A recent meeting of the Harrow Council health and wellbeing board heard that the borough’s vaccination programme will be predominantly based at Byron Hall in Harrow when the vaccination at Hives and Tithe Farm would cease on April 30.
Therefore, it is worrying to hear that those who were called for their second dose of the vaccination today found the Byron Hall operations are closed till at least next Sunday – no prior notice of the closure seems to have been given to the attendees.
Lisa Henschen, assistant managing director for primary and community care at NHS Harrow, told the meeting that the Byron Hall will be utilised as a “hybrid” vaccination site, delivering all second doses save for some ‘roving teams’ for housebound residents from May 1.
It will also be responsible for 80 per cent of first doses from this date, complemented by the roving teams (one per cent), GP-led satellite clinics (nine per cent) and pharmacy sites (ten per cent).
The meeting also heard that there will be an effort to improve the vaccination statistics among social care workers and those with learning disabilities in Harrow, where 54.6 per cent and 65.6 per cent of these groups have received their first dose, respectively.
The wellbeing board, seemingly good in listening than active intervention, is well represented by the Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group, Councillors and Healthwatch Harrow,  but its firmness in demanding better health care and wellbeing is somewhat over-shadowed by the considerations of the budgetary constraints of the  Clinical Commissioning Group.

Harrow residents and workers are being urged to do all they can to prevent the spread of Covid-19 following few cases of the South African variant.
Working with Public Health England, the council will shortly offer tests to anyone over the age of 16 living or working in some selected streets.
Those in Belmont, Harrow Weald, Hatch End, Headstone North, Marlborough and Wealdstone wards will be asked either to complete a home test or book a test at Harrow Arts Centre.
Anyone testing positive must self-isolate for 10 days. People on low incomes unable to work because they’re self-isolating may be able to claim a £500 payment.
Carole Furlong, Harrow’s Director of Public Health, said, “I’d urge everyone invited to take part in surge testing to do so.
“By testing you’ll be helping to limit the spread of Covid and make the lifting of further lockdown restrictions more likely. “
“This variant is still quite new – while there’s no evidence that it’s more serious than others, or that vaccines are less effective against it, our understanding of it is still quite limited” she said.

In his newsletters, Harrow East MP Bob Blackman keeps praising government’s economic strategy, including its recent budget, and handouts to NHS and other authorities.
“Behind the Budget’s slick government and media PR, rhetorical moves away from austerity and increases in overall tax and spend, there lies a simple truth: the Tories will hand out billions to their friends but won’t invest in our public services or protect the living standards of working people” reports the powerful socialist Peace and Justice Project.
For example, the two figures £37 billion and £3.50 where the former is the cost of the privatised Serco test and trace (generally reported as a faulty test and trace system), the latter the weekly pay rise for NHS nurses, both revealed by the government last week.
And the Metro has reported today that the Department of Health did £90,000,000 PPE deal with a firm listed in a Chinese hotel room.
In reporting benefits for the few and hardship for the many, the PJP points out that before being asked to pay a penny more, big business will have £12 billion of tax relief giveaways lavished on them for the next year, which will allow companies like Amazon to pay even less tax than the pittance they already pay. While:
Public sector workers received a real term pay cut, again. NHS workers were awarded a pitiful 1%, and 1.3 million majority female low paid workers will be brought into income tax as part of a stealth tax rise on the many, alongside a 5% rise in council tax.
The derisory extension to Universal Credit is only temporary and there was no extension to legacy benefits.
Disabled people, who have made up 60% of the deaths from Covid, have been entirely ignored. The social care system, which supports many disabled people and vulnerable older people, received no additional support.
Statutory Sick Pay remains so low that many can’t afford to self-isolate if medically required.
And those facing rent arrears or debts due to the pandemic got no support, while the stamp duty cut is a handout to landlords that inflates house prices for us all.
Governments shouldn’t be judged on how much they tax and spend in total but who it taxes and who it spends on, asserts the PJP.

Looks that some political attention seekers in Harrow are using Covid-19 to stir up socio-religious emotions for point scoring.
At the councillor questions time last Harrow council cabinet meeting, councillor Almond (photo) asked: “What evidence do you have that closing places of worship has helped to stop the spread of Covid?”
Pity Almond did not know that there are no direct measures to gauge the impact of closing places of worship on stopping the Covid-19 spread, except that public gatherings during the COVID-19 run serious risk of spreading the infection.
Leader of the council, councillor Graham Henson, who answered the question was gentle enough not to reject Cllr Almond’s wasteful question.
In pointing out that the council makes well informed statements regarding the Covid-19 situations in Harrow, Cllr Henson said “I do know that over Christmas, as I mentioned earlier, the rates were escalating exponentially. And it’s that argument we used with the Minister for Education as why schools should remain closed rather than opening up”.
“And this is where the faith leaders agreed that reducing down the level of contact amongst the population is the only way that reduces the spread of the virus. So all of this is evidence based. It’s all available online on the government websites.  All of it is factual information that shows what happens”.
“There’s no single thing that can slow this virus, and it’s a multitude of things and one of those was reducing contact between people which is the most effective” he added.
Councillor questions time at the cabinet meetings is a valuable democratic opportunity to hold the administration to account but this limited time must be used sensibly.

Apparently in a show of support, the Prime Minister Johnson visited Hive, Barnet FC’s home stadium in Harrow, which is turned into a coronavirus vaccination centre.
Harrow East MP Blackman boosted on his website that he joined prime minister on his visit to the vaccination centre on 25 January.
A few weeks later, home secretary Patel visited Byron Hall vaccination centre, seemingly promoting the vaccine in her Gujarati community who regulary uses Byron Hall at the Harrow Leisure Centre for their religious and cultural activities.
Should these visits be in the interest of Covid-19 vaccination, the Conservative visiting should have been the vaccine deployment minister Nadhim Zahawi, also from  a diversity background.
But then Harrow is well known for the pre-election visits by a Conservative prime minister and home secretary.
In a separate situation regarding the Conservative GLA elections campaign,  Brent and Harrow GLA member and chair of the London Assembly Navin Shah told Conservative assembly member Tony Devenish at a very recent meeting that he should feel “ashamed” for remarks he made regarding the upcoming election after a question about London’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
[Devenish outburst included: ‘The only thing he (mayor) does well is ask the taxpayer, not the Government, for more money. On May 6, it is time for change. Vote Shaun Bailey.’]
The virtual meeting allowed London assembly members to put their questions to London Mayor Sadiq Khan regarding transport, policing, air quality, housing etc.

While the Labour leader Keir Starmer is busy in playing nationalism, nine black MPs in an open letter have expressed their dismay on the way the party has dealt with anti-black racism within the party.
The reference is to Forde Inquiry, led by Martin Forde QC, that was tasked with looking into an internal report, leaked online last year, on Labour’s handling of racism complaints. Findings of the inquiry have now been delayed indefinitely.
The Forde Inquiry was originally set to conclude in mid-July, but this timescale was described by Forde as “impractical”. It then aimed to deliver the report “by the end of 2020”, which was later changed to “early in 2021”.
The delay in publishing the inquiry report is intriguing given that local elections are expected to be held on 6 May 2021 in English local councils and for thirteen directly elected mayors in England as well as elections in the parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and London, the last in conjunction with the London mayoral election.
In term of racism, its complaints and their implications, Harrow is likely to reflect the national picture.
‘Following reports the Forde Inquiry has been delayed “indefinitely” the Labour Party has a responsibility to ensure its findings are published as soon as practicable and must consider the perspectives of black and ethnic minority members in its decision’ Kate Osamor MP for Edmonton tweeted.

Highly concerning that Harrow council planning committee, in many ways the public face of decision making, has leadership instability and has no substantial chairman in post at present.
Councillor Keith Ferry, a longstanding member of the planning committee who chaired the committee for years, resigned from his role last year due to a conflict of interest as he is to represent the council on a board associated with the Harrow Strategic Development Partnership.
Most prime building developments, especially the skyscraper around the Harrow Town Centre, have taken place under Cllr Ferry chairmanship.
Then councillor Shah was appointed chairman by the council in December, without realising the possibility of the conflict of interest. His register of interests, most recently signed off in November 2020, disclosed that he works for Curtin and Co, a “specialist consultancy in planning politics and community development”.
Subsequently, and after residents raised concerns about his potential conflict of interest, Cllr Shah recognised that his professional career makes undertaking the chairmanship of the planning committee problematic and resigned as both chairman and member of the planning committee.
Given such a conspicuous instability in the planning committee leadership, the role of opposition planning lead Cllr Marilyn Ashton becomes quite significant. Cllr Ashton has expertise, experience and track record of scrutinising planning recommendations as well as insisting upon well informed planning decisions.
In the public interest, it is expected that Cllr Ashton along with her capable colleague Cllr Baxter on the planning committee would play more pronounced role in protecting the characteristic of the borough, more than observing conventional political group alignment.

Activists campaigning for environmental and social justice in Brent and beyond are concerned that excessive removal of the trackside trees has now left residents without protection from the pollution, light and noise from frequent trains passing, both on the Met line and the Chiltern Railway.
“Residents living next to the Metropolitan and Chiltern lines straddling the boroughs of Harrow and Hillingdon, have witnessed a series of distressing environmental actions carried out by TFL this new year” informs Emma Wallace, Green Party GLA candidate for the Brent and Harrow.
Over the last two weeks, TFL contractors have been arriving daily with chainsaws, strimmer’s and tree chippers and removing huge stretches of trees and vegetation running along the Metropolitan line between Pinner towards Northwood Hills.
“This act of environmental vandalism has meant a biodiverse, green corridor has now been severely reduced, impacting nearby residents’ health and mental well-being, as well as removing habitat for local wildlife” alerts Ms  Wallace.
The activists point out that the local community were not informed by TFL that these works were going to be carried out, consequently have not had an opportunity to raise concerns or ask for a consultation of the works.
They now call on the London Mayor and TFL to immediately stop the excessive removal of habitat from trackside embankments and ensure that biodiversity surveys are carried out before work begins, that local residents are informed and given time to feedback concerns, and that the contractors are trained on effective vegetation management.

Harrow Covid-19 spread has been alarming: 491 deaths and 17,046 total cases (97,329 deaths and 3,617,459 cases nationally).
While the Harrow council is doing what it can to educate about self-isolation by those tested corona positive to avoid spread of the infection, it can’t provide the level of support for the working people in isolation that they need.
Harrow’s reality has to reflect in the national situation where less than 20% of people in England fully self-isolate and stay home when asked to do so, according to documents released from the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies, as reported by the Guardian.
It is not that working people don’t care and decline self-isolation but because of inadequate government support. There is a desperate need for a furlough scheme that is worthy of the name as well as not cutting Universal Credit, but instead increasing Universal Credit, and increasing statutory sick pay.
What is also lacking is a proper mechanism of support, and proper funding of people in corona isolation.
Speaker after speaker at the Zero Covid Coalition launch Zoom meeting on 24 January articulated that the government’s handling of the pandemic has been nothing short of disastrous. There has been a steadfast refusal to learn from the mistakes of the past or from the successes of other countries.
Jeremy Corbyn at the Zero Covid meeting said: “We’ve seen the best and the worst in our society (in dealing with Covid-19). The worst has been the greed. The worst has been a deception and dishonesty, and the best has been the professionalism in the NHS and in the care in local government”.
“It’s the negligence of government, it’s the delay on decisions, it’s the incompetence, it’s the inefficiency that has cost 1000s and 1000s of lives that need not have died because of corona and  which could have been supported and saved” he said.

Forthcoming Harrow council cabinet meeting (21 January) is likely to agree recommended levels of fines for many environmental crimes, including 100% increase in some that have no levels of the fines currently .
The purpose of the Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) is to reduce environmental crime within the Borough and should be part of a wider enforcement strategy, designed to address all aspects of environmental crime, says the council.
The proposed levels of charges make good sense considering the increased environmental anti-social behaviour in the borough like fly-tipping, the proposed fine for which is to increase from £200 to £400. Similarly, graffiti and fly-posting fines are to increase from £80 to £150.
Recently increased random fly-tipping includes furniture, electrical goods and even children toys left on the pavement outside the house, perhaps because of the lack of understanding that this constitutes fly tipping, an anti-social behaviour which is a criminal offence – good case for effectively educating the potential offenders.
Harrow council street teams and intelligence based actions swiftly clear up fly tips but residents are rightly concerned about fly-tipping and they want more done to combat the problem.
For example, to offer a reward  for information which leads to a successful prosecution in cases of fly tipping as practised by Surrey Heath Borough Council (offering £5000 reward).
The officer report before the cabinet sets out 21 new areas of environmental crimes which are to carry £100 fine each. These include littering from vehicles, depositing builder’s skip on highway without permission, failure to secure lighting or other marking of builder’s skip, failure to secure marking of builder’s skip with name and address  and failure to secure removal of builder’s skip.
The council claims that ‘the scheme is there to seek compliance and to improve the highways and environment, not as a money maker’ though ‘some income will be generated initially from the implementation of the regime’.