Ham Park Village Evening Walkabout

Apologises for the poor quality photograph but it is a record of last nights "walkabout" with local residents and Council officers in West Ham Ward, E15, Newham.

Ham Park village has an active Residents Association. Following a recent RA meeting it was decided that we ought to go and walk around the area "out of office" hours in winter to check on street lighting, parking, ASB, pot holes and dumped rubbish.

There were 3 council officers and all three ward Councillors present and about 10 local residents who met at 6.30pm at the local Vicarage Lane Community Centre. After a quick cup of tea  (thank you Kim) we then spent about hour and half touring the local area, taking notes about environmental issues and problems. Luckily the rain had just stopped.

We also had various chats with residents about the history of the area, going hopping in their youth, Kentish apples, urban foxes, "beds in sheds", Aileen Walk gates and the hugely important pros and cons of controlled parking zones.

It is fair to say that during the course of the "walkabout" a number of let me say, not particularly positive comments were made about the Council, but I was really pleased that at the end residents thanked the Council officers present for giving up their evenings to come out with them and tour their manor.

Council officers made copious notes and took a number of photographs and we will let residents know what can be done to address the problems that we discovered and there will be a review and report back meeting probably now in January.

#Bedsinsheds

Guest post on her speech to the London Labour Party Biennial Conference last Saturday.

"Good morning Chair, Conference, my name is Sanchia Alasia and I’m here as a Greater London UNISON Labour Link delegate, asking you to support housing composite no.2. As a Councillor in Barking and Dagenham I am seeing an increasing amount of sheds in gardens that are becoming an ever increasing occurrence for people’s dwellings in my ward.

This is simply not acceptable. In order to deal with this issue effectively, with the landlords who take advantage of vulnerable residents, UNISON believes that we need to give our enforcement professionals the tools to enforce effectively, not on a voluntary basis, but a mandatory one.

The current laws that we have are too slow and expensive to implement and the government’s response is woefully inadequate. UNISON urges you to support this composite to make it a clear and simple criminal offence to allow tenants in premises that are not fit for human habitation and to hold our landlords to account. Conference please support this motion. Thank you".