Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

The Charity Commission issues regulatory ‘guidance’ to Walthamstow charities Miftahul Jannah Academy and Masjid-E-Umer Trust after complaints about the content of their youth programmes

December 6, 2022 anti-semitism, faith groups

In the autumn of 2021, complaints were made to the Charity Commission about two Waltham Forest Muslim charities, the Miftahul Jannah Academy and the Masjid-E-Umer Trust (which runs Walthamstow Central Mosque). At the centre of the complaints was ‘Islamic scholar’ Muhammad Patel, who had taught young people at both charities from 2008 onwards, with live recordings of his weekly lectures then b... »

Private Eye reports the new LBWF asbestos scandal (2)

November 16, 2022 Town Hall asbestos

From issue 1586, 18/11/22-01/12/22. »

LBWF’s Town Hall asbestos scandal: an update and comment

November 11, 2022 Asbestos at St. Mary's School, Town Hall asbestos

Local Democracy Reporter Josh Mellor yesterday posted a story on the asbestos scandal under the amusing headline ‘Council investigating itself over former town hall asbestos’, here: https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/council-investigating-itself-over-former-town-hall-asbestos#article What follows is a complementary commentary, looking initially at how my own concerns have developed, before turning to... »

How Cann Hall councillors communicate with residents…

November 7, 2022 LBWF spin

A resident writes: ‘We opened a community café and foodbank near that notice board, and wanted to put one of our A4 posters on display in it. We found out that – inexplicably – a local shopkeeper held the key, went to see her, and gave her a poster. She promised to put it up straightaway. Nothing happened. So we went to see her again. This time, she said she’d been busy, but promised to act.... »

Private Eye reports the new LBWF asbestos scandal (1)

October 24, 2022 Town Hall asbestos

From issue 1583, 7-20/10/22. »

Leytonstone cartoonist Woox on LBWF and the Freedom of Information Act

October 3, 2022 Freedom of Information Act, Woox

(Reproduced by kind permission of Woox) »

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request about the Walthamstow Mall, LBWF is caught out misusing one of the legislation’s exemption clauses, and has to eat crow

September 29, 2022 Freedom of Information Act

The LBWF e-mail pasted below is largely self-explanatory. However, the back story is less certain. Are LBWF officers really ignorant of the Freedom of Information Act’s Section 41? Or was this an attempt to pull the wool – to brandish apparent expertise, and bank on it not being cross-checked? Whatever the case, those involved emerge with little credit. In the recent past, because of I... »

The Health and Safety Executive censures one of LBWF’s contractors after finding a worker cleaning up dangerous dust from the Town Hall basement…with a broom

September 27, 2022 Town Hall asbestos

As might be predicted, knowing the revelations of the past, the more that emerges about LBWF’s recent attempts to deal with dangerous asbestos in the Town Hall, the dodgier the local authority looks. Consider the following. On 13 January 2020, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) informed LBWF that a complaint had been made about construction work in the Town Hall basement, which it summarised th... »

Michelle Edwards launches a Twitter feed about her experiences in one of LBWF’s new low-rise blocks where, as she describes, ‘It has, and continues to be, hell’

September 15, 2022 Housing, LBWF spin

Michelle Edwards is a respected local journalist who in the past campaigned on transparency and accountability, while at the same time writing a regular column for the Waltham Forest Echo about what it was like to live through her estate’s regeneration. More recently, Ms. Edwards has started writing a Twitter feed – https://twitter.com/NewBuildHell – about her move into a new... »

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... »

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