Waltham Forest Town Hall

Town Hall asbestos: LBWF comments, at last

March 23, 2015 Town Hall asbestos

On 27 January 2015, Trevor Calver and I called for LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to resign over the Town Hall asbestos affair. Here is the correspondence that followed in date order, beginning at the bottom with our initial e-mail.   20 March 2015 ‘Dear Mr. Fenwick, Thank you for your e-mail. Most of it of course is entirely irrelevant to the points that we raised with Mr. Esom on 27 January 2015, points he has subsequently been so reticent about responding to. As to the parts that are relevant, our response is as follows. First, your contention that there was a ‘discovery’ of as... »

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LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom and asbestos: the silence continues

February 27, 2015 Town Hall asbestos

Exactly one month ago, Trevor Calver and I wrote LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom the following e-mail:   Dear Mr. Esom, In November 2012, we wrote to you about the potential conflict of interest inherent in concurrently you being chief executive of LBWF and board member of NPS London Ltd.. You told us that you understood the risks, and had taken steps to mitigate them, explaining: ‘I fully recognise my role as board director, and also Chief Executive of the authority and ensure that the two roles are not blurred. My deputy, Shifa Mustafa, acts as the lead client and she has a free reign ... »

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Asbestos matters: John Cryer MP keeps stum, too

February 20, 2015 John Cryer MP, Town Hall asbestos

John Cryer is a trade union sponsored MP who likes to present himself as a staunch defender of the downtrodden. In April 2014, Mr. Cryer addressed a memorial service in the Town Hall complex to commemorate ‘men killed whilst at work’, in particular those  ‘as young as 16 who have died in and around the borough’. The local press published a picture of him standing outside the Town Hall itself, alongside trade unionists and bereaved family members. Nine months elapse, and LBWF is found guilty of exposing staff and visitors to dangerous asbestos dust in the very same building that Mr. Cryer had e... »

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Asbestos matters: Waltham Forest Council, PR, and keeping stum

February 11, 2015 LBWF spin, Town Hall asbestos

So you are an employer who has just been found guilty of breaking the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 – of running your affairs, in other words, in such a way as to endanger your employees and those who visit your premises. What do you do? Publicly apologise? Offer everyone involved some advice and support? Perhaps even take action against those who directly presided over the negligence? Most of us would expect (and do) all of these things. Yet after the recent court case, which has left LBWF in exactly the position I’m talking about, the o... »

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Asbestos matters: the Waltham Forest Town Hall fiasco

February 2, 2015 Town Hall asbestos

The Council’s recent conviction over the asbestos dust that it allowed to pollute the Town Hall has been well covered in the local press, see for example: http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11734109.Council_admits_failing_to_protect_staff_from_deadly_asbestos/  http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11746274.Confusion_over_town_hall_asbestos_scandal_as_contractor_denies_involvement/  http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11737085.Council_employee_exposed_to_asbestos_dust__will_worry_his_entire_life_/ http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11734195.Campaigners_call_for_individuals_to_be_held_t... »

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