Council Rents

Council tenants in Southwark would see their rent CUT under new plans put forward by Liberal Democrats.

We put forward proposals to reduce council rents by 1% in all council-owned homes in the borough, in contrast to the 4.85% increase being added by the Labour administration – a saving of £285 per year for the average council tenant.

Why? because for a number of years the last Labour government made local councils increase rents. If they didn’t they were penalised. The coalition government has stopped tihs coercion.

So the Lib Dem group have worked up the proposals using spare cash from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), which makes an annual surplus of more than £7m because the amount of rent collected is higher than the money being paid out for upkeep of homes. We say that the extra money that has been collected from tenants should be given back in the form of a one-off rent cut.

The HRA is a separate budget from the general ‘Revenue Account’ of the council and can only be used for housing-related spending rather than general services. Councils were previously obliged to increase rents in line with a government formula, but rule changes brought in by the Coalition mean councils now have power to set their own rent levels without facing financial penalties.

Labour’s 4.85% rent increase will add £231.92 to the annual rent bill for the average council property (£4.46 per week), set to begin on 1 April. The Lib Dems’ 1% cut would reduce rents by £47.84 per year, saving the average tenant £285 in 2013/14 compared to Labour plans.

The rent cut policy comes on the back of income tax cuts to low income households pushed through by Lib Dem ministers in government, which will see the basic income tax threshold rise to £10,000 in this Parliament, saving many households up to £700.

Our leader Cllr Anood Al-Samerai said:

“The Lib Dems know that many people are finding it tough at the moment, which is why we want to put money back into the pockets of those who need it most.”

“Rather than imposing an increase in council rents, we would actually cut rents to give people a helping hand. Along with the income tax changes brought in nationally by Lib Dems in government, our rent cut would be a welcome boost for residents throughout Southwark.”

“We will be putting this proposal to full Council Assembly and asking Labour councillors to back it. It will be interesting to see if they vote to cut rents to save people money, or if they stick to the party line of increasing rents by almost 5% when they know people are suffering financially.”

 

Shocking London Bus Crashes

Very sad article about two buses a day on average crahsing with pedestrians and cyclists.

During the last six years 145,533 bus crashes. With 3,591 pedestrians and 1,219 cyclists injured or killed during that period. Injuries such as little Pollyanna Hope tragically losing a leg while on a pavement.

With London having 8,500 buses that means every year on average each London bus will have nearly 3 crashes (2.85). Even with their very high bus mileage it still seems an outrageous number.

But what I find shocking is that late in 2005 TfL with the First bus group deployed a $700,000 fully immersive Bus simulator to train bus drivers of off the roads. In the US they’ve been shown to help reduce crashes by 43%.

I had the good fortune to spend a day on it trying it out representing the London Cycling Campaign. You can really create a lot of tough driving quickly and repeatedly. Drivers can have what happened played back to them and really learn a lot quikcly. It got wrapped up in a light TV show but that didnt deter me from having a good go on the bus simulator. They threw sleet, storms, throngs of suicidal cyclists. First still say theyre operating it.

What was really surprising was the large insurance claims office at the other end of the bus simulator corridor. Never forgotten that. And with the stats revealed it’s not surprising they need such offices.

But the bus simulators proposed have never been rolled out across London as planned. And we still have an unacceptably high crash rate for fulltime professional drivers.

If you think London Buses need to do better and deploy bus simulators tell London Mayor Boris Johnson at mayor@london.gov.uk and copy me  james.barber@southwark.gov.uk

£69M of Southwark Income Tax Cuts

1 April – I kid you not – the tax allowance goes up yet again. This is another Lib Dem election pledge being delivered.

It means since 2010 over 9,760 Southwark income tax payers no longer pay any income tax.

It means 115,400 Southwark residents now pay less income tax.

In total this coming year this means £69,240,000 yes £69M extra money staying with Southwark residents. Typically £600 less income tax per resident.

 

Tax cut still higher

 This April will see a tax cut for the richest. The top income tax rate will be reduced from 50% to 45%.

 Much comment has been made about how unfair this is.

 The 50% income tax rate has an interesting if short history. It was introduced by Gordon Brown in the last month of the 13 years of a Labour government. Some suggest it was an election stunt.

For the other 13 years the Labour government top income tax rate was 40%. Under the coalition government, the top rate of income tax will have been 50% for three years or 36 months. When this top rate is reduced it will still be at 45% which is still higher than the 40% that Labour used to collect.

So when you hear howls of derision about this tax cut. Remember it will still be higher than under Labour.

Lordship Lane Post Office Replacement

post-office-logo-colour

The Post Office has 373 Crown Post Office branches. It’s decided to transfer 70 to retail partners.

One of the 70 is our one on Lordship Lane.

They have stressed to me that this is not about closing our post office on Lordship Lane but rather replacing it. But obviously this will cause great concern and will require a 6 week public consultation.

My experience of such Post Office replacements has been very positive but that is no guarantee it will work well on Lordship Lane.

A Post Office spokesperson stated “We are confident that our plans will mean that customers continue to benefit from a Post Office in their locality delivering service of the highest quality. Partnering with a complementary, respected retailer will also provide for long term viability and sustainability of the branches in question.”

What do you think to this change?

 

Take part in the Big Energy Switch

Local councils in London are running a scheme – The Big London Energy Switch – to help you make a quick and hassle-free switch to a cheaper energy provider.  The more people that register for The Big London Energy Switch, the greater the buying power will be, and the lower the price that may be offered.
 
A number of similar collective switch programmes have been set up by organisations such as the consumer group Which? and by local authorities including Cornwall Council and South Lakeland District Council.
 
How to register? You can register your interest in taking part by going to www.biglondonenergyswitch.org.uk and leaving your details.  When the auction is ready to go live, we will contact you – only at that point will you need details of your energy supplier and a recent bill.  There is nothing to lose by registering and you can change your mind at any time.

Southwark CCTV Refresh

Finally we’re seeing what is planned for the Southwark refresh of CCTV cameras:

Project Transmission/ node location  Estates Timescales
1 Draper, Taplow, Moleworth Castlemead Mar-Apr’13
2 Draper, Brandon, Castlemeads, Wyndham Comber, Elmington Apr-May’13
x3 deployable Aylesbury, x4 Manor Apr’13
3 Shard (27th flr) Shard May-Jun’13
4 Smeaton Crt Rockingham May’13
5 Peronet, Newington Jun’13
x1 Baron Close, x5 Spa Road/Bermondsey Spa Jun’13
6 Abbeyfield, Hakwstone, Osprey, Silverlock, Bramcote, Bonamy Jun-Aug’13
7 Redmand, Burwash Tabard, Kiling Aug-Sep’13
8 Lupin Rouel, Longfield, Arnold Sep-Nov13
9 Grasmere Tustin Nov-Dec’13
10 Whitcombe Marie Curie, Honor Oak Rise Kingswood Dec’13-Jan’14
11 Gloucester Grove Jan-Feb’14
12 Newall, Hevershame, South Dock Marina remander of deployable cameras x18 Feb-Mar’14

First they have to create a new transmission network and build new nodes to receive CCTV signals. Then they can work out where to best place CCTV cameras around Southwark estates.

What’s missing from this list?

 

Fire Cuts

The London Fire Brigade is reviewing how it works. London Mayor Boris Johnson has told it to save money such that they need to cut frontline services.

What does this mean? It means closing fire stations, downgrading fire station from two to one fire engine. It means specialist crews being merged into non specialists losing flexibility.

 

You can see the full proposals and give your responses at – http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/lsp5.asp

 

This proposals seems more focused on limiting services than developing them. With a rapidly growing London population with increasing numbers of households and greater threats from terrorism it seems bizarre time to cut services and flexibility of response.

 

The response times for London are too generous and should be reduced from 6 & 8 mins – which means at least keeping the existing fire stations and engines.

What would help is if members of the general public were training to some auxiliary level. This would result in a trained person attending fires much earlier and taking the first essential steps to save lives.

 

Other countries also use more varied vehicles to speed up response times. London appears to have one stock answer of a full fire engine.

 

In Germany and US they have large numbers of volunteer fire fighters, respectively 1.4m and 0.8m, which means a trained person is much more likely to be on or nearby to the scene of an incident. Less likely in big cities but this principle of wider community support has a huge impact of prevention and quickly cancelling false alarms. Nearly half of all London call-outs are false alarms of one type of another.

 

The London Fire Brigade should have a training programme of volunteers from the general public. Relying solely on employed professional full-time fire fighters misses an opportunity. In health mass training of CPR has had an appreciable effect on medical emergencies. I could see a Fire First Aid scheme having a similar impact . Such a scheme would alert people to the dangers of fire and go some way to prevention and where fires occur such people would know what they can safely do to save life and prepare a site for fire fighters to arrive.

 

What do you think the London Fire Brigade service future shape should be?

Please do get involved and tell them what you think.

 

Housing War Chest

 Southwark Labour have been charging more rent than they need. They’ve stated away £6.5M into a war chest. They’re now deciding how to spend this money in the last full financial year before the next local election.

This money should either not have been charged to generally our poorest residents OR it should have been used to make improvements before.

But we do have local housing issues that can be brought forward.

We’ve suggested our priorities for East Dulwich council properties are:
1. Safety issues such as electric wiring
2. Security – tenanted properties are the target of burglary and tenants are the least likely to be able to afford contents insurance – solid secure front and back doors, excellent two locks on each entrance door – Banham quality, Manchester and London bars on all doors, doors have bolts into frame, good windows locks.
3. Loft insulation – much done but we need to ensure all properties have the maximum possible.
4. Cavity wall insulation – ensure all done and well – removing debris from cavity before installing.
5. Modern double or better triple glazing – most of our external decoration need on council street properties is around ancient sash windows. So apart from reducing energy poverty this solves much of the decoration regime that has never existed. It can also make the homes more secure if done well. Such glazing should match the buildings age so sash double or triple glazing for Victorian street properties for example. Triple rather than double due to the extra energy savings.
6. External decoration.

The administration has also suggested replacing Halliwell Court entry phone. It isn’t a great system but no worse than others. The issue is the ground floor flats. So we’ve separately asked for clear signs of how to reach them by walking a short distance around the block. A nice simple cheap solution.

What do you think the council housing in East Dulwich needs most?

Council Tax

Council Tax statements are now arriving on Southwark doormats.

The good news is that ther is no rise – for the fifth year in a row.  For the last two years this is due to coalition government incentives of extra cash to councils that don’t increase their bills. The previous three years were due to the council being Lib Dem led.

The coalition government has also changed legislation so instead of up to 10 monthly payments a year you can now pay over all 12 months in the year. How bizarre was that – 10 months. Residents can now pay over the whole 12 months.

To pay over 12months call 020 7525 1850 option 4. They will aut0matically send a new statement whether you wont one or not. (I’ve contacted the head of service asking why that is and couldn’t we save money by making this optional). They asked for a phone number but not an email address. How silly is that?

Sadly the statements are posted out. Which for 110,000 homes even using 2nd class franked mail is a whopping £34,100 without printing and stuffing, etc costs.

Southwark hasn’t yet joined the internet age as utilities have emailing statements out or allowing those on direct debit to view online without paper copies.  A nudge has been submitted.