Spaces for Cycling

I joined about a dozen other Brent Cyclists last Sunday for a tour of the Borough’s high roads and back streets, as part of their campaign to put safe cycling at the heart of May's local elections . Despite the inauspicious weather forecast, it turned out to be a great morning out. Cycling can be a quick, cheap and easy way of getting around Brent, but it can also be quite dangerous in the absence of protected cycle tracks on the larger roads. I therefore think it’s important to support initiatives like the Space for Cycling campaign which calls for separating bicycles and motor traffic at busy roads and junctions, lowering speed limits to 20 MPH and the creation of safe cycling and walking routes for all children between home and school. The London Cycling Campaign will soon launch an online facility where residents can make suggestions on how to make their neighbourhoods safe for cycling. I was told the next Brent Cyclists event  is on Saturday 26^th April and will involve a short cycle route connecting various schools in the north of the Borough.

A Letter of Support

Below is a letter of support for Make Willesden Green from local residents, published in this week's Brent and Kilburn Times. This kind of public endorsement is tremendously encouraging and shows Make Willesden Green is having a real impact. It's much appreciated, and even more so will be your votes (and those of your neighbours, friends and relatives in Willesden Green) on the 22nd of May!

How The Queensbury Was Saved

Typo Corrected

The sensational victory by Save The Queensbury campaign last Wednesday is a massive cause for celebration for Willesden Green. It was achieved through the relentless collective efforts of residents and their supporters. One of the founding members of the campaign and irrepressible agitator for its cause, Sujata Aurora, tells the story of how the battle was won.

Guest blog by Sujata Aurora

The Save The Queensbury group won a significant victory on 12 March when Brent’s planning committee threw out proposals to demolish Willesden Green's landmark community pub and replace it with a 10-storey block of flats. 

The 18 month-long campaign was a true community initiative initially set up in October 2012 by a handful of residents and largely ignored by the political parties until the local elections began to loom. It is much to the credit of the campaign that they mobilised mass local support to the extent that they persuaded several previously indifferent councillors to back their cause, almost certainly because the level of attention the issue was generating made them fear the electoral consequences of not doing so. Sadly two of our Willesden Green councillors, LibDems Ann Hunter and Gavin Sneddon, refused to represent residents’ views despite repeated requests, their unresponsiveness maybe a consequence of their not restanding for election.

Despite attracting the belated support of some local politicians the campaign never became compromised and fiercely iterated its independence. As Brent Council's treatment of Save The Queensbury became ever more shabby there was a dawning realisation that the battle was not just against developer Fairview Homes but also against the council itself. Many in the group had had no previous dealings with the council and, perhaps naively, put their faith in the ability of various processes and politicians to protect the pub. Their awakening was rude and the criticisms that they were subsequently forced to make of the council upset some of The Queensbury’s Labour supporters. Yet as one campaigner pointed out, "this is a cross party campaign and we welcome all support, but if we shy away from pointing out the failings of Brent Council where they could have acted to save the pub, then we are doing this cause a disservice.”

Getting the Message Across

While professing some limited support for the campaign, no political party or councillor was prepared to actively lobby in support of policies that would have protected the pub from demolition.

• The attempt to have The Queensbury listed as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) under the Localism Act was initially refused with Brent citing, in part, the reason that they needed to consider the developers intention for the site in considering whether it might have future community value. That reason has been confirmed by other authorities and by experts on the Localism Act as a significant misapplication of the regulations. It was only after a threat to go to the Local Government Ombudsman and a new application covering just The Queensbury Pub rather than the entire site, that a listing was successful.
• Queensbury campaigners took members of CAMRA and planning experts with them to meet with council leader Muhammed Butt in April 2013 - they presented him with examples of pub protection policies from numerous other local authorities. A request for Brent to develop a pub protection policy and produce some planning guidance which would prevent “Change of Use” applications for buildings listed as ACVs got an initially favourable reception from Councillor Butt – but almost a year on they are still waiting for even a draft policy to be produced and the expert on pubs and planning policy who offered to assist is still waiting for a call.
• A presentation by the Queensbury campaign in October 2013 to officers and councillors at the Partnerships and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee asking for a review of the ACV listing procedure and a further request for planning guidance to protect ACVs from “Change of Use” resulted in the following resolution: "That the committee will write to the lead member for Environment and Neighbourhoods and ask them to consider implementing a policy on Assets of community value." Six months on, a direct query on progress to the Lead Member for Environment and Neighbourhoods (Cllr Roxanne Mashari) got a response that this is not her remit and she knows nothing about it. A further request for clarification to the chair of the committee (Cllr Zaffar Van Kalwala) is still unanswered. 
• Numerous requests to have the Queensbury considered as worthy of a local listing (i.e. regarded as of historical or architectural merit) were similarly stonewalled.

In this context the decision of the planning committee to vote against demolition of the pub and to go against the advice of officers is a huge achievement and will hopefully set a precedent to show that Brent is not necessarily a soft touch for developers. As we lose our heritage buildings in Willesden Green like Electric House one by one, this is no mean feat – it is a testament to the well-organised and uncompromising campaign that has been led by residents rather than party politicians. More than that, it is a demonstration that people in Willesden Green desperately need a strong, independent and grassroots voice to represent them.

Some Recall Coverage (and One Response)

Both the Wembley Observer and the Brent and Kilburn Times have reported on my campaign for the right to recall councillors and my pledge to abide by the will of residents should they wish to recall me if elected. So far just one of the other candidates standing in the ward, The Green Party's Shahrar Ali, has agreed to also sign the recall pledge, but no response from Labour, the LibDems or the Tories.

UPDATE 14 March 2014: The second Green Party candidate standing  in Willesden Green, Martin Francis, has also agreed to endorse the recall proposal.

The Democratic Right to Recall Councillors

Make Willesden Green is an electoral platform whose aims begin and end with democracy. We want more accountability, greater transparency, wider participation and better representation in Willesden Green and beyond.

Brent residents have had to put up with Councillors such as Willesden Green's Gavin Sneddon who attended just three meetings throughout the whole of 2013, and Dudden Hill's David Clues who absented himself to Brighton and refused to even answer emails for two years, yet we are powerless to force them to resign. This is unacceptable. We should not have to wait for elections every four years to bring our elected politicians to account. We need local politics to be injected with some direct democracy. I therefore want residents to have the right to recall Councillors and submit them to re-election.

I have signed the following pledge and have asked all other candidates standing in the Willesden Green ward to do so too:

"I pledge to be fully accountable to residents if elected as a Councillor. In the event of 51% of the number of voters who participate in the election in the Willesden Green ward signing a petition for my recall, I will resign to force a by-election in order that voters can judge my record".

I am also calling on Brent Council to submit a proposal to central government under the Sustainable Communities Act so that residents' right to recall Councillors is enshrined in law. This Act was passed in 2007 under a Labour Government, but its many possibilities for local democracy have not been exploited.

The Make Willesden Green Manifesto also includes proposals permitting residents to address Full Council meetings, giving residents control over Ward Working money and ending automatic allowances for Councillors.

Our Manifesto is Now Out!

The full Make Willesden Green electoral Manifesto is now available here. It is packed with  radical new ideas to make our neighourhood and Brent more democratic, vibrant, egalitarian and environmentally balanced. The Manifesto is the result of many months of public engagement with and among residents, and draws from the various local campaigns that have championed our schools, pubs, libraries and public services and spaces over the past few years. It offers voters in Willesden Green a genuine alternative to the three main parties at the Council elections on 22 May, challenging narrow party-political outlooks and representing an independent, grassroots option for our area. I hope you will find much in this Manifesto to support – if so, please help us spread the message by canvassing, leafleting or simply letting your neighbours, friends and family know about Make Willesden Green. Join us by signing up to our mailing list here.