- Good result in London, really chuffed Syed Kamall is back. #eu09 #
- Is Jeremy Vine on Twitter? I'd love to ask for a simple bar graph that actually clearly illustrates the points he is making. #
- Hold it, a Jury Team candidate on the platform! He's about 12. #
- Paul Morris is milking his bit, isn't he? #
- Dan Hannan doesn't get it. This election is a clear message to Gordon Brown that we want him to get on with the job of being PM. #
- Have to go to the Town Hall adding to my litany of complaints about being a councillor: you miss football matches AND Apple keynotes. #
- Looks like tethering will be coming to O2, they are clearly featured in the macrumors.com photos. Looks like I'm not getting PAYG broadband! #
- Find my iPhone looks pretty, cool. Why do I have to go to a meeting? #wwdc #
- I had been thinking the new MobileMe/iPhone features would be good. Now just wish it told me when it decides its just going to stop syncing. #
- When you can measure the height of your in-tray in feet, rather than inches, you know you are a master of procrastination. #
- I'm trying to write a post connecting the iPhone upgrade with councils. A tangent too far, methinks. #
- I didn't realise that everyone supported the Tube strike, at least according to ITN: http://tiny.cc/KY9PY (via @martinejmartin) #
- I'm trying to teach my son that shiny things like my phone, keyboard and remotes are 'Daddy toys'. He seems to be ignoring the lesson. #
- Council must consult before buying in adult services http://bit.ly/UwH1W (via @localgoveditors) < like what? Massage? DVDs and magazines? #
- Twitter seems really quiet, is everyone too bust thinking about how to get home through the Tube strike to Tweet. #
- Just joined a group on facebook. Can't remember the last time I was on there – is there still life on it? #
- .@digitaltoast And stewardesses is the longest word you can touchtype with your left-hand. in reply to digitaltoast #
- The Tube strike doesn't bother me, I get a bus full of shouting, screaming school children anyway, my journey has always been miserable. #fb #
- Unable to resist the temptation of trying out the leaked copy of iPhone OS 3.0. I will have to slap my own wrists. #
- Ooooo, a picture message from O2! #
- Syncing all my music back to the new improved phone… I'm going to resist interrupting. #
- iPhone 3.0 is, um, well, a slight improvement. Spotlight looks good. C&P looks like it might be annoying. Guess the apps are where it's at. #
- OS 3.0 has nice little icons on the recent calls lists & a thumbnail of your last photo in the camera.app. Why do these things excite me? #
- RT @grantshapps The most followed centre-right politician in Parliament @grantshapps < Am I the only one considering unfollowing for that?! #
- I feel bad, I'm not unfollowing @grantshapps & should encourage an MP who is successfully using Twitter & the internet. So, my apologies. #
- Just discovered you can change the scrubbing rate on OS 3.0 – it's full of little extras. #
- Had forgotten about the Tube strike. Clapham Junction looks, um, fun. #
- Balham bound for the business beano. (Well, Wandsworth Business Forum actually, but that didn't alliterate as well.) #
- Showdown with @ifenn, should I worry? in reply to ifenn #
- Live Tweeting the Wandsworth Business Forum, well, just saying I'm here really. #
- My little bit at the Wandsworth Business Forum was live-tweeted by @ifenn tonight. I'm scared and flattered in equal measure! #
- A quiet Twitter day for me, I think. Or not. Depends on the lunch companion. #
- I'd love for you all to #followfriday @johnhallmark, a great mate and fellow Wandsworth cllr (covering the bit next to Battersea Park). #
- Massive queue for cabs at Victoria, but not many cabs, where are you @cabbiescapital? #
- Just done my first copy and paste on the iPhone, I was wrong to be dismissive, it is rather good and elegant. #
- I am http://facebook.com/jamescousins – perhaps I should start using facebook again, just in case, like. #fb #
- Feeling like a domestic God and inspired by @TimCooperUK I'm trying my hand at homemade bagels #fb #
- Really pleased Jane Allen, the recently retired head of libraries in Wandsworth got an MBE in tosay's honours. #
- Turns out I'm not much of a domestic God; burnt, uneven, mishapen but home-made bagels http://yfrog.com/0v2fhj #
- Saturday night, a little too much wine, then discovering ITV1's quality film: 'Top Gun'. It's wrong in so many ways. #
- It took until Armageddon for America to produce a more patriotic movie than Top Gun. #
- I had some Ray-Ban Aviators in the late 80s. I can't watch Top Gun without wanting to look for them. #
- At the Lavender Hill Street Party with @jesscousins and @goldichocchick why aren't you there? http://yfrog.com/5ea4nyj #
- Done half the Lavender Hill Street Party, having a beer in the Ink Rooms. Having got over that it isn't Microbar anymore I rather like it. #
- Sundays always see our antipodean neighbours hung-over from their Saturday BBQ; making the garden a place of peace & tranquility again. #
- I'm a sad geek, but I still love that my phone knows almost exactly where I am – it's just one garden out, maybe I should just go next door. #
I’ve had something of a posting frenzy today, but this is just an advert for this Sunday’s Lavender Hill Street Party. If last year (their first year) was anything to go by this will be a fantastic day. If you’re anywhere near the area, make sure you’re on Lavender Hill!
The Shaftesbury Ward councillors are now producing a regular newsletter of news affecting the ward. You can download the latest copy. The first issue is available now and you can download it by simply clicking on the image to the left.
We intend to produce the newsletter on a semi-regular basis – every one or two months – depending on news.
Obviously you can download from here or from the Wandsworth Conservatives site if you wish, but if you’d prefer to have it sent directly to you the just drop me a line at cllr@jamescousins.com. I will not spam you and will only use your address for sending out our newsletter or news updates, I would not anticipate more than 1 or 2 emails per month.
I’m posting weekly reports as an experiment to see how well received they are. You can read some of my thoughts about it in a blog-post I wrote before commencing the reports. My main concern is that these reports will, by necessity, have to omit so much routine council work they are not a good representation of my work.
Tooting
Picking up from last week’s report, after posting I headed down to Tooting for the town centre police team launch publicity. While there I also took the opportunity to catch up with the Town Centre Manager and Town Centre Partnership Chairman.
Neighbourhood Watch
Saturday didn’t provide a break. The morning saw the Neighbourhood Watch Conference. Rather shamefully I have not posted about it. It was an incredibly successful event, organised by the council’s Community Safety team for Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators. The session saw presentations on subjects ranging from art and antiques to dog control and bio-diversity. The conference was attended by representatives from the National Neighbourhood Watch Trust, and it was pleasing that they commented it was one of the best events they’d attended.
Devas Club
On Tuesday I visited, along with Peter Dawson in his capacity as chairman of the Children and Young People’s Service OSC, the Devas Club in Stormont Road. The visit took us from their commercial standard (and hit making, some number ones have been recorded there) music studios in the basement to the sub-standard basket-ball court on the roof (which has a spectacular view that my camera phone just couldn’t do justice).
The club does some great work in engaging youngsters in a building designed for a 1960s, rather than 21st century, youth club. And that shows. First, not all the facilities are what they should be for the users. Second, it means it causes problems for neighbours and coincidentally I’m also dealing with noise complaints from the club.
Wandsworth Business Forum
Last night was the Wandsworth Business Forum in Balham. I posted about it earlier today, so rather than write about it again, will refer you to that post.
Shaftesbury Park School
Finally, this morning, I went into Shaftesbury Park, the school I serve as a governor. For the second time to meet Peter Dawson, who was making an official visit along with David Walden. We spent time looking around the school and chatting about some of the challenges it face and successes it has had.
Last night saw the Wandsworth Business Forum at Balham (with huge thanks to The Bedford for hosting us). And I came away feeling very upbeat about Wandsworth, and business in Wandsworth.
The council’s Economic Development Office run the meetings, rotating around locations in the borough at various business friendly times. The basic concept is to have some speakers on business related topics, followed by a networking session.
I was one of the speakers and was live-tweeted by Ian Fenn, something both flattering and scary – because it makes you realise how much of what you do can be public and instantly accessible. I’ve included his Tweets at the end of the post.
My spot was a real gallop through two topics. The first was what Wandsworth is doing to help fight the recession – the easiest thing to do is point you to wandsworth.gov.uk/recessionfighting. The second was to highlight the positive signs that are coming from the recession.
It’s easy to be negative in a recession, and I’m probably as guilty as any for that, but there are some good reasons to be postive in Wandsworth.
We monitor a wide range of indicators, like unemployment and benefit take-up to vacancies on our high streets, to watch how the recession is affecting Wandsworth. I won’t pretend we’ve not been hit, but we seem to be suffering much less than other places. So unemployment remains below the London and national averages and our vacancy rates are still remarkably low.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems around the corner. It might be unemployment is low because people are living off redundancy payments rather than signing-on, but so far we seem to weathering the storm well.
And there’s a lot to be positive about. Wandsworth is incredibly well placed to recover rapidly when the recession ends. We have a real vote of confidence in Nine Elms from the US Embassy. We have a highly skilled and flexble workforce. We have a prime, inner London, location.
But the main reason I came away upbeat was not because of what I know from the statistics, but from talking to businesses afterwards. No-one I spoke to pretended they weren’t having to tighten their belts, but there was a confidence and desire to succeed beyond that. We’ve always prided ourselves on being a business friendly borough – but when you meet the businesses here, it’s hard not to be business friendly.
Ian Fenn’s Tweets are below. The ‘From…’ is a link to the original Tweet on the Twitter website.
From @ifenn
Heading to the Wandsworth Business Forum and my ‘showdown’ with @jamescousins 🙂
From @ifenn
@jamescousins I don’t think you have too much to worry about. 🙂
From @ifenn
I now know I am at the Wandsworth Business Forum but for a moment there I thought I was at some bizarre fan club for deep-fried party food.
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins is speaking. Started tweeting it but Twitter gave me an error. Grr…
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: Wandsworth Council is also trying to speed up it’s processes. They aim to pay suppliers, for example, quicker.
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: a variety of business loans are available from the council through central goverment and London mayoral initiatives…
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins Wandsworth Council is now more relaxed about allowing businesses to advertise on pavements…
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: we have a good location, the lowest level of inner London crime, and five great town centres.
From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: Being positive, we have evidence Wandsworth is doing well in the face of the recession. We are in a good position.
From @ifenn
Had a short but good chat with @jamescousins then walked home, breaking my Fitbug step target for the day. Phew!
…well, actually, it’s already here. It’s just that with all the fuss about MPs’ expenses and Susan Boyle everyone stopped paying it attention. But apparently it’s officially a pandemic now.
One reason why everyone started talking about Susan Boyle is that it transpired that swine ‘flu was actually quite mild. So mild, in fact, that some speculate there have been many many more cases but people didn’t bother going to the doctors.
I’ve blogged about swine ‘flu on several occasions before, particularly as there was concern about a few cases in Wandsworth, see Don’t panic: swine flu and Wandsworth, Still don’t panic: Swine flu in Wandsworth and Swine flu II: Press say “panic”.
Wandsworth is well prepared for any potential outbreak with NHS Wandsworth (who would be the lead agency), the council and other partners having well-prepared plans, although at the moment it seems it may cause fewer problems than ordinary seasonal ‘flu.
The council’s emergency page is currently offering swine ‘flu advice.
The council’s consultation on dog control orders ends tomorrow, so the news that two other councils, Lambeth and Southwark, are seeking to emulate the Wandsworth approach to dog-chipping is timely.
The dog control order consultation was extended following some rather misleading coverage in the press – I know of at least one campaign that was started under the misunderstanding dogs were going to be banned from Battersea Park (in fact they are just banned from children’s play areas and the sports facilities, places they wouldn’t be walked anyway). I have stated before that while I instinctively dislike additional regulation, the actions of a minority of irresponsible dog owners have made it necessary.
A few months ago I wrote about dog fouling on the Shaftesbury Park Estate. The council’s dog control unit patrolled the area – in and out of uniform – but unfortunately achieved little, certainly if judged by the pavements near my house this morning. While they did speak with some dog owners, none were caught doing anything we can take action over because, bizarrely, allowing your dog to foul the gutter or around a tree base is absolutely fine. There is no need to pick up afterwards.
Likewise (and many are surprised to hear this) they have no powers to instruct dog owners to put their dogs on a leash on the public highway. I know many, especially those with young children, feel uneasy when they see dogs of all breeds, on the streets and not under the direct and immediate control of their owner.
The council’s proposals are, I think, a reasonable and proportionate response to the fears and issues around irresponsible dog-ownership. If you agree, I’d encourage you to go to respond to the council’s consultation, you can find out more at the council’s dog control consultation page.
Last Friday I popped down to Tooting for a small event to mark the launch of the Tooting town centre police team. I’ve already written about the team, here and here, so I’m not proposing so comment too much here other than to:
- Thank Wandsworth police and Stewart Low, the Borough Commander, for creating the team, and
- Point you to the picture to illustrate the size and impact they will have when patrolling.
This may just be an excuse to combine my politics, my geekery and love of Apple. Perhaps it is, but the launch of the new iPhone 3GS and the subsequent reaction to O2’s upgrade policy set me thinking about the relationship we have with businesses and councils.
The hype, and anger, surrounding the launch of the new iPhone has been covered elsewhere, so I won’t go into it here, but one comment from O2 caught my eye – that iPhone owners were not ‘special’. And to me, that missed the point, part of owning an iPhone (or any Apple product) is the form as well as the function which means it’s not just about ownership of a product, it’s also about the relationship with that product and brand. It’s why people queued outside O2 stores to buy an iPhone – something they never did for a new Nokia or Blackberry.
So what has this to do with Wandsworth? Well, it started me wondering about the relationship we have with ‘legal personalities’. If it is possible to feel an affinity for an inanimate object like a computer or phone and the company that makes those products, can you have feelings for a council? And if you can, does the council do anything to stimulate (or even stifle) those feelings? Do we foster pride in Wandsworth?
For example, I love living so close to Battersea Park. In fact, I find it very difficult to imagine living anywhere away from it and wonder what I would do for a morning run or afternoon stroll if I did. I also know that the council is responsible for its upkeep (and has done a fantastic job, particularly with the recent renovation), but I wonder how much credit the council would get for the park and how much people think it is “just there”.
To give another example, I also love Lavender Hill, which I think doesn’t get the credit it deserves. There are some fantastic, bars and restaurants along it (and if you’ve not been to Donna Margherita then go, now). Clearly much of that is down to the business owners and their staff. But the council plays a role too. A number of the businesses received Town Centre Improvement Scheme grants, and the council employs a Town Centre Manager to work with businesses to benefit the area. In both cases I’m well aware of the support the council provides because it’s part of my council portfolio, but I suspect most people hadn’t even thought about it.
Naturally, as a politician you would also expect me to highlight the low tax and quality services. And I won’t disappoint. Both of them go towards the Wandsworth brand and are probably what Wandsworth is best known for. It’s quite right for the council to be proud of its reputation for efficiency, but I sometimes wonder if that pride sometimes means people forget about some of the other services that we provide.
We’re not just about emptying bins; we provide schools, libraries, playgrounds and youth centres. We provide advice for businesses, advice on crime prevention and advice on planning. We make sure the borough’s roads are well maintained and the pavements are even and clean. We ensure the elderly and vulnerable are safe and looked after, and scrutinise other agencies to make sure they are doing the same. We licence bars and restaurants, and then make sure their customers and neighbours don’t suffer because of them. We provide housing, and then provide the services our tenants need.
Not an exhaustive list, but together, the council’s services create the environment that make it the sort of place in which people want to live – being in Wandsworth frequently features as a positive attribute in an estate agent’s property description – and all those services are highly regarded by (most) users.
So while the council’s focus on low tax and quality services is absolutely right, especially when the economy is not all it could be, it can give the impression that the council is quite hard edged, when all it means is that efficiency is applied everywhere – you can be efficient in maintaining an award-winning park in exactly the same way you can be efficient tendering a refuse collection contract.
And this then poses this question: should people have pride in individual aspects of Wandsworth, or should they have pride in their council for providing for facilitating them? Should we try for an Apple iPod type of halo effect, for example using our parks to encourage use of our libraries or leisure centres? It seems to me that local authorities (not just Wandsworth) have a huge role to play in creating and maintaining that pride in an area in exactly the same way a business encourages customer loyalty.
And this is where I risk the blog equivalent of tumbleweed rolling while a bell tolls or a lot of criticism of the council. Are you proud to live in Wandsworth, or do you just take pride in individual parts of the borough? And, if so,which and why?
The council is currently undertaking a thorough inspection of the borough’s roads. You may have noticed the condition of some roads has significantly deteriorated. This is largely down to the severe weather we suffered all the way back in February.
You might think this was a long time ago, but in some cases the effects are only just starting to be noticed.
Essentially, the weather weakened the road surface by weakening the bond between the road’s constituent parts. The extent of this damage varied from road to road – some roads were more sheltered so suffered less, others, where the surface was already coming towards the end of its natural life-span were damaged more.
The time is took for this damage to become apparent also varies, roads that only have light traffic may still appear to be in fine condition while those that get heavy traffic broke down much more quickly.
The council is systematically inspecting each road over a period of around three months. Where it is possible repairs are patched (and the council can do this fairly quickly). Where the damage is more severe the entire road has to be resurfaced. In Shaftesbury Ward Thirsk Road is currently being totally resurfaced.
If you know of any potholes you can report them to the council. Repairs can normally be carried out fairly promptly. Faults can be reported online at wandsworth.gov.uk/streets. Faults on Transport for London roads (usually identifed by the red lines on the sides) cannot be repaired by the council, but can be reported via the TfL roadworks and street faults page.