Paul Walker (photo) is the new corporate director community, responsible for housing, environment and culture as well as commissioning and commercial services.
Mr Walker has joined Harrow from North West England – previously having been chief executive at Copeland borough council among other roles.
Describing his experience in Harrow so far, Mr Walker told the Harrow Monitoring Group, “In these first few weeks I’ve had such a warm welcome from all the Harrow people I’ve met – and they’ve been kind in taking the time to help me better understand this place”.
“What strikes me every time is the commitment people have for Harrow and the Council. It’s an exciting time and I’m enjoying it” Mr Walker said.
Mr Walker is seeing himself the front line services the council delivers to the local community – be it parks, libraries, highways, the refuse service or the commercialisation work.
His open invitation to residents is “If you see me out and about, please do stop and say hello and let me know your views”.
It can only be good that such an experienced and dedicated senior manager has joined Harrow council which has some serious environmental and crime issues.
Although the fly-tipping in Harrow is not as high as in some other London boroughs, like Newham, it is a matter of real concern and more so in the parts of the borough which have short-term private rented accommodation or unlicensed houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).
The other concerning matter is the serious crimes in Harrow, including fatal knife crimes, more in certain parts of the borough, which reflects badly on the effectiveness of the authorities concerned.

While Ealing and Hillingdon do, the Harrow clinical commissioning group does not provide an opportunity for Harrow pharmacists to broaden their scope in the community through minor ailment scheme.
The aim of the Minor Ailment Service (MAS) is to support the provision of direct pharmaceutical care on the NHS by community pharmacists to members of the public for some common illness.
The pharmacist are able to assess patient’s medical needs, give advice, suggest medicines if appropriate, and refer the patient to a GP if necessary – medicines as part of a minor ailment scheme are on the NHS.
Access to MAS at chemists is much easier, and could avoid chasing GP appointment and long queues  at the walk-in centres.
Commenting on the Brent and Harrow MAS situation, Michael Levitan, chief executive of the Middlesex Group of Local Pharmaceutical Committees, posed a question “why there is no service commissioned to divert patients needing reassurance, advice and simple remedies (particularly for children) away from GP surgeries, Urgent Care Centres and A&E departments, even though these outlets are overwhelmed at times by ever-increasing demand?”
“The average cost of a transaction under a MAS is a fraction of the cost of a patient turning up elsewhere” Mr Levitan pointed out.
In Harrow, like elsewhere, the Harrow CCG has the commissioning responsibilities but with a difference that the walk-in centres and some GP practices seem to be more represented at the Harrow CCG level  and are commissioned for the sort of MAS that the pharmacies could provide – also read about the conflict of interest  [1], [2].
Not only the Harrow CCG but Harrow council also seems to be favouring the walk-in centres – for example, very recently Harrow council being a part of the West London Economic Prosperity Board, has requested £ 300,000.00 for Harrow Belmont Health Centre through the West London Bid.
We glen serious concerns from the local pharmacists that far from having the opportunity to broaden their scope in the community, there are instances of taking away some of the services they provided, ‘a systematic process to phase out independent and small pharmacies’.
Next time someone knocks on the door for votes, please ask them to support local   pharmacies!

Although the fly-tipping in Harrow is not as high as in some other London boroughs, like Newham, it is a matter of real concern and more so in the parts of the borough which have short-term private rented accommodation or unlicensed houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).
“It’s a shame to see fly-tipping happening more than ever in Harrow – as well as making the place look terrible, it encourages rats and crime” says the opposition leader councillor Paul Osborn.
A council manager pointed out  that they don’t get the “big fly tips as used to occur, but much more ad hoc bags, including  side waste as bins are full (for example for bins around flats or because HMOs have more people than they should and not have enough bins in place).”
Much 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 and 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.
“The Council need to listen to residents and respond quickly. We need Harrow to be a clean place that is safe for everyone to live and work in” says Cllr Paul Osborn.
Councils have been given new powers to fine people up to £400 for ‘smaller’ offences but need evidence (such as CCTV recording) that the person actually ‘dumped’ the item in the location.
Harrow council investigates fly tips amongst other aspects of anti-social behaviour, using  range of powers including cautions, prosecutions and fixed penalty notices but they seem to rely more on trying to catch offenders in the act.
There are more effective means to detect fly-tipping and enforce against it.  For example, in South Derbyshire surveillance works appear to have been an effective deterrent. They adopted the use of inconspicuous, highly mobile surveillance cameras to help with fly-tipping enforcement work – as a result they have recently caught a number of waste offenders.
“Enforcing against fly-tipping should pay for itself when managed properly” said Cllr Paul Osborn.
Another way to discourage the fly tips is the well publicised use of the DNA found on litter to create a photo-fit picture of the alleged culprits which may not identify specific individuals but narrow down the search and will be enough to make people think twice about littering.
Whether it is cutting-edge DNA profiling or covert surveillance, online naming and shaming or conscience-pricking children’s artwork, residents look at the council to find more and effective ways to stop dumping and littering.

It is difficult to keep pace with the falling leaves at this time of the year.
We know that fallen leaves were collected from this street (photo) in Greenhill ward very recently but in days dried leaves started piling up, giving rise to the resident concerns that the piles pose fire hazard.
We reported this to the council. Within 20 minutes the leaves were collected and we received the following complimentary photo  – great response from the council team.
Well done! 

The number of children living in poverty will soar to a record 5.2 million over the next five years as government welfare cuts bite deepest on households with young families, research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts.
Well controlled child poverty rate under Labour, according to the IFS, is now set to increase by seven percentage points to 37% over the next five years.
The IFS said freezing benefits, the introduction of universal credit and less generous tax credits would mean a surge in child poverty and that the steepest increases would be in the most deprived parts of the country.
What happens in macro, does happen in micro, and Harrow situation is equally concerning – also see our related article ‘Two kingdoms’ situation in Harrow!
Although child poverty has never been high on the agenda in Harrow since the Act came into force in 2010, the reality is that child poverty levels in Harrow are 19% before housing costs (BHC) and rise to 29% after housing costs (AHC) and vary according to the profile of the wards in the borough, highlights the  Harrow council’s Strategy And Action Plan 2017 – 2020.
The child poverty is bigger in some of the more deprived areas, for example Roxbourne 28% BHC and 42% AHC, and is more noticed in new arrivals and those with large families, low skills and health problems.
The unemployment rate in the borough  varies, according to the action plan: above London levels in Wealdstone and Marlborough.
Low wages is another issue that impacts child poverty. Wages paid in Harrow (£489) in 2014 were below the national average of £523.30 and considerably lower than London’s average of £660.50.

Unceremonious ending of  Priti Patel’s cabinet position was quick and welcomed but of course not by some of her supporters who politicise that her sack could damage Israel and British relationships!
Harrow East MP Bob Blackman raised a question at the Commons: ‘is there not a need to clarify the position for ministers visiting particular countries whether the foreign office or department for international development is informed?’
In other words, trying to defend international development secretary Priti Patel for the ambiguities in disclosing her recent secret activities in Israel, as if she didn’t know who to tell because of the lack of clarity about who to inform to!
In view of the political mess that discredited Ms Patel has created, she can’t be directly supported, not even by her close associates like Mr Blackman.
Harrow-born Ms Patel is no stranger to Harrow Conservatives and shows remarkable political similarities with the divisive MP Mr Blackman.
Having calculated their support, both were in the forefront of welcoming right-wing Modi to the UK. Both work for political gain by working closely with the Conservatives Friends of Israel as well as with the Conservative Friends of India.
Mr Blackman, closely campaigned with Ms Patel to leave EU for being ‘extremely positive about the prospects of our nation forging closer partnerships with countries like India, Israel’. Ms Patel probably played significant part in achieving such relationships, given her pertinent position and that she has too often used the department to prop up her personal networks and leadership ambitions.
Priti Patel MP resigned (really sacked) from her job over her secret meetings in Israel, breaking the ministerial code,  undermining British foreign policy and damaging the integrity of British international development policy.  She suggested that money should be given to support ongoing ‘humanitarian operations’ by the Israeli army in the occupied Golan Heights.
Well reported evidence indicates that Ms Patel meetings were not ad hoc. At 13 out of a total of 14 meetings with Israeli officials, she was accompanied by Lord Polak, a lobbyist and a leading member of Conservative Friends of Israel.
Ms Patel’s close associate Mr Blackman is also an officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel.
Mr Blackman would no doubt miss Ms Patel position of influence in developing his vote bank – his  majority was slashed from 4,757 in 2015 to 1,757 in 2017.

Increased political activities in Harrow hint another general election soon as the government is doing badly under Theresa May leadership that has been responsible for a number of failures.
Theresa May has badly failed in steering through the muddy waters resulted due to her misjudgement of calling the snap general election and the weak government that followed.
Government arrogance has failed the country over Brexit, starting with its assertion to embark on the UK’s departure from the EU without the parliament blessings which the courts found unconstitutional.  The government was forced to introduce emergency legislation into parliament to authorise the UK departing from the EU.
When the Brexit process started, Theresa May failed to provide strong leadership.  Brexit is in a mess with each passing day driving us closer to a no-deal Brexit.
Added to this is the inappropriate behaviour of some Tory MPs hitting recent headlines, including  Bob Blackman hosting an extremist at the parliament, series of ‘sexual harassment’ allegations at the seat of governance  – for example, MP using staff to buy the ‘sex-toys’, and in another incident the defence secretary resigning from his cabinet job amid expected further allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
The latest blow for Mrs May is the MPs vote for her to release 58 secret studies into Brexit’s economic ‘damage’, triggering a huge political row. Such is the Tory sense of insecurity that they refused to take part in the vote, most probably because Mrs May knew she would lose, meaning she has lost control of the parliamentary process for Brexit.
There seem to be a growing consensus of opinion that Theresa May has lost the credibility and moral authority to a point of no return and has to let people decide what is best for the Britain!

Fair-minded media, Commons and people have no taste for Bob Blackman’s divisive politics as confirmed by the general condemnation of his hosting of an extremist at the Parliament.

The Charity Commission is to investigate the organisation that invited extremist Hindu nationalist to the House of Commons event, hosted by Bob Blackman, MP Harrow East!
Community organisations,  MPs and councillors have raised  concerns about Mr Blackman’s behaviour, especially as inappropriate MP behaviour is now a key issue at the Commons.
The following comment on the Times website sums up the general feeling:

The Times reported  that Harrow East MP Bob Blackman hosted in parliament an anti-Muslim extremist who has called for the UN to control the birth rate of Muslims, praised the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, and said Muslims should be forced to leave their religion if they come to a western country.
Bob Blackman, a Conservative member of the communities and local government committee, hosted Tapan Ghosh, an Indian Hindu-nationalist, in the Commons during an event called “Tolerating the Intolerant”.
Irrespective of what Mr Blackman has said since the event to defend indefensible, the fact remains that he just sat there and allowed Ghosh free rein to spread hatred and division at the event.
Also one wonders what part his equally divisive assistant, an Indian nationalist who has been fixed as a Tory candidate for Harrow’s Queensbury ward, played in organising the event?
Alerting about Hindu nationalists, the Independent reported, ‘It is also less understood that the rise of this movement in India has been partly fuelled by activists in the UK and US, who in turn have pushed similar agendas’.
Mr Blackman deviously claims that his Hindu-specific activities are because he stands for his Hindu constituents but most Hindus  are peace-loving and have shown no propensity for far right Hindu extremism in India or here or support his divisiveness – for example – so whose inspirations he represents?
Also read related article

Most divisive MP Bob Blackman has hosted an anti-Muslim extremist in Parliament.
The Tory MP for Harrow East hosted Tapan Ghosh, who has called for the UN to control the birth rate of Muslims, praised the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, and said that Muslims should be forced to leave their religion if they come to a western country.
Mr Ghosh also used his visit to share a platform with far-right anti-Islam agitator Tommy Robinson.
The anti-Muslim extremist Ghosh who founded a far-right ultra nationalist party, apparently spoke at the same event as the Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
It is about time Tory party should address extremism, racism and challenge divisive characters within the party, locally and nationally. Tory Party should do what they expect others to do – suspend and investigate Bob Blackman for supporting extremists.
Adam Bernard, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary spokesperson for Harrow East commented:
“An area as religiously diverse as Harrow East deserves better than an MP who invites hatemongers to inflame tensions between communities.
“Mr Blackman needs to realise that his job is to represent people from all communities and of all faiths and nationalities.
“If he can’t get the hang of that, perhaps he should consider a change of career?”
After the last general election, London assembly member Navin Shah who contested Harrow East seat said, “The general election also saw the same old issues like Kashmiri Pundits and caste legislation dragged out for the Tory propaganda to find cheap favours amongst Indian / Hindu voters”.

In a tweet, Navin Shah said, “Hardly surprising to see Bob Blackman rubbing shoulders with Tapan Ghosh &Tommy Robinson. Most appalling & disgusting. Deserves condemnation“.
We glen that some in the Harrow Tory group, which is considered more promising under its new and non-confrontational leadership, are concerned about losing political chances because of their selfish colleagues promoting religious hate and division in Harrow East by implications.

The  damage to water main at Headstone Drive and High Street Wealdstone caused major flooding,  at one point about 1.5 metres deep.

The Affinity Water informed us at 15.09: ‘Our repair team are on site with the fire brigade working to pump out water as quickly as possible in order to be able to start work to fix the damaged water main. We are sorry for the disruption to supply and thank for patience’.