Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

Fire safety scandal (1): recently disclosed e-mail reveals industry expert’s warning that the LBWF specification for flat entrance doors on its estates prioritised ‘design’ over ‘compliance’, thus potentially ‘endangering lives’.

January 4, 2021 fire safety, LBWF spin, Mark Hynes

For ordinary Waltham Forest residents, how LBWF tenders and completes fire safety contracts is typically opaque, because so much is shielded from scrutiny by commercial confidentiality clauses and arms’ length transactions delivered through third parties, both outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. However, an e-mail that has just surfaced provides a fascinating, and unexpectedly rev... »

Solidarity with the Sandwell Skidder!

December 21, 2020 Cllr. Anna Mbachu, Cllr.Sally Littlejohn, E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, Goddarts House, John Cryer MP, North London Ltd., The BNI, Town Hall asbestos

From today’s Daily Mail: ‘”Labour council with £2.8m hole in its finances ‘found £300,000 to silence blogger” Published: 02:15, 21 December 2020 | A penniless Labour council with a £2.8million hole in its budget set aside £300,000 to silence a blogger who was highly critical of its work. Sandwell council…had admitted to setting taxpayers’ money aside to pu... »

LBWF and its fire safety contractor S3 Environmental Ltd.: council officers maintain everything’s OK, but questions and concerns persist

December 8, 2020 fire hazards, fire safety

Previous posts have expressed unease about the fact that in 2019, and via its housing repairs and maintenance agent Morgan Sindall Group PLC, LBWF appointed S3 Environmental Ltd. to conduct Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs) for its housing blocks (see links below). In response, LBWF has remained steadfast in its view that S3 Environmental Ltd. is an experienced and qualified provider of fire safety ser... »

Statement submitted to tonight’s full Council meeting on the fire safety scandal in Waltham Forest

December 3, 2020 fire hazards, fire safety

I have submitted the following statement to tonight’s full Council meeting: 1. In 2017-18, the Council replaced 217 flat entrance doors (FEDs) at Northwood Tower and four sheltered housing blocks. 2. The Council told residents that the new FEDs were certified FD60 (i.e., they would provide sixty minutes protection) and made the same claim repeatedly in public; while many of the FEDs carried ... »

John Cryer MP speaks out on anti-semitism – and this time it’s personal

November 24, 2020 anti-semitism, John Cryer MP

A few days ago, Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer released the statement reproduced below to his local constituency party. As reported by this blog (see links), he has spoken out about Labour anti-semitism before, but this time round he is particularly forceful, and also introduces a personal dimension, alleging that attacks on him for raising the issue over the years were ‘orchestrated̵... »

LBWF’s in-house ‘Eastern Legal Partnership’ initiative: another Waltham Forest mystery

November 20, 2020 Freedom of Information Act, Mark Hynes

Back in 2018, LBWF launched Eastern Legal Partnership (ELP), which its supremo, Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes, introduced thus: ‘Eastern Legal Partnership (ELP) is a team of lawyers that primarily provide legal services to the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Our successes and expertise in the council’s legal matters means that we are ideally placed to help other public sector o... »

Learning the lessons of Grenfell…or maybe not: LBWF’s 2017-18 flat entrance door update programme at Northwood Tower, Goddarts House, and other sheltered housing blocks

November 12, 2020 fire hazards, fire safety

From November 2017 to April 2018, LBWF, via its repair and maintenance agent Osborne, employed a company called Exterior Plas Ltd. to upgrade 217 flat entrance doors (FEDs) at what it called five ‘key sites’ – Walthamstow’s 21 floor Northwood Tower, and four sheltered housing blocks, Boothby Court, Goddarts House, Holmcroft House, and Lime Court. The promise to residents was that in future t... »

LBWF councillors right to withhold ‘sensitive’ information about themselves on the Register of Interests: use and possible abuse

October 23, 2020 Mark Hynes, register of interests

Though relatively rarely discussed, a clause in the current local government legislation allows councillors to withhold information on their register of interests forms so long as the monitoring officer agrees the information in question is ‘sensitive’, meaning, if made public, would lead to ‘violence or intimidation’ either directly or against ‘a person connected’. The reasoning here is fairly ob... »

LBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team investigates Town Hall procurement of goods and services, and finds disturbing ‘non-compliance with existing Rules’

October 12, 2020 LBWF finance, LBWF spin

In late 2019, LBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team (hereafter IAAFT) completed a report on Town Hall procurement, and surprisingly, given the fact that each year this involves many millions of pounds’ worth of goods and services, concluded that it was only deserving of ‘limited assurance’, with two of the five component findings about risk rated ‘high’ (‘Key targets missed, some service... »

Cllr. Clyde Loakes makes Private Eye

October 7, 2020 Cllr. Clyde Loakes

From Private Eye No.1532, 9-22 October 2020. Cllr. Loakes, of course, is no stranger to these kind of controversies, see, for example, the story retold in the links. It is also arresting that someone who bangs on about the importance of curtailing motor traffic in Waltham Forest in order to promote clean air is, at one at the same time, keen on building a large incinerator in Edmonton, with the bo... »

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