Newham Council AGM 2017 (The Selfie)

This may not be very dignified but I do like this picture of some Newham Councillors after our Council Annual General Meeting on Thursday.

The meeting itself in the Old Stratford Town Hall was pretty formal. I missed the first bit since I had a General Election Agents meeting with the ERO at East Ham Town Hall. Long serving Councillors (25 years) Andrew Baikie (bottom left of photo) and Ian Corbett were given a present as was the Newham Young Mayor. The Newham Mayor spoke about his many achievements over the years.

Afterwards there was a drinks and canapes reception and this selfie was taken by our youngest Councillor, Seyi Akiwowo, on the stairs of the old Town Hall after an attempt to take to take a formal photograph of all councillors fell apart in confusion. 

John Travers Cornwell VC

Yesterday I attended the annual Parade and Church service in honour of John Travers Cornwell VC in Manor Park, E12.  The ceremony also commenarated the 90th anniversary of the The Royal British Legion. 

John (or Jack) was a local lad who joined the Navy without the permission of his parents and died aged 16 of wounds suffered in the Battle of Jutland in 1916.  He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery in the battle.  The youngest person in the Navy to receive such a reward.

There was about 100 people taking part in the Parade.  Some of the very old and frail veterans were carried by a minibus at the front of the march. They were followed by the Royal British Legion Band, British Legion banners, Legion members and supporters. Then three teams from Newham Royal Navy and Air Force Cadets.  The senior officer was the Newham Deputy Lieutenant, Colonel Mike Dudding and the Council was represented by the Deputy Mayor, Cllr Andrew Baikie.

We marched to what I thought to be a very moving service at St Michael's and All Angels Church in Romford Road. During which we sang some beautiful hymns supported by an excellent Church Choir.  The Royal British Legion were (I think accurately) in the service compared to the biblical "Good Samaritans".  We were all aware of British troops currently fighting in Afghanistan and Libya. We then marched back to a reception at the British Legion headquarters in Church Street. 

I think I was most impressed by the Newham Navy and Air Force Cadets present.  Nearly all of them were even younger than Jack Cornwell when he had joined up. It is nowadays almost completely unimaginable to think that 16 year old were sent in such harms way on active service.

They had given up their Sunday to show respect not only to the good works of the Legion but also to a fellow Newham teenager from a very different but still relatively recent age who had paid the price of those in peril on the sea.

Newham Homes ALMO returns to Council

Good news! "Newham Council have agreed that housing services should be brought back under direct control of the council in order to save money and continue to deliver good housing services.

The council's Cabinet agreed on Thursday (December 16) that an agreement with the arms length management organisation, Newham Homes, be ended from next April.

Newham Homes has received £225m of Decent Homes programme funding over the past five years. However, many of the advantages of having an arms length management organisation (ALMO) have now disappeared. The council can now bid for decent homes funding directly from the government and it will be cheaper for the council to deliver housing management services directly.

Consultation with tenants and leaseholders was carried out in November. Some 56 per cent of those consulted supported this change with only nine per cent against.

Councillor Andrew Baikie, executive member for housing, said: "It is simpler, more efficient and more effective for the housing management service to be returned to the council. Significant savings are likely to arise which can be used to fund service improvements.

"We can cut duplicate costs - and the biggest benefit for tenants and leaseholders would be that customer services, neighbourhood management and community safety would be provided by one organisation."

Discussions are under way with staff at Newham Homes and trade unions about the transfer. In the meantime, business continues as usual. Services to tenants and leaseholders should not be affected and the transition of services back to the council should be seamless.

Newham Homes was originally set up in 2005 to access government funding to improve council housing and deliver the Decent Homes programme. A bid for additional decent homes money will be submitted to the government in January". (topical seasonal picture from Newham Story of Newham Homes Repairs depot in Abbey Road).

Elections are ideally a summer sport

Last night in Royal Docks it was wet and very windy. Not ideal circumstances for canvassers of any political persuasion. As soon as we started off I lost the voter ID sheets for that street in the wind and had to chase after them. I managed to find them under a car.

They were very soggy but still thankfully in one piece. Stupidly, despite the weather I didn’t make sure before setting out from the campaign HQ that we had housing blocks with cover to canvass were we could shelter from Mother Nature.

I was with a trio of Newham Councillors – Andrew Baikie (Executive member for Housing and Little Ilford ward), James Butler (Deputy Executive advisor and Custom House ward) and Clive Furness (Executive member for Health and Canning Town North). On the way out we bumped into Newham Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, on his way out with another canvass team.

It was a bloody miserable night – the only positive thing was that residents were so astonished that we out and about in such weather that we earned brownie points for Steve because of it. I saw no other canvassers from any other party. We had one of us in the car shouting out of the car window addresses to call out at and then take back voter ID reports while the wet ones scurried to and fro. You had to have somewhere dry with a light to read and record information. Outside in the rain your canvass sheets just disintegrated. This went on for a while. It was just about ok since the rain was blustery rather than constant.

Then joy of joys, James found a tower block in the pack which we could canvass. So we finished off canvassing in the dry at least. This block had not been modernised recently. So there were problems which Andrew was taking up the next day. However, I was pleased to see there was a fairly effective security service since the communal stairs and landing were in a very good condition.

After we had dropped off the canvass returns Andrew and I had to have a serious political canvass debrief in the local “So Bar”.

My camera batteries ran out so no pictures – what a shame.