Residents First

Scope judge Hammersmith & Fulham doing "well" on services for disabled

Cllr Harry Phibbs writes

I'm generally uneasy about charities devoting their resources to politics but there is some merit in a project from Scope analysing the impact of Council spending cuts on services for the disabled. The think tank Demos undertook the project of mapping the cuts. You can look up each council and see whether the spending cuts in the area are relatively high or low. But also how well they have "coped" with the cuts. This measure judges each council purely by the service being delivered on the front line.

I am pleased to see that Hammersmith and Fulham Council was judged to perform "well" in maintaining services despite being "high" in terms of the money.

There is still some criticism which I feel is unfair. Our home care charge to service users will have gone up, as fees and charges go up every year in line with inflation, but this is a means tested charge and only about 100 people are actually liable to pay all their charges and most pay no charge at all. Because the charge cannot be more than the cost to us of the service and we have negotiated low prices with our providers, the charge to service users compares favourably with the charges in other boroughs.

Ark Conway free school opens

Cllr Helen Binmore writes:

I was delighted to attend the Ark Conway Primary Academy this week with Lucy Heller, managing director of Ark Schools, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of the Council, and Lord Hill, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, for the new Free School's opening day. This is the third new school to open in the borough in just nine days with Hammersmith Academy opening last Wednesday, followed by the WLFS last Friday.

The old Wormholt library has been carefully restored and renovated with its new owners paying tribute to the building's heritage by incorporating the original marble floor design in the new school's logo, as well as creating plans to locate the school library in the same area as the original library.

Damian McBeath, the impressive new Headteacher has spent a lot of time working with the local community, parents and the new children to ensure a smooth start and yesterday 30 smartly uniformed happy little four-year-olds began an exciting new journey which will be characterised by high expectations and which offers the opportunity of a specialism in maths and music.

This Primary Free School opening comes at a time of great success for primary education in the borough. Earlier this year Hammersmith & Fulham was ranked first in the country for the percentage of primary school pupils who make the expected levels of progress in English and was ranked second in the country for maths. This in itself is a great achievement but it has been achieved in the context of a borough average of 30.8% of pupils on Free School Meals compared to 14.6% nationally.

Demand for primary school places continues to grow as more local parents are choosing local schools for their children's education. We plan to continue to meet local demand by expanding successful and popular schools and by providing an environment which facilitates the setting up of new Free Schools where there is strong local parental demand and a solid educational offer which will give pupils the best start in life.

Over 75% of primary schools in the borough are currently rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding but our aim is for all primary  schools to achieve a good rating as a minimum to be on par with all our nursery, special and secondary schools which are all rated to be good and outstanding by Ofsted.

Thames Water accused of David Walliams propaganda

Thames Water today stands accused of using David Walliams’ charity swim to mislead Londoners into backing its controversial super sewer scheme.

The water giant has been subtly using Walliams’ stomach upset to convince residents that the £3.6 billion sewer is needed – even though the comedian fell ill more than 100 miles away from where the sewer is due to be built!

And now a Fulham doctor, backed Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council, has come out and accused Thames Water of being disingenuous in its attempts to win support on the back of Walliams’ illness.

Carnwath Road resident, Dr Anthony Jelley, said:

“To use this man’s illness as justification for the super sewer is an underhand and devious piece of propaganda from Thames Water. Rivers are not swimming pools and you are not meant to swim in them for several days at a time. In this country you can pick up some terrible illnesses, such as Weils Disease, from swimming in very clean rural rivers that have been infected with rats urine. The fact that he became ill more than 100 miles away from the start of the proposed super sewer shows just how absurd Thames Water's claims are."

Olympia topping out ceremony

Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh writes

Construction is well under way to complete Olympia’s West Hall. I was asked by EC&O Venues to be the Guest of Honour at the topping out ceremony last week. Apparently this is a ceremony held when the last beam is placed at the top of a building. I managed to avoid stepping into the wet concrete. Olympia has a vital role in west London’s economy. One in every five Londoners has visited Olympia in the past five years and it attracted 1.1 million visitors last year.

The council continues to lobby Transport for London to ensure that the much needed improvements to the Wimbledon branch of the District Line do not result of the removal of the Olympia service without satisfactory alternatives being put in place.

Case for Super Sewer collapses

Cllr Nick Botterill writes:

Chris Binnie, the man who was employed for six years from 2000 to 2006 to advise Thames Water how to make the river cleaner and whose recommendations and research have been frequently used by Thames to justify the Super Sewer, now believes the case for it may be out of date and the project should be revisited. The fact that Mr Binnie, who is a respected independent expert, is coming forward to say the research is outdated because of subsequent developments in green infrastructure solutions blows a colossal hole in all of Thames Water's arguments in favour of this tunnel.

The wheels are now really starting to come off this mega project and Thames Water are sounding ever more strident and desperate to justify their position. We need to know just why Thames Water is so keen to promote this scheme (whatever the enormous cost to water bill payers and the negative impact on the environment overall) and whether there are other financial motives at stake which makes the construction of the Super Sewer so attractive to the company.

Slaughter's insult to the residents of College Park & Old Oak Ward

A curious comment about the proposed boundary changes from the Labour MP for Hammersmith, Andrew Slaughter, in his latest news bulletin:

I shall be sorry to see Fulham Reach and North End, my old council ward, move out of Hammersmith constituency.

All very touching. But what about the College Park and Old Oak Ward? Why does he not mention them? They would also cease to be in the new constituency. Is he so scatty that he was unaware of this? Or does he have some peculiar hostility to this section of his constituency which prompts him to welcome their removal?

Borough of Opportunity: More schools of choice for H&F parents

Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh writes

Two brand new state secondary schools have opened their doors this week in Hammersmith. Both Cllr Helen Binmore. Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and I were on hand to mark their opening:

Hammersmith Academy is an aspirational school with a mission to inspire their students to work hard and learn, create opportunities for them to develop their talents and succeed by doing their best to reach their potential. Hammersmith Academy, co-sponsored by the Mercers and IT Company, is non-denominational, all-ability, co-educational secondary school for 11-18 year olds, with specialisms in creative & digital media and IT.

Yesterday this aspirational academy finished off their first school day with the Headmaster, Gary Kynaston, handing the school’s tie to each Year 7 pupil after they recited the school’s vision and I was delighted to be asked to congratulate each pupil in turn. The academy was the brainchild of Dame Sally Powell and the academies programme was championed by Lord Adonis who are two Labour politicians with vision. This Conservative Council has supported the plans for this academy from the outset.

The West London Free School is the first school of its type to sign a funding agreement with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. It is currently the only free school for 11-18 year olds in London. The school was founded by parents and teachers  who came together led by Toby Young through their belief in classical liberal education – a core body of knowledge in a fairly narrow range of traditional, academic subjects including Latin instead of technical or vocational ones. This is complemented by lots of arts, music, drama and competitive sport.  

Schools hat trick for free schools friendly council

More local children than ever before are being taught in Hammersmith & Fulham as three new schools open this month, with the borough being dubbed ‘the most free school friendly council in Britain’.

West London Free School opens its doors yesterday while ARK Conway primary opens on Thursday September 15.  The two free schools are joined by Hammersmith Academy which opens today - making it three schools to open in just over a week.

The school openings come at a time of record educational achievement:

Fairness, accountability and transparency: Tenants will be shown their service charges

Hammersmith & Fulham Council is to become the final local authority in London to introduce service charges for its tenants.

It heralds a new era of fairness and transparency for tenants, who will only pay for the services they receive. The charge will be introduced for the first time from April next year, but it will not result in any additional increase in how much residents pay. Increases will then be phased in over time to ensure that tenants are not hit with hefty increases.

Increases in service charges bills will be capped so that service charges will increase by no more than the rate of inflation plus half a per cent.

Council tenants in the borough already pay among the lowest rents of all tenants in London, an average of £85.31 a week according to the latest available figures, in a borough with the fourth-highest house prices in the country. On average council tenants pay between a quarter and a fifth of the market rent for their home. For example privately renting a two-bedroom flat in Fulham costs on average £505 a week.

Labour councillors go AWOL from their own protest

Cllr Harry Phibbs writes

The local Labour Party blog HFConwatch urged local residents to "come and object" at last night's Cabinet Meeting. None did so. Not even any of the 15 Labour councillors who are paid a total of £164,310 in allowances each year at the expense of the Council Taxpayer. Opposition leader Cllr Cowan paid £26,814. Absent. Deputy leader Cllr Cartwright paid £15,123? Absent. Cllr Aherne, Labour Group Chief Whip, paid £15,123? Absent. The other Labour councillors Brown, Campbell, Chumnery, Coleman, Harcourt, Homan, Jones, Murphy, Needham, Powell, Umeh, Vaughan? Each of them paid £8,940 a year of your money. No show.

Of course the opposition aren't expected to run anything. But their job is to hold the administration to account. To provide some rigour in the decision making process by challenging what is proposed. To offer serious, constructive alternatives. But instead of making the effort to be a credible opposition they don't turn up - even when they themselves have called a protest.

Nor did there seem to be evidence of much thought having gone into the objections they would have raised had they turned up. They oppose the disposal of the empty Edith Summerskill House on the Clem Attlee Estate and claim it would mean a loss of affordable housing. Yet the decision approved was: "That 100% of the capital receipt ( after the deduction of appropriate costs) is used for future affordable housing and regeneration purposes."