Signs of our times on the West Ham doorstep

On Saturday morning I went door knocking in my ward with local West Ham Labour branch comrades (and Council candidates in 2014) Julianne Marriot and John Whitworth. Julianne had been up early that day to be interviewed by various BBC channels in her role as a supporter of "Don't Judge my Family" campaign against Tory plans to penalise families who don't want to be told that they have to get "married" - or else.

She was pretty talked out and was facing more interviews later that day so she did the paperwork and the two John's did most of the door knocking and the talking.

I said hello to members of the Abbey Gardens Community Garden who were setting up their "Food Glorious Food Festival" for that afternoon. I gave my apologies for not being able to attend due to another commitment but my colleague Cllr Freda Bourne did attend.

Anti-social behaviour was a key theme of this street surgery. Residents were pleased that the local Metropolitan Police Safer Neighbourhood team were moving to nearby Newham Council Abbey Road depot. I am still more than a little fed up with London Mayor, Boris Johnson's failure to live up to his manifesto promises to keep up Police numbers in London. He has tried to hide this reduction in numbers by merging our local safer neighbourhood teams. But everyone needs to know that due to Boris there is less Police out on our streets to look after us.

An interesting sign of our times was that I knocked on one door and spoke to a resident who told me she had a complaint about our council bulk rubbish service. She went and got her IPAD and showed me within seconds a record she had made of a long list of people she had spoken to (and times) at the  Council arrange collection of her bulk rubbish, which for whatever reason never happened. She agreed to send me this information so I can try and find out what had went wrong.  I was surprised since the bulk rubbish service in Newham is my experience pretty good and I get few complaints and many compliments.  

I knocked on another door and a resident who I have never met before spoke to me about an email he had sent to me recently. I apologised that I hadn't yet seen that email but he said that he understood since he followed me on Facebook and knew I had been busy and away last week at Labour Party conference!

My best "door knock" of the day was speaking to a resident who so pleased that I had called at his home to speak to him that when I got home, I saw he had emailed me to thank me even though we had a somewhat difficult conversation about what I could (and could not) do about his rehousing application. He and his family lived in a overcrowded and small flat.

What I really liked is when I next knocked on the door of one of his neighbours, an elderly and  fragile man answered the door, looked at me in surprise and said he had only opened the door because he thought it was that same neighbour checking up on him that he was ok, because his wife had recently gone into a nursing home.

So the lesson is some things in the East End do change, but other things don't. We have IPADs, email and Facebook but as long as we still have neighbours looking out after neighbours, one of the really important East End values will live on.

(picture of Abbey Gardens festival with Freda judging) 

West Ham Labour doorstep - Tennyson Road, E15 #selfie

I came back last night from the UNISON National Delegate conference in Liverpool. No rest for the wicked and was out again this morning for a Labour mobile surgery with Cllr Ron Manley, John Whitworth and Julianne Marriot.

The surgery went well. Most residents we spoke to had no complaints and many compliments about Council services in this area. 

Some residents were concerned about street cleansing and late night anti-social behaviour (ASB) by youths in the nearby park. I will speak to the Council ASB unit and the Police Safer Neighbourhood team about what they are doing about this problem and offered to meet with residents.

The #selfie Picture was taken by Julianne's mobile. (I didn't admit at the time that I hadn't have a clue what a selfie pic was)

West Ham doorstep & Leaflet drop

Pictures in collage are from yesterday morning ward leaflet drop and street surgery 2 weeks earlier.

I was asked to go into one house to see rubbish dumped in a rear garden by a local landlord agency which I later reported. Apart from this eyesore the family liked living in the area but were private tenants with no security of tenure.

Each year their Landlord's agent comes back wanting more rent or they face eviction. This is just plain stupid and the only people who really benefit from this churn are the agents.

Good tenants want security of tenure and good landlords want good tenants. Landlords don't want the time and expense of evicting tenants who pay their rent on time and respect their property. Why can't we have sensible regulation of rents and tenancies like they do in most of Europe and even in parts of the USA?

Yesterday I came across this plaque on a wall in Redriffe Road, E15 dating from1884 which I had never noticed before.  This land use to belong to St Mary's Church in Rotherhithe, South London (or Surrey as that part of London use to be part) and had been purchased in trust for the poor of the parish in 1659. The excellent local history website Newham Story says that the land was leased in 1878 for 80 years to build homes (and maybe a pub). I wonder who is the freeholder now?

Hacked off at West Ham? (Labour Party GC & Leveson)

Twitter picture from last week's West Ham Labour Party GC when we had Julianne Marriot from Hacked Off as our guest speaker.

Hacked Off is about "campaigning with victims of press abuse to ensure that the Leveson Inquiry leads to a free & fair press, promoting world-class public interest journalism".

Julianne explained they are not just about phone hacking but about press abuse.  She gave a number of examples of the sorry state that is the modern day UK press. For example some of them will still ring the actor Hugh Grant's  90 year old Dad in middle of night, to try and startle him into saying something and they will pretend to be his son (his Dad also has heart condition).

Major newspapers such as the Sunday Express are not even members of the current voluntary Press Complaints Commission. You need to have an independent regulator underpinned by law. The Government want a "Royal Charter" while the victims of dreadful abuse want statutory regulation of press.

One good thing so far about the debate and controversy about the press is that it has so far stopped further media consolidation.  Final criticism of the Tory Government "Royal Charter" is that it would result in a "modest fee" for arbitration when Leveson made it clear that arbitration should be free.

Julianne gave a thought provoking and persuasive presentation.

She is actually a member of West Ham Labour Party and West Ham ward and we had a "discussion" yesterday evening about "Hacked off" and the Libel Reform Bill where I expressed my "concerns" over recent developments. Nuff said.

Soggy West Ham LabourDoorstep

Picture is from this morning's street surgery and doorstep in West Ham Ward, Newham, London. I had a traditional Councillor surgery in Vicarage Lane Community Centre beforehand.

During which I tried to help a constituent who is being forced to move due to the Tory Bedroom tax. S/he is a single parent in a 3 bedroom property with 2 young daughters who are now expected to share a bedroom, so s/he has to uproot them from friends and schools to move to a 2 bedroom.

When the children get older, will be be able to rehouse them in a 3-bedroom? Or will they have to share a bedroom until they leave home? Roll on General Election in 2015.

It began to rain a few minutes before we met up for the doorstep and continued off and on for the rest of the session. There were 4 of West Ham ward Labour Party finest,  Cllr Ron Manley, Secretary John Whitworth, Julieanne Marriot, Adam Tyndall (and of course me).

Things were a bit slow to start with lots of people out but eventually we picked up a new Labour Party member and lots of case work relating to recycling, parking, abandoned vehicles and I was even involved in trying to work out a land title problem between neighbours which was over 40 years old.

Hat tip pic Adam of Julieanne, John and John "on the knocker".