Residents First

Sheltered Housing Review

A review of Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council’s sheltered accommodation is aimed at helping older people retain their independence and enhance their quality of life.

The council currently has around 1,000 properties which are designated sheltered accommodation. These properties are grouped together into 22 distinct sheltered housing schemes across the borough.

H&F Council will soon embark on a stock condition survey that will look to ensure that all of its housing is fit for purpose. This sheltered housing review will be the first strand of that project.

Sheltered accommodation has historically been thought of as housing that offers security and companionship for older or more vulnerable adults who required additional support to enable them to maintain their independence.

Borough is streets ahead for parties

The double countdown to an exciting year of celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics and Paralympics has well and truly begun and Hammersmith & Fulham Council is making it easier than ever for residents to organise street parties to commemorate these exciting events.

Following successful street parties last year for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton – now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – and positive feedback from residents, the council is once more looking forward to helping neighbours and friends get together without trudging through reams of red tape.

Last year, the council made it easier for small parties and fetes to be arranged, by cutting the number of forms that needed to be completed by hand to just one simple online form. Residents without a computer can ask to be sent a paper version of the form, which is only four pages long instead of the previous lengthy forms that often amounted to around 20 A4 pages.

Alternatives for Thames clean-up emerge

There is more than one way to clean up the River Thames and the excessive cost of Thames Water’s super sewer could be halved according to an industry expert.

Chris Binnie, who was the original architect of Thames Water’s controversial £4.1 billion super sewer, now says that the benefits of the scheme no longer justify the colossal costs and that there is another solution that might well be compliant with EU rules to limit pollution to the river at half the cost.

In a separate development local authority engineers say that the sewer construction site that Thames Water has earmarked for Kirtling Street, in Wandsworth, could be expanded instead of using Carnwath Road in south Fulham.

Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council is calling on Thames Water to review their tunnelling strategy to enable the sewer to be driven directly from Kirtling Street to Acton Storm tanks – bypassing south Fulham’s tight-knit residential neighbourhood in the process and minimising disruption to residents.

Council housing rents to remain some of west London’s lowest

Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) Council’s social housing rents look set to remain some of the lowest within west London, and still significantly below market rates, despite the impact of the biggest shake-up in how the council funds its housing stock for 50 years.

The shake-up follows a decision by the Government to radically reform how council housing in England is financed and will see the council become self financing from April this year. Under the present system the Government pays local housing authorities a housing subsidy to cover any shortfall between notional expenditure and income. However, under  the new model there will be no subsidy and the council will retain all of the rents it collects to spend on its housing stock.

As part of this, the council will have to produce a 30 year investment plan, which details how it intends to invest in its housing stock, and more importantly, how it will start to manage its £200+million of housing debt following the reforms. Although as part of the reforms the Government has reduced H&F’s housing debt by £196m, the interest of around £12m per year on the remainder will need to be paid.

More parking bays for Shepherds Bush

More parking spaces and new car club bays are set to be created in Shepherds Bush following a parking consultation.

Around 20 new spaces are set to be created by Hammersmith & Fulham Council (H&F Council) in controlled parking zone V, around Queen’s Park Rangers’ home ground, Loftus Road, and surrounding White City.

There is also more good news for residents as H&F Council will be introducing the Smart visitor permit for cheaper parking for residents’ visitors, and more bays for car club vehicles. There will be no change to parking restrictions, as the vast majority of respondents voted against any alterations.

The decision comes on the back of the consultation in November 2011, where 81 per cent of respondents said they did not want parking controls to be extended on weekdays. The current controls run from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, with motorists being able to park for up to eight hours using pay and display.

Over 88 per cent of respondents said they wanted to keep the current controls on Sundays the same while 78 per cent did not want to see changes to the Saturday restrictions either. In response to the question ‘would you like shorter maximum stay for pay and display parking to be introduced?’, 84 per cent said no.

Deputy leader Cllr Nick Botterill said:

“We had a very high response rate to our consultation with the overwhelming majority of people opting not to change the current controlled parking hours. There was a real enthusiasm for the visitor permit and for car club bays.

"We had not reviewed parking in the area since it became a controlled zone in January 1997 and this shows we are listening to residents, by giving the majority of people who responded what they want."

More than 8,140 consultation leaflets were delivered to residents and businesses in zone V and there was an overall response rate of 11.4 per cent, which is above average for a parking consultation.

Many residents and businesses who replied to the questionnaire – 182 of them – said they would consider joining a car club if a dedicated bay was introduced in their area, while 28 people who responded are already members of a car club.

Research from TfL shows that, last year, 13 per cent of car club members sold a car immediately before joining a car club and six per cent sold one after joining. That works out around 1,680 cars being removed from the road last year.

The changes are expected to be made by the end of March with funding for the new parking spaces coming from Section 106 money as part of a planning agreement with Westfield, while TfL is funding the car club bays.

For more information on the Smart visitor permit and car clubs, visit www.lbhf.gov.uk/parking.

Poorer children succeed in Hammersmith and Fulham

Pupils from low income families in Hammersmith & Fulham, are likely to get better GCSE results than children elsewhere.

According to new research carried out by the think tank CentreForum, 56 per cent of pupils from lower income groups in the borough achieve five GCSEs A* to C including English and maths, the sixth highest number for any local authority in the country.

Cllr Helen Binmore, H&F’s cabinet member for children’s services, says:

“Education is the single most important factor in giving future generations a hand up to succeed in life. Children in H&F schools come from a huge range of backgrounds and we have a high proportion of pupils from low income families.

“Thirty one per cent of pupils qualify for free school meals compared to 15 per cent nationally.

“It is a huge credit to the schools in Hammersmith & Fulham that less well-off pupils do better than they do in other parts of the country. The explanation for their exceptional performance lies in the expectation in all our schools that pupils will do well, whatever their family circumstances.”

Leaseholder conference

Homeowners living in council properties will have the chance to have their say at the annual Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council Leaseholder Conference.

The event, to be held at Hammersmith Town Hall on Saturday, January 28, will be the first opportunity for leaseholders to let the council know how it is performing since housing management was brought in-house last year.

The event, which runs from 9.30 am to 12.45pm include a series of presentations covering the council’s vision for improving services, ensuring value for money and involving residents in decision making. There will also be an update on the various regeneration schemes taking place in the borough and information on how leaseholders can become freeholders through the Council’s ‘Right to Freehold’ scheme. Guests will have an opportunity to share their views in a question and answer session.

More accountable policing launched in the Bush

The Mayor of London visited the elite squad of council-funded beat bobbies in Shepherds Bush Green yesterday to launch a new era of more accountable policing.

The borough that pioneered zero-tolerance style policing in UK, crime summits and enhanced town centre squads of beat bobbies was chosen as the ideal place to announce the replacement of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which used to oversee the performance of the Met.

London is leading the way by making the Mayor responsible for supervising the Met Police and replacing the MPA with the new Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPC).

Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council is spending £1.3million a year for three enhanced town centre squads of beat bobbies, including Shepherds Bush town centre, meaning the borough has 44 more police officers than it would do otherwise.

Schools of Choice delivers soaring popularity

A radical transformation of secondary schools in Hammersmith & Fulham has resulted in an explosion in popularity.

With standards soaring and choice widening, the number of applications to local state secondary schools for September 2012 is up 50% since 2009.

“We have made it our mission to halt the exodus from the local state school sector when children turn eleven,” says cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Helen Binmore. “In 2006 only 45 per cent of local children chose to attend local state schools. That has now risen to 61 per cent.

“That’s a result of our ‘Schools of Choice’ programme that has created more places  in the kind of schools parents want for their children and supported schools in dramatically driving up standards.”

Hurlingham and Chelsea School pleased as punch with Mayor’s sporting grant

A local secondary school, with a solid history of promoting boxing, is set to expand their sporting facilities following a cash injection from the Mayor’s Sports Legacy programme.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, recently announced £1m of funding to boost a host of sporting facilities at clubs, playing fields and recreation grounds across London, of which £90,000 has been allocated to Hurlingham and Chelsea School.

The money has been earmarked for 20 different projects and is the latest to be awarded from the Mayor’s £15.5m Sports Legacy Fund, which with match funding and private sector investment now stands at over £30m.

After working hard to build strong links to boxing within the school and local community, Hurlingham and Chelsea’s business manager Ian Illett, said the welcome funding boost will enable the school to further enhance their planned refurbishments.