Make Every Vote Count On Thursday

Some of the many supporters who turned up for our last mass leafleting

It was a tremendous honour to have so many fellow residents come out last Saturday to give the Make Willesden Green campaign a last push before Thursday’s election. With about two dozen supporters swarming across various parts of Willesden Green, we managed to leaflet the whole of the ward and still find time to speak to hundreds of residents outside the Sainsbury’s forecourt. Most people said they were disenchanted with the three mainstream parties, but were keen to hear about our electoral offer of an independent voice for Willesden residents.

These conversations, and the groundswell of support I have received over the past few months from a real cross-section of our community, has made me even more confident that we can make Willesden Green a thriving, clean, open, democratic and environmentally-balanced area in future if only we have better representation. People in Willesden Green have spent too much of the past four years fighting against developers and unelected bureaucrats for a neighbourhood with open spaces, secure community amenities, an improved High Road, more affordable housing and properly-funded public services. In the process, we have been ignored by our Councillors and dismissed by senior Local Authority officers. 

Watermelon Men: me with Shahrar Ali and Martin Francis, Green Party candidates for Willesden Green

In fact, when the Make Willesden Green campaign was taking shape one of the main drivers behind its formation was the general lack of accountability and unresponsiveness of our sitting councillors. Our current Labour councillor and one of the LibDem councillors were enthusiastic supporters of the Willesden Green Library project in the face of overwhelming resident opposition, while the second Lib Dem councillor has moved away from Brent, has barely been seen for a year and doesn't even respond to emails. Now of course, it's election time so we see both parties coming out of hiding to claim that they are listening and ‘on your side’, hoping that we will forget their past sins and misdemeanors.

We formulated a policy on the Right to Recall local councillors in between elections and I personally signed a pledge saying that as an elected councillor I would submit to to a by-election if enough residents demanded it. We challenged every candidate standing in the Willesden Green election to sign the same pledge – only the two Green Party candidates, Martin Francis and Shahrar Ali responded positively. Labour, LibDems and the Tories did not bother to respond at all.

However our attention was drawn to this rather mealy-mouthed blogpost from sitting councillor Lesley Jones who sets out a number of objections, all of which can be easily overcome. (‘Who will collect the petition signatures?’ Cllr Jones asks, ‘Well, how about the same people who collected 6,000 signatures against the Library development that you backed?’ would be an answer.)

All in all, the response to the recall pledge has shown that the main parties have learnt nothing from the anger, frustration and disenchantment of local residents. They want your vote on Thursday but they don't want to hear from you again after that. Do we really want to give a mandate to parties that are still scared of democracy, still afraid of participation and still reluctant to give us a real voice? 

I hope that I will get one of your votes this Thursday, but I hope you will also think about whether you want to give your second and third votes to parties who show such a fundamental disdain for the wishes of their electorate.

On Thursday we finally get a say: every vote sends a message, and by giving me one of your three votes, you’ll be making it clear the three main parties have failed our area. We need genuinely radical and grassroots Councillors to represent the interests of Willesden Green, and this Thursday is the time to vote us in. 

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.

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.

A Short Note on Our Policy Afternoon

MWG candidate Alex Colas discussing the education proposals

When Make Willesden Green was launched in October, a common response among our supporters was the need for the campaign to develop some specific policies. It’s taken us a few months of public engagement and private reflection to identify our key policy areas, but on Saturday a gathering of Make Willesden Green supporters discussed, debated and agreed to a Manifesto which will focus on four themes: democratic participation in Brent; our local environment (including the High Road); housing; and education. A general disillusionment with the way ward Councillors of both parties and the Labour-led Local Authority have responded to pressing issues like the Library and Queensbury redevelopment or the privatisation of our schools, was  matched in our deliberations with some very creative and radical ideas about how to make Willesden - and indeed Brent- more democratic, vibrant, sustainable, socially mixed and affordable. The final version of the Manifesto will be published and disseminated soon.



MWG supporters (a stripey jumper consensus seems to be emerging)

At Saturday’s policy afternoon a statement was circulated on an issue that has exercised some of our opponents, namely Make Willesden Green’s relationship with the Green Party. Here is the statement, which is hopefully self-explanatory:
'Make Willesden Green (MWG) is not a political party but an electoral platform emerging from various community campaigns that have been active in our neighbourhood over the past few years. Alex Colas, the platform's candidate is not a member of any political party. We welcome the decision of the Green Party to stand only two candidates in this ward, leaving their third slot to the local independent grassroots candidate from MWG. In recognition of this, and the Green Party's ongoing and consistent support for community campaigns in our neighbourhood, MWG recommends our supporters give their two remaining votes to Green Party candidates.'

More discussion and debate, this time on local democracy