Right of reply: Harry Phibbs on Ken's attack

Ken's visit earlier today saw a series of very serious charges leveled at our Council, principally about their relationships with property developers. I reported what had been said but contacted our Council to offer them a right of reply, which has come in the form of a comment piece from Cllr Harry Phibbs, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement. 

Here's what Harry had to say about Ken's comments: 

Cllr Harry Phibbs

Naturally as one of the local councillors I am touched that Ken Livingstone has come to visit Ravenscourt Park Ward. But I wish he had got out and about a bit rather than just going to a closed meeting with a dozen people several of whom seemed to be his fellow Labour politicians. 

He could have talked to local parents who are delighted to have the chance to send their children to the West London Free School which was opened by Boris Johnson last year. 

He could have talked to motorists who are relieved that the West London Extension of the Congestion Charge has been scrapped by Boris. 

Or he could have visited Standish House where on Monday morning Tarek Tuzani and his partner Laura Stevens became the first council tenants in the country to apply for the right to buy under the new £75,000 discount. He could have explained to them his strange ideological hostility to home ownership ( except for himself.) 

Then perhaps he could have seen some of the new street trees that have been planted with funding from Boris. Then going along King Street he could have made his way to the Irish Centre which in a celebration of the Big Society is now community rather than council owned. 

Or then gone on to the Shepherds Bush Village Hall in Bulwer Street now owned by a charitable foundation. 

In both cases the noisy scaremongering from the Labour Party as to the consequences of these building being sold by the council has been proved entirely false. After he had finished denouncing cosy links with property developers he could explain why when residents objected to a ten storey tower block on the Allied Carpets site just north of Ravenscourt Park, he tried, unsuccessfully, to push it through. 

Perhaps he could have gone on to knock on some doors in the West Ken and Gibbs Green estates where he would find considerable support for redevelopment and the opportunity for better housing that it could bring. If that is to much trouble he could have read about it in this morning's Guardian.  

So far as air quality is concerned this is a problem for London as a whole and not just Shepherds Bush. We do monitor air quality at Shepherds Bush Green and we want to reduce pollution. That is why we are determined to reduce traffic congestion and are bringing Boris Bikes to the borough. We also encourage residents to use car clubs. There are electric charging points for cars around the borough - eg 30 at Westfield. City Hall produced 1,813 tons of carbon a year. Under Boris it is down to 1,606. If the Shepherds Bush Market redevelopment takes place I'm assured that that all businesses based at 30 to 52 Goldhawk Road have been offered the opportunity to return to the new Goldhawk Road shop units by Orion.

Cllr Harry Phibbs

Livingstone: Stench of corruption over planning in H&F

Ken met residents at the Grove Park Neighbourhood Centre, Hammersmith

Labour candidate Ken Livingstone, in a meeting with traders from the Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush Market and residents of West Kensington & Gibbs Green estates accused our Council of corruption in their approach to planning decisions affecting all three this afternoon. He pledged that as Mayor he would immediately open up the records to examine any areas of inappropriate collusion between property developers and our Council, or the Boris Johnson Mayoralty and campaign. Why was it, he asked, that in such a small borough as H&F there was such an intensity of property developers riding roughshod over residents when there were vast tracts of develop-able land across the city?

Ken did not rule out involving the Police although he also said other independent third parties could be appointed to lead such an investigation, as he responded to a heartfelt plea from Shirley Wiggins, Chair of the West Kensington & Gibbs Green Residents Associaton. Residents in H&F felt, she said, helpless. Referring to the property developers set to demolish the estate she said “we seem to be at their mercy”. And they weren’t showing any.

Shirley Wiggins, West Ken Residents Association

When I pressed him on exactly what he was alleging about the relationship between developers and H&F Council Ken referred to political donations having been made to the Conservative Party. Such donations, he said, brought into question whether the current Mayor could really be acting impartially.

On Shepherd’s Bush Market Ken answered questions from shopkeepers set to be made way for our Council’s tie up with property developers Orion, and said that while he had to be careful not to pre-judge any planning isssues before the election he very much hoped that the shop-owners judicial review, set for mid-May, would be successful “…and put back in the new Mayor’s lap”. Clank went the hint as it hit the ground loudly.

Both sets of residents were clearly angry more than upset, and their moods were not improved by revelations that Boris Johnson appears to have been being less than honest in his communications on the issues. Andy Slaughter MP told the meeting that he has a letter in Boris’ name dated February 29th which makes clear that he has no objections to the demolition of the Goldhawk Road row of shops as part of the Market redevelopment. Yet a week later in answer to my own and shop owner Aniza Meghani’s public questioning at the People’s Question Time event, which I recorded and you can watch for yourself below, he feigns ignorance and says he is “sorry to hear that is happening”. Worse still he later stated that he would ‘protect’ them in answers to journalists – all the while knowing he’d signed a letter giving the go-ahead to the scheme. The smoking gun letter will appear here shortly.



As you might imagine this provoked a great deal of Boris bashing, the room being full both of angry residents and Labour politicians including Val Shawcross AM, Ken’s Deputy, and Todd Foreman who is standing for Labour in our ridiculously large West Central constituency. Ken said Boris was dishonest and that he was even worse than Norman Tebbit or John Redwood in his ability to tell lies to people’s eyes. Given lift-gate this was small fry by all accounts.

Finally I raised the air pollution story I broke last week, during which Shepherd’s Bush scored the highest possible marks for dirty air according to indices published by King’s College London. Ken was visibly angry about this, arguing that the problem was replicated across the city and was responsible for the early deaths of between 4 and 6,000 people per year in the city. It was, he said, akin to a 9/11 every year in terms of fatalities but "because people die in their beds" politicians get away with it. He blasted Boris’ plans to spray glue near the monitoring stations to mask the extent of the problem and said there was a good reason why the European Commission was threatening to fine the city for subjecting its citizens to such dangerous levels of pollution. He would work with them, he said, to put plans in place to address the problem not its symptoms through a blend of clear air vehicles and planning policies. When I first reported this story I speculated that the local press may pick up on it, which they haven't as yet - given these strong words I don't think they can ignore it any more.

Residents, assorted politicians and Ken

As we were moving to leave Shirley Wiggins interjected again to thank Ken for coming to the West Ken estate, as Brian Paddick had also done, she said. It was a good estate “that works” she said and the community wanted to stay as they were. She said the first time that residents had seen the local Conservatives was last week when they were canvassing and asking people how they might vote in the elections. They received the answer you might expect.

1900 UPDATE - H&F Council have responded to Ken's comments to me here, and it's clear they don't intend to take any lectures from the Labour candidate.

Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre saved

The future of the Irish Centre has been secured after Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council struck a deal to sell it to the centre’s board of directors. The news comes after the Irish Government, after expressing it's "disappointment" with H&F Council stepped in and provided Irish tax payers cash to enable the centre to be purchased.

The Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith (ICCH) has now formally agreed to buy the building, after they were able to raise funds and secure this grant from the Irish government.

The centre will now be redeveloped to provide a new Community Centre on the lower floors with residential accommodation on the upper floors. There will also be a café, bar, concert hall, offices, classrooms and rooms for hire, subject to planning permission.

Cllr Joe Carlebach, H&F Council cabinet member for community care, said: 

“This is a fantastic deal for both the Irish community and local taxpayers as we have managed to secure the future of the popular community centre and improve the council’s finances at the same time 

“The harsh reality of the economic situation has dictated that in order to concentrate our funding on services such as voluntary sector grants, child protection, services for the vulnerable and elderly we have had to sell this and other buildings. 

“However, we have always said that this process would not be a fire sale and I am delighted that we have been able to work closely with the Irish community and government to secure the future of the centre. 

“The council is immensely proud of the borough's rich Irish heritage so it is particularly pleasing that we have found a positive solution that benefits our Irish community while at the same time reducing the burden for H&F taxpayers. I would like to pay tribute to Jim O'Hara and his team at the Irish Cultural Centre for the constructive and very professional way they have handled the negotiations.”

Jim O’Hara, Chairman of the Irish Cultural Centre, said: 

"We are delighted that the Irish Cultural Centre and the council have reached agreement on the sale and purchase of the building. Since the decision to sell the building was made in 2011, the centre's directors along with the council and its officers have worked constructively together to reach a settlement that was satisfactory to all parties. Now that this has been achieved, I wish to thank the council, on behalf of the centre's directors, management and its many users, for the cooperative spirit in which the negotiations have been conducted and which have now culminated in securing the long term future of the Irish Cultural Centre. I also wish to thank the Irish government for its vital support in enabling us to arrive at this successful conclusion."

The ICCH will be submitting a planning application for the works to the council later in the year.

Election Interview: Caroline Pidgeon AM (LibDem)

LibDem Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral candidates

Caroline Pidgeon is the Deputy Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor in this year’s keenly fought Mayoral contest, and she took five minutes out with me ahead of the People’s Question Time event which took place at Hammersmith Town Hall recently to give her take on some of the issues facing our borough and Shepherd’s Bush.

First was the subject of Shepherd’s Bush Market and our Council’s controversial plans to demolish a row of historic shops which are not actually part of the market – but were offered to developers Orion to boost their profit margins on the project anyway, despite public promises from the Council Leader not to. 

Of the plans to demolish the shops Ms Pidgeon said: “this is taking away the heart of a community in order to build some flats” and that the scheme was “not about people, it’s about making money”. Ms Pidgeon, who was a councillor in Southwark for 12 years, argued that during her time in office in that borough it had been possible for the Council to work with communities, through Section106 schemes by which public works are included in planning permission schemes, to improve local High Streets which she said were the lifeblood of local areas. This “is not happening” in Hammersmith & Fulham, she argued.

On crime and policing she said the LibDems had some very firm pledges, as you might expect from a team with a former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police as their candidate. She deplored the decline in police numbers under Boris Johnson and noted that the number of warranted officers was down across London.

I mentioned that our own Safer Neighbourhood Team in Shepherd’s Bush was now an award winning group, and she responded that the Lib Dem pledge on crime was for a minimum of one Sergeant per ward. Having discussed this point with a number of local police people I can tell you that this is very much what the average police officer would like to see as well.

On cycling – or the big BorisBike scandal first unearthed by MayorWatch on a London level and then the answer this blogger received from H&F Council that they were funding the scheme with £2 million of your money. Ms Pidgeon argued that there was a real need for “transparency” over the funding arrangements of the whole scheme. She also criticised Boris for not having consulted with, well, anyone really about when and where the scheme was to be extended to – noting that they were still nowhere near SE London where she lived.

Finally, I broached a sensitive subject – it was quite clear, I suggested, that the LibDems were not going to do very well in Hammersmith & Fulham. They lack even a single councillor at the Town Hall. So how should people vote, given that it doesn’t look like Mr Paddick is heading to City Hall as Mayor either? I was expecting a standard politicians’ answer along the lines of “no no we’re steaming to victory, it’s what I hear on the doorsteps…etc..etc” but what I got was the closest I was probably going to get to a suggestion that LibDem inclined people should choose Ken Livingstone for their second preference vote. And coming from a coalition partner at national level I thought this was all the more remarkable.

Ms Pidgeon told me that people should “vote with their heart, number one, and their brains number two”. It was clear which of the other two main candidates, she said, we could “get more Lib Dem things in London done” with. And I don’t think she was talking about Boris – although a LibDem spokesperson has assured me that she was simply spelling out that people had two votes. You be the judge.

Guest Blog: Footie comes to A40 underpass

From time to time I host guest blogs on here - Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh and MP Andy Slaughter have both taken part. But there's a lot more to life than  politics and it also once included a music night as well as a rather more serious one from the Police Borough Commander for H&F - so I'm really grateful to Viv James, of the Macfarlane Road Residents Association, who has submitted what looks like a good news story about footie coming to one of the more neglected corners of the Bush.

Here's what she has to say below - and if you fancy using the blog as your own soapbox too do just drop me a line at shepherdsbushblog@yahoo.co.uk

Bringing Footie and Fizz to White City

An application has gone in to the planning department of the LBHF which looks to bring life to a part of the borough that most of us ignore and pass swiftly by. It is a dirty and graffiti covered wasteland as it currently stands but it seems that there are plans to invigorate this corner under the A40 Westway.

Wood Lane junction with A40 Westway W12

Lucozade Power League, who call themselves the champions of 5-a-side football, propose a new facility at the A40 junction with Wood Lane as part of what they state is their ongoing commitment to amateur football. Powerleague have centres all over the UK already and in London they have sites in Docklands, Wembley and Old Street. http://www.powerleague.co.uk/ Powerleague, the five-a-side football centre operator, struck a four-year sponsorship deal with energy drinks firm Lucozade last year as it kicked off a major expansion drive. The company already has tie-ups with kit and shoe maker Nike and brewer Carlsberg.

New All-weather sporting facilities, comprising 3 pitches are proposed for this dreary and stale site under the A40 to the north of the borough with heated facilities including female and male changing rooms and showers. Access is to be from the north of the site near Bentworth Park. This seems to be a welcome development and an ingenious use of a wasted and currently inhospitable space.

Strangely they seem to have applied to RBKC although this area is most definitely White City, Shepherds Bush LBHF and the application is on the LBHF website! “The applicant proposes to construct a 5-a-side football facility with 3 pitches underneath the A40 WestWay Flyover, North Kensington”.

The proponents of the scheme claim that this will meet latent demand in the surrounding area for small-sided football facilities, which cannot be met due to the density of surrounding development.

However given that there is to be another football centre with 11 Astroturf pitches at Hammersmith park as reported here the question must be will there be enough footie enthusiasts and teams to make the most of all these additional pitches? Perhaps the Hammersmith Park project should rethink the loss of the tennis courts which would please many residents and workers in the area.

The developers of the Dairy Crest site also wish to improve the area under the Westway where their site will link with the Imperial College new campus to the east of Wood Lane. They are currently proposing a not for profit building that could accommodate a range of activities such as music studios for local bands, computer training, artists’ studios and galleries/exhibition space or accommodation for small local businesses.

So it would appear that these two development ideas for the moribund areas under the Westway could compliment each other and bring great improvement to this difficult environment. Presumably any structures will need to allow TFL access for any inspection, works and maintenance to the elevated A40!

Bush Village Hall saved?

Following lengthy negotiations, Shepherds Bush Village Hall in Bulwer Street has been sold to the Wigoder Family Foundation, allowing the council, it says, to spend the proceeds of the sale on front-line services.

In February 2011, the council chose to sell the hall and seven other buildings in order to reduce its historic debt, which at the time stood at £133 million.

The building is occupied by several popular community groups, including the Shepherds Bush Families Project, West and North West London Vietnamese Association and the West London School of Dance.

During the last year, the council has worked closely with these groups to find a solution that would keep the centre open and has even offered them first right of refusal. When a deal proved out of their reach, the groups made contact with the Wigoder Family Foundation, who has now signed on the dotted line after agreeing a price with the council.

The Wigoder Family Foundation was established with an endowment from Charles Wigoder, one of the UK's leading entrepreneurs, with the aim of supporting a wide range of charitable causes.

Cllr Joe Carlebach, cabinet member for community care said:

“In the true spirit of localism, the council pledged from the very outset to work with the current occupiers of the building to find an amicable solution. We said all along that we would not just take the money and run, so I am delighted that we have found a way to keep the hall open while reducing the burden on taxpayers.

“The unprecedented nature of the current economic climate means that if we are serious about protecting libraries, voluntary sector grants and services for the vulnerable we need to look elsewhere to make savings. Taxpayers have told us that they would prefer us to sell some buildings and I am sure they will be pleased that we have been able to keep the centre open at no cost to them.

“We are hugely proud of the contribution that the groups based at Bulwer Street make to the borough and we are delighted that they shall be remaining.”

A Widgoer Family Foundation spokesman said:  

“The foundation was deeply concerned when it heard about the intended closure of this much loved community resource, which had been providing space to a number of extremely worthwhile causes for over 20 years. Working closely with Hammersmith & Fulham Council, we are delighted to have been able to secure the purchase of the Village Hall, and thus provide the occupying charities with long-term accommodation on an affordable basis.”

The West London School of Dance currently hire out the ground floor hall of the building and will continue to do so to the existing hirers under the new arrangements.

The school’s director, Anna du Boisson, said:  

“It is absolutely wonderful that the council has recognised the importance of ballet and dance in the community. We are now in the process of creating a world class studio in an extraordinary space. It is great that Shepherds Bush will now be put on the map as a centre for classical ballet.”

Pollution in the Bush: 9/10 for dirt

People in Shepherd's Bush have been suffering under a cloud of pollution in recent weeks as the combined impact of stationary traffic, warm weather and a sheen of smog that covered London for much of the last fortnight produced a cloying fug that registered 9/10 for pollution in W12 on March 23rd.

I have the excellent BorisWatch blog to thank for alerting me to the reading, and the pollution monitoring site itself which is hosted by King's College London. Might be worth checking back there throughout the summer, especially if you have asthma.

It comes as Wood Lane has started to resemble a car park for large periods of the day, as it struggles to cope with the hordes of Westfield and some roadworks under the A40 bridge by White City, and shows no sign of easing off any time soon.

So what to do? Living in London you have to accept a degree of dirtiness, it's called the Big Smoke with good reason. But pollution has risen steadily under the last four years of Boris Johnson, who's only response to date has been a bizarre notion of "glueing" the pollution to the roads. An idea that Professor Frank Kelly of King's College called a "waste of public money". London's pollution continues to exceed European Commission standards and is responsible for thousands of deaths every year.

Ken Livingstone's endorsement by the Green Party was in part, they said, because of his own plans to tackle air pollution. But details on what precisely those plans are are hard to find.

Simon Less of the Guardian wrote a balanced view of Boris & Ken's approaches here and reached the conclusion that neither had really gone all out to do something meaningful about it - so you might want to keep an eye on what each of them say between now and polling day. And in the meantime keep checking back to find out just how dirty the air really is around you.

0900 UPDATE - The LibDems on the Greater London Authority have been in touch to pin the blame for the current pollution firmly on a lack of action by Boris ... on black cabs. The taxis, they say, are among the worst overall polluters in the city and an action plan launched with great fanfare by the blonde one to cut their emissions and transfer to clear air vehicles two and a half years ago has never actually been delivered. In fact it hasn't even started.

The 'Cleaner Taxi Fund' was planned to enable drivers to purchase new clean-air vehicles and cut the emissions dramatically. But Mike Tuffrey, of the LibDem Assembly Group said this:

"It's astonishing that nearly two-and-a-half years after first promising action to clean up London's taxi fleet the Mayor has failed on two of this key promises. Poor air quality in our capital accounts for an estimated 4,300 premature deaths each year, with taxis being the single biggest polluting vehicle in central London.

"The Mayor's dither and delay over these issues has been scandalous. It's clear the Mayor is failing in his duty to protect the health of Londoners"

0930 UPDATE - Blimey - the Daily Telegraph have also picked up on the story today and are running a story highlighting how, instead of actually trying to fix the problem as he promised, he has tried to mislead people instead. When the Torygraph is beating up on you like this in an election battle I think it's safe to say you haven't really got a leg to stand on.

Normally when I write stories like this the local media pick up on it later in the day - we shall see...