Nick Tiratsoo's 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 consid... »

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 th... »

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 ... »

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 m... »

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... »

Looking back at the past, an occasional series. Part two: ‘Our Olympics – “Chariots of Ire”‘

July 29, 2022 2012 Olympics in Waltham Forest, 2012 Olympics in Waltham Forest: Leyton Market, 2012 Olympics in Waltham Forest: the Dispersal Order, National Construction College Cathall Rd.

Purely for amusement, and to compliment all the remeniscing prompted by the 2012 anniversary, here’s a post that first appeared on this blog in 2015, one of a series on ‘Our Olympics’ (see links for the others). Who can forget the sight of no less a figure than LBWF CEO Martin Esom scurrying round the borough’s public libraries to collect in as many copies of the council... »

Mark Baynes RIP

July 29, 2022 Uncategorized

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Leytonstone cartoonist Woox on LBWF’s housing policies

July 28, 2022 Housing, Redevelopment, Woox

(Reproduced by kind permission of Woox) »

LBWF’s flagship Blackhorse Yard ‘affordable’ housing scheme teeters, as developer Swan Housing steps away

July 19, 2022 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Housing, Redevelopment

The future of LBWF’s flagship ‘affordable’ housing scheme at Blackhorse Yard has been thrown into disarray, following the withdrawal of one of its two developers, Swan Housing. Swan Housing and its partner, Catalyst Homes, originally had gained planning permission for Blackhorse Yard in February 2019, and intended to deliver ‘359 affordable homes for shared ownership’, together with... »

Asbestos in Waltham Forest Town Hall: LBWF CEO Martin Esom answers the criticisms…sort of

July 8, 2022 Asbestos at St. Mary's School, Town Hall asbestos

On 1 July just passed, LBWF CEO Martin Esom e-mailed his response to the various points that I recently raised with him about asbestos in the Town Hall and the Assembly Hall (see his e-mail pasted below, and links to my correspondence at the bottom of the page). Mr. Esom is extravagantly paid and also on the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Board, and so it is a reasonable expectatio... »

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