As I said last week I was stopping doing my weekly report because it didn’t quite work, and, instead, replacing it with a weekly round-up.  Already, I’ve broken the promise (a politician, a broken promise, never!) by changing the name.  I obviously don’t know if this will work any better – only time will tell.

Dealing with a backlog
For anyone going on holiday having work build up while you are away is just one of those things you have to live with.  For most people you can delegate or ask someone to cover for you while you are away.  For a councillor, that just isn’t possible.  We don’t have admin support and don’t work in an office where people can keep an eye on your desk.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to chip away at the back-log of emails and mail that built up – while all the time new stuff is arriving.  Of course, much of this falls into the spam category (for example, as a councillor there are an amazing number of companies who think the council would like to pay several hundred pounds for me to attend their latest conference) but I don’t know that until I’ve opened the envelope or double clicked the email and read it.

As someone who likes to keep his inbox empty it is frustrating.  And if you are waiting for a reply from me and haven’t had one yet.  I apologise, I promise it will be coming as soon as possible.

Tooting
One of the real highlights of the week has been Tooting.  We had a bit of a review of how the work under the Tooting Together programme has been going – and I hope most will agree that it’s made a real difference and has been a great example of how all the council’s departments can work together to astonishing results.

One of the real successes has been the time-banded waste collection, which has meant Tooting’s streets are much much cleaner.  It has also meant that we have identified a lot of businesses that were illegally dumping their waste.  It was a common cry from Labour that Wandsworth wasn’t cleaning the streets enough.  In fact Tooting was (jointly with Clapham Junction) the most cleaned area in Wandsworth, some parts were cleaned every couple of hours.  But Labour’s political convenience ignored the fact that it wasn’t the council littering the streets in the first place.

The subsequent crack-down has made a huge difference – even though there are still a few businesses resisting, feeling they have the right to dump their rubbish on our streets.

Hopefully the successes from Tooting can be copied in our other Town Centres in coming months.

Shaftesbury Ward News
We’ve also started putting together the July/August edition of the new ward newsletter.  Summer is always a quiet time, with people going on holiday and the formal business of the council taking a mini-recess (though that doesn’t seem to make any difference to how often I am there).  The newsletter should be out in a week or two, but if there’s anything you’d like to see in there, or even any local events you’d like to advertise, let me know.

Jealousy might be an ugly emotion. But it also can motivate.

When I saw there was a Putney tweet-up organised, I can’t deny that I was jealous (and also a little annoyed that it was on my wedding anniversary). Surely anything SW15 can do SW11 can do better?

So that’s what I’m hoping to do, organise an SW11 tweet-up.

I flagged up the idea on Twitter last night and got a positive response, including from people who don’t follow me, which is a great sign. It was also clear that there was enthusiasm for the idea from further afield – with people from Balham, Tooting and Wandsworth wanting to come.

So here’s the outline.

It’s an SW11plus tweet-up
I started with the idea of SW11 and am sticking with it, mainly because I don’t want to get over-ambitious. But having said that, anyone from Balham, Tooting, Wandsworth – or anywhere else for that matter – is welcome and encouraged to come: we love SW11 and want to share.

It’s simple
Again, I don’t want to be over-ambitious. I was thinking pub, drinks, chat. Any extras might come when we have an idea of numbers and venue, but the key is going to be getting people in the same place and drinking talking rather than tweeting.

It’s your event
I’m a novice at this – and while I know I’m happy with a decent boozer I’m aware that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. So I’d like ideas, tips and suggestions.

And that’s it.

The next steps are to choose a date and venue. The very point where a bright idea starts getting messy, because there’s no way we’ll be able to come up with a date that’s good for everyone – so

I’m going to throw Wednesday 5 August out there as a date. Can you make it? Any good for you? Let me know, either comment or tweet @jamescousins.

It will be a short on this week, for a few reasons.  First, a lot of my time has been spent on those routine meetings that take up a lot of time.  Second, I have managed to injure my back, which severely restricted my movement, especially at the beginning of the week. Please direct all sympathy via the comments (and even as I type that I know I’ll get none)!

Having said that there are a few parts of the week that really stand out.

Lessingham Avenue
Unfortunately this stuck out for all the wrong reasons and last night’s news that Maleha Masud has passed away  highlights the seriousness of the incident.  The police are leading on the investigation, but all the local partners are working hard not just to bring the perpetrators to justice, but also to provide reassurance to the local community although obviously, first and foremost, our thoughts and sympathies are with the Masud family.

Community Advice Day
I also popped along to the Community Advice Day the council hosted, mainly to thank those officers within my portfolio manning the stands, but I also took the time to have a look around. It was impressive to see so many stands, not only from the council, but also from our partners offering advice. They were certainly kept busy and there was a steady stream of visitors while I was there.

Regeneration and Community Safety Overview and Scrutiny Committee
This was another big part of the week. I wrote a couple of blog posts about two of the issues that came up: Tooting crime and Wandsworth’s casino policy. Given that this gives me a chance to say a little more it was a fascinating meeting, and councillors on the committee did a fantastic job of scrutinising the items on the agenda – Wandsworth has some very talented and able councillors, at all levels and (much as I would like to pretend otherwise) on both sides of the political divide.

There’s plenty I missed. I’m really sorry I couldn’t get along to the unveiling of our first green plaque, for Clement Attlee, in Portinscale Road this morning. And will, unfortunately, be missing tomorrow’s commemoration of Armed Forces Day in Battersea Park tomorrow – have a great time if you go along.

Another good discussion from last night’s committee was on crime in Tooting (which, for the police, includes Balham, Earlsfield and Furzedown). It was the first time the committee has had a geographically based crime paper, in the past it has concentrated on crime by type.

Let me start by setting the context that Wandsworth is the safest place in inner London, and is significantly safer than many outer London boroughs. Crime in Wandsworth is low and has been falling (although there is some evidence that fall may have bottomed out, and the recession is having an affect on patterns and volumes of crime).

Rather than try and precis the report, I’d suggest if you live in Tooting or are even interested in crime you take the time to have a read of Paper 09-472 Crime in Tooting. Yes, it’s a council report, and yes, that means it’s quite dry. But it is full interesting information.

For example, I think there has always been a perceived wisdom that Tooting suffers higher crime than the rest of the borough, when in fact the rate of crime is consistently lower than Wandsworth’s already low rate.

There are also a few maps illustrating how the occurrence of different crime types is spread (or not spread, in some cases) across Tooting. Unfortunately, Ordnance Survey’s restrictive copyright means I can’t reproduce them here.

And, importantly, it highlights some of the work the council, police and other partners are doing to reduce crime. Like I said, it’s well worth a read and I’d be interested in your reaction, thoughts and comments.

Tooting Mela 2009I popped down to the annual Tooting Mela yesterday.  I really should have advertised the event last Friday.  The afternoon, organised by London Fire Brigade was a fantastic session of entertainment, demonstrations and free food.

The London Fire Brigade have been done a fantastic job in recent years of getting out of their fire stations and promoting fire safety and prevention – with the aim of reducing the number of times they are leaving their stations to put out fires. As the tragic fire in Lessingham Avenue the previous night showed the Fire Brigade are an essential emergency service, but we should all do our bit to make sure they are used as little as possible.

One great service they provide is a free fire safety check and smoke alarm.  If you want one you can book one via the London Fire Brigade website.  Smoke alarms will give enough warning for a householder to escape without serious injury, and when you can get one installed for free there really is no reason not to have one.

They also demonstrated the potential dangers of tackling fire yourself – the video below shows them demonstrating the effect of using water on a deep fat fryer.

Unfortunately the video stops before the fire blanket they used failed to put the fire out! Instead the fat from the pan overwhelmed the blanket and continued burning. Not how they wanted the demonstration to go, perhaps, but a good lesson that it’s best to let professionals deal with this sort of thing.

You might notice a remarkable similarity with Lesson 1 – Taking credit and with good reason.  It’s basically the same lesson.

Rectory Lane residentsThis lesson comes from the Liberal Democrats via the Wandsworth Guardian.  I won’t deny I’m a little mischievous posting this.

And that almost makes me a Liberal Democrat.

Many years ago they published their handbook ‘Effective Opposition’ which advised, amongst other things, that candidates should “be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly”.  It’s one of those things that came back to haunt them, even a few months ago it was still being quoted in the national Guardian blog (and I should point out that there are comments disowning the publication after the article). I’m being wicked and stirring by highlighting this particular shameless political trick.

The story is simple:

Residents are concerned about the noise and damage caused by lorries using roads they shouldn’t be on. They organise a petition. The council responds by increasing enforcement against the lorries and repairing damage caused.

The Liberal Democrats, acting shamelessly, put out a leaflet taking credit for it all.

And there we have our lesson, if you’re a Liberal Democrat don’t worry too much about the facts – just take credit.

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.

Tooting police team

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:

  1. Thank Wandsworth police and Stewart Low, the Borough Commander, for creating the team, and
  2. Point you to the picture to illustrate the size and impact they will have when patrolling. 

After Tuesday night’s BATCA Open Forum I was pointed in the direction of Sadiq Khan’s website, and, specifically, his coverage of the news that Tooting town centre is to get its own police team.

Sadiq Khan welcomes Tooting police teamObviously I’m glad that he also welcomes the team. But I was drawn to the comment that “Labour Councillors and Sadiq have lobbied Wandsworth Council to introduce” the new team.

I have to take issue with this for two reasons:

  1. I’m not aware of Sadiq ever asking Wandsworth Council to introduce a police team in Tooting.  As the Cabinet Member responsible for community safety I would expect council officers to have told me if he had. However, even if he had I wouldn’t be that disappointed if officers hadn’t let me know because of my second point…
  2. Wandsworth Council (like every other council in the country) does not control, manage or in any other way direct the police.  We may work in partnership with them, but we do not have any operational control.

Now Sadiq is a minister in the Department for Local Government.  He was also a Wandworth Councillor for many years before becoming an MP.  I suppose it’s entirely possible you could do both those roles without  knowing what’s going on (Gordon Brown was Chancellor for ten years, after all), but it is stretching credibility a bit far.

The more realistic explanation is that he knows the council is not responsible for the police, but took the gamble many people don’t know.  And to his credit it’s actually a pretty good gamble, I’ve spoken to many residents who assume the police are just a part of the council.  And it makes good political sense for a Labour MP in a marginal seat.  You take credit for good news, and get to imply the Conservative council are the bad guys.

So, lesson one: if it’s good, take credit for it.  If possible, do this while suggesting your opponents were to blame for whatever wasn’t so good before.

I won’t pretend that I or my party are whiter than white.  Only this morning I was accused of doing much the same thing, and re-reading my announcement of the news feel I should add to it.

I will still give some credit to this to the Mayor, neighbourhood resources are allocated centrally and very little flexibility is allowed.  When we’d previously tried to address this, by seeing if resources could be moved to priority areas it was refused out of hand: Boris deserves credit for allowing a more pragmatic approach.

And I will still point out that we have repeatedly asked for town centre teams for Tooting and Clapham Junction.  What’s more, we were asking the right people.

However, I didn’t give credit to the police borough commander, Chief Superintendent Stewart Low, who actually made it possible by re-organising his teams to free up the sergeant, constables and community support officers necessary to create the team.  If there is a single individual who deserves credit it is him, and I’m happy to apologise for not pointing that out when I first had the opportunity.