Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

Register of interests wrap: five councillors did not update their forms as required, but others, including Cllr. Terry, are cleared

November 14, 2018 Cllr. Anna Mbachu, Cllr. Johar Khan, Cllr. Khevyn Limbajee, Cllr. Simon Miller, Cllr. Steve Terry, Mark Hynes, register of interests

This post briefly sums up the past few months’ revelations about LBWF councillors and their register of interests forms (grouping the findings under three broad headings) and then discuses some of the issues that arise. Failure to update (a) Cllrs. Limbajee, Miller, and Mbachu As earlier posts have noted, LBWF Director of Governance and Law, Mark Hynes, has determined that Cllrs. Limbajee, Miller,... »

LBWF’s Making Places programme and the strange case of the Cann Hall side-wall: four residents speak and £40,000 of public money goes west UPDATED

October 22, 2018 Cllr. Keith Rayner, Cllr.Patrick Edwards, Cllr.Sally Littlejohn, Redevelopment

In the summer of 2017, LBWF put out an open call to architects, artists, designers, and landscape artists, inviting them to take part in a programme called Making Places, which it was funding from its own resources to the tune of no less than £1m.. The objective was to commission ‘community arts’ projects for ‘unloved spaces’ in each of the borough’s 20 wards, thus generate ‘places which are brigh... »

Labour Chief Whip Cllr. Steve Terry: rule book king, but does he really know his apples from his oranges? UPDATED

September 21, 2018 Cllr. Steve Terry, Mark Hynes, register of interests

Cllr. Steve Terry is Waltham Forest Labour Group’s Chief Whip, and works as a regional organiser for Unison. It is reasonable to conclude that, occupying such weighty offices, he must be an expert on the minutiae of procedure, and a stickler for respecting the rule-book. The fact that he is a regular confidant of LBWF Director of Governance and Law, and Monitoring Officer, Mark Hynes about a... »

How local government works: (2) LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes and Cllr. Limbajee

September 19, 2018 Cllr. Khevyn Limbajee, Mark Hynes, register of interests

Between 19 June 2014 and 13 March 2018, senior Labour councillor Khevyn Limbajee’s register of interests recorded his sole employment as ‘Press Officer, Labour Party’. However, in March 2018, research showed that (a) according to his Linkedin page, Cllr. Limbajee had stopped working for the Labour Party in 2014; and (b) Companies House listed him as  ‘a person with significant control’ of PR compa... »

LBWF and government funding to encourage social cohesion (1)

August 24, 2018 BNI Community Cohesion Projects, Redevelopment

In recent months, the government has awarded LBWF two large sums of money to help boost social cohesion, and this, and a succeeding post, look in detail at the justification for such funding, and how the money is being spent. The first award was announced late last year, came from the government’s rather oddly named Controlling Migration Fund (CMF) (for which see https://researchbriefings.parliame... »

STOP PRESS Leytonstone’s E11 BID Co. Ltd. threatened with prosecution

August 22, 2018 E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh

As this blog has demonstrated at length, Leytonstone’s E11 BID Co. Ltd. has become a byword for bad management, and a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude to the norms of polite society. Slipshod book-keeping, failure to pay taxes, accrual of large debts, late filing of accounts, adverse County Court Judgements, insouciance about explaining how it has spent its money – the E... »

‘Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal’ UPDATED

August 9, 2018 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Gang Prevention Programme, LBWF spin, Policing/crime

In May 2017, this blog published a post entitled ‘Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (1)’, which, somewhat unexpectedly, attracted a big readership. What follows provides an update, focusing both on knife crime specifically, and the broader (though intimately related) issue of gangs and gang violence. First off, and very regrettably, it is worth underlining that the knife crime ... »

How local government works: (1) LBWF and Mears

July 27, 2018 Waltham Forest Labour Party

1. In February 2018, the LBWF Cabinet agrees to set up ‘a joint venture with Mears Limited to acquire 400 properties to let to those living in temporary accommodation or on the Council’s housing register’. 2. In June 2018, Mears sponsors a ‘think tank’ session at Housing 2018, ‘Europe’s largest and most inclusive housing festival’, which includes a heavywe... »

Cllr. Johar Khan: the prince of pranksters hits the skids?

July 25, 2018 Cllr. Johar Khan, register of interests, Waltham Forest Labour Party

Cllr. Johar Khan, the Labour member for Markhouse, has always been a bit of a card. Spats with colleagues and adversaries, political implosions, party defections, suspensions, investigations, big posh cars, personalised number plates, flash weddings, and an impish way with facts – his back pages feature the lot. Who, for instance, could forget the time when, as finance director, he reassured his c... »

Leytonstone’s E11 BID Co: still more controversy

July 23, 2018 Cllr. Clyde Loakes, E11 BID Co., Waltham Forest Business Board

Over the years, this blog has regularly reported on the travails of the E11 BID Co. Ltd. (hereafter BID ONE), a private company that was specially set up in 2007 to run Leytonstone’s Business Improvement District (BID). In some ways, that this has been merited is quite surprising. The financial and operating model that BID ONE initially set out to follow was hardly complicated. As part of th... »

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