Harrow under Japanese knotweed attack!

The highly-invasive Japanese knotweed can re-root quickly from a tiny bit of stem. It can come up through tarmac, concrete and even the inside of houses.
If you allow the Japanese knotweed to spread onto someone else’s property, Natural England could serve you with an enforcement notice – the prevention of its spread is a legal obligation for landowners under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.You can also be prosecuted if you allow animals to suffer by eating these weeds.
It is a real pain to get rid of it and the council could help:
  • by mapping the spread of the Japanese knotweed across the borough – community champions could be trained to identify and report the weed – knowing the full extent of the problem will help the council to control and manage the weed
  • if on the private property, by informing the homeowner or landowner that the weed problem needs addressing
  • by having staff trained to inject a specialist treatment into the stem of the weed to kill it

Update:
The council has valued our suggestions about how they can help in dealing with the weed problems – following are the extracts from the Biodiversity Officer’s response:

Mapping:
Regarding mapping, the Council has enlisted the help of a specialist invasive species consultant that has now signed an agreement to use our Geographic Information System (GIS). We have sent the consultant the relevant GIS layers so it can give a cost to produce a detailed survey of the borough’s INNS. Once this is complete an invasives GiS layer will be created and subsequently a management plan. We are also working with the London Invasive Species Initiative (LISI), the Brent Catchment Partnership and the Crane Valley Partnership and will be feeding our findings into their work programmes so we can coordinate work across the region.
Training:
There is no reason why community champions cannot be trained to help identify and report invasive species – this would not only add to our developing database but help gauge full extent of the problem and help keep pace with the changes in populations of INNS thus facilitating control and management.
Certification in use of pesticides and advice:
The Council offers advice to private landowners when contacted, however, it is only responsible for Japanese knotweed on its own land, we keep a register and undertake treatment to control/eradicate invasive species and have staff and volunteers certified in the application of herbicide.

Harrow Council Corporate Plan reads well but …!

Like many previous plans, Harrow Council Corporate Plan 2014-15 reads well though its effective implementation in real terms seems less secure because:
Priorities: although the priorities are well defined but the means to achieve these (20 statements) are too many, most are long term processes and can hardly deliver the outcomes like safeguarding vulnerable adults and children in the life of one council as has been the case for the past many years where Harrow has been struggling for prompt, efficient and effective procedures to assess and address special or specific needs, including narrowing the gap in children’s learning.
Community & families: ‘community engagement’ is also a long-term process and essentially needs public confidence gained through the ethos of valuing and treating residents as customers with more and better means to inform/ be informed – for example, a user-friendly website and caring/respectful attitudes from those assessing needs, benefits and entitlements.
Councillors: the plan says that councillors should be ‘leaders in their local community, acting to deliver those things that make a big difference to communities’ -– don’t know what this actully means!
Political parties councillor candidate selection process, political group Whip and the council decisions really being made at the group meetings as well as a highly manipulative ‘cabinet system’ of governance, are not the recipe to develop effective leadership in the councillors or enable them not to tow the party political lines.
Businesses: the two bullet points give little sense of encouraging, promoting and supporting a wider range of businesses – a close study of the Brent’s commercial/ shopping structures could indicate how big, medium and small businesses are successfully catered for.

Look who is there!

Missing from the political front for sometimes, Cllr Hall, leader of the opposition (Con), indulged in point-scoring at the recent Harrow planning committee meeting that approved plans to develop the former Post Office and currently derelict site in College Road, Harrow.
The development will include affordable housing and many community resources, and can only be good as Harrow has not built enough homes to match its population growth over the years.
London Mayor asserts that it is the job of the boroughs, of government, and of private and public sector developers to deal with the housing challenges.
Cllr Hall, never had any planning responsibility, leaned on the Harrow on the Hill Trust comments and quoted from their objections at the meeting.
Her appearance at the meeting was perhaps just a precaution to ensure that the planning expert in the Tory group Cllr Ashton does not lead in criticising a planning decision again as she did in the case of the 1 Sudbury Hill development through her attendance at the meeting and subsequent letters in a local newspaper.
As a planning supremo, Cllr Ashton understands the planning policies and procedures but Harrow can’t benefit from her expertise as she has not been placed on the planning committee since her comeback to the council, seemingly because of the relationships within the Tory group under Cllr Hall’s leadership.

Patient Access compromised in Harrow!

While many GP practices display the Patient Access posters informing that you could ‘View your health records where ever you are’ and ‘Book GP appointment at any time wherever you can connect to the internet’, the reality is somewhat different.
Many surgeries don’t offer all the following features if not subscribed:

  • Book an appointment
  • Order repeat prescriptions
  • Change your address details
  • Send secure messages to your practice
  • View your medical record

Mostly one GP appointment could be booked and even that becomes impossible if there is already an appointment for other reasons like the blood test or consulting the practice nurse.
Many practices have not subscribed to viewing the medical record and therefore patients cannot avail this very helpful NHS provision.
Previously we have reported that Harrow GP practices are not doing as well as the neighbouring boroughs because Harrow has more GP practices in Band 1 risk. We have also raised concerns about a number of NHS specific issues in Harrow.
Since then, one practice in Rayners Lane has been closed down and a Stanmore practice was assessed ‘inadequate’ (failed to meet the fundamental aspects of good care) by the Care Quality Commission.

Harrow library closures in national context

Politically Harrow is much quieter expect for the ‘library closures’!
In going for a political kill, Harrow East MP has said nothing about his government’s doings that are responsible for the library crisis in the country. Wonder when Mr Blackman MP used a library last!
“Government is hiding behind the patchwork nature of local government spending cuts, which is covering the true extent of library closures,” said library campaigner Desmond Clarke. “The problem is much bigger and more widespread than the picture at an individual local level suggests.”
Library services are on the brink of disaster and can only be saved if they become more like coffee shops with wi-fi, sofas and hot drinks, according to the Independent Library Report for England, which was commissioned by the Government – – could the council budgets allow these facilities?
A combination of funding cuts and declining attendance threatens the viability of the library network unless urgent action is taken, says the report.
There are 4,145 libraries in the UK, according to Public Library News, down from 4,622 a decade ago. At least 324 libraries have closed since 2011, and about 400 are now run by volunteers.
Moves to hand over library administration to volunteer groups have met with success in some areas but, while Arts Council England has expressed a desire to provide a single point for help and advice for those wanting to run libraries, it has yet to unveil any concrete plan – the Chancellor has not spared the arts council. Therefore, in some cases book loans from libraries taken over by volunteers has halved.
Library campaigners claimed last year that more than 1,000 libraries could be closed by 2016.

London Mayor hopeful

Speaking at the Commons on 27 May, London Mayor hopeful Gareth Thomas, MP Harrow West, reminded, “London did not vote for cuts—to our police, our schools or the services our councils provide—on the scale that is set to befall our great city”.
“Londoners need to be able to lead London’s future”, he said.
Considering the diversity in London –- 44.9% White British and 36.7% Asian and Black – what Mr Thomas has not said is that all Londoners should be enabled to decide London’s future to avoid the concerning socio-political situations that have different implications for different groups of Londoners.
For example, there is a London plan in the form of the Mayor of London’s Spatial Development Strategy, but in truth, there hasn’t been a proper London plan for some time.
Therefore, no surprise that while London has economic dominance, it has some of the highest levels of poverty in England, particularly child poverty where 4-10 children live in poverty which is 12% above the national average.
More than half the boroughs in London have over the England average for pupils registered for free schools meals, a deprivation indicator, and it is not uncommon for boroughs to have double the national rate.
London is home to the greatest concentration of poverty in Western Europe. At least two of its boroughs – Hackney and Tower Hamlets – are among the ten most deprived in England.
If London belongs to Londoners, then it has to be for the benefit of its population and not as a powerbase that makes people feel remote from the decisions that affect their lives, as the Chancellor has recently articulated and which he said “is not good for our prosperity or our democracy”.
Given such feelings, perhaps Mr Thomas could consider why not move parliament somewhere more affordable, to a place where MPs won’t need huge housing allowances to be able to live and work while distancing their lives from those of their constituents?
Hope Mr Thomas would have a meaningful agenda, more than a vision, to address the needs of a real London.

Harrow Mayoralty, dream for some!

Today Harrow council has elected a charming mayor, Cllr Krishna Suresh, a Sri Lankan – Tory councillors abstained from vote!
Like many other town halls, Harrow civic centre brightens up once a year when fresh looking councillors in their best cloths come together in a ceremonial annual council meeting to elect a mayor and appoint a deputy mayor.
But this civic event is not always cheerful when some who have been a deputy mayor do not succeed to become the mayor.
In 2005, a Hatch End Tory councillor was appointed deputy mayor with the prospect of becoming a mayor in 2006.
However, she, a nice lady, unpleasantly lost to a fellow Tory who got selected to stand for the 2006 council election.
Tory won the council in 2006 but of course that nice lady, not being a councillor, lost the chance to become a mayor.
Councillor Hall became the Hatch End councillor instead who eventually brought what many consider, bad luck* to the Tory group on the council.
A senior Tory councillor was appointed deputy mayor under Tory administration in 2009 but he could not progress to become a mayor in 2010 because the Tory group under Councillor Hall’s leadership lost the council.
Another long serving Tory councillor was appointed deputy mayor during councillor Hall’s short lived council administration* before 2014 council election – she could not become a mayor because once again the Tory group was defeated under councillor Hall’s leadership.

*
  • Councillor Hall could only lead her Conservative group to set a pattern of defeats (Councils in 2010 & 2014 as well as two by-elections in 2013 – five sitting Tory councillors were defeated in 2014
  • In mid-2013, a breakaway Independent Labour Group snatched the council administration from Labour with the support of the Tory group leadership
  • Few months later, the Tory group grabbed the council administration with the support of the well groomed Independent Labour Group who voted in the Tory group leader Cllr Hall as the leader of the council through a highly controversial process, creating a political mess i.e. a hung council in late 2013 where both the Labour and Tory groups had 25 councillors each, resulting in a short-lived Tory minority administration with the support of 8 ILG councillors
  • The Labour administration returned in May 2014

‘Divide & rule’ has its moments!

So Mr Blackman managed to retain his Harrow East seat not necessarily because of his ability as a MP but because of some local factors:

  • In deciding female only Harrow East seat, Labour helped to keep Mr Blackman in place by implications
  • Mr Blackman is known to use sensitive international situations to generate political support from the selected communities by siding with them in an unbalanced way – therefore no surprise that he won an endorsement from an interesting Hindu priest Parmar and a Jewish Rabbi Lew
  • His extensive visits to certain places of worship seemingly paid off

{credit goes to the Hindu Council UK for honestly informing, “we understand that the National Council of Hindu Temples UK is being investigated over an open letter endorsing the Conservative Party …. we have also read on social media that apparently other leading Hindu organisations have come out against the Labour Party and urging their members to vote for the Conservative Party alone””}

  • a leaflet distributed by Dharma Sewa Purvapaksha, an organisation which aims to connect the Hindu, Jain and Sikh communities, encouraged people not to vote for the Harrow East Labour candidate and recommended the Tory candidate because Labour supported in 2013 for laws to outlaw caste discrimination
  • asked if he would disassociate himself from the comments in the leaflet, he said: “You should see some of the leaflets going out about me by Muslim organisations” –  good tactics: sense of a victim, mobilised support from others
In contrast to all this, decent Tory candidate for Harrow West Hannah David, in her practice-run for the Commons, was less divisive. She only towed the party line by scaring that Scotland might rule England and that the Labour’s left-wing leader might bring back pre-Blair era.
We deplore the dynamics of ‘divide & rule’ as well as the manipulation of any communities for political gains.

Can they really represent you?

On times, voting because of what a candidate stands for is more important than the party votes where the candidate has serious shortcomings. Insecure, devious and divisive representatives use cheap tactics to gain votes and are only to benefit themselves. They can let down anyone at any time.
Mr Blackman (Con, Harrow East)
    • He shows a lack of democratic sense to respect all residents; he uses sensitive international situations to generate political support from the selected communities by siding with them in an unbalanced way
    • Having calculated his Harrow East votes and behaving accordingly, he won an endorsement from an interesting Hindu priest Parmar and a Jewish Rabbi Lew
    • The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) found him guilty of making more than 700 inaccurate mileage claims for travels within his constituency
    • While leading crusade to safeguard traditional marriage, Mr Blackman hit the headline that he ‘had 11-year affair behind his wife’s back’
    • He stands with his party that will scrap the Human Rights Act
    • He implies that any funding coming to Harrow projects from the government’s pre-allocated funds for hospitals and schools was somehow his doing as an MP
    • Under his leadership of the Conservative group at the Brent council, the number of the Tory councillors went down from 31 in 1990 to 15 in 2006 and 6 in 2010, seemingly due to the unpleasantness within the Tory ranks – a situation similar to Harrow under Cllr Hall’s leadership.
    • Regarding his place in his own party, Mr Blackman narrowly survived de-selection attempt as reported by the ‘Conservativehome’ on 10 June 2008.

Ms David (Con, Harrow West)

  • She shows lack of self confidence and relies more on who supports her from her party’s hierarchy like prime minister, London mayor and the party chairman
  • She claims to be a business champion and campaigner for Crossrail extension to Harrow without any thoughts about any adverse impacts of such a development – hardly any direct commitment to address deprivation in the constituency areas like South Harrow which is among some of the most deprived areas in the country – her visiting friends have been equally silent!
  • The listed local people backing Ms David in Harrow West that has pockets of deprivation, are mostly business owners and companies like Lynch Plant Hire & Haulage
    Scaremongering: in line with her party’s distortion tactics, Ms David in a personal letter to the selected residents says, ”Ed Miliband can only become Prime Minister with the support of the SNP”. And then she pleads for votes to her party so that there “will be no need for backroom deals after the election“, as there is nothing wrong with the practice of ‘backroom’ deal if needed – did LD held her party leadership to ransom? Ms David is obviously very confused!