The East End Enquirer and Tower Hamlets council’s lack of transparency: a...
In the autumn of 2019, the website Love Wapping begat East End Enquirer, and from that point on, this new site for ‘investigative community journalism’ has broken many excellent stories, most of great...
View ArticleLBWF and COVID-19 (2)
In the latest edition of the ‘independent community newspaper’, the Waltham Forest Echo, LBWF Leader, Cllr. Clare Coghill, is particularly exercised by what she sees as government perfidy. Ministers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cllrs Anna Mbachu and Victoria te Velde: Register of Interests controversy...
Given the frequency over the years with which they have been discussed by this blog, it might be thought that councillors’ register of interests (RoI) forms now must be a non-issue – all present,...
View ArticleLBWF ‘communication’ with local residents: the yawning gap between rhetoric...
As this blog has previously reported, though LBWF stridently declares that it wants to ‘communicate’ with residents, even help them become ‘active citizens’, able to drive policy, what transpires on...
View ArticleLBWF and its Freedom of Information Act failings: now the Information...
Past posts have covered LBWF’s increasingly unsatisfactory record in handling Freedom of Information (FOI) inquiries – its delays, illegitimate evasions, ignorance of the legal framework, and so on....
View ArticleClik here to view.
LBWF and COVID-19 (3)
With the passage of time, there is growing clarity about how LBWF has been affected by COVID-19, and to what extent the impact is being mitigated by special support received from the government. The...
View ArticleFire Safety at LBWF’s Northwood Tower in Walthamstow: a further chapter in a...
From August 2017 onwards, the Waltham Forest Echo journalist Michelle Edwards has repeatedly warned about the perilous state of fire safety measures at Walthamstow’s 21 floor Northwood Tower. Shocked...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LBWF and fire safety at Northwood Tower: yet more jiggery-pokery?
The antics of LBWF never cease to amaze and (for those who appreciate dark humour) amuse. A fresh example has just emerged. In the last few years, fire safety at the 21 floor, 99 flat, Northwood Tower...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Labour Left in Waltham Forest: neither use nor ornament
As anyone close to the action readily will tell you (if only off the record), Labour in Waltham Forest is split down the middle. Labour Party One consists of Walthamstow MP, Dr. Stella Creasy, the...
View ArticleLondon Borough of Waltham Forest: the local authority that can’t even...
The saga of LBWF’s failure to complete its 2018-19 accounts – originally due, as for all other local authorities, on the last day of July 2019 – continues, and indeed seems to have no very clear end in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cllr. Clyde Loakes makes Private Eye
From Private Eye No.1532, 9-22 October 2020. Cllr. Loakes, of course, is no stranger to these kind of controversies, see, for example, the story retold in the links. It is also arresting that someone...
View ArticleLBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team investigates Town Hall procurement...
In late 2019, LBWF’s Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Team (hereafter IAAFT) completed a report on Town Hall procurement, and surprisingly, given the fact that each year this involves many millions of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LBWF councillors right to withhold ‘sensitive’ information about themselves...
Though relatively rarely discussed, a clause in the current local government legislation allows councillors to withhold information on their register of interests forms so long as the monitoring...
View ArticleLearning the lessons of Grenfell…or maybe not: LBWF’s 2017-18 flat entrance...
From November 2017 to April 2018, LBWF, via its repair and maintenance agent Osborne, employed a company called Exterior Plas Ltd. to upgrade 217 flat entrance doors (FEDs) at what it called five ‘key...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LBWF’s in-house ‘Eastern Legal Partnership’ initiative: another Waltham...
Back in 2018, LBWF launched Eastern Legal Partnership (ELP), which its supremo, Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes, introduced thus: ‘Eastern Legal Partnership (ELP) is a team of lawyers that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John Cryer MP speaks out on anti-semitism – and this time it’s personal
A few days ago, Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer released the statement reproduced below to his local constituency party. As reported by this blog (see links), he has spoken out about Labour...
View ArticleStatement submitted to tonight’s full Council meeting on the fire safety...
I have submitted the following statement to tonight’s full Council meeting: 1. In 2017-18, the Council replaced 217 flat entrance doors (FEDs) at Northwood Tower and four sheltered housing blocks. 2....
View ArticleClik here to view.
LBWF and its fire safety contractor S3 Environmental Ltd.: council officers...
Previous posts have expressed unease about the fact that in 2019, and via its housing repairs and maintenance agent Morgan Sindall Group PLC, LBWF appointed S3 Environmental Ltd. to conduct Fire Risk...
View ArticleSolidarity with the Sandwell Skidder!
From today’s Daily Mail: ‘”Labour council with £2.8m hole in its finances ‘found £300,000 to silence blogger” Published: 02:15, 21 December 2020 | A penniless Labour council with a £2.8million hole in...
View ArticleFire safety scandal (1): recently disclosed e-mail reveals industry expert’s...
For ordinary Waltham Forest residents, how LBWF tenders and completes fire safety contracts is typically opaque, because so much is shielded from scrutiny by commercial confidentiality clauses and...
View Article