LBWF spin

LBWF embarks on staff redundancies but quietly admits that it’s allowed senior staff hires to mushroom, even as resident satisfaction with the council plummets

December 19, 2023 LBWF spin, Redundancies

LBWF never ceases to amaze. Take its current voluntary redundancy programme. Of course, the timing, just before Christmas, is deplorable, and says everything about how little the Town Hall leadership really cares for those who work for it. But putting that point aside, it’s very interesting to see how LBWF justifies itself.  Predictably, the story being spun for public consumption is that ‘the urgent need to address financial constraints’ stems from ‘reduced government funding, a challenging economic climate and escalating service demands’, in other words, ‘it’s nothing to do with u... »

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The Sunday Telegraph reports the ‘misery’ that speed humps are causing in Chingford

December 11, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

Yesterday, the Sunday Telegraph published a long story about the Chingford speed hump saga, which is archived here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/10/speed-bumps-bring-misery-to-london-borough-chingford/ Amongst the many striking observations included are the following: ‘Shanta Prasad was born in her home on Chingford’s Old Church Road in 1964 and has lived there ever since. In all of those 59 years, she has never had any trouble sleeping – until last year, when London Borough of Waltham Forest installed a speed bump outside her house. “As soon as they were installed, our house... »

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LBWF, the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act: the obstruction and harassment of residents asking lawful questions continues

November 23, 2023 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Mark Hynes

In the past few years, this blog has repeatedly revealed that LBWF obstructs local residents using the Freedom of Information Act (FIA) and the Data Protection Act when they are judged to be broaching issues that the Labour leadership considers controversial or likely to damage its reputation. A new case confirms that this disreputable trend continues, and is suggestive, too, about whether LBWF’s Director of Governance and Law, Mark Hynes, who is also Data Protection Officer, has any culpability.  The story can be summarised as follows. During the summer of 2023, I discovered that between... »

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Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee scrutinises ‘active travel schemes’ like Mini-Holland and finds them grossly wanting

November 8, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published on 3 November 2023 is highly critical of the kind of active travel schemes (ATSs) that have been so enthusiastically implemented by LBWF. The Department of Transport defines active travel as ‘everyday journeys made by walking, wheeling [i.e., using wheelchairs, mobility scooters, prams or pushchairs], or cycling’. So ATSs ‘can range from creating new infrastructure, such as separate cycle lanes on roads or amending existing road space to create pedestrian zones outside schools, as well as activities such as providing training in cycle safety’.... »

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LBWF spends enormous amounts each year on non-disclosure agreements, but is this justified?

November 1, 2023 LBWF spin

In recent years, and particularly following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, there has been growing unease about the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). It is widely accepted that NDAs can be appropriate in some circumstances, for example to protect sensitive commercial information. The worry, however, is that on occasion NDAs appear to have been deployed solely to cover up unlawful or abusive behaviour. Against this background, it is perhaps surprising to find that LBWF has used NDAs quite extensively, as the following table demonstrates: Moreover, this has come at a cost, since a sign... »

Chingford speed humps: the prior consultation was manipulated, and what LBWF refers to as supporting evidence is revealed to be decades out of date

September 20, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

Here’s a further update from our Chingford correspondent, this time with some incendiary revelations (see links for back story). ‘Recent research casts further doubt on how LBWF has acted in installing speed humps in Chingford. First, it emerges that the consultation about speed humps was blatantly manipulated.  LBWF claims to have distributed a survey to all households in the area where the humps were planned, seeking their opinions. One notable fact is that only 6.7 per cent of households responded, which seems to give credence to local claims that the distribution was nowhere near as c... »

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Departing LBWF CEO Martin Esom: 13 years in the job, £2.6m. salary in the bank, a few highs, but also some very unattractive lows

August 30, 2023 LBWF spin, Martin Esom

In December 2022, LBWF announced that its CEO, Martin Esom, would be leaving the Town Hall at the end of 2023, but subsequently, and without explanation, his departure date was brought forward to the last day of July just past, when he took up a position at the Sports Grounds Safety Authority. Accordingly, it’s a good time to evaluate what Mr. Esom has achieved in his near 13 years at the helm. Has he helped change the council, and Waltham Forest, for the better? It is certainly true that he has led the borough through an unusually volatile period, with budget cuts, Islamist terrorism, COVID, ... »

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Ex-Guardian journalist Dave Hill skewers Cllr. Clyde Loakes over Waltham Forest’s Mini-Holland and LTNs UPDATED

August 24, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

In the New Statesman last week, Cllr. Clyde Loakes claims that Mini-Holland and LTNs are ‘proven to make ourselves, our neighbourhoods and our planet healthier’. As might be predicted, while Cllr. Loakes’ tone is bombastic, his argument is largely vapid.  Thus, to take one example, he quotes the Kings study on air quality of 2018 as if gospel, apparently unaware that, LBWF spin notwithstanding, careful evaluation has shown it to be hedged with qualifications, and anyway significantly flawed (see links below). Answering Loakes, ex-Guardian journo and one time Clare Coghill admire... »

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Traffic calming measures that are harming houses and people: a local resident fights on to force LBWF into recognising its responsibilities

August 21, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

A previous post focused on a local resident’s concern that badly thought-out traffic calming measures in Waltham Forest are producing damaging consequences (see link, below). More recently, the same resident has requested a meeting with the newly appointed LBWF CEO, Linzi Roberts-Egan.  Asked by one of the latter’s staff to explain why a meeting was justified, our resident replied with the eloquent and very full elucidation of their case reproduced below, which once again is damning of both the traffic calming measures themselves, and the way LBWF has dealt with complainants. Th... »

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The new Office of Local Government launches a tool to compare how councils are performing, and LBWF emerges as one of the laggards

July 13, 2023 LBWF spin

The newly formed Office of Local Government (Oflog) has just launched a tool which shows how English councils are performing in terms of both their near neighbours and the national median. So far, the focus is on adult social care, finance, and waste management, with a total of 18 different metrics tracked. It’s fair to say that LBWF doesn’t come out of this exercise very well, performing below the national median in 14 cases, and above it in only four. The waste management data is indicative: LBWF consistently attempts to give the impression that it is somehow part of the vanguard. It’s early... »