Residents First

Council supports exhibition and launches business awards

Hammersmith & Fulham Council is encouraging local businesses to promote themselves at the first ever business to business exhibition in the area.

The council is supporting the ‘Best of Hammersmith & Fulham Expo Twenty12’ at the ILEC conference centre at the Ibis Hotel in West Brompton, on June 18. The exhibition runs from 12.30pm to 6.30pm, with a business award ceremony in the evening, where the first ever winners of H&F Council’s Brilliant Business Awards will be revealed.

Businesses taking part in Expo Twenty12 will be able to promote their companies and products to scores of aspiring, developing and expanding companies, as well as having the opportunity to sell their products and services to their targeted customers.

Visitors will be able to attend speed networking sessions, and there will guest speakers and seminars, as well as stands from more than 80 businesses and 25 charities.

Red tape slashed for small businesses

The council at the forefront of the national drive to reduce red tape is making it easier than ever before for small and medium sized businesses to bid for council work.

Hammersmith & Fulham Council has been at the very heart of efforts to scrap useless and time-consuming regulations ever since it published a list of 105 ways for central government to deliver more for less during the age of austerity by removing pointless layers of bureaucracy.

Many of those suggestions have now been taken up. Now, to make life easier for businesses, council tenders are processed electronically which has resulted in more streamlined and consistent processes for suppliers. In addition, unnecessary questions regarding equal opportunities, health and safety and environmental matters have been removed from the pre-qualification questionnaires that suppliers have to complete.

Market Challenge on North End Road

Nine young men from the Clement Attlee Estate have been given a crash-course in how to set up their own market stall businesses.

The men, aged between 15 and 21 - none of whom are in education, employment or training - have been given their own pitches at North End Road Market, Fulham, in a scheme run by Hammersmith & Fulham Council and the Brathay Trust – a charity for disadvantaged young people.

The scheme, known as the Market Challenge, saw the young men given £150 to spend on purchasing goods for their stalls and the chance to take home any profits that they made. The team that made the most profit were given a market stall for a week.

Council backs independent business

Queen of Shops Mary Portas is bringing a new lease of life to local businesses after dozens of firms signed up to her retailing master classes.

The training sessions are being run by Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s Work Zone service, and more firms have completed courses in the borough than anywhere else in London.

The council is targeting independent, local retailers who want to raise their game in challenging trading conditions. So far local firms including Jumbucks in Shepherds Bush, Jamie’s Italian in Westfield, The Happiness Centre in Shepherds Bush and luxury crafts company Thomas Lyte in Fulham have all taken part in the Mary Portas training.

Alexis Garnaut-Miller, owner of health and wellbeing company The Happiness Centre, said the courses not only provided great training but also a perfect opportunity for other small business owners to share their ideas.

She said:

“Mary Portas’s show is one of the few things I watch on television, so when I saw the Council was bringing her classes to the borough I thought it was a fantastic idea.

“Small businesses have to improve the way we do things, it’s the only way we can thrive right now. People are happy to spend money but we’ve got to do a lot more to convince them to do it with us.”

The Council offers seven ‘Mary Portas master  classes’ that help retailers learn skills such as how to display goods to maximum effect, how to size up a customer as soon as he or she walks through the door so you provide a tailored service and having a vision for the future.

Spear expand to get more young unemployed into jobs or training

 

 

Spear is a charity based at the  St Paul's Centre in Macbeth Street in Hammersmith which runs courses for unemployed people aged 16-24 to help them get into jobs or training. The six week courses are for 15 students at a time and total 90 a year. Over 75% find work or go on to further education.

Since its inception in February 2004, SPEAR has established an impressive record for its ability to inspire and change the lives of young people who are otherwise in real danger of perpetuating a pattern of inter-generational unemployment. Spear gets £150,000 a year from the Council and has just doubled its provision by opening a new training centre at St Stephen's Church Hall in Coverdale Road, Shepherd's Bush. They are also looking for a site in Fulham.

Parking improvements for market

 
Traders at Shepherds Bush Market have received a boost after the council announced the opening of nine new two-hour bays in Pennard Road.

The council has been speaking to numerous market traders as part of the proposals to regenerate the market and surrounding area and the issue of parking is a reoccurring theme.

Traders have complained that they are losing trade due to a lack of long-stay parking bays and have asked the council to come up with a solution.

As a result of these comments the council will introduce nine new two-hour bays from this Monday (December 6) in Pennard Road and open a two hour maximum stay section on Wells Road. The council Leader, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, made the announcement at a packed meeting with local traders and residents at the Old Shepherds Bush Library last night.

Traders voice support for market plans

Fears about the future of Shepherds Bush Market have been allayed by three prominent market traders.

Hammersmith & Fulham Council recently announced proposals to breathe new life into the market and secure its future for the next 100 years.

The council proposes that the Transport for London-owned market would be enlarged to take in a former laundry site on Pennard Road, along with land currently owned by the Broadway Centre and Peabody Trust and redeveloped to include new homes and public spaces.

Developer, Orion Shepherds Bush Ltd (OSBL) has expressed an interest in the site and will only be able to progress with a scheme when they can assemble all of the land needed, obtain planning consent for a scheme that is in accordance with the council’s proposals and crucially, ensure a majority of public support.

Securing a strong future for H&F

A message from H&F Council Leader, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh:

This is the first ever second-term majority Conservative Council in the borough’s history and we are proud of our record in delivering lower taxes, less waste and better services.

The previous Labour council left us £169 million in debt, costing £8.4 million a year in debt interest payments. And because of the reckless approach to our nations finances by Labour in government, the
necessary steps being made by the new government mean we need to save around £65 million over the next few years locally.

Over our first term we reduced Labour’s debt by £36 million, getting debt interest payments down to £5 million a year.  We also stripped out a great deal of waste and bureaucracy and competitively tendered over £90 million of services, allowing us to reduce Council Tax by 3% for four years running. And we improved services, with rising resident satisfaction - even winning the Local Government Chronicle’s ‘Council of the Year’ award.

Slivers of time initiative to allow (very) part time work

Interesting piece in The Guardian about the Government including "slivers of time" in their welfare reforms.

This is the initative where people who might only be able to work for two hours a week (far less than the requirement for even a normal part time job) are given the chance to do so. Ministers are looking at changing the benefit rules to make this possible.

The Guardian adds:

Slivers of time, a social enterprise founded by the former BBC producer Wingham Rowan, is designed to tap into the pool of people who cannot work the usual hours expected even of the average part-time employee. It is aimed at parents with young children, disabled people who may not be available for work for most of the week, people who care for a dependent adult or the long-term unemployed who want to ease slowly back into work.

"There are millions of people who need to work in a fragmented way," Rowan said. "Some of these people are real assets but they can be excluded from the labour market."