In his March 2015 E-bulletin, the somnolent MP for Leyton and Wanstead John Cryer comments as follows: ‘I was troubled by some reports which have surfaced online about how Waltham Forest Council dealt with the discovery of asbestos at the Town Hall. This had the potential to cause ordinary council workers, officers and the councillors themselves serious, chronic health problems. I met with t... »
Stop press: Mr Fenwick provides a full reply to our e-mail of 20 March 2015. 26 March 2015 ‘Dear Mr Tiratsoo, Thank you for your email. Its contents are noted. The Council has provided a response to your original queries and explained the relationship between NPS(London) Ltd and the Council. Daniel Fenwick Director of Governance’ 20 March 2015 ‘Dear Mr. Fenwick, Tha... »
Between 2008 and 2014, LBWF operated Worknet, a multi-million pound programme, funded from London and central government sources, delivered by outside ‘partners’, and aimed at helping local people find employment. At first, LBWF gave Worknet significant publicity, and presented it as a major initiative. For example, in November 2009, Council Leader Cllr. Chris Robbins told WFN: ‘“Walth... »
On 27 January 2015, Trevor Calver and I called for LBWF Chief Executive Martin Esom to resign over the Town Hall asbestos affair. Here is the correspondence that followed in date order, beginning at the bottom with our initial e-mail. 20 March 2015 ‘Dear Mr. Fenwick, Thank you for your e-mail. Most of it of course is entirely irrelevant to the points that we raised with Mr. Esom on 27... »
The registered charity O-Regen was set-up in 1997 as part of the redevelopment of Cathall estate, and charged with running community facilities in the south of the borough together with various programmes to benefit local residents. From the start, O-Regen appeared blessed. It was presented with a £4.5m endowment as well as a portfolio of 16 leasehold properties yielding an income of £120,000 p.a.... »
Shortly after the Independent Panel report, I attended a Community Council meeting, and heard Cllr. Marie Pye vociferously denying any responsibility for the NRF/BNI fiasco. So I wrote her an open letter explaining why I thought she was wrong. Needless to say, in true Waltham Forest style, she never replied. However, to some extent the last laugh is on her, because if you Google ‘Cllr. Marie... »
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... »
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... »
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... »
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... »