Never Never Land Housing

Southwark Council was created in 1965 from smaller morel local council authorities. It embarked on a hugely ambitious council housing programme. It built massive estates such as the Heygate and Aylesbury estates. Southwark Council borrowed lots of money to build them. Huge amounts.

Sadly those estates haven’t stood the test of time. Engineers have advised they’re already beyond their useful life. The Heygate estate has been demolished. Southwark Labour plan a number of phases to demolish and replace the Aylesbury estate.

Those massive loans were taken under circumstances where central government paid the debt interest. Unsurprisingly Southwark Council didn’t pay back any of those loans. It kept rolling them over. Effectively an interest only mortgage where someone else paid the interest. we now have debt for estates demolished or planned to be demolished.

Several years ago council housing finance was changed. Interest is no longer paid for by central government.

It makes sense for Southwark to change how it treats housing loans. We should ensure that each year we pay some of the principal back of the loan. For non housing loans we legally have to have a Minimum Repayment Plan (MRP). This hasn’t completely stopped some housing loan principle being paid back but it’s been voluntary and ad hoc. So debt over the last three years has been brought down by £55M to around £400M. But we should decrease it further now that interest payments are paid from actual rents collected.

Eliminating £400M of housing debt would bring council rents down by a number of pound per week.

Snail’s Pace Housing

Southwark Council needs to do much more to tackle the scandal of thousands of homes left empty in Southwark.

We face a local housing crisis with housing need rising all the time with the local population set to rise to 355,000 by 2025. The Council has sold or demolished 1,973 of its own homes but built just 65 since Labour took power in Southwark in May 2010. There are currently 13,000 people on the Council’s housing waiting list.

Southwark is reckoned to have around 2,050 empty private sector homes, including second homes and homes left empty as investment opportunities by overseas buyers. A large proportion have been left empty for more than six months.

Under powers brought in by Liberal Democrats in the last government, councils can now charge 150% council tax on any home empty for two years or more. The latest figures show that Southwark is charging just 611 of the empty homeowners in the borough.

At the last meeting of the council I urged the borough’s leaders to demand more powers to tackle empty homes. I am calling for Southwark to be able to charge at least 200% council tax on empty homes after a home is empty for a year. Scotland is allowed to do this so why not English councils. The aim would be to increase the private sector housing supply in Southwark for rent and sale.

The Council needs to do much more to bring these homes into use and make it less financially worthwhile to keep them empty. It is shameful that new homes are being built all the time but are then allowed to sit empty while overseas investors make a killing.

It is not enough to just rely on building new council homes given the snail’s pace so far. The Council needs to get tough on developers who say they cannot build the affordable homes they should. It also needs to fight for extra powers to charge more council tax on homeowners who leave their homes empty.

My Lib Dem colleagues and I will keep fighting residents’ corner and pushing the Council to increase the housing supply in Southwark.

Golden Goodbyes

Southwark Labour amazingly have just introduced Golden Goodbyes for their cabinet councillors. This is the first council to ever introduce these extra payments.

So when a Labour cabinet councillor loses an election, resigns or is sacked they will now get a pay-off. The pay-off will be one month of extra Special Responsibility Allowance and an extra week for each year of service unto a maximum of 13 weeks. This payment will be up to £12,791 and even more for the Southwark Labour leader decides to step down.

My initial thoughts were of sympathy for someone who might lose their post suddenly. People have to live. But then I started to think why someone would suddenly lose such a post.

In no other job, let alone a calling such as being a councillor, do people receive a pay-off wen they resign. So why do Labour councillors expect it?

If resigning would cause financial hardship then that person should plan ahead. They could resign with a few months’ notice. That’s how normal people in normal jobs would do it.

There is also a real concern that ‘resignations’ cover a range of situations. Examples of recent resignations such as former Labour councillors Friary and Garfield involving police or legal action would certainly not be appropriate for these kind of payments. So Southwark Labour have decided the Standards Committee would confirm or deny these payments. This means Labour councillors have to tow the Labour party line or they’ll be blocked from these payments.

With regard to the proposal for payments for Cabinet Members who are sacked by the Leader, again I would ask why? As per normal jobs, wouldn’t the strong leader give someone three months’ notice. Give plenty of warning via regular 121’s. This would again lessen any problem of financial insecurity.

Lastly, if the Southwark Labour party group elects a new Cabinet Member, why can’t the elections take place over three months in advance of the council AGM when new post holders are confirmed? This would allow better planning and a ‘notice period’ effectively for those who didn’t make the grade losing their roles.

So, overall, I can’t fathom any justification for these proposals to award new payments to Cabinet members IF people manage the situation better and consider SRA post holders’ financial insecurity. Unless of course this is all a big ruse to Southwark Labour a tool to keep their councillors under control…

East Dulwich Road CLOSED 3-5 November

East Dulwich Road will be resurfaced 3->5 November each night between 8pm and 5am between Grove Vale and Crystal Palace Road. This assumes no surprises or bad weather.

Noisy work will be, as much as possible, contained 8pm to midnight each evening.

I’ve asked what the diversions for bus route 37 & 484 will be and other traffic. I’ve also had an extended dialogue with council officials over the summer about taking this closure as an opportunity to renew all the road marking and zebra crossings at Goose Green roundabout. Fingers crossed this all goes to plan as well.

Importantly if you park your car of off East Dulwich Road you’ll find access harder and may wish to park elsewhere for these two nights.

If you have any problems or concerns please let me know.

 

New East Dulwich Secondary School

This project we started as East Dulwich Lib Dems in 2012 is really coming to life.

Last week the first two areas of Dulwich Hospital land were transferred to the Education finance Agency. Areas 1 & 2 with combined 2 acres or 0.80 hectares. This represents 9.6% of the whole sitesl and – so still a long way to go and Area 3 is planned to be handed over in 2019. Please see this map:

Dulwich Disposal site map

This letter confirms this happening – I almost need to pinch myself:

Dulwich Hospital trasfer letter FINAL

We now all need to work with the Charter East Dulwich project team and NHS to make this all happen smoothly for local residents, patients, and school community.

 

 

 

 

Fighting Dodgy Local Employer

I’ve just had the third piece of casework about an alleged dodgy employer on Lordship Lane.

The employer apparently hates paying their staff wages. Suggestion they employ illegal immigrants, and other allegations. To ensure when leaving you get paid your wages staff book holidays and then have to fight for their holiday pay. One’s not taking this approach owed many hundred of pounds. Generally not rich teenagers being exploited. This is exactly the sort of dodgy business behaviour that gives free enterprise a bad name.

I’ve contacted the local “dodgy” business person about one case and been blanked. They’ve always been very vocal to me about issues that bother them but suddenly silent. No response. The silence feels damning.

If you find yourself in this position – tell me. If I get more casework I will feel obliged to go public.

You can also follow this step by step guide, amending things with your details, to try and resolve things if you have this problem:

Send the following letter to the employer by recorded delivery.

“Dear Ms xxx

Re: Letter before action for non payment of wages

As you are aware I was employed by yyyyyyyyyy from xx to xx.
My last working day was xx
Despite numerous efforts to converse with you I have yet to receive a response as to why you have failed to pay my outstanding wages and holiday pay as follows:

– detail wages owed
– detail holiday pay owed.

This may well be an oversight on your behalf.

Please can you pay the outstanding amounts within the next 7 days.

If you do not pay the outstanding amount within the seven days I will commence proceedings against you in the employment tribunal.

I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully ”

If you get no response after seven days you need to start the employment tribunal process

Three points regarding the employment tribunals:
1. Needs to be within 3 months of the last day of employment.
2. First stage is to contact ACAS for early resolution mediation which may resolve the issue if not they will provide a certificate. Need for next stage.
3. Fees – whilst employment tribunals require a fee of £160 to lodge a claim it is possible that as a student or low wage earner you could be below the monthly income threshold and exempt from paying.

If it gets this far you may want to seek Southwark Citizens Advice Bureau help.

Either way never let a rogue business person rip you of.

Southwark Children Health Exposed

In 2012 I exposed the debacle of Southwark Council not ensuring through inspections that all Southwark schools have safe food hygiene. Then a number of schools had shockingly low food hygiene scores and real issues to fix. Things have been improving. Or have they.

You can see Southwark school current food hygiene ratings here: http://ratings.food.gov.uk/enhanced-search/en-GB/%5E/%5E/Relevance/7845/528/%5E/1/12/10

Currently we have:

1 x 2 * The play shelter Ltd, Snowfield Primary School, SE1

4 x 3* Surrey Square Primary School, SE17, St.Anthony’s RC Primary Schoo, SE22, Pembroke College mission, SE17, 1st choice day nursery, SE1.

15 x 4*’

98 x 5

But the following schools have not had any food hygiene inspections for some considerable time (over two years). The recommendation is yearly as children as young as 4 can not shop around or spot bad food hygiene practices. That a third of such schools have had no inspections to ensure they’re still providing safe healthy food for Southwark young people is shocking. I’m shocked at the rapid return to food hygiene complacency of Southwark Labour.

4*’s – school name – date of last inspection – not inspected for over 2 years

London Christian School, Porlock Hall, SE1 3RY 4 July 2012

Drummond Road ,SE16 6EE 13 September 2013

London College of Communications Student Union 30 August 2012

 

5*’s – school name – date of last inspection – not inspected for over 2 years

Comber Grove Primary School- 5 March 2013

Bacons College 14 March 2013

Bright lands 27 Jan 2011

Southwark College, Keens Road 24 Jan 2013

Harris Boys East Dulwich 25 Sept 2013

Dulwich Village CofE Infant 24 Feb 2012

Crampton Junior & Infant 13 July 2012

Pupil Referral Unit, Davey St 25 Nov 2014

St.Michael RC school 13 March 2012

St.Paul Primary School 3 July 2012

Tuke School, Daniel Garden? SE15 6ER 13 November 2010

Notre Dame RC girls school 118 St Georges Road SE1 6EX 11 December 2013

Haymerle School 17 May 2011

Highshore School 19 July 2012

Allen’s School 5 July 2012

Oliver Goldsmith Primary School, 83 Peckham Road, SE5 8UH 29 March 2012

St James the Great School 1 November 2011

Dog Kennel Hill School 26 January 2011

Boucher CofE school 26 November 2010

JAGS, 144 East Dulwich Grove 17 December 2010

JAGS, 2 Dulwich Village 23 January 2013

London Southbank University 23 November 2010

Newlines Schools, 14 March 2013

St.Francesca Cabrini school 15 February 2011

St.Georges CE school 27 November 2013

Snowfields Primary School 19 July 2012

Townsend Primary School 28 November 2012

Young Parents Education centre 17 September 2012

 

 

London Bridge Station – missed opportunity

I can’t express how disappointed I am that the new London Bridge station re built platforms are just as low as the previous ones. The very large gap between platforms and trains still remains on terminating platforms that are straight. Network Rail don’t even have the excuse of curved platforms on the terminating platforms.

This is so weird. It costs almost exactly the same whatever the platform height.

Campaigners have been told by Network Rail that they couldn’t get a straight answer from the Dept. of Transport to make a decision to have level platform. So they erred on caution in their opinion and replaced like with like platforms of the same low height.

Why is this so important?

Level access to trains means people in wheelchairs, with pushchairs or just a bit less able can easily use our local train services. It means staff don’t have to be assigned to placing mobile ramps and helping people get on and off trains. It also means the speed at which trains can be turned around is greater. Able bodied people can get on and off of trains much more quickly.

 

Haberdasher’s Comes to Southwark

I am delighted that Haberdasher’s Aske’s have applied to open a new co-ed secondary school in Southwark SE1.

When their application to open a school fell through in East Dulwich I helped introduce Haberdasher’s to the parents in SE1. They’d approached me for advice about making a secondary level free school happen. So I’ve now been involved in making five free schools happen.

Haberdasher’s have the highest ambitions for our Southwark children. Exactly the type of school provider we wish to add to all our other excellent school providers in Southwark.

 

Selling School Land

Southwark Council is twisting the arms of Albion Primary School to sell a significant part of its site. With that money the school will be rebuilt. The rebuild will I’m sure be lovely. But the principle is alarming. At the same time Southwark Council is spending millions on expanding schools that could be fully funded via the free school route.

The school governors and management appear positive and happy about these plans. And I wholly agree with single form entry schools becoming two form entry schools. Two form entry schools are more viable. Although already an Ofsted outstanding school with it’s extra size it will have the ability for more teacher specialisation.

But if this school was any where but inner London and Southwark the idea of halving the site would be ridiculous. The idea that a Southwark Council primary school would need to sell so much land to have decent new buildings would be anathema to the school and parents.

Which state school will be next for this treatment?