Same old Tories
Parking consultation - Stoke Newington Neighbourhood Forum
A reminder that there is a special meeting from 7pm on Tuesday 24th October in the Gallery, behind Stoke Newington Library, to discuss the outcome of the consultation on parking. We had to fight resistance by council officers and insist on further public consultation, so please come along and make your views known.
Labour Group awayday
The Group had an awayday on Sunday 10th September to review implementation of the manifesto and how to continue local campaigning.
Finsbury Park and FinFuture
Finsbury Park as an area continuously suffers from being at the junction of three local authority, police and health areas. It’s importance as a town centre tends not to be properly acknowledged by any of them. We need to ensure that changes.
FinFuture was the organisation established to take over the work of the previous Finsbury Park Partnership. It has recently been awarded a 1.5 million LDA contract to co-ordinate town centre growth. Brian serves on their board and recently arranged a meeting with the council’s Regeneration and Neighbourhoods Directorate to ensure effective co-ordination.
We also need to ensure it is properly identified as a town centre within the council’s LDF (explained below) as this progresses.
Woodberry Down
The development of the masterplan for the estate continues, and should go for outline planning consent in December. Hackney’s planners are holding their ground for a much smaller tower on the old school site, while the design consultants would prefer to go up to 20 storeys.
A meeting of the shopkeepers on the estate and the regeneration team is to be held on Oct 11th to discuss what provision can be made for their smooth transition into the new retail units. Communication with the retailers has been seriously lacking, and efforts will be made to encourage a representative to sit on the EDC - Estate Development Committee.
The Tories continue to be extremely negative in their engagement and use the EDC as a platform to score cheap political points. We need to work out how to can help the residents regain more control, not just over the regeneration process but within their own meeting considering the attempts to hijack the agenda each month.
Labour Group 19th September
The Labour Group approved a draft green spaces strategy, and an approach to further housing regeneration. We also had a useful discussion on our local strategic partnership “Team Hackney” and how the council tends to get blamed for their actions even when we have little or no involvement.
Full Council 20th September
The main item at this month’s full council was to adopt the version of the council’s Local Development Framework to be published for consultation. The LDF is the new term for all of the planning policies for the borough.
This should have been an opportunity for a wide-ranging debate on the future of Hackney, and the type and standard of development we require. Instead the Tories wasted everyone’s time with hysterical allegations about domestic extensions in Stamford Hill.
During the election they ran this line that we were intending to particularly restrict extensions by the Orthodox Jewish community. Of course it was nonsense then and is nonsense now. However dishonest that was, you can understand their motivation for doing it during the election to motivate their core vote to turn out. It appears that they have now become so deluded, they believe their own propaganda.
Planning
The Planning Committee on 21st September approved, amongst other things, the outline proposals for the first three secondary schools in the Building Schools for the Future programme – Stoke Newington, Clapton Girls and Hackney Free & Parochial.
Cycling
Cycle racks are due to be installed in front of the shops at the junction of Green Lanes and Brownswood Road. If you are aware of any further suitable locations or other measures we could promote, please let us know.
Portland Rise and Amwell Court
The AGM of the TRA was held on the 21st September attended by officers, 15 residents from Portland Rise and Amwell Court and Feryat. The current chair, vice chair and secretary were re elected on to the TRA.
Kings Crescent
Three development partnerships for the estate have now been shortlisted. Visits to comparable estates have been arranged for 7th and 14th October. If the rest of the programme stays to schedule, a new development partner could be agreed by mid-December.
Overall performance
It’s no secret that back in the dark days of no overall control, the council was one of the worst performing on most measures. We know that things have steadily improved since Labour took back control but it’s always nice to have independent verification of that.
The recent Joint Area Review of education and children’s social services scored the council as 3 on a scale of 1 to 4. To date, no authority has scored higher.
The Comprehensive Performance Assessment by the Audit Commission rated us a “strong 2” on the same scale and agreed we were continuing to improve.
The District Auditor gave us a virtually unqualified approval of last year’s accounts, for the first time in living memory.
School results improved by three times the national average. No schools are in special measures. A second new secondary school opened in September, with a third scheduled for next September.
Overall crime is down 22%. Burglary and motor vehicle crime are falling faster than anywhere else. Gun crime, rape, domestic violence and racist crime are down significantly. Violent crime especially involving knives, continues to be a priority.
And finally … the football score
Hackney 300,000 Nike 0
As you may have heard, Hackney has agreed an out of court settlement with sportswear giant Nike, who had used our logo without permission. The money will be ring-fenced to sports development for young people.
“The astonishing win by Hackney LBC against Nike over the latter’s misuse of the council’s logo must surely rank as one of the greatest public sector achievements of the decade.
First it portrays little old Hackney as the David battling on behalf of its taxpayers against the over-mighty private sector. Next it was an audacious and daring move by the council to pursue the case when the temptation might have been to avoid litigation against such a powerful adversary, or indeed, lamely conclude that it was good free publicity.
Thirdly, the court win has helped dispel Hackney’s image as a basket-case council, and closed a chapter on the past.” (Municipal Journal 14.9.6)
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