Swindon showing the way?

Swindon (a Tory controlled council) have introduced free wireless internet for all residents! Read more here

This could be very expensive. However, it could also make the area much richer by supporting people with good ideas to start businesses.

I think this is something London councils should seriously look at. What do you think?

Auden Place fire

As you may know there was a serious fire in Auden Place a few weeks back.

A complicating factor in what was a horrible incident was that the fire engine was not able to get into Auden Place because of the parking in Kingstown Street. We have petitioned Auden Place and almost everyone agrees that the parking should be removed.

Frustratingly the Lib Dem/Tory controlled Council is dragging their heels on this. We wrote to the Camden New Journal about this issue last week. We will continue to press them on this.

Phonebox 2: The Truth comes out

Excellent letter in this week's Camden New Journal about the telephone box at the bottom of Inverness street which we wrote about in August here.

Pat has just had this statement from the Lib Dem/Tory controlled council;

"This particular kiosk obtained an automatic "deemed" approval even though the Council would have refused it. This is because the Council unfortunately did not issue a notice of refusal within the 56 day time limit. This is due to the application not being dealt with correctly when it was first received."

The excuse given is that the Council was incompetent. Needless to say this is not good enough.

Open elections

Local member Lazzaro Pietragnoli has written an excellent article on what are called open primaries in Italy.

Read it here;

http://theprogressive.typepad.com/the_progressive/2009/10/primaries-in-the-italian-democratic-party-have-been-a-major-innovation-for-the-party-and-the-country.html

Parking Fire Hazard at Auden Place

Last week Pat, Tom and I spoke to a number of residents of Auden Place in Primrose Hill who had serious concerns about vehicle access in the aftermath of the recent tragic fire that took place. It is seriously lucky that no other flat set on fire and for that we owe our thanks to the swift action of our emergency services that night.

Here's a letter which the Camden New Journal recently published on this:

"THE flat where the fire in Auden Place, Primrose Hill started was completely gutted but luckily the rest of that particular building was undamaged (Dramatic rooftop rescue from fire, October 29).

In the aftermath of the fire it was revealed that the fire engines were unable to access the site due to parked cars blocking their way in Kingstown Street and the firefighters had to manoeuvre the hoses from Princess Road (an adjacent road) to the site of the fire.

On this occasion it worked, as the property on fire was on the perimeter of the estate. But if one of the houses or flats in the centre of Auden Place was involved this lack of access could have had serious repercussions.

A senior council officer we asked to have the parking removed as it was now a significant health and safety issue, told us: “Any proposals that change the existing arrangements would be the subject of local formal and informal consultation in the usual way”.

This takes months. We want this situation to be dealt with immediately. People’s lives could be at risk. Auden Place residents deserve peace of mind.

Yours Sincerely,

Cllr Pat Callaghan, Thomas Neumark and Robert Higson

Labour Action Team, Camden Town and Primrose Hill

Mayor helps Franny Armstrong

Well done to the London Mayor for stepping in and helping Camden Town resident and director of the 'Age of Stupid' film Franny Armstrong, who was recently threatened whilst walking down Georgiana Street by a group of youngsters (as reported by the Camden New Journal here.)

Armstrong, who was actually a Ken Livingstone supporter in the Mayoral elections, is also behind the innovative 10:10 campaign which encourages people to cut their carbon emissions by 10%, a campaign that has definitely persuaded me.

Now if only Boris would do something about the state of Camden Town tube station...

Halloween

This was the queue outside Escapades on Chalk Farm round on Saturday night!

New Kings Cross Blog

Some activists in Kings Cross have started a blog. Check it out;

www.kingscrosslabour.wordpress.com

Dark side of the... Hill?

From our very own Primrose Hill: the recreated famous artwork of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. This was projected into the sky last night in celebration of tomorrow's screnning of the band's performance at Earl's Court in 1994. This picture from the Evening Standard... Incredible.

Launch of the National Crime Mapping Website

For the first time, Camden Town and Primrose Hill residents will be able to access an online map with statistics and details which compares crime levels in their local area with another and also compare crime figures over previous years. You can access all this information at: http://maps.police.uk/

This is exactly the sort of useful tool which helps local communities in helping fight crime and feel safer in their area, particularly areas with burglary and drug selling problems.

Specifically, the map helps provide information on crimes such as burglary, robbery, vehicle crime and anti-social behaviour. It builds on the previous Metropolitan Police crime mapping website, available here at: http://maps.met.police.uk/

Of course, this will not solve the problems of crime or all the concerns about anti-social behaviour (for many months Tom, Pat and I have been campaigning on the need for a functioning, full-manned permanent police station in Camden Town, for example) but it does help give us more informationand policing in their local areas.

If you'd like more information on this, please contact Pat, Tom and I by calling 020 7586 6039 or by emailing camdentown.primrosehill@camdenlabour.org.uk.

As though London wasn't expensive enough...

Tube and bus fares are going up from January. And by quite a lot. The amount of money that Transport for London will raise by these price hikes is the same as they will loose by scrapping the western c-charge area and no introducing the charge on highly polluting vehicles.

Fundraiser for VIC

It was a real honour to be invited to do a turn at the fund-raising event for Visually Impaired in Camden on Sunday night. It was a really well attended event at Primrose Hill Community Association (of which I am a member of the management committee) and hopefully it raised lots of money for an organisation which does a lot of excellent work.

Massive development planned in Camden town

Last week week we attended a public meeting on the massive development which is being planned on the "Hawley wharf" site, which was affected by the fire last year.

The current plans are enormous including 7 stories housing blocks to house 200 units and gigantic new buildings to hold market stalls in.

We are calling for the following proposals to be adopted;

• Space should be set aside for a police station to be built as part of the site.
• All contractors used on site should have to sign up to a considerate builders scheme which would be monitored by the council. Failure to comply should lead to fines.
• A considerable percentage of the housing (at least 50%) should be family units and should be built and managed by Camden Council.
• The development's economic viability depends completely on public transport bringing shoppers into Camden. Camden Town tube cannot cope with the demands put on it at present. Any increase will cripple the transport infrastructure. Therefore we are demanding that the developers work with Transport for London to ensure that money is put aside for the upgrade of Camden Town tube.

The developers come to us with a mixed reputation (for example they still do not have planning permission for the temporary market which is up at the minute). However, we will keep pressing them.

Banking reform

Follow this link for some interesting ideas about banking reform

http://www.urbanforum.org.uk/communiity-reinvestment/community-reinvestment

Blues and jazz bar in Camden

The council has given a license to a new blues and jazz bar on Camden High Street. It's in the venue which used to be the Oh! bar, which had a lot of trouble with drug dealers and anti-social behaviour and was eventually closed. The new license is for 265 people.

We will have to see what happens with this but I think there should be a Camden Town wide plan for licensing. It seems that too often each request is considered separately, on its individual merits, rather than part of the overall effect on Camden town. Sometimes it's a case of the straw which breaks the camel's back.

Popping along to the pop-up shop

I went to an event at one of Camden Town Unlimited's (CTU) pop-up shops last week. It was very well attended as you can see from the picture. Of course it is sad that these shops have to be there and they are only a stop gap measure. However, I think CTU are doing a good job on this. I have been to some other high streets which don't have this scheme (yes, sometimes I leave Camden, is that so wrong?) and the boarded up shops really bring the place down.

Camden Town

Suprisingly good video on Camden Town (think it was done by Camden Town Unlimited)

Inaction on Camden Town Tube

As you probably know Camden Town Tube can be a nightmare. It is crowded, the escalators break down and we can't even use it on Sundays. That's what makes is so frustrating that the Lib-Dem/Tory run Camden Council have not been doing anything to get extra investment into the tube.

We lodged a freedom of Information request last month with the Council and it failed to show any communication - whether by letter or email - between the Director of the Environment, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the council, the Executive member for the Environment and Transport for London officials since the Camden Town Tube station public inquiry took place in 2006!

Once again, I think this shows a lack of strategic vision by Camden Council. They should be providing leadership across the board on issues like housing, economic development and transport. Instead they are retreating away from these questions.

If you agree with us that more needs to be done to improve the tube sign the petition here
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/camdentowntube/

How to Save Money

Interesting article in the Local Government press (which is a great read by the way).

Waltham Forest council (controlled by the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats) is going to merge with their local health care provider (known as a primary care trust).

There are several potential advantages to this including that the NHS is Waltham Forest will be more responsive to local needs than nationally determined targets which may be of less relevance there.

Also, in this time when everyone is looking at what savings to make this move could be a very good way to save some money. Firstly, they claim lots of management posts will be mergerd (good news), secondly, at the minute the NHS and the council do a lot of very similar work (for example in social care). Joining the two organisations together should make it easier to ensure that the money is spent in the most inefficienct way possible.

The Government is already running a programme called Total place which looks at what ways public money is spent in an area and looks for better ways to spend it. This is a good idea (weird that it hasn't happened before...) but the main problem is that once they have found that, for example, the NHS and the council both spend a lot of money on the same thing, what do they do then? The problem is that there is no one organisation in charge of public money in an area. If we are to make real savings we should move to a system where the council has more control of all money which is spent locally.

This is a much smarter way to save money than to cut funding to youth clubs or to charge more for meals on wheels as Camden council is doing.

Camden given affordable housing boost

Camden got a welcome piece of good news this week in that it is set to be the most significant beneficiary of the government's new affordable home building programme.

Housing Minister John Healey confirmed this week a boost for affordable housing with news of a nearly £250 million investment to provide 3400 affordable homes and creating around 5,000 jobs. This is indeed great news.

Meeting the Housing Minister, John Healey MP

In all, 43 Housing Associations across 97 council areas and within every region of the country will benefit from the funding boost. Camden is set to receive the highest amount, £42 million for 284 homes.

All the new homes announced this week will be affordable, with more than four in every five built for low cost rent, and the rest for first time buyers. And as Tom mentions, all the while Camden keeps selling more and more council homes.

Labour Group leader Cllr. Nasim Ali welcomed the £42 million investment – the largest sum in the country: “Every councillor knows that housing is the number one concern local people have at our surgeries. Locally Labour's never stopped lobbying for more affordable housing, so £42 million for 300 new homes is fantastic news. It’s the largest settlement in the country and this will help families in overcrowded housing as well as first time buyers.