leader. Frankly I could not accuse it of “political bias, promotion of councillors or policies” but it is still a biased publication, which is what our Chairman was trying to point out. He used two examples: free swimming for the under 16s and over 60s was trumpeted but the withdrawal as of next week has not been mentioned. And the Redbridge SkyRide item does not mention that it is Barkingside residents who bear the brunt of their roads being closed for the day and it doesn’t even give notice of which ones so that others can by-pass the event.


Councillors on Area 4 committee have been known to be very critical of the local press accusing them of only running bad news [Thursday’s Ilford Recorder front page “Car thief employed as traffic warden”] but bad news sells newspapers. So I suppose we could view Redbridge Life as the antidote, because it only runs good news and spins bad news into good [July’s Redbridge Life front page “Council moves to tackle school place shortage” – about bloody time]. It is not an objective and balanced news sheet but then it is not meant to be. It is meant to promote Redbridge Council.

Of course Redbridge Life does publicise things of note, like the brilliant and much loved kerbside Green Garden waste scheme but that had it’s own leaflets as does the Nature Conservation team for their events. It also contains contact details for various services and departments, but does anybody keep it for reference? – I suspect not. They will find out when they need to; often via one of the many “Big Society” community groups around the borough.

What it all boils down to is this: is it value for money and can the council taxpayers afford it? That’s the key question I’d like Keith to answer, with supporting evidence please.

Finally I would like to take up on the comment made at the Area 4 meeting that this blog is “political”. Yes it is, as is Barkingside 21 itself and Agenda 21 – all lobby and community groups are political. The point here is that we are not Party Political nor are we funded by the taxpayer.

Cabinet vs Committee

Now here’s an interesting development and a scoop by Iain Dale. Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has indicated that he will give local authorities the opportunity to revert back to a committee system.

Now, when I first started to get involved in local affairs we had a committee system here in Redbridge and one of those committees was the Modernisation Committee upon which sat none other than Morris Hickey, the present deputy Leader Ian Bond and present civic Mayor Jim O’Shea. It was the first council meeting I ever attended and spoke at. I remember Mr Hickey’s words very clearly – it was the first time we had met. This was the result of New Labour’s Local Government Modernisation Act which gave local authorities the option of either a Cabinet system or a directly elected Mayor but not staying as was.

The feedback I got at the time and in the following years was that there was little enthusiasm for either option but some support for Area Committees which was one of the bolt-on goodies attached to the package. Several of those councillors have now departed, not all voluntarily, but the feeling I got was that the Cabinet system was the least worst option and adopted under duress.

So, it will be interesting to see if the present council feel the same and in particular the present leadership. There are quite a few new faces in the council chamber compared to the early 2000s who may not have any experience of the old committee system and some familiar faces who may just have grown used to having a cabinet and have been “converted”?

We shall see in due course.

The Big Society

Mira delivers a guest post on what the real “Big Society” means, why it has always been here and how Dave might like to get involved.

Matt and I have a wedding to go to at the weekend. Instead of gifts our friends asked their guests to do some volunteering and give them photographs, so we took Tuesday off work and joined a small group of local residents for one of the weekly woodland management events in Claybury Woods, [PDF 4.5Mb] led by fellow Barkingside 21 member and Redbridge Nature Conservation Ranger, Tajinder.

We wheelbarrowed loppers, a couple of bow saws and some gloves round the lake. On our way up to the treeline we passed the outdoor gym equipment and new play area, noticing that the wooden play equipment was already partly charred. A dog walker made a beeline to tell us that he knew the boys who did it, the police aren’t doing all they should, and the council needs to take action to protect the new facilities.

After an induction to the tools and how to identify the different plants, we began. Our job was to make space for indigenous oak and this mainly involved clearing out turkey oak saplings along with the occasional sweet chestnut and ash. Somebody would bow-saw through a trunk, and the rest of us got going with the loppers to cut it into small pieces we could then scatter. Some of the straighter sapling trunks were trimmed down and reserved for fencing stakes. We hadn’t been working for long when a second dog walker alerted us to a smouldering fire towards Hospital Hill, saying that she had a good idea who was responsible. Tajinder and two others went to check it and returned briefly with news that the fire was spreading under the leaves. By the time we left, the fire brigade had extinguished it and the Parks Police (who can be contacted through Redbridge Council’s switchboard on 020 8554 5000) had been notified.

Tajinder gave us tea and biscuits and we had a second break for more tea and our packed lunches. As well as the tree work we also dismantled strange human constructions like pyres or bowers, scattering the branches widely in the wood. I did about half an hour’s litter picking, which didn’t cover a very wide area and brought the sad realisation that Claybury Woods are carpeted with plastic snack wrappers, beer cans and bottles. We also found knickers, socks and a shoe (thankfully no bodies).

Thanks to Tajinder’s good-humoured health and safety vigilance - particularly about the tool use - everybody kept out of harm’s way. Matt and I (and only us, it seemed) were quickly covered in the kinds of scratches and bruises we inevitably seem to attract if we even look at a green space. Nobody at the wedding will be enjoying the sight of my legs, put it that way.

By the time I was approaching competency with the bow saw it was 2pm and time to stop. Tajinder’s colleague Stan drove off in his flatbed truck with the tools and stakes, some of us peeled off home, some back to work, and the rest spent a very pleasant afternoon in the garden at the New Fairlop Oak making each other’s acquaintance. All in all it was a very rewarding and convivial day, and we’ll definitely be checking Redbridge i’s nature conservation events pages for others. But as well as the friendliness, fresh air and office worker’s sense of achievement in physical labour, we’ll also take away lingering memories of the arson and the litter, and a new appreciation of what the Council and local community are up against to keep that piece of woodland as beautiful and diverse a habitat as it is.

To get involved, contact Redbridge’s Nature Conservation Ranger Team, James Leal Centre, Ray Park, Snakes Lane East, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 7JQ, 020 8559 2316 or email

Claybury Launched

This group has been campaigning for some years to get Claybury Park officially handed over to the Council and to have an Official Opening celebration. The handover was completed last July and is said to be the largest transfer of land into public ownership in the UK for many years. The official opening is set for Saturday 4th September but not everybody it seems is happy about it. So the Park Rangers have set up a meeting for local residents to air their views or make suggestions.

PUBLIC FORUM
Topic of discussion: Claybury Launched!

Friday, 30th July 2010 at 6.00pm
Aldborough Room - Fullwell Cross Library

It is intended that the Official opening on 4th September will take the form of a Family Fun Day and give residents the opportunity to learn more about the park and woodlands with guided walks, information on its history and talks about the ecological background of the park.

The event will run from 12noon to 5pm and activities include music, comedy and carnival acts on stage, magic tricks, circus skills performances and workshops, face painting, story telling and old fashioned fair rides. Outdoor gym workshops at the park's new outdoor gym equipment, will also be taking place throughout the day.

For further information about this meeting or the event itself, please contact Francis Castro, Nature Conservation Team Leader, on 020 8559 2316 or via email:

In addition Barkingside 21, in conjunction with the Nature Conservation Team, will be having a meeting on the following Saturday 11th September, 2-4pm, on The History of Claybury. There will be guest speakers and slide shows covering the two eras of Repton and The Hospital. More on this later.

Free Lunch

Message from Safer Neighbourhoods.

Beware Bogus Callers offering free Home Security and asking for personal information. Any instances should be reported by telephone to 0300 123 1212.

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as a free lunch, as Redbridge councillors will soon be finding out.

Also: Car Hijacking

There has been a local spate of scallywags putting Green Garden waste bags in the road to stop and hijack the cars of unsuspecting motorists. If you do have to get out of your car turn the engine off, take the keys with you and lock it, especially if you have left your handbag in there if only for a minute while you do whatever you are doing.

Men, Money and Morality

How Can Trust in Banking Be Restored?

Guest post by Roy Emmett, former Redbridge Labour Party Councillor, but still an active campaigner and currently B21's "drinks co-ordinator".

The above is the title of a lecture given by Niall Ferguson at the St. Paul’s Institute earlier this month. Niall Ferguson is a TV presenter, Harvard lecturer in Economics and author of a new biography on the life of banker Siegmund Warburg.

The theme of the lecture is evident in the title, but the lecture itself was sponsored by UBS and followed by a book signing. Confusing, and it showed at times. All in thirty minutes plus questions.

Ferguson demonstrated the difference between earlier generations of bankers, who based their business on “relationship banking” and the current generation. Have banks become ethically as well as literally bankrupt in the last three decades?

Was the love of money - to be precise, fat bonuses - the root of all the economic evil we are currently enduring?

Various other comparisons were made between the generations. Old style bankers came through the system the hard way - they learned about banking history, dressed as their fathers had (complete with Monty Python bowler hats and black umbrellas) and never, ever visited stockbrokers.

To that generation of bankers “the important elements of a first-class private banking business” were;
1. Moral standing.
2. Reputation for efficiency and high quality brain work.
3. Connections.
4. Capital funds.
5. Personnel and organisation

Note there is a complete absence of reference to “compensation”, bonuses, and share price.

These are principles, Ferguson believes, which today’s bankers would do well to revive.

These principles were so important to Warburg that Tiny Rowland of Lonrho (Ted Heath’s famous “unacceptable face of capitalism”) was dropped from the banks client list, and Robert Maxwell was politely shown the door after failing to strike the right note in a preliminary meeting.

Which of today’s banks would do that?

A bankers’ Hippocratic oath has been proposed and should be welcomed, but Ferguson believes education is the answer. Financial and business education needs to be reformed. We need more financial education and less financial engineering. He says it is a scandal that so little financial history is taught at the majority of the world’s business schools. He also finds it incredible that many of today’s senior bankers had no experience of banking before being appointed.

His conclusion is that it is time to bring trust back into banking; that without trust finance cannot function, and that trust cannot be won and retained without consistent ethical behaviour.

The evening ended with questions, most of them being predictable and dealing with the current international circumstances.

But one drew an interesting parallel. When asked “Is it possible to be paid too much?” he again returned to Warburg. He had read a great deal of Siegmund Warburg’s correspondence (including, would you believe , letters to his barber) and other writing, and in none of those thousands of words did Warburg ever refer to his wealth, income, shareholdings, dividends or bonuses. He stuck strictly to the subject in hand. And he was among the most successful of his generation. Money wasn’t important. Doing the job in hand was.

And if you have any doubts about those principles, look at the England soccer team. Nuff said!

More information about St. Paul’s Institute and a full transcript of the lecture can be found at the St Pauls Institute website.

1,000+ Cuts

Jim reports from Lewisham where the Labour Mayor, Sir Steve Bullock [are they all Sirs?], has just approved a range of £2.75m cuts for this year, following a slash in government funding, which will be implemented provided they are approved at an overview and scrutiny meeting later this month. Apparently there was some dissent from the public gallery about closing five libraries to which Sir Steve responded “f***ing idiots”.

Coincidentally we had Ron Jeffries, a former Justice of the Peace, at our coffee morning yesterday where he related an incident of him being forcibly ejected from the Redbridge council chamber back in the 1970s and being described by the Chairman as “a rabble”. The other members of the “rabble” were the Vicar of St Peters and the then MP for Ilford North Vivian Bendall.

Anyway, it seems to me that Jim and Lewisham are getting off lightly. Here in Redbridge we face a Tsunami of cuts, thinking the unthinkable and a figure of some £6million. Plenty of scope there for a clutch of “rabbles” to turn up and protest at the Town Hall, but I doubt our present leadership would resort to such language as Sir Steve, at least in public. So what to do?

The Deputy Leader of the council comments on an earlier post:

if there is spending on "daft projects" then we are very keen to hear about it, from either our staff or the public. We're currently working up a consultation programme which will include channels for both public or staff suggestions, and I think it would be sensible to allow staff to contribute anonymously if they wish

Confirmed here in the Ilford Recorder earlier today with a photo of a suitably sombre looking leader, Keith Prince. But the thing is we don’t really need another “big conversation” which in itself is a drain on resources – it costs a lot of money. There is, or rather there was, a perfectly adequate means of communication in the form of the Redbridge-i council website public forum. But since it has been locked down tighter than a [insert your own prejudice] it is completely useless as hardly anybody visits it any more.

Now I know you will be thinking, not everybody has access to the internet. But you do. And you know some who are not connected. So here’s what you do. You ask them where they think cuts should be made and you post it up here in the comments, and add your own. OK, so some of you haven’t figured out how to submit a comment, so send it by email and I’ll post it up.

Go to it.

The Green Box

Thought I’d round off the long running saga of the green box. We first spotted this green box in January this year, obstructing the footway just along from Fullwell Cross Library. It then morphed into this – a telephone point or more accurately an advertising board. We were informed that it was to be “moved” and it has. About six feet to the north and on the other side of the footway but still at right angles to pedestrian flow thus still taking up about 40% of the footway width. This in a High Street where traders have been fined for displaying their goods on [obstructing] the footway! This time the transition from Green Box to advertising board was somewhat quicker and we now have this below pictured alongside some random pedestrians. At least it is no longer obscuring the Gants Hill Road Works warning sign in the background.One of the frequent comments made about these advertising boards is that they are specifically designed and located for the motorist and as a result they distract drivers attention. There is now so much information for road users to take in what with official road traffic signs and warnings alone that many people feel any additional distraction whilst driving is dangerous. There were even comments to that effect about the plan to place a Mammoth on the roundabout in Winston Way, Ilford. But is it true? Well, while we may postulate an opinion it is pretty difficult to find any hard evidence published by the authorities. There was the case back in the 1990s with the Eva Herzigova Wonderbra ad. Apparently this did cause lots of road traffic accidents when outraged feminists lost control of their vehicles at the sight of such a blatant form of overt sexism. Personally I didn’t notice.

We do know that using a mobile phone whilst driving significantly slows reaction times but this is just another issue that the authorities ignore. Mustn’t upset the corporate interests of the never-ending story of consumerism.

However, the authorities do take action on some things. They remove Ghost Bikes because they are a distraction to drivers. Strange? No! There is no revenue stream.

Something Fishy

Last week on 3rd July Redbridge Lakes opened. This is a state-of-the-art Silver Fishery in the heart of Essex and on our doorstep. Well, actually it’s on everybody’s virtual doorstep as the Angling competitions to be held there will be beamed worldwide. It is physically located on the former Old Monovians football club site just off Roding Lane North and behind the Military cemetery. The project was started over two years ago by local resident Gordon Bullock [on the right] and I last reported on progress back in December 2008. The photos on that post clearly show what a massive project it was. Two 20 tonne diggers were used to level the site and create the two artificial lakes. No lining was needed as it is a clay bed. But then we had to wait for nature [something that human beings aren’t generally good at these days] to fill the lakes with millions of gallons of water and once that had happened to stock the lakes with around 20,000 fish.

Although it is officially open there are still some items to complete. The café should be operational in about a weeks time as will the angling shop. The rigging on the roof is awaiting the delivery and fitting of solar panels which will complement the ground source heating – all very eco-friendly. And Gordon is thrilled with the wildlife that the site has attracted. Foxes, wabbits [not Jessica] and mink have all been spotted. Birds are more conspicuous. At one point there were 7 swans a-swimming and it looked like they were going to nest but unfortunately didn’t. They swanned off. There have been Egyptian geese, egrets, tern, pheasants and a resident kestral. We would need some proper bird watchers to get a full itinerary and indeed they are welcome on the site and to use the café, [mmmm, bacon] as is anybody else who may want an afternoon out with the kids to sit and watch.

There is one part of the site that is in a hollow and ideal for Archery, sheltered from the wind, so if anyone would be interested just contact Gordon via his website. Over in the far corner there is the eco-warrior’s lair – the plan is to have a vegetable garden over there. All around the site there is plenty of wild vegetation to give a green corridor for wildlife - and bugs, butterflies and bees. The Rugby Club [next door] have been marvellous said Gordon, they have agreed not to mow within 3 meters of the boundary. As you might expect security is a problem so the site is occupied 24/7 and Gordon wants to get some pet guinea fowl to patrol. Mind you he may have a problem with the heron that I regularly see fly over in that direction.

More photos here.

Some people will not be pleased, they object to fishing saying it is cruel. But then you could say the same about keeping a dog on a lead or a bird in a cage. Around 10 years ago this middle section of Roding Lane North was quite unsavoury. The Old Monovians site was derelict and the clubhouse burnt down. The Nursery was abandoned and the allotments under used. Even part of the rugby club was, to be honest, an eyesore. There were dumped cars, fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour, drugs and graffiti. But then the fencing to the Caterham playing field was replaced and CCTV installed on the roadside lampposts. The nursery reopened and the allotments began to fill up. The cemetery opened up to civilian use. The rugby club let out part of their site to Barhale as a depot and storage facility while they were digging up Chigwell Road. Out of this the club got a brand new car park, landscaping and a new fence from the clubhouse to the cemetery. And now we have a wildlife haven in the eco-fishing centre, so I’m rather pleased.

Chatting with Dave

Last week I received an email from the UK Prime Minister, The Right Hon David Cameron MP. Oh yes, we are on first name terms and he has access to my very private email account, don’tcha know. Dave and his sidekick George are in a bit of a fix and want my help. It seems that the bankers have run off with all the cash and Dave is not content with my substantial contribution to the exchequer by way of duty on cigarettes and beer. I’m afraid I cannot contribute much in the way of petrol duties as I spend most of my time in a similar condition to Dave’s colleagues in the House, but fortunately I do have a Freedom Pass unlike those who are just reaching the age of 60 right now. Nevertheless I am prepared to supplement their Eton education with a few cockney Comprehensive thoughts.

Here’s what he writes:

Dear Alan,
You know that Britain has a huge debt problem - we're borrowing one pound for every four we spend. And you know we've got to cut public spending to avoid a crisis in our economy.
Now we're asking for your help to make those cuts in a way that is fair and responsible. Today we launched a Spending Challenge inviting everyone in the country to send in their ideas on how to get value for public money.
After all, this is your money and these are your public services. You pay your taxes, you use the hospitals, your children go to the schools, you rely on the police to keep you safe. So tell us where you think the waste is. Tell us where we can save in your local area. Tell us how we can re-think government and do things differently.
It's easy to get involved. Just go to the Spending Challenge website. Whether the sums involved are big or small, we will consider them all. So don't hold back - be bold, be radical, be innovative in your thinking. Your government needs you.

The thing is, Dave, what I would like to ask you, is what makes you think we are not getting “value for public money” already?

Let’s take, for example, the National Health Service and it would apply equally to the Police and Education. The budget may look big but a substantial part of it is spent in the private sector, and I’m not just talking about contracting out cleaning and catering. The people who construct and maintain the fabric of the buildings are private companies. As are the suppliers of beds, linen, medical equipment, IT, uniforms and ambulances not to mention medication and drugs. Then there are the consumables, gas, electricity, petrol, needles, gloves, surgical wipes, stationery.

You see Dave, there is no point looking at these elements for “savings”. Simply because they are all in the private sector and as you know they are subject to the rigours of competition and the market, which drives up productivity and efficiency and drives down prices. Unless of course you want to completely re-write market theory? In which case you would need to ask someone like Molly. Of course it could be that government has placed additional burdens of tax, administration and regulation on these companies and they are just passing the costs onto their customer …….er, the government [taxpayer]. Neither is there any point in looking at wages for front line staff. They are already paid a pittance, well below average especially in London.

The other thing I’m quite confused about is this – supply and demand. We are told that when something is plentiful it gets cheaper. We are short of nurses but their pay doesn’t go up. We seem to have Consultants and Management far in excess of our needs but their fees never seem to be reduced. Perhaps if you scrapped all the "jobs for the boys" Quangos then demand would fall and local authorities might just find Consultancies actually doing some competing and reducing their fees?

So, off you all go to Dave’s new Spending Challenge website [how much did that cost and is it value for money?]. When I registered on Saturday there were 345 pages – in fact at one point I clicked onto the next page and it was the same as the last one such was the fervour of activity. Today there are 467 pages [1:15pm] and counting. I’ve not been through it all but what I did see was a lot of duplication. No doubt a huge team of very expensive consultants will be employed to parcel it up into nice easy chunks for Dave and George to assimilate.

Of the dozen or so pages I looked at the one that stood out was a favourite of ours:
Scrap Council propaganda sheets

Chadwell Stakes Result

At approximately 11:32pm on Thursday 8th July 2010 the Chief steward Executive of Redbridge Council put on his jacket to announce the official result.

Chowdhry, Wilson - Green Party 413 (16.27%) (11.22%)
Leppert, Julian - BNP 115 (4.53%) (did not stand)
Monro, Gary - Conservative 580 (22.85%) (24.78%)
Streeting, Wes - Labour Party 800 (31.52%) (32.93%)
Tyne, John - Liberal Democrat 576 (22.70%) (28.18%)
Wiffen, Paul – UKIP 54 (2.13%) (2.90%)

[The second percentage is the combined party percentage from the May elections.]

Wes Streeting takes the trophy and a cheque for allowances.

Review:
Prior to the commencement of the race, the course was reduced from 20 furlongs to 8 on account of the low turnout of 25.5%. The early running was brisk with Julian quickly falling behind, but not as far as Paul. Wes took the lead at the first bend, but it was not clear whether it could be maintained. Gary and John were pressing hard with Wilson not far behind. At one point it looked like Gary would make a late surge but it wasn't to be. In the final stretch Wes took command and romped home with Gary beating John to second place by a nose who in turn beat Wilson by a length.

Update to The Form Guide.

The general consensus seems to be that the combined general and local elections in May favoured the Labour Party due to the higher turnout. It is pretty difficult to argue with this as they lost the general but picked up lots of seats at local level, even here in Redbridge where they had recently been under pressure from the LibDems. Chadwell ward has been a pretty solid LibDem ward since at least 1994 so they were well entrenched and it was quite a surprise that Labour took that ward in May, even with the turnout factor. So, one might have expected the LibDems to bounce back in a low turnout by election, but these are not normal times. I have no evidence other than rumblings on the interwebby, but it seems that quite a few LibDem voters voted for them to “keep the Tories out” and are a bit peeved that they’ve gone into a coalition with the Conservatives both nationally and locally. No offence to John Tyne, but the LibDems also lost their star player in May who effectively stood down by standing as a paper candidate in another ward. These disaffected voters were hardly likely to benefit the Tories and there are, less significant, rumblings of discontent with the coalition within the Tory ranks.

All 3 main parties put some effort into their campaigns, with notable national figures popping along to lend a hand. The outsider, Wilson for the Greens, also put in some considerable effort but with far fewer resources. It was always going to be a close and unpredictable contest which would make no difference to the balance of power in the council chamber. In the end it seems that both Labour and the Greens benefited from apathy and the ConDem backlash plus Labour from the front page of Thursdays Ilford Recorder.

The Greens were the only party to increase their share of the vote from May, quite considerably. Both Labour and Conservatives were down slightly and the LibDems down just under 6 percentage points. Still, barring any unforeseen events the next feast of festivities will be the London Assembly and Mayoral elections in 2012. Plenty of time for the form book to change. And after that we could be having to deal with the extra hurdles of Alternative Voting or some other wheeze to keep people up all night.

Scott Dumps Motions

A couple of weeks back I wrote to our MP, Lee Scott [pictured], asking him to consider signing EDM 178 - SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES ACT 2007 PROPOSALS, and to please also consider urging the Minister, Greg Clark, to deal with the Act’s proposals urgently. EDMs are Early Day Motions and are basically an in-house petition system for MPs.

Lee replied that I have his full support on this issue but this parliament he has decided not to sign any EDMs at all. He said that in the last parliament he had signed 1,000s and had learnt that each time he did so it cost quite a lot and that 99% of them were never discussed. He has written to the Minister instead, which is free.

I was intrigued, as you would be. Why does it cost a lot and whose budget does it come out of?

Lee’s office explained.

Each time a name is added the motion is reprinted. This has a cost that is met from public funds.
Lee has spoken to ministers and ex ministers and EDMs have ceased to have any impact on policy. They have been devalued by being used to address trivial matters such as the death of a celebrity’s dog or to record a sporting achievement. In addition campaign and lobby groups have found that cards urging MPs to sign an EDM gives an impression of action and can assist in their fund raising from supporters.
There are more effective ways for backbench MPs to raise issues of concern. One of the most effective is the Westminster Hall debates. At these members can state their case and a relevant minister is compelled to respond and it is all recorded in Hansard.
The Commons recently agreed to establish a Backbench Business Committee. This is a result of the report, 'Rebuilding the House' produced by the Reform of the House of Commons Select Committee. We hope that this will give backbench MPs more say in the matters dealt with in parliament.

Dizzy will be pleased. He has been moaning about EDMs for ages.
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We are also trying to fix up another “Meet Your MP” meeting later this year, now that he sits on the other side of the House and has the Government to answer for.

UPDATE: I have since learnt that printing and publishing EDMs costs about £500,000 per year and I can confirm that Lee will not be signing this one - I asked. Do have a look, it's hilarious.
See also Iain Dale on the subject.

Best Blogs Poll 2010

Last year this blog was voted 5th Best Green blog, up from 10th the year before that – see gongs in the side bar. So this year let’s see if we can improve on that dear readers – I know you’ve probably got voter fatigue but there are no wasted votes in this poll. I’m not allowed to advise you on who to vote for but it does not have to be all Green blogs, just the one’s you like the best of whatever hue. There is a slight rule change this year being that you don’t have to vote for 10 blogs, but can vote for as few as five so long as there are at least 5.

There is some stiff competition. One Green blog, which I’m not allowed to mention, was mis-categorised last year and did not feature in the Green list but is a strong contender this time round. Others like Dorothea’s Conservengland have sadly fallen by the wayside either dormant or deleted from the web.

Here are the rules:

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include at least FIVE blogs in your list, but please list ten if you can. If you include fewer than five, your vote will not count.
4. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
5. Only vote once.
6. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible. No blog will be excluded from voting.
7. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2010. Any votes received after that date will not count.

Safety for Pedestrians

The Wanstead & Woodford Guardian report that everyone’s favourite uncle, Mayor Boris, is to scrap 145 Traffic lights across London in "a bid to improve congestion". Oh No Mr James Ranger, reporter, you do not “improve” congestion, you “relieve” it. And more to the point they are not “traffic lights” they are pedestrian crossings controlled by traffic lights. There’s a difference, and it’s a hidden difference masked by the press to cow-tow to our car centric culture. It is the irresponsible use of a lethal piece of machinery that is an aspect of "anti-social behaviour" completely ignored by the Police, the local authority and the government – and Boris.

The three pedestrian crossings earmarked for the chop in Redbridge are:

The Puffin crossing in Tanners Lane by Court Way
The Pelican crossing in Redbridge Lane East by Roding Lane South
The Pelican crossing in The Drive by Highlands Gardens

If you don’t live in Redbridge the complete list is here.

Look, why do you think that parents ferry their children to school by car? Such that people like John Bowers turn up at Area Committee 4 and complain about “'Selfish' Newbury Park parents 'ignoring road safety'”. Are they really ignoring the realities of road safety? I suspect not. I think they might just have a better grasp of “road safety” than does John. The thing is that if you walk your children to school, at some point, you will have to cross a road and use what is known as a “pedestrian safety refuge”.

Like this one in Fullwell Avenue
And this one in Clayhall Avenue
And another in Clayhall Avenue by Claybury Broadway.
Note the absence of any pedestrians in the photographs - I wonder why?

The Air We Breathe

And by the magic of continuity we follow John Coombes comment on air pollution with a post on ….air pollution. It seems that London really does want to surpass the successes of the Beijing Olympics. Plans are well underway it seems to not only have the most impressive stadiums and facilities for the visiting bigwigs as they are chauffeured in their air conditioned limousines from their posh hotels in Central London via dedicated police lined freeways and into the heart of Stratford. Athletes and competitors will be using the bus service and will be pleased to note that London is also seeking to outdo Beijing and Los Angeles on the Air Quality and pollution front.

London – The Dirty Man of Europe

Report on estimation of mortality impacts of particulate air pollution in London

Particulate air pollution mortality by London ward.

Pollution kills 153 people every year in Redbridge, according to a new report.