Martin Esom

St. Mary’s Primary School, Walthamstow, and asbestos: the final verdict (1)

July 26, 2017 Asbestos at St. Mary's School, Martin Esom, Town Hall asbestos

The Waltham Forest Guardian‘s Tom Barnes has just filed an online story reporting that, following a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE),  Balfour Beatty Regional Construction, NPS London Ltd., and Squibb Group Ltd. today have been fined in all over £1m. for breaking various safety regulations in connection with the removal of asbestos at St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Walthamstow during 2012. I first found out about events at St Mary’s when I was investigating the fiasco surrounding the treatment of asbestos in the Town Hall (see refere... »

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LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom responds to my questions re the Cllr. Ahsan Khan affair

May 12, 2016 Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Martin Esom, Prevent

I post Mr. Esom’s responses below. Much of what he writes is self-evidently vague, and seems to have been written with the explicit aim of avoiding giving anything away, hardly appropriate in the light of the seriousness of both the events in question and the wider situation that we find ourselves in. Regarding the ‘community award’, I understand that LBWF is claiming that every visitor to the Mayor’s parlour is given the same ‘memento’ or ‘keepsake’. I wonder how it is then that the Evening Standard came to use the phrase ‘community award’, particularly since the paper... »

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The Cllr. Ahsan Khan affair: new revelations UPDATED

April 19, 2016 Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Martin Esom, Prevent, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

Harry’s Place has further revelations about the Cllr. Khan affair: http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/18/meet-the-friends-of-corbynista-vicar-steven-saxby/ It certainly does seem strange that a person who apparently feels the imagery pasted below is acceptable now finds himself honoured with a ‘community award’ by councillors, including Madam Mayor, on LBWF property. I’ve pointed LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to this specific detail, and again will post his reply. UPDATE I e-mailed Mr. Esom about this at 07.31 on 19th April. As of now – 08.06 on the 28th April ... »

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Cllr. Ahsan Khan steps down amid talk of inadmissible intolerance UPDATED

April 13, 2016 Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Martin Esom, Prevent, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

Word reaches me that earlier in the week Labour councillors were circulated with an e-mail which announced that Cllr. Ahsan Khan, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, had stepped down from the Cabinet, pending an independent investigation by the LBWF Monitoring Officer. What appears to have happened is that Cllr. Khan organised an event in the Town Hall, attended by the Mayor, which was then the subject of a video posted online, the latter put together by one Qari Mahmood and propagated by Khalid Iqbal Malik. It is this video that is the source of the problem, because it is said to display... »

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LWBF, Prevent, and the Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque

April 7, 2016 Martin Esom, Prevent

An interesting and very concerning report on the Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque has been published at the blog Harry’s Place: http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/06/the-waltham-forest-islamic-association-conspiracy-theories-antisemitism-and-rejection-of-the-west/ I have written to Martin Esom, LBWF Chief Executive, as follows: ‘Dear Mr. Esom, You no doubt will have seen the recent report on the Lea Bridge Rd. Mosque published at the blog Harry’s Place… I understand that LBWF claims some sort of expertise in relation to the Prevent strategy; and also that a number of local councillors have... »

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LBWF and the Freedom of Information Act: dumb insolence reigns?

March 30, 2016 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF, Martin Esom

LBWF’s response to Freedom of Information Act inquiries has, in my experience, always been pretty hit and miss, but recently things seem to have deteriorated sharply, ostensibly due to the fact that the system has been automated. I reproduce a letter that I have sent today to LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom, as it well illustrates the kind of muddle that the innocent inquirer now can so easily find themselves enmeshed in. In some respects, the events outlined are comic, but there is a serious side, as well. LBWF has never been very open about its workings. If it ignores the Freedom of I... »

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LBWF in Private Eye again, this time over ISIS and Prevent

December 11, 2015 ISIS, LBWF, Prevent, Private Eye

From Private Eye, no.1407, 11-18 December 2015:   »

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LBWF’s relationship with the local business sector: new revelations about the E11 BID Co.

November 13, 2015 E11 BID Co., Fawaad Sheikh, LBWF, Martin Esom

I have written before about LBWF’s relationships with the local business sector, and pointed out that our council appears to treat certain businesses and business organisations rather more favourably than might be expected. Money is handed out, and assets handed over, but there seems to be no great urgency about due process. It is all very relaxed, even informal, and contrasts strikingly with the way that, for example, LBWF commonly interacts with the local community and charity sector (as I can vouchsafe). Against this background, I have been looking again at the legal contracts that LBWF has... »

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LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom’s evidence at the Town Hall asbestos trial: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

September 18, 2015 LBWF, LBWF spin, Martin Esom, Town Hall asbestos

The following speaks for itself. 18 September 2015 Dear Mr. Esom, We write to you about the letter dated 30 January 2014 that you submitted to the HSE and the courts prior to LBWF’s recent prosecution over Town Hall asbestos contamination. We remind you that this letter was produced in lieu of an interview under PACE; and that you explicitly recognised it might ‘be used in the event of any enforcement proceedings’. We further remind you that in the letter, you underline that you are intent upon ‘frankly’ dealing with the issues at hand. All this being the case, we are very surprised at some of... »

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LBWF, Prevent, and the Freedom of Information Act: censorship in action?

August 16, 2015 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Martin Esom, Prevent

On 17th July 2015, I used the Freedom of Information Act (FIA) to ask LBWF: ‘At a recent hearing in City Hall, Martin Esom (LBWF CEO) claimed re the Prevent programme: “We try to identify output measures to see how successful we are or otherwise….Our output measures are things like referrals through to Channel and all sorts of things like that. We have quite a broad range of indicators in terms of whether or not we are making any inroads”. Please can you forward me these output measures/broad range of indicators for 2013 and 2014′. On 14 August 2015, I received th... »

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