Private Eye reports LBWF’s latest fire safety scandal, the fact that, seven years after Grenfell, only one of its 63 low-rise and high-rise blocks of flats is fire safe
From Private Eye 1638 6-19 December 2024 »
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The Whitefield School child abuse scandal: the BBC publishes more awful revelations
The BBC has just published more awful revelations about the Whitefield School child abuse scandal, which can be read here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw0e3zjx2lo.amp For the background to the scandal, and a timeline of events, see links, below. It should not be forgotten that (a) LBWF was involved at every stage of the scandal, but kept its deliberations and interventions for the most part away from public scrutiny. Thus, to give a flavour, in the crucial period 2017 to 2021, the relevant scrutiny committee minutes make no mention of Whitefield School at all, and nor is the scandal referenced in the annual reports of the Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children Board. (b) At the time o... »
More on LBWF’s failure to keep tenants in its low-rise and high-rise housing blocks safe from fire
A few weeks ago, and in response to a Freedom of Information Act question, LBWF released further data about the remediation programme it is running to address the fire safety defects which exist in all but one of its 63 low-rise and high-rise housing blocks. Unsurprisingly, given that this programme started in 2020, the data shows that in the years that have elapsed there has been some tangible progress. But what’s striking is how much more needs to be done, even as regards the most pressing issues. To start with the headline figures, while the number of ‘high’ or ‘medium’ risk defects that are classified as ‘overdue’ has gradually fallen from a peak of 4,431 in January 2020, the comparative... »
New official data shows that seven years after Grenfell nearly all LBWF housing blocks have ‘life-critical fire-safety defects’, leaving tenants to live with the risks
In 2020, after LBWF was involved in several notable fire safety scandals, including the purchase of hundreds of misleadingly labelled fire doors, the subject of a fraud inquiry, it began a programme of remedial work to bring its housing stock ‘up to the most modern…safety standard’, this being forecast to cost about £40m., with the final sum dependent on what was discovered as the work proceeded. The following year, officers updated the Audit and Governance Committee about progress in January and October, the focus being on the number of remedial actions that had been either completed or were outstanding: As can be seen, the proportion of actions which were outstanding had fallen slightly ov... »
Waltham Forest’s Great and Good – from Dr. Stella Creasy MP, to senior police officers, via LBWF Leader Grace Williams – come a cropper about faith-based zealotry…yet again
Over the years, senior members of the borough’s establishment on occasion have enthusiastically supported faith organisations – Christian and Muslim – which turn out to espouse unattractive values, values that no Town Hall officer or mainstream politician or police officer would express in public. A classic example occurred in 2016, when a clutch of Labour councillors, (including the now Deputy Leader of Waltham Forest Council, Cllr. Ahsan Khan) attended an event in the Town Hall to celebrate the visiting Pakistani Senator Sirajul Haq, this happy gathering captured for posterity on Facebook: It is unclear who knew what about Senator Haq, but it later took only ten minutes research... »