I’ve spent a fair chunk of today at an inward investment event for Putney Town Centre. Although Nine Elms and Tooting have been getting a fair degree of attention recently, the council has continued to promote the rest of the borough as a destination to businesses, retailers and investors. Today’s event was aimed at attracting [...]
The news today was of a fall in unemployment. Paradoxically, underlying this is an increase in JSA claimants. I’ve often said that JSA claims and unemployment are not the same thing, since many choose not to claim Jobseekers Allowance for a variety of reasons; they might be able to live off their own means or [...]
The dates for the next public exhibition at New Covent Garden Market have been announced. The exhibition will run over three days starting on Thursday 25 February and finishing on 27 February – including some very early morning sessions (you can go at 5am on the Friday).
The market is a fascinating place, and a real [...]
Following on from The Guardian’s filming in Tooting here’s another Tooting based film. This time made by students from South Thames College about Tooting Together. And egotistically I include it because I’m on it. But before that, there’s lots from local residents, visitors and businesses saying what they like about Tooting and what they think [...]
The Guardian (or more specifically Paul MacInnes and Hildegunn Soldal) did a short video piece about chugging last year: you will note the early stages of my festive beard, and me looking disturbingly jowly. It finally appeared yesterday (they don’t allow embedding, so the above is on my YouTube account – but you can see [...]
I’ve been through several iterations of Power Station schemes, especially since 2006. Privately, when the current owners bought it, I was a lot more confident, since the previous owners seemed to only be interested in developing new plans, rather than doing anything with them.
Having seen various schemes come and go since 1998 (knowing that there [...]
The UK has finally left recession. As Gordon Brown repeatedly told us, we were one of the best placed economies to weather the storm – although quite how that tallies with being the last major economy to see growth and having the longest recession since current records began escapes me.
What is interesting to me, is [...]
I seem to have stopped taking photos this year – so the cup of tea is getting a few outings – not that photos of meetings or a fairly damp and dreary London are any more exciting.
Councillor Awards
I started the week off acting as a judge for the Local Government Information Unit’s first national councillor [...]
There was an ever so slight fall in the number of Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) claims in Wandsworth last month with 47 fewer (a drop of 0.7% against last month) people signing on than in November.
A total 6,594 people were claiming JSA, a rate of 3.2%. This is an increase of 1,939 (41.7%) on the same [...]
It’s been another week I’ve ended out of Wandsworth. This week the child in me has been excited by a trip on a sleeper train in which my knowledge of sleepers, derived entirely from Agatha Christie and Hart to Hart (a show surely due a remake) was confounded as no-one was murdered). If that wasn’t [...]
James is a Councillor for Shaftesbury Ward and Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Community Safety in the London Borough of Wandsworth. More...
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