Ilford South Labour Party

Seven Kings Councillor & Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, Bob Littlewood, has had discussions with leading Councillors in the Tory minority administration recently.  He has been told that, following years of pressure from Labour Councillors & residents’ organisations in Seven Kings & Newbury wards, officers have been instructed to look at sites with a view to coming up with a locations for a library in the Seven Kings area AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Bob has also been pursuing the suggestion made by Take Action for Seven Kings (TASK) members to push for a temporary site for a summer reading scheme and passed on the fact that Sky Tours is about to be vacant and would be an ideal site.

The meeting last Tuesday about replacing the Pool resulted in a promise from the Leader of the Council that by September he will be announcing his plans for the project.  Mike Gapes MP and Bob Littlewood are to meet the Leader soon to plan a new round of lobbying for getting external funding.

As the new Chair of the Council’s Leisure Scrutiny Committee Bob will be encouraging maximum public participation at the Committee’s meetings at the Town Hall and making sure that progress reports on the library and the pool are presented at each meeting.

The results of the Euro elections were undoubtedly bad for Labour nationally. It is shameful that this country will be sending two members of the BNP to the European Parliament.

But Labour support in Redbridge held up well and is a tribute to the work put in by those party members who have been out campaigning. It may also be a mark of the disarray of the hopeless Conservative administration at the Town Hall.

Redbridge result, compared to 2004

The borough wide Labour to Tory swing was just 0.05%. The UKIP and Lib Dem performances were both weaker than 2004. The local Lib Dems again paid the price for failing to support London or European elections with a quarter of the effort that they put into getting elected onto the Council.

Thankfully, the BNP vote here will have been a major disappointment to them.

While Labour’s results nationally were dismal, the Conservatives can hardly be pleased. They gained only 27.7% of the national vote, just 1% more than in 2004. And the Liberal Democrats share of the national vote went down. Even though the BNP increased its share of the national vote slightly, it received fewer actual votes in the regions where their MEPs have been elected than it did in 2004.

Labour Party members were out this weekend, campaigning across Ilford South for the European elections.  Mike Gapes and Labour Party Councillors joined  Seven Kings party members (pictured below) while other groups campaigned elsewhere across the constituency.

The Tories say it’s their top priority to withdraw Britain from the Social Chapter, the legal guarantee that protects many of the rights of working people.  Labour has introduced the minimum wage, better maternity rights & new paternity rights, and the extension of paid leave.  The Tories threaten all these rights and more.

Labour wants to take a key role at the forefront of making European Union policies on the environment & climate change, economic recovery from the global credit crunch and tackling crime & terrorism.  The Conservatives have pulled out of the main group of centre right parties in the European parliament and joined a small fringe group of right wing parties from some of the smaller countries of the European Union, losing influence & relevance.

But on 4th June it’s also vital that everyone makes their vote count so that the racist BNP do not gain any representation in the European parliament on the back of a low turnout under a system of proportional representation.

Mike Gapes and Seven Kings Councillors campaigning in Westwood Road

Seven Kings Labour Councillors have been working with the Cleansing Department and Take Action for Seven Kings (TASK) to clean up Seven Kings.

Councillors Balvinder Saund, Stuart Bellwood & Bob Littlewood (pictured above) have had regular walkabouts with Council Officers pointing out problems and ensuring they are dealt with.

The small Area Committee Budget has been used to pay for free bulky refuse removal. If you want bulky items removed phone the Council on 020 8554 5000. Be sure to say you are a Seven Kings resident.

The Council will be delivering letters about the Big Clean Up which has been christened the Seven Kings Square Mile Project. This letter will tell you when fly tipping and untidy gardens will be dealt with in your road and asking for your
co-operation.

Tell us if you have any particular problems that you want to receive attention during the big clean up.

Cllr. Stuart Bellwood            Cllr. Bob Littlewood           Cllr. Balvinder Saund

email stuart.bellwood@redbridge.gov.uk      tel: 020 8708 9750
email bob.littlewood@redbridge.gov.uk      tel: 020 8530 6584
email balvinder.saund@redbridge.gov.uk      tel: 020 8708 0210

Labour supporters & councillors in Ilford South have been out and about holding street surgeries & delivering newsletters in many areas of the constituency. If you haven’t received your copies yet you can see them here:

• Goodmayes
• Mayfield
• Seven Kings
• Valentines - Street Surgery Special
• Valentines - Labour News, Spring 2009

You need Adobe Acrobat reader to open these documents. If you do not currently have it installed, you can get a free version here.

The Labour Party has selected Surinder Pahl as its’ prospective candidate for the Valentines By-Election which will be held on Thursday 29th January 2009.

Surinder has lived in Ilford since 1966. As a local resident of Valentines Ward, he is only too aware of the current issues and problems we all face.

    Surinder (centre) with Valentines Cllrs
          Virendra Tewari & Linda Eyre
Surinder says:

“I am very concerned about the issues we face on a daily basis in Valentines Ward, such as community safety, late-night licensing, litter, fly-tipping, untidy front gardens and street cleansing. These seem to be ignored by the Tory administration in Redbridge who do not address these serious problems”

Cllr Linda Eyre, who is also a resident of Valentines Ward, states,

“I am delighted that Surinder Pahl has been selected as our local candidate. He fully understands the many problems we currently face, such as the lack of school places, lack of waste bins and indiscriminate parking on single yellow lines on Sundays, when the paid parking spaces are still chargeable.”

Seven Kings and Goodmayes Allotment gardeners now believe they have finally won their fight to save much loved allotments form sale, helped by local residents and similarly threatened allotment gardeners in Hainault. Labour Councillors Satnam Singh and bob Littlewood were involved early helping allotment gardeners.

The battle began early in 2007 when Redbridge Council Cabinet voted to sell off Vicarage Lane South and Goodmayes Lane allotments. They decided in secret, with the public unable to attend or even find out that plot sales were on the agenda. Councillors were forbidden to talk about sales, yet according to Alan Weinburg, Council Leader, the decision was not a secret!

The sale move was doubly cynical as Redbridge had recently announced a “consultation” on the future of allotments. As one gardener said “it’s difficult to call it a consultation when a key decision has already been made” . Sale plans also threatened other open space with allotment holders to be displaced into Goodmayes Park extension.

They were soon joined by North Hainault Allotment Holders Society, also threatened with the sale of two flourishing sites. Sites were chosen solely because they were easy to develop. Two sites were fully occupied and the others nearly full.

When they found out allotment gardeners went to war. They protested outside Town Hall meetings joined by Labour Party members, spoke at Council, Cabinet and Scrutiy Committees and publicised their case in the local papers, radio and the national press. Their fight was even mentioned in the book “One man and his dig” by Times journalist Valentine Low.

They lobbied their Area Committees and were rewarded by a split in the Conservative ranks. Several Conservative councillors were concerned by the potential loss of open space and the risk of overdevelopment.

They could also have considered that selling four allotment sites run by voluntary groups flew in the face of a national Conservative policy that claims to support voluntary groups. Not so in Redbridge. The only Council run site, Chigwell Road, was withdrawn from sale when local residents objected en masse and it was conveniently discovered that the site was in a flood risk area.

Selling allotments also flies in the face of the growing national popularity of allotments. Ironically the voluntary sector let sites are much better occupied than the Council’s own sites so it looks as if the Council wanted to penalise voluntary success.

Most allotment gardeners are not terribly political. For many it was their first visit to a Council meeting. They went away appalled at the cynical way they were treated by Redbridge Conservatives.

After a very long campaign by Ilford South Labour MP, Mike Gapes, Labour members and Councillors, local residents and allotment holders, we have FINALLY persuaded the Tory Council to find the money to build a new leisure centre and pool in Ilford and NOT to sell off our allotments.

See the full story by reading the Valentines Labour News, currently being delivered in Valentines Ward, which also gives details of some of the recent work carried out by the local Labour Councillors.

You need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this document. If you do not currently have it installed, you can get a free version here.

On November 4th Redbridge’s Conservative Cabinet has to decide how to react to the 5,000 people who responded on line and on paper to the Council’s questions about what major developments to go ahead with and how they ought to be paid for.
They are likely to put off any solid decisions until next year.

Respondents chose school improvements and the construction of a new leisure Centre and Pool in Ilford South to replace recently closed High Road Pool above all other options.

They also chose the sale of land in North Ilford as the means to pay for these developments.

Labour supported the setting up of the Conversation, as an alternative to the Tories “solution” to the financial mess they have been in for years which was to sell allotments.

Labour also support the choices the people have made, especially the building of a new Leisure Centre and Pool to replace the recently closed High Road Pool, and we will continue to campaign until we get what the local people want.

Labour Party members were out campaigning in Mayfield ward on Sunday. The hot topic currently is the closure of the High Road swimming pools (see item below). But your Labour Councillor for Mayfield, Ayodhiya Parkash, also continues to work hard to achieve improvements in South Park. This beautiful park has been neglected for years by the Conservative run council, despite Mark Aaron, Tory Councillor for the area, being the cabinet member responsible for the environment.

Cllr Aaron has also played a key role in ruining plans for a new swimming pool. He got them scrapped in favour of a grandiose scheme which the council could never afford. In a desperate bid to raise the money he fought to have the allotment sites at Goodmayes Lane, sold to developers. Some advocate for the local environment!

Click on this link (Mayfield Newsletter, Autumn 2008) to read in full the latest newsletter covering these issues. It contains details of how you can contact Cllr Parkash or get involved in the Park User Group which some local resident are hoping to set up.