Posts

Crime up, police sanction detections down, yet the LBWF Safer Neighbourhoods Board hasn’t met since November 2021

September 12, 2022 Policing/crime

In the 12 months ending August 2022, crime in Waltham Forest rose 1.9 per cent, while sanction detections (charges, summonses, cautions reprimands, final warning, etc.) fell by the same amount. Turning to the most common crime in the borough, violence against the person, there were 6,710 offences in 2021-22, 2.3 per cent down on the previous year, which seems a plus, though one that is considerably diminished by the fact that sanction detections had also declined, and by a whopping 13.4 per cent. Meanwhile research released in October 2021 revealed that almost two thirds of residents reported themselves worried about crime, with four-fifths declaring that ‘knife crime was a problem in t... »

Complaint upheld: Cllrs Eglin, Ihenachor, Imre, and Malik found not to have declared their interests, and LBWF drops links to councillors’ party political websites

September 5, 2022 Mark Hynes, register of interests

A recent post (see link, below) recorded that (a) Cllrs Rhiannon Eglin, Chrystal Ihenachor, Sazimet-Palta Imre, and Zafran Malik had not declared their interests, and (b) several other councillors, including Clyde Loakes, were using their profile pages on the LBWF website to link to Twitter feeds that were blatantly partisan, in contravention of the 1986 Local Government Act’s clear instruction that ‘A local authority shall not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party’. Happily, a complaint to LBWF about these matters now has been fully upheld, with changes allegedly made to prevent a repeat. On the declaratio... »

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Is LBWF involved in covering up the danger that Town Hall asbestos has posed to its staff and contractors?

August 23, 2022 Town Hall asbestos

This blog is highly sceptical about conspiracy theories and allegations of cover ups. But sometimes the facts of a case are so striking that it is easy to see why even the most sober observers will judge such scepticism to be misplaced, indeed naive. Consider the following. First, the background. In 2015, the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) successfully prosecuted LBWF for exposing staff and contractors to dangerous asbestos dust. Much of the evidence heard in the court case related to asbestos in the Town Hall basement. During the proceedings, and in attempted mitigation, LBWF CEO Martin Esom stated under oath: ‘As a result of…the HSE investigation, LBWF have deployed a signi... »

LBWF councillors’ Register of Interests sparks controversy… yet again

August 12, 2022 Mark Hynes, register of interests

Over recent years, whenever anyone from outside the Town Hall examines councillors’ publicly declared interests – their jobs, landholding, membership of clubs and societies, etc. – it’s almost guaranteed that controversy will follow. Who can forget, for example, that, extraordinarily, the immediate predecessors of the present Leader, Chris Robbins and Clare Coghill, were both found to have made wrong and misleading declarations? And it seems as if this long-running saga continues, for this week there has been another dismal instalment. It should be emphasised that the term Register of Interests is something of a misnomer, as LBWF does not in fact publish all the councillors’ declared i... »

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Why is LBWF so poor at delivering ‘affordable housing’, particularly genuinely ‘affordable housing’?

August 4, 2022 Housing, LBWF spin

A previous post (see links below) examined LBWF’s recent performance over ‘affordable housing’ (AH). It noted that though the word ‘affordable’ is vague and often used confusingly, what’s referred to as AH in fact encompasses housing let at four different rent levels, two, called Social Rent and London Affordable Rent, specifically designed so as to be genuinely in reach of the less well off. And it went on to show that from 2012-13 to 2020-21, LBWF had fallen far short of its long-term and often stated promise that 50 percent of housing completions would be ‘affordable’; and, worse still, Social Rent and London Affordable Rent completions in Waltham Forest were a me... »

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