Cabinet Minister visits West Ken and Gibbs Green

Yesterday evening, the three Labour council candidates and Andy Slaughter gave Shaun Woodward, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, a tour of the West Ken and Gibbs Green estates. We are pictured to the left in Dieppe Close.

Shaun spent an hour knocking on doors with us, talking to residents on the street and in their homes. As you would expect, most residents expressed their concern over the future of the threatened estates and asked for help in their fight to save their homes from demolition.

Shaun was visibly moved by the situation. In particular, he noted the discord between national Tory promises of a "Big Society" with inclusive government, and the hard reality of working families being displaced by a Tory Council against their will to make way for luxury flats and office blocks.

Campaign Update

We are a little over half-way through the official campaign period, with less than two weeks until the council and general elections on 6 May! The Labour candidates have been out every day talking to voters, and we have been encouraged by their response so far. Many people have reacted well to our three local promises:

1. Invest to stop the increase in crime experienced in North End. We feel the Council should invest in 24/7 patrols for the area. Many other areas in London have these, and they are a brilliant way to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.

2. Halt plans to demolish the West Ken and Gibbs Green estates. We want to do this to protect both the homes of the 800 families on the estates and the quality of life of those in the area, most of whom don't want to have front-row seats to a mega-construction project that will stretch over many years.

3. Urgently review parking arrangements to end the inconveniences experienced by local residents on Chelsea match days.

We developed these promises after spending the past few years talking to local residents, and we are proud that they are all contained in the Labour manifesto for Hammersmith and Fulham, launched earlier this week. With only 12 campaigning days to go, we still hope to cover a lot of ground and speak to as many of you as possible. We hope to see you soon.

Max, Matt and Daryl

West Ken & Gibbs Green Redevelopment Plans

This weekend we delivered another letter to the ward, this time focusing on the effects of Tory plans to demolish the West Ken and Gibbs Green estate and build luxury flats and offices. As the letter explains, we are worried this will have adverse consequences not only for those on the estates, but also for those who live in the surrounding area.

Dear North End Resident,

For a number of years, Labour councillors accused the Conservative Council of trying to sell off the Gibbs Green and West Kensington Estates to developers. After stonewalling and denying, the Council has finally confirmed this is their intention.

We are worried about the future of the over 800 families who live on the estates, the overwhelming majority of whom recently signed a petition opposing the demolition. We have campaigned to make sure their interests are protected. We have promised in our manifesto not to demolish these estates. The Council says it will rehouse displaced tenants in the local area, but social housing is already oversubscribed, and it is unclear where space for new housing can be found.

We are also concerned about the impact of the demolition plans on the surrounding areas, which would face years of construction noise and other nuisances. The Council and their development partners want to triple the density of occupation in the area of the estate. That would have a catastrophic impact on already overcrowded local roads and underfunded local services.

The Tory Council’s management of large construction projects to date is not impressive. Our colleagues in Shepherd’s Bush report waves of local anger over the Council’s failure to manage the Westfield project. Mercy Umeh reported at the time, “The construction has generated amazing levels of dirt and noise. The area is continuously dusty, getting into people’s homes, onto their belongings and covering their windows. At one point rats, escaping from a demolition on the site, ran openly down Wood Lane and into the surrounding streets.” Shepherd’s Bush tube was unilaterally shut down for 8 months at short notice. Problems did not end after construction was completed. Many North End residents rightly complain of parking problems on Chelsea Match Days—near the Westfield centre, similar parking headaches are now experienced seven days a week.

Unfortunately, the Tory Council has a record of serving developers instead of residents. Consulting firm London Planning Practice (LPP) even boasts on its website that it has “achieved significant reductions in S106 contributions” that the developers it was working for had to pay to the Council for local services.

We think it is time for the Council to break free from this unhealthy relationship with developers. If elected, we promise to truly put all residents first, and not sacrifice their interests to the demands of property developers. Decisions should be weighted in local residents’ favour and only reached after extensive and meaningful consultation.

Kind regards,

Max, Matt and Daryl

Chelsea match day chaos

While out talking to residents last night, the Labour candidates captured on camera the parking and traffic chaos caused by Chelsea Match Days.

Over the past year of campaigning, many residents raised this issue. In autumn 2009, we asked the local Labour party to include a manifesto commitment to review this problem with a view to quickly protecting the ability of local residents and the visitors to park. This was agreed and is a manifesto promise, as we confirmed in a letter to residents in the worst hit streets in March.

Sign the petition!

Two weeks ago we mentioned the success of the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle's switch to a free format. In the past few weeks, it has ran a growing campaign to demand that the Tory Council shut down their propaganda mouthpiece, H&F 'News'.

The Labour team in North End supports this call for the Council to stop their Soviet-style attempt at massaging news, using spin doctors instead of journalists. Our election manifesto calls for the paper to be sold off. We will also cut back the huge sums currently spent by the Council on promotional advertising. We think the Council should spend money improving services, not telling residents that they are improving services.

We urge you to join us in signing the petition. You would be horrified if the national Government ran its own newspaper filled only with favourable stories-- you should be equally horrified that the Tory Council is spending your council taxes to do just that at the local level.

4 votes on 6 May!

Gordon Brown has called the general election for 6 May. This means that voters in North End will have four votes in two separate elections on that day--for their three local councillors and for their new member of parliament.

As your area's Labour candidates for the Council, we (Daryl Brown, Max Schmid and Matt Turmaine) are delighted that the General Election has been called. While we have been actively talking to residents in North End for well over a year, the national election will now mean that many more people are paying closer attention to what’s going on in their neighbourhood.

The Tory council’s plans for social housing will bring devastation to residents in those estates affected and chaos to the streets and services that everyone else in the area depends on. The Council's failure on crime has seen an increase in North End and Hammersmith despite crime falling in London and the rest of the country.

We are committed to being excellent Councillors – we want to win the Council back for Labour and, more importantly, we want to represent you! That’s why we have signed up to the Labour Group’s Safer Neighbourhood Police Pledge and why we’ve developed ideas on, for example, Match Day Parking that we’ve been talking to you about locally.

We will be updating this blog on a regular basis over the next month, setting out the local issues and explaining how our manifesto promises will deal with these issues.

kind regards,

Daryl, Matt and Max