From the
Hackney Gazette:
Clissold Swimming Club has 'moved home' to Clissold Leisure Centre.
But a spokesman has admitted club officials are "disappointed" with Hackney Council's decision to offer them exclusive use of the pool on just one night a week.
The centre, in Clissold Road, Stoke Newington, has been closed for the past four years for refurbishment - but now that the work is complete, the club is set to make a welcome return.
Throughout the four-year period that the centre had been closed, the club had been forced to do much of its swimming outside the borough.
Spokesman Kate Cornwall-Jones said: "The re-opening of Clissold Leisure Centre will allow us to swim in Hackney six days a week.
"However, it is disappointing that Hackney Council have cancelled our two whole pool bookings at Kings Hall and are only offering one similar session at Clissold Leisure Centre between 6pm and 8pm.
"Clissold SC is ambitious on behalf of young swimmers in Hackney and to deliver our vision for excellence and increase participation in swimming we need more whole pool bookings at more appropriate hours. We look forward to working in partnership with Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) and Hackney Council to increase the opportunities for local people to achieve their maximum potential in swimming and other aquatic sports.
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From an email:
Hi, this is the call out for the next London Coalition Against poverty
demonstration at Hackney,
x
*pls forward widely*
CALL TO ACTION: Christmas Demonstration for Housing
MONDAY THE 17TH OF DECEMBER
6 - 7:30 PM
Hackney Town Hall, Mare Street E8 [http://www.tiny.cc/vdevt]
Contact: 07932241737
londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com
Hackney "Scrooge" won't house us: We won't be turned away
London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) will demonstrate at Hackney
Council's Cabinet meeting on Monday the 17th of December 6pm to 7.30
pm. As Christmas day approaches its difficult to see the seasonal
spirit in Hackney's Homeless Persons office where homeless people are
daily denied their rights and left without anywhere to go. LCAP will
demonstrate this Christmas to send a clear message to Jamie Carswell
(head of Housing strategy and deputy Mayor) that we will not tolerate
this any more. LCAP will be campaigning for change in Hackney's
dealings with the homeless for as long as it takes.
Come to the picket, there'll be some hot soup, and Christmas festivity.
Dress warm, bring noisemakers and mince pies if you like.
More info:
London Coalition against Poverty (LCAP) has been at Hackney Housing
Needs office since July 2007, and we have seen time and again that
homeless people are turned away unlawfully. By law some homeless
people have to be housed immediately but Hackney Council cares more
about balancing their budget through not housing people then about
their residents needs. They try to delay or stop people making a
homeless application. To achieve this the staff often act in an
intimidating and sometimes abusive way. Because of this "gate keeping"
at the housing needs office many vulnerable people and families are
left on the street or other insecure, dangerous places. When
accommodation or advice on how to find housing is offered by the
council its likely to be out of Hackney, often even out of London.
Hackney Council will be held accountable for their failure to house
Hackney's people.
LCAP demands:
- An end to gate keeping at Hackney HPU
- Stop the intimidation of people that approach the HPU
- Genuinely affordable housing to rent in Hackney - no more people chased
out of the borough
Jamie Carswell is scrooge!
We are the ghosts of Christmas present!
From
Building:
Hodder soon encountered the sort of problems that go with local government work. “In the early days, there was a constant change of personnel at the council,” he recalls. “Tony Ellison, the chief executive, left, the [in-house] project manager changed. There was a tremendous lack of continuity.”
Kim Wright, director of community and leisure at Hackney, admits: “It’s no secret. There was no overall political control and it was a fairly chaotic managerial arrangement.”
But the real difficulties started in 1997 when Sport England, one of the scheme’s co-funders, designated Hackney a priority initiative area, which meant, according to Hodder, that there was money available to take the budget to £10m. However, what should have been a boon for the project quickly became a poisoned chalice.
“That prompted Hackney, not unreasonably, to rethink the brief,” says Hodder. “I felt there were things that we could improve … the size of the gym facility could be bigger, there was no spectators’ facility. There was quite a lot of public consultation that led to changes – for example, to the changing rooms because of the Orthodox Jewish community.”
There was debate, too, over the scheme’s two 25m swimming pools. Some felt that there should be a single 50m Olympic pool – an idea that was dropped – but one of the pools was stretched from six to eight lanes.
These were substantial changes, but Hackney was keen to start work on site as soon as possible, partly because it had been advised that this would save on VAT. However, tenders for the project came in at £13m, £3m higher than anticipated. The design team and the council came up with a compromise budget of £11.5m, but in the meantime Gleeson, the contractor, was being pushed to get started.
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more »Dalston Lane's historic buildings were now on the footprint of a proposed 20 storey tower block. They were, in effect, on death row awaiting demolition. The Council made a planning application to itself and, in the face of objections and demonstrations at the Town Hall by the local community, its Planning Committee voted in February 2006 to demolish all the historic buildings.
From the
Hackney Gazette:
AN investigation into failings by Hackney social services, which may have contributed to the deaths of two children, has been delayed for the second time this year.
A panel looking into the deaths of Antoine Ogunkoya, 10, and his three-year-old sister, Keniece, who were killed by their schizophrenic mother, Viviane Gamor, at her home on the Pembury estate in Lower Clapton in January, despite warnings from their father, will now report its findings in February - more than a year after the tragedy.
The report, which will look at the involvement of Hackney social services and East London and City Mental Health Unit in the children's deaths, has been delayed once already.
A spokeswoman for Hackney Council said the decision to delay again had been to allow the family of the two children to contribute to the report.
The Safeguarding Children Board, a multi-agency body which oversees child protection, commissioned the independent serious case review.
It was due to present its results in September. Now this second delay has led to fears that other children under care of Hackney social services may be at risk.
The children's father, Gabriel "Jimi" Ogunkoya, who lived with them in Trehurst Street, Lower Clapton, has already accused Hackney's social services of "frogmarching" his children to their deaths.
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From the
Jewish Chronicle:
Families in need hit by budget cuts
22/11/2007
By Dana Gloger
CHAREDI families with disabled children claim that social workers told them their care packages could be cut because a council had overspent.
This follows the JC’s “Forgotten Parents” campaign, which revealed that many large families were forced to cope alone with their severely disabled children.
MP Diane Abbott raised the issue with Jules Pipe, mayor of Hackney, one of the worst-hit areas of NorthLondon.
Mr Pipe refused to comment at the time, but this week Orthodox families said that the situation had worsened following visits from social workers.
Chaya Spitz, head of services at Interlink, an umbrella organisation for voluntary groups in the strictly Orthodox community, said: “People will have a review with a social worker they haven’t seen for two years and the minute they come in the door they are saying, ‘We have to make cuts now because we have overspent’.
“People feel they have to beg and plead to maintain the care packages they have. It’s so depressing.”
A mother of eight living in Stamford Hill, Hackney, who has a 12-year-old son with cerebral palsy, said: “I was terrified I was going to lose the little [help] I have. I only get seven hours of care a week, which is not enough as it is.
“Now people are terrified every time a social worker comes round in case they lose the little care they have. I begged for more help. I am desperate. But they just have their budgets in mind. I survive, but it’s a struggle and I don’t have the strength to fight any more.
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From
Hackney Planning Watch:
We have now received a letter from the Government Office for London. It appears that the Council may not have a legal basis for the policy document that includes the proposed areas of exception.
This is quite a technical point, but a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) cannot make council policy, it can only give guidance on existing policy. The proposed SPD relied on three Council pre-existing Council policies, two of which have lapsed (it appears the council forgot to renew them), the third of which applies only to conservation areas.
Consequently it appears doubtful that the Council can adopt the SPD without first adopting some basic policies.The Council is suggesting that it can rely on a general 'plan for London', the principles of which the Council has adopted, but this seems unlikely (or should I say 'desperate'). The Council intends to continue with its existing proposals.
We have been led to believe that the Council may remove the phrase 'area of exception' which is viewed a problematic, but they are currently committed to the substance of the proposals. The latest proposed timescale is that the report will go to Cabinet in December, but there is every reason to suspect that this timescale will be extended. In any event, our campaign must continue to build in strength.
The accidental lapsing of important Council policies is of course a typical Hackney Council 'cock up', but what does it mean for our campaign? Well the good news is that it makes it even harder for the Council to simply ram through the existing proposals, and consequently more likely that we will, eventually, get them amended.
The bad news? Well it appears the Council no longer has any policy on residential extensions! It is therefore possible that unscrupulous developers with good lawyers can appeal any application (however outrageous) that is rejected on the basis that the Council has no policy grounds for rejection.
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