Nick Tiratsoo's Posts

‘Forget the homeless, what about the coffee drinkers?’ LBWF v. The Christian Kitchen (Part 1): Councillor Terry Wheeler makes a stand

March 13, 2015 Christian Kitchen, Cllr. Clyde Loakes, Cllr. Terry Wheeler

A local correspondent writes as follows: ‘Waltham Forest Council is big on celebrating its own perceived achievements and spending our money to do so. You would think that having a local charity like the Christian Kitchen which feeds the homeless 365 days a year would be worth celebrating, but unfortunately, in 2013 our less than enlightened leaders decided otherwise by revoking its licence ... »

Waltham Forest Pool and Track, again

March 12, 2015 Waltham Forest Pool and Track

Reporting on Tuesday’s planning committee meeting, Amanda Connolly writes: ‘Last night we had a great turnout at the Pool and Track Application. We had 12 articulate, emotional and compelling speakers. The Chamber and seating areas were full. The general feeling from Committee and Councillors was that if we didn’t pass the plans, the whole project was at risk of failing (and as t... »

Documenting Past Failures: (7) The Independent Panel and a ‘scathing’ report on LBWF’s ‘deep-rooted culture of non-compliance with procedures to prevent fraud’.

March 9, 2015 Independent Panel

In mid-2009, the crisis around the BNI finally came to a head. The Council had spent c. £116,000 on a series of seven or eight disparate inquiries into the programme, (Waltham Forest Guardian, 17 June 2009)  culminating in the PwC report, but some were obviously flawed, few convinced, and almost all begged further questions. Negative press coverage continued, as when the Waltham Forest Guardian re... »

Documenting Past Failures: (6) Cllr. Loakes, PwC, and the BNI Community Cohesion Projects

March 6, 2015 BNI Community Cohesion Projects, Cllr. Clyde Loakes

As I have described in the previous post in this series, the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report was a revelation. The figures already recounted tell much of the story. But to get a full picture of the chaos that PwC uncovered, it is necessary to look at some of its unpublished findings on individual BNI files, and there is no better place to start than with the batch concerning ‘community c... »

Documenting Past Failures: (5) The BNI – ‘We’re awfully sorry, folks. Mistakes were made about how we spent millions of pounds of public money. But it’s all in the past. Let’s move forward and forget it’.

March 6, 2015 The BNI

By the spring of 2008, the situation with the Better Neighbourhoods Initiative (BNI) programme was becoming untenable. The Council’s Corporate Audit and Anti-Fraud Team had just reported on the Dr. Foster episode, had nearly completed its work on EduAction’s Youth at Risk project, and was chasing new leads.  A consultant’s examination of the BNI which was presented to Cabinet concluded there had b... »

North London Ltd. – an enigma wrapped in a mystery?

March 5, 2015 North London Ltd.

A name that crops up in the context of the E11 BID Co. fiasco is North London Ltd. (NLL), a company that was launched in 2004 and apparently went into compulsory liquidation ten years later, put there by its creditors. According to a press release of 2013, NLL was ‘the sub-regional business support agency for North London’ and worked ‘to accelerate business growth and development and attract inwar... »

Ex-Cllr. Afzal Akram, again: why no MBE?

March 3, 2015 Cllr. Afzal Akram, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

Mention of ex-Councillor Akram in a previous post brings to mind what we have lost since he decamped to West London. The website of his new company, which appears to be a high end mini-cab firm, handily sums up his service to public life in the tabulation reproduced below. Can any local figure claim to have done anything like so much in so short a time? And for some reason Cllr. Akram never even g... »

Councillor Whitney Ihenachor: keeping it in the familiy

March 2, 2015 Councillor Whitney Ihenachor, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

A local resident writes: ‘If you check the Register of Interests on the LBWF website for Councillor Whitney Ihenachor, you will see she appears to be currently unemployed.  As with a number of other local Labour Group members, this is not unusual, but in Whitney’s case, does it obscure the fact that she is a full-time student at Glasgow University? Eyebrows were first raised when Whitney was... »

Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers, again

March 2, 2015 Fred Wigg and John Walsh Towers

If you want to understand the tower blocks issue, and why the Council’s plans have aroused such anger from local people, this is worth a listen: https://radiopetedotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/nusound-radio-92fm-260215-fred-john-hsg-mtg.mp3 (courtesy of Pete Day from NuSound Radio 92FM) Given what has happened, is it any wonder that Cann Hall Labour Party, with two councillors present, u... »

LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom and asbestos: the silence continues

February 27, 2015 Town Hall asbestos

Exactly one month ago, Trevor Calver and I wrote LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom the following e-mail:   Dear Mr. Esom, In November 2012, we wrote to you about the potential conflict of interest inherent in concurrently you being chief executive of LBWF and board member of NPS London Ltd.. You told us that you understood the risks, and had taken steps to mitigate them, explaining: ‘I fully r... »

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