Knole Park, Godden Green & One Tree Hill Walk

Gill and I went on a superb Pathfinder walk in Kent today. We had an old version of the booklet but hopefully the new Kent Pathfinder has the same walk in it.

It was supposed to be only 51 minutes by car from East London (but we missed the turning for the A21 - I blame google maps of course).

It was a marvellous 6 mile circular walk with lots of ups and downs but nothing too strenuous. It was cold but mostly blue skies and sunshine. 

The deer in Knole Park were very dismissive of us walkers and carried on munching grass or scratching their antlers on trees, regardless of us gawking at them. 

There was such a variety of scenery and vista in this walk. Lots of wide open spaces, hillside views and wooden paths. Go in a week or two to see the bluebells at their best. 

We bought 6 duck eggs at a honesty stall which also had chicken and quail eggs as well as bramley apple juice. 

The flag of Ukraine was proudly being flown next to the village war memorial in Godden Green. 

Octavia Hill who was an early supporter of social housing and the role of women in such housing management is closely connected with this site and the National Trust who run the impressive Knole House. 

We finished off the walk with a drink at the White Rock Inn in Underriver. Who had a great Sunday roast menu. Next time. 

I will post more pictures of the walk on Facebook. 

My "last" Overview & Scrutiny Committee Meeting...

On the 25th March I went to the Newham Council Overview & Scrutiny (O&SC) Committee meeting at Newham Town Hall.

This is the last such meeting before many Council functions close down for "Purduh" due to the impending elections on May 22nd.

As a Newham Councillor I am a member of the O&SC because I am Vice Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Group.

I am re-standing as a Labour Candidate for West Ham ward (many thanks for the support of ward Party members in my reselection). So if it goes badly in May this could have been my last O&SC meeting.

Check out the publicly available agenda and minutes here.

There was some controversial items about the proposed closure of the Vicarage Lane "walk-in" medical centre and a planned 6% cut (Tory speak for NHS cuts is "over target"). Our local NHS budget is also planned to be "flat" (0%) for the next 2 years. This will mean that in real terms (after inflation and it was confirmed that the cost of health care rises faster than normal inflation) that the cuts to our local health services will be much, much worse than 6%.  So much for the Tory pledge that the NHS will be safe in their hands! 

Next item was the on the Britannia Village Medical practice. Representatives from NHS England confirmed that the lease on the practice will not be terminated early but it will remain under review when it does end.  

There was also an update on "NHS Health Check".

The final item was a written report and presentation by the Newham Council team who are implementing the national programme locally on "Troubled Families". The report was very positive about the teams efforts to turn around the lives of such families. This scheme was introduced following the riots in 2011. Councils are given money to give these families intensive support to change their lives.

I am very supportive of these initiatives but made the point that if families live in extreme poverty and overcrowded homes there is only so much that can be done.

I did ask whether any of the officers presenting this (very good) report had heard of the social housing pioneer, Octavia Hill? Sadly, they said they had not, but said they would look it up. I am sure they will.

I love history and find it fascinating that this new government initiative on "Troubled Families" mirrors very much the work by Octavia Hill  (see picture) more than 100 years ago.  She said that you cannot deal with people and their homes separately. I would of course add that you cannot ignore poverty either in that mix.

If the good folk of West Ham ward repeat what is in my view their very good judgement of 2010, I hope to be back in some Council scrutiny role after the elections in May.

Octavia Hill, Housing, the Diffusion of Beauty (& other things)

On Monday it was the 100th anniversary of the death of Octavia Hill. She was one of those remarkable, talented, passionate strong willed, Victorians whose influence is still live and kicking a 100 years on. While I don't actually agree with everything she did or believed in - if you work or have an interest in social housing you simply cannot ignore her.

She is credited with the development of social housing, the Army Cadet Corp, the National Trust, and even being "a forebear of occupational therapy". I love the fact that she was once a treasurer of the "Society for the Diffusion of Beauty".

She believed that the poor deserved decent, affordable, well managed housing. However, she did not believe either in state subsidised housing, female emancipation nor even social security. She was also a very hard taskmaster with regard to rent arrears or anti-social behaviour, which I believe would be popular on modern day housing estates but produce a field day for human rights lawyers.

Octavia also believed in the role of women in housing management. This was of course at a time when women were excluded from nearly all "professions". Women trained by her later founded the Institute of Women Managers in 1916. This much later eventually became the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIOH).

One final thought is that I remember attending a meeting of the London branch of the CIOH in middle 1990's. They had an elderly female speaker (whose name I am sorry I have long forgotten) to speak about the history of housing management. I remember her clearly talking about the significant role of women in housing management since Octavia Hill. She looked around at the (majority male) audience in the room and asked what has happened in housing management in recent years - "Where have all the women gone"?

HousingStories

My “grown up” job is an estate managment officer for a housing association. I have just been sent a link to an entertaining new site (still under construction) called “HousingStories”. Some of these stories don’t exactly show the Social Housing “profession” at its best. I can well believe the GLC mouse story. Not sure what housing management pioneer Octavia Hill would have made of it?

As a young Housing Officer, I received a complaint from a tenant that she kept hearing loud animal noises coming from the council house next door. When I visited the property I was amazed to find a fully grown bull in the back garden. What made it even more puzzling was that there was no rear access to the back garden. The tenant explained to me that he had got the bull when it was just a calf and brought it through the house into the back garden. The idea was that it would be a pet for the kids until it was ready to go to market. When I asked how he intended to get it out of the back garden, he suddenly went quiet! We ended up having to have the animal sedated and hoisted over the house with a crane.

The housing chair had a habit of always falling asleep during council meetings. His political colleagues decided that at the next council meeting they would take a vote to exclude any member committing this sin. As the meeting began our housing chair dosed off. The mayor immediately called for a special vote to evict from the chamber any councillor who fell asleep during the proceedings. As the vote was being taken by a show of hands our councillor awoke, noticed the hands of his colleagues in the air and joined in the vote!