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.

Whose Regeneration?

Words by Rachel Rose Reid. Photo: Sujata Aurora

Anyone wanting to live in a global city like London has to be a friend of change and diversity. Willesden Green is no exception and, as the annual Wassail demonstrated a fortnight ago, our neighbourhood can display plenty of vitality and creativity. This is an area open to newcomers, visitors, innovators and unafraid of development. The question is always: change and regeneration for whom, and for what purpose? The answer in Willesden Green and the rest of the Borough is all too often: for the benefit of greedy developers and naked profit. Books and beer seem to be a special bugbear of developers and their regenerator allies, as the Willesden Green, Cricklewood and Kensal Rise Libraries as well as the the Queensbury pub are targetted for luxury housing.

Political opponents have accused me and other Make Willesden Green supporters of negativity because of our ongoing criticism of the Willesden Green Library re-development. They don’t seem to get that we’re not against development as such, but in favour of a much more participatory, flexible and accountable ‘regeneration’. This is based on the simple principle that revenue should be raised from above – through progressive taxation by state and local authorities – and spent from below – by local residents who determine democratically the priorities for their neighborhoods. At least two such experiments in grassroots regeneration are now underway in Willesden Green. One is the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) which, with strong and widespread resident participation, can become an instrument for the radical transformation of Willesden Green into an area that both preserves its past and builds its future as a socially mixed, publicly-oriented community. I am very pleased to be working with other Make Willesden Green supporters on the NDP as an experiment that demonstrates it is possible to engage in sustainable and democratic local development. The other, more established project is the Willesden Green Town Team. Formed by volunteer residents, the Town Team has made some positive changes to our neighbourhood, but we're still waiting on Brent Council to release the bulk of £80,000 allocated to our High Street so that various dormant proposals can be activated.

The real potential for grassroots regeneration will become evident over the coming months as Willesden Green’s own PopUp University is launched. I am especially happy that my own workplace, Birkbeck College, will be central to this enterprise, by offering talks, workshops and events for those in our area wanting to return to, or access Higher Education for the first time.

We are looking for volunteers to help run the Pop Up University, and also need spare tables, chairs and bookshelves to furnish Unit 12 of Queens Parade where the events will be held. So please contact me or the Chair of the Willesden Town Team, Elayne Coakes, if you can in any way contribute to this grassroots regeneration of Willesden Green.       

Some Facts About the Willesden Week of Action

Following the dismal Willesden Week of Action last November, and the many questions from residents about what it actually achieved, Make Willesden Green made a Freedom of Information request for the Council's Evaluation Report of that woeful week. We have the pleasure of sharing the document with you here. Although the Week of Action was meant to have three key objectives, it seems the Council mainly dedicated attention to the first of these - most notably by placing a 'matrix crime prevention sign outside the tube station'. 

On the back of the data presented in the Evaluation Report, I decided to write the letter below to the editor of the Brent and Kilburn Times, if nothing else to set the record straight on what the priorities are among those residents consulted.  

 
As the May local elections approach, the Council (and indeed the ConDem opposition) will be claiming all sorts of support for local causes. It's important we keep reminding ourselves of their actual record over the past few years, and hold incumbent Councillors and their local parties to account at the ballot box.  

 

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

Reasons to Be Cheerful

One creative alternative to Christmas lights

I thought hard about adding a question mark to this entry’s heading. As the festive season gets into full swing, hundreds of Brent families remain officially homeless, while the sharp increase in  possession claims continues throughout the Borough. The 92 luxury-flat gated community in Willesden Green is swiftly and mercilessly occupying our public space and skyline (no sign of the new Library last time I looked), and more -largely unaffordable- high-rise developments are in the  pipeline at the Queensbury pub site, the Electric House building,  and now the old Willesden Green police station. One of our popular local schools, Gladstone Park Primary is due to be privatised in April. And on top of that, we don’t even get High Street Christmas lights or decorations this year or the next. Hardly reasons to be cheerful.

Yet looking ahead into the new year, it turns out there are some glimmers of hope. People in Willesden Green and neighbouring wards have been mobilising to reverse the misery and pain designed by the ConDem coalition and delivered by our Labour-controlled Council. Brent Housing Action has established itself in a short time as the local campaign fighting racism, social cleansing and the victimisation of the most vulnerable residents in both the private and social housing sector of our Borough. The Save the Queensbury Campaign has finally –third time lucky – got Brent to recognise our community pub as an Asset of Community Value (that now makes two in the whole of the Borough). This status should count as a material consideration in the Council’s decision on planning permission, and residents’ objections  to Fairview’s proposed scheme are piling up on the Planning application website. Separately, a working group issuing from the Willesden Green Town Team has recently been established to prepare a Neighbourhood Development Plan which, if supported by widespread participation, could offer residents some real power in designing our area’s built environment.  Even in Gladstone Park Primary there seems to be some positive movement: six months after the Parent Action Group suggested ways to keep  the school under local authority control, it seems Brent has finally listened – as of January the school will share an Executive Head with an outstanding Camden school, effectively forging a ‘soft’ federation across two local authorities.

None of this, of course, is to say these various campaigns are on a path to victory. There are all kinds of powerful obstacles in the way of making Willesden Green more democratic; in keeping our neighbourhood socially mixed, protecting and extending our public spaces and services, and defending  the area from colonisation by developers. Some of these obstacles come in the shape of  dismal representation from our local Councillors and the three mainstream parties. But we have an opportunity to change that at the local Council elections on 22 May 2014. Willesden Green residents will each get to vote for three candidates next year – with my own independent grassroots candidacy seeking to give electoral voice to these various local campaigns there will at least be a real alternative at the ballot box. However small, and  in these times, that’s hopefully one reason to be cheerful. 

 

If you wish to participate in building this alternative, there is a Make Willesden Green policy afternoon scheduled for Saturday 11 January 2014. Email me or sign up to our list for more details.