The Waltham Forest Greens begin to show their true colours: it’s penny pinching for the poor, quite the opposite for the property industry

The Greens took power earlier this year promising ‘a new kind of council’, but it’s quickly becoming apparent that this was just electioneering.

Take a recent juxtaposition.

LBWF is engaged in a consultation exercise over council tax support (CTS), which is designed to help those on low incomes.

Its preferred option is to reduce the CTS which 7,079 households currently receive, thereby allegedly saving about a million pounds.

One of the scenarios presented in the consultation shows what the proposed changes mean in human terms:

(For comparison, the LBWF Chief Executive, Linzi Roberts-Egan, earns a whopping £232,352 p.a., and the Council Leader, Cllr. Paul Perkins, c. £70,000 p.a.).

Meanwhile, LBWF has signed a contract with Site Sales Marketing Ltd. to help it find buyers for the 62 shared ownership flats it has built at Priory Court.

The total value of this contract is £483,073, meaning that Sites Sales Marketing Ltd. is trousering £7,791 per flat.

According to local reporter Sebastian Mann, writing in the Waltham Forest Echo, at the last full Council meeting, Cllr. Perkins, when discussing the need for cuts, stated that ‘his council will be “honest”’ about its choices but “won’t pretend those choices are all fair, or stop arguing that they should not be necessary”’.

It’s extraordinary for any politician to admit that they won’t be acting fairly, but then Cllr. Perkins does give the impression of being way out of his depth, and merely parroting the words of the senior council officers who, perhaps because of the dearth of relevant talent in his own party, he seems so dependent upon.

All in all, it’s been a rocky start for the Greens. They began by claiming that they were unaware of LBWF’s perilous financial position, which made them look either amateurish or deceitful; then a senior cabinet member made a fool of himself in public (see links); and most recently the Green members of the Children and Families Scrutiny Committee failed to meaningfully oppose the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review of the historic child abuse at Whitefield though it is blatantly unfit for purpose.

So, a governing party that by turns is hapless and without scruples.

In other words, a governing party that is… just like its predecessor!