Cllr. Clare Coghill

LBWF ‘communication’ with local residents: the yawning gap between rhetoric and reality

July 13, 2020 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, LBWF spin

As this blog has previously reported, though LBWF stridently declares that it wants to ‘communicate’ with residents, even help them become ‘active citizens’, able to drive policy, what transpires on the ground is often very different. Communication turns out to be a one-way street, while those who raise issues that are at odds with LBWF’s rosy self-image find themselves studiously ignored. To further underline the prevailing malaise, a correspondent supplies the following vivid account of dealing with the Town Hall, which is particularly shocking because it involves several senior councillors:... »

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Amy Lamé finds a congenial home

February 11, 2020 Cllr. Clare Coghill, LBWF spin

One name that has cropped up recently in relation to Waltham Forest is Amy Lamé, London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s £75,000 p.a. Night Czar, ‘TV personality’, and ‘active’ Labour Party member. Her link to Waltham Forest is because she has been intimately involved in Mayor Khan’s plan to pilot Walthamstow High Street as a ‘Night Time Enterprise Zone’, something he has buttressed by granting LBWF £75,000 to run initiatives such as a ‘shop local late’ campaign. Of course, as so often is the case, the back scratching is mutual, and so LBWF’s spin machine has taken up Ms. Lamé big time, po... »

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London Borough of Waltham Forest: the local authority that can’t even finalise its annual accounts (1)

December 9, 2019 Cllr. Clare Coghill, LBWF finance, LBWF spin

Every year, like other local authorities, LBWF is bound by law to produce its annual accounts, using an external auditor and a timetable specified by the Accounts and Audit Regulations of 2015. But this year, the procedure has gone wrong, indeed very wrong, and now there is a lively post mortem in progress about who is to blame, and what are the likely consequences. As regards the 2018-19 audit, LBWF knew the specified time frame well beforehand. Unaudited accounts were due by 31 May 2019, and audited accounts by 31 July 2019, so that the latter then could be signed off by the Audit and Govern... »

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Love amongst the Leaders: Councillors Clare Coghill and Simon Blackburn

September 17, 2019 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Uncategorized

For the past few months, Labour members in Waltham Forest have been agog about the evolving private life of their supremo, Cllr. Clare Coghill. Now Cllr. Coghill has set the record straight, posting that she is happily embarked upon a relationship with the Leader of Blackpool Council, Simon Blackburn. People of goodwill from across the political spectrum will no doubt join this blog in wishing the couple well. Nevertheless, the story is not without its entertainments. Three pieces of background information are essential. Cllr. Blackburn, most appropriately, is an ardent fan of Blackburn Rovers... »

LBWF and fire hazards in its housing stock: the appalling case of Northwood Tower in Walthamstow (1)

July 3, 2019 Asbestos at St. Mary's School, Cllr. Clare Coghill, fire safety, Martin Esom, Northwood Tower, Redevelopment, Town Hall asbestos

In the past few months, journalists James Cracknell and Michelle Edwards of the Waltham Forest Echo have done sterling work in exposing the serious safety flaws that currently blight many of the 22 tower blocks in the borough, see here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/fire-safety-flaws-at-borough-tower-blocks/ here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/tower-residents-fire-safety-fears/ and here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/returning-to-northwood-tower/ What follows examines one of the tower blocks in detail, documents the dreadful situation that pertained there as of mid-2018, and reveals that ma... »

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Cllr. Clare Coghill responds to a polite inquiry about Universal Credit: first there is prevarication, then she complains about ‘sexually aggressive’ abuse

June 26, 2019 Cllr. Clare Coghill

I try not to post about issues where I am directly involved, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, and what follows is a case in point. During September 2018, I signed a joint letter to LBWF Leader Clare Coghill inquiring about what steps the council was taking to mitigate the disastrous introduction of Universal Credit. The tenor of the letter was thoughtful, evidenced, non-partisan, and of course about a pressing current issue, and the other signatories included some political figures, but of greater personal consequence, colleagues from the community and voluntary sector who were working directly... »

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‘Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal’ UPDATED

August 9, 2018 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Gang Prevention Programme, LBWF spin, Policing/crime

In May 2017, this blog published a post entitled ‘Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (1)’, which, somewhat unexpectedly, attracted a big readership. What follows provides an update, focusing both on knife crime specifically, and the broader (though intimately related) issue of gangs and gang violence. First off, and very regrettably, it is worth underlining that the knife crime problem in the borough is actually worse now than it was at the time of the original post. Indeed, in FY 2017-18, the number of offences was 27.34 per cent up on the previous year, a rise that was sig... »

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The Waltham Forest Matters Annual Awards for 2017

December 29, 2017 Cllr. Alan Siggers, Cllr. Anna Mbachu, Cllr. Chris Robbins, Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Clyde Loakes, Cllr. Hather Ali, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Mark Hynes, Martin Esom

It’s that time of year folks, and as this blog rapidly approaches the treasured 100,000 hits mark (OK, we admit it, 50,000 of them come from Cllrs Loakes and Robins) here are our awards: Picture of the year (From a couple of years back, true, but just too much of a cracker not to include) Sentence of the year ‘The company Knice Industries ltd is dormant and had never traded and that the councillor has applied to strike the company off the Companies House Register’ Mark Hynes, LBWF Director of Governance and Law, tells it like it is to a resident Social observation of this year (and every... »

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LBWF dodges the Local Government Association’s acclaimed peer review scheme, and it’s reasonable to ask: why?

December 1, 2017 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Independent Panel, Martin Esom

Since 2011, the Local Government Association (LGA) has run and financed a scheme called Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC), which it sees as ‘a core element of our sector-led improvement offer to local authorities’. As the name suggests CPC involves small teams of experienced officers and councillors visiting participating councils in order to understand how they work, challenge assumptions, and share learning, with a final written report offering both an accurate summary of current practice, and suggestions for improvement. To date, the LGA has delivered more than 700 peer challenges, covering tw... »

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LBWF Leader Cllr. Clare Coghill and knife crime: some issues that need to be addressed, and urgently

November 21, 2017 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Gang Prevention Programme, Policing/crime

According to the Waltham Forest Guardian, there were serious stabbings in Walthamstow on the 14, 16, and 19 November just past, leading the police to impose a section 60 order, which allows them augmented powers of stop and search. On 17 November, the Leader of LBWF, Clare Coghill, issued a press release: ‘”I fully understand that the community is concerned following the two violent incidents that took place in Walthamstow this week. I would like to reassure you we are working closely with and supporting the police in tackling such incidents and making sure the people involved are ... »

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