Nothing to do with the Olympics but I thought these might be of interest:

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/content/newham/recorder/news/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=newsNEWHAM&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsnewham&itemid=WeED04%20Jul%202008%2018%3A02%3A32%3A950

http://www.londonsleadingedge.co.uk/news.html

The Recorder article on the Canning Town regeneration reminded me of the fact
that, be it a good thing for the area or not (I suspect that the good will
outweigh the bad), I still don't understand how it is going to be of benefit to
local people. New jobs - Do local people have the right skills-set for the jobs
that may be created? New homes - Will local people be able to afford them? Does
anyone who reads this have any answers?

On building 1000: I couldn't find anything on the site which indicates that
Newham Council will be moving in, let alone purchased the site.

And a question arises regarding this purchase: how much has the site
depreciated in value from the original £75 million that was spent on it?

Another week and still no sign of the portfolios.

I guess that drafting one is a time consuming process.

Let me guess, another New Labour Brownite PFI venture

1) Newham hand over £50 million of land assets to their 'Partners' ie Private
speculators on the grounds that they will 're-generate' the assets.
2) a token small social housing scheme, library and/or little open space is
thrown in to abate critics
3) the 'Partners' 'regenerate' the land asset which they now own c/o Newhams
generousity, and sell to the highest commercial bidders (for probably well in
excess of the £800,000 stated.
4) Newham then lease back some of the asset (that they just gave away) for
vastly inflated commercial rents, and a few lucky homeless get to live in a
semi privatised 'social' housing scheme.
5) the New Labour Government give Newhams Mayor another laural in his cap for
asset stripping... Ooops I mean 're-generating' the borough.
6) the Olympics innit, shrouds the who deal

If I have misunderstood how this works I bow to those in the know.

Mike,

You raise some interesting points.

Not that long ago there were developers, there were councils and there were
people.  A council's role was to provide an impartial planning service and a
balance between developer and people.  The growth in the municipal-developer
which has taken place in many parts of the country changes everything.  The
local state becomes incapable of mediating between people and developer
because it becomes the representative of the developer.  There could be a
tendency for a council to fall short of its duty of care to its electors in
the new scenario.

John McNeill

An interesting and possibly bold (but most likely unrealistic) speculative
venture. However, it does beg several questions:

Where will funds be diverted from to push this forward?
How many council staff will be involved?
Will they be new employees or existing employees seconded from various borough
departments?
How will the future expected £800 Million value of this property speculation
be distributed between Newham and its "partners"?
In fact, unless these property assets are sold, how will the people of Newham
reap any benefit from the estimated future value of the proposed development?

I think we should be told.

Steven,

Thanks for that clip.

The idea that a council can put together £50 million worth of assets (in a
"delivery vehicle" in "partnership" with others) and  presume that 5 years
later it will be worth £800 million seems a little outdated if present
trends are anything to go by.  This is not to mention the contradiction
between the Town Hall as a developer and the Town Hall as a planning
authority.

John McNeill

Tel: 020 7366 6402  Fax: 020 7366 6401

Caught my eye ...

Newham Council plans £800m regeneration
Property Week News - London,England,UK
By Jennifer Rigby Newham Council in East London is finalising plans to set
up an £800m vehicle to regenerate the area as an Olympic host destination
and ...
http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=297&storycode=3116698&c=1

The helter-skelter ride that is Masterman Road Post Office:

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=NewsNewham&itemid=WeED12%20Mar%202008%2009:56:42:857&tBrand=RECOnline&tCategory=search
[MP hears anger at post office protest- 12/03/2008]

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=NewsNewham&itemid=WeED09%20Apr%202008%2008:56:36:053&tBrand=RECOnline&tCategory=search
[Timms in pleas to save post branches - 09/04/2008]

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=MPsNotebook&itemid=WeED18%20Apr%202008%2016:11:18:967&tBrand=RECOnline&tCategory=search
[Spelling out facts on post office plans- 18/04/2008]

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=NewsNewham&itemid=WeED07%20May%202008%2010:59:27:033&tBrand=RECOnline&tCategory=search
[Joy for community as a sub-post office is saved - 07/05/2008]

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=NewsNewham&itemid=WeED25%20Jun%202008%2009:45:37:040&tBrand=RECOnline&tCategory=search
[Post office will close after all- 25/06/2008]

I like Timms little footnote in his 18/04/2008 article:
"The arrival of Starbucks is the best news on East Ham High Street for years! I
hope we will see more, good new stores arriving over the coming months"

Well, not if it's anything to do with Post Offices and he's on-board!!!

Still no sign of the Portfolios - how can Cllrs Leitch and Corbett have any
idea of what the Mayor expects of them? Surely they must be quaking in their
boots, worrying about what it is that they will need to do to satisfy the
criteria for achieving top marks in their respective member performance
monitoring revues (which the Mayor was keen to implement because it is an
effective way to measure how councillors he promotes are performing; not, as
some suspected, a means to denigrate and enforce the de-selection of Labour
councillors he does not favour).

On Sunday I submitted a FOIA request asking for:

"The current portfolios for the following Mayoral Advisors positions with the
up-to-date points values [none of which appear on the Council's website] -

Executive Member for Public Realm

Deputy Executive Adviser - Community Participation

Executive Member for Anti-Social Behaviour

Deputy Executive Adviser - Special Projects

Deputy Executive Adviser, Community Forums (Legal)"

I was sent a reply which informed me that I would get a response before the
27th of next month - odd that. More so as one would assume the portfolios would
be readily available; especially as some of the "advisers" have been in post
for well over a year. And is it not odd that there are elected members rewarded
with posts that we can safely assume the Mayor thinks are important to his
effective governance of Newham, yet the portfolios that explain exactly what
those post entail are not readily on hand?

Or is it that these are just airy-fairy titles, fabricated to give lucrative
jobs to the lacklustre and the loyal?

Will let you know when I get a response to my FOIA request.

Primary Care Trust areas which had a higher number of abortions than
Northamptonshire in 2007 included Hampshire, Croydon, Lambeth, Newham, and
Southwark. The other five were Eastern and Coastal Kent, Liverpool Leeds and
Manchester.

The full report, albiet about Northamptonshire can be found here:
http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/County-high-in-abortion-table.4205920.jp

This may be of interest to some:

http://www.newham.gov.uk/Services/FinancialManagementAccountancyAndPensions/AboutUs/AuditofAccountsforYearEnded31stMarch2008.htm

For those who have a passing interest in democracy:

http://friendsofzim.com/

Nearly a month on from the Council's AGM and still no sign of the new
portfolios for Corbett and Leitch.

I heard a whisper (from a current Labour councillor) that Cllr McAuley has lost
his regeneration portfolio, or is about to - there's no indication that this is
so on the website. Does anyone know anything about this? Is it just a rumour?
Or was it made up?

David,

I read you letter as it has been edited in the Recorder with interest.

[The edited version - as appears in the Recorder - can be found here:
http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/content/newham/recorder/postbag/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=postbagnewham&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=postbagnewham&itemid=WeED05%20Jun%202008%2009%3A46%3A39%3A890
]

As you will be aware, I agree with the point you make about the lack of
scrutiny on Newham Council: I've banged on about it often enough.

In defence of John Whitworth, I have to say that you will be unaware of the
efforts made by John (as well as John Saunders, Sarah Ruiz and myself), from
within the structures of the Labour Party, to address the failings of the
mayoral system that have come about in Newham.

Sarah and I decided to leave the Labour Party as a result of our frustrations.
Both Johns chose to stay in the party but I understand that they remain
committed to trying to address the problems; as a result they were rewarded for
their efforts by being de-selected - an eerie indicator of the power the mayor
has over the supposedly democratic selection procedures as implemented by the
Labour Party.

However, it was a revelation to see that the following passage from your letter
was omitted from the printed version:

" Mr Whitworth is in a far better position to say why no one in Newham Labour
has ever scrutinised any of the Mayors decisions, have never gone on record in
council demanding answers or offering an alternative position. The only one who
did was Mike Law, who resigned and joined the Tories, a man of principle."

First, thanks for the kind words, but I feel a bit of a fraud as I didn't cross
the floor until as late in my term as a councillor as the last nine months.
Prior to the date I did leave the Labour benches, I had voiced my concerns
about the administration at Labour Group meetings and at other venues within
the Labour Party.

The thing that I find most disturbing about the editor's choice of omission is
the fact that he has taken it upon himself to remove from a letter submitted to
the paper's supposedly public opinion page a message of support for someone who
has opposed the current Town Hall administration. On a personal level, I'm not
surprised by the fact that I've been airbrushed out of the letter; I've had my
fair share of run-ins with the Recorder's editor so I expect as much. What
should be of concern is the fact that, if he is that comfortable editing the
words of an ordinary member of the public to prevent upsetting Wales and his
chums, what confidence can we have that there is any truthful analysis in the
articles reporting on the activities of the Council that appear in the
Recorder?

Oh, and it cannot be argued that the letter was edited because of limits of
space on the page - the headings of the letters could be printed in a smaller
type. And there is no issue of "space" on web pages.

In the recorder there are some letters published about whether or not we should
in Newham continue with an elected Mayor. Legislation allows, after a minimum
period following a successful referendum on the issue, to allow a second
referendum to see if us "joe public" want it to continue.

I put in my thoughts on this, as well as the rationale behind one chap
complaining about it, but the root question do we really want to keep an
elected Mayor is a valid one and debate we should be engaging in.

Here is my letter that I sent to the Recorder:

Google Ad words can be very flaky.

The "landing page" must optimized with related text very carefully and if the
ad doesn't produce it stops running dynamically until we improve it.

This is why a local Google Ad expert is needed to make the most of this
promotional opportunity.

I just added the very precise search result for "newham issues forum" and
"newham e-democracy" where the ad should do pretty good click wise. Try it and
click through the ad.

Cheers,
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org

> I clicked on Steven's link and could find nothing to do with the forum (the
only link was on the second page); what am I missing?<

Earlier today if you did a search for "Newham" there were two
sponsored links, the top one of which was to the Forum. Now neither
are there any longer.

Best

Richard Stubbs

I clicked on Steven's link and could find nothing to do with the forum (the
only link was on the second page); what am I missing?

I also "googled" Newham and got the same results.

I think it's true that existing members should try to organise an event to get
people interested in the forum (Johm Mc, maybe we could hold it at St Luke's?).

I've tried to get shed loads of people interested on a one-to-one basis and the
most popular "reason" I get with regard as to why most are reluctant to
participate is the fact that no councillors respond or participate in any way.

On Jun 4, 2008, at 11:13 AM, Richard Stubbs wrote:
> My only concern is that the Newham Issues Forum Home page no longer
> has
> anything at all to say about what the Forum is and indeed the list
> of other
> links appearing at the very top rather than an encouragement to join
> the
> forum means people are probably more likely to go elsewhere than join.
> Steven, any hope of the Links going to the bottom of the home page
> rather
> than the top?

Richard & All:

This is the result of something that has gone wrong with the Style
Sheet for our site. This apparently happened in the last 24 hours, as
I'm quite sure that the Newham page did not look this way last
weekend, when I was there.

We'll get this fixed, making the page look more like it did in the past.

We will be doing a major redesign of the site in the near future, but
what you are seeing today is the result of a mistake (not a design
decision for the site).

Thanks for your patience,

Tim Erickson
E-Democracy.Org