Author: Nick Tiratsoo

Cllr. Anna Mbachu seeks permission to appeal her recent libel trouncing, but is refused, meaning she’s on the hook for £34,000

April 12, 2022 Cllr. Anna Mbachu

As previously reported here, Cllr. Anna Mbachu recently lost a libel action she had brought at the High Court, and in spectacular fashion, too, so leaving her with a £34,000 bill. Subsequently, she decided to seek permission for an appeal, and on the 29 March just past the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Welby of the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, gave his verdict. It is fair to say that he was less than impressed by what was put in front of him.  He began by noting that Cllr. Mbachu’s case had been ‘conducted in a disorderly and highly unsatisfactory fashion from the outset’, and went on to... »

LBWF housing scandal: just 5 per cent of the new homes built in Waltham Forest since 2012 were classified as ‘genuinely affordable’…and this from a Labour council!

April 1, 2022 Housing, LBWF spin, Redevelopment

As this blog consistently has argued, for some years now LBWF has overlooked its responsibilities to those with least means. Further evidence of this regrettable trend is revealed by examining how LBWF has performed when measured against its oft repeated promise to ensure, using its planning powers, that 50 per cent of the new homes which developers and construction companies complete each year in the borough are ‘affordable’. It’s worth emphasising at the outset that the word ‘affordable’ in this context often triggers confusion and cynicism, because, as veteran London journalist Dave Hill no... »

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Can the ordinary resident get justice in Waltham Forest?

March 14, 2022 Policing/crime

Some may judge the question posed in the title of this post as superfluous, with the answer so obviously ‘yes’ that it’s not worthy of further consideration. But consider these two case studies. Case One – Mr. A For some years, Mr. A has lived in a flat at a LBWF sheltered housing block.  In March 2021, he answered a knock on his door, and was confronted by a tradesman who claimed to be from a partner company which LBWF employs to carry out maintenance and repairs. The tradesman wanted to come into the flat, but was not wearing a face mask and had no ID.  Mr. A was wary on both ... »

LBWF tells a disabled tenant on a redeveloped estate: we are offering you a new flat, but you’ve got to complete the formalities, and move your stuff over…within four days

March 3, 2022 Redevelopment

Sometimes, LBWF’s behaviour really is beyond the pale. An example is the letter below. It was sent to a longstanding tenant, who is disabled, lives on an estate that is being re-developed, and has been waiting to be rehoused since 2018. On the plus side, the letter is the offer of a new flat. But on the minus side – and it is a very big minus – the offer comes with some stringent conditions.  The letter was sent by e-mail on Thursday 24 February 2022 in the late afternoon, states that the new flat’s tenancy will start on Monday 28 February 2022, and cautions that ‘unless you fail to view ... »

LBWF hands out £8m. of government support grants for pandemic hit businesses, but won’t say which got the cash

February 28, 2022 COVID-19, Post-COVID

During the pandemic, LBWF has been awarded large amounts of central government money both for its own use, and to support the borough’s economy. One of the biggest of the latter disbursements occurred between November 2020 and July 2021, when LBWF received £8m. from the England-wide Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) scheme, and paid it out to 1,051 local businesses. The objective was to focus on the ‘strategically significant’, defined as those ‘able to demonstrate their contribution to the local economy through, including but not limited to…Contribution to borough priority sectors…Local &am... »

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Google has some fun with Cllr. Anna Mbachu

February 21, 2022 Cllr. Anna Mbachu

Google ‘Cllr. Anna Mbachu’, and scrolling down finds the one time Mayor of Waltham Forest featuring in this juxtaposition: Who says algorithms don’t have a sense of humour? PS Just to be clear, Cllr.Mbachu’s indiscretion happened during her Mayoral Year in May 2010, and afterwards she apologised profusely, see »

The Housing Ombudsman Service berates LBWF for its error-strewn response to a resident’s routine request for information

February 17, 2022 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Ombudsman, Town hall staff and policies

Hardly a week goes by without someone from the Town Hall popping up to insist that, in everything LBWF does, it is ‘resident focused’. However, as previous posts have suggested, whether such a boast can be sustained remains debateable. In this context, a recent complaint that a LBWF tenant lodged with the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) is significant. The tenant had wanted to confirm that her tenancy automatically would be handed down to her son, and believed that the relevant information was contained in a council document called ‘Appendix 10’. But when she had looked for ‘Appendix 10’ on LB... »

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Senior Cabinet portfolio holder Cllr. Simon Miller steps down, as local election tensions split Waltham Forest’s Labour and Conservative parties

February 10, 2022 anti-semitism, John Cryer MP, The Conservatives in Waltham Forest, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

In recent days, Cllr. Simon Miller has announced he will not be standing at the forthcoming local elections, and this is provoking some comment, because as Cabinet portfolio holder for Economic Prosperity he has guided many of the development schemes that are transforming parts of Waltham Forest. In a parting message, as reported by Victoria Munro in the February 2022 Waltham Forest Echo, Cllr. Miller explains that he is stepping down because juggling his full-time job with his council responsibilities is ‘“in the long term unsustainable”, and he now wants to ‘“spend more time with the pe... »

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Ex-Leader Cllr. Clare Coghill’s breach of the LBWF Code of Conduct: Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes adds further fuel to the fire

February 2, 2022 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Mark Hynes, register of interests

Leading on from previous posts about Cllr. Coghill and her breach of the LBWF Code of Conduct by not declaring in 2017 that she was on the staff of Barry Sheerman MP, Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes has just provided some new details, small in themselves but nevertheless significant. First, he underlines that Cllr. Coghill’s error ‘was down to her and no one else’ (in other words, ruling out that she had been undone by mis-communication with an officer); and, second, he clarifies that when Cllr. Coghill updated her LBWF register of interests [hereafter LBWF register] in 2017, for som... »

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LBWF Leaders rattle the begging bowl, but splash £100,000 on ‘a conversation’ between seven floodlit buildings

January 25, 2022 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Grace Williams, LBWF finance

Since the start of the pandemic, the respective Labour Leaders, first Cllr. Clare Coghill and later her successor, Cllr. Grace Williams, have returned to versions of the long-standing Labour complaint that LBWF is not getting a fair funding deal from the Tory government. Cllr. Coghill early on set the tone, stating in a press release of April 2020 that “‘If lockdown measures continue for 12 weeks the full impact on our finances could be up to £40 million, roughly 10 per cent of our planned budget for this year’, and then telling the Waltham Forest Echo that while ministers had init... »

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