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Ex-Guardian journalist Dave Hill skewers Cllr. Clyde Loakes over Waltham...
In the New Statesman last week, Cllr. Clyde Loakes claims that Mini-Holland and LTNs are ‘proven to make ourselves, our neighbourhoods and our planet healthier’. As might be predicted, while Cllr...
View ArticleDeparting LBWF CEO Martin Esom: 13 years in the job, £2.6m. salary in the...
In December 2022, LBWF announced that its CEO, Martin Esom, would be leaving the Town Hall at the end of 2023, but subsequently, and without explanation, his departure date was brought forward to the...
View ArticleLBWF and information requests: a new case shows that despite past official...
As this blog has documented, LBWF’s past history of handling information requests is chequered, with some residents finding their inquiries thwarted by delays, illegitimate evasions, and ignorance of...
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Chingford speed humps: the prior consultation was manipulated, and what LBWF...
Here’s a further update from our Chingford correspondent, this time with some incendiary revelations (see links for back story). ‘Recent research casts further doubt on how LBWF has acted in...
View ArticleThe Mall tower blocks: Stella Creasy raises safety fears with Secretary of...
In the last few weeks, Walthamstow residents have been amused – possibly bemused – by the sudden appearance of a new tower block’s soaring central core right in the middle of the Mall redevelopment...
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LBWF spends enormous amounts each year on non-disclosure agreements, but is...
In recent years, and particularly following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, there has been growing unease about the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). It is widely accepted that NDAs can be...
View ArticleParliament’s Public Accounts Committee scrutinises ‘active travel schemes’...
A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published on 3 November 2023 is highly critical of the kind of active travel schemes (ATSs) that have been so enthusiastically implemented by LBWF. The...
View ArticleCllr. Williams’ statement about Remembrance Sunday: embarrassing and crass
In her weekly e-mail to residents sent out yesterday, the 9 November, LBWF Leader Cllr. Grace Williams tells us, next to a graphic of two red poppies, that ‘This weekend I, like many of you, will be...
View ArticleLBWF, the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act: the...
In the past few years, this blog has repeatedly revealed that LBWF obstructs local residents using the Freedom of Information Act (FIA) and the Data Protection Act when they are judged to be broaching...
View ArticleThe Sunday Telegraph reports the ‘misery’ that speed humps are causing in...
Yesterday, the Sunday Telegraph published a long story about the Chingford speed hump saga, which is archived here:...
View ArticleLBWF embarks on staff redundancies but quietly admits that it’s allowed...
LBWF never ceases to amaze. Take its current voluntary redundancy programme. Of course, the timing, just before Christmas, is deplorable, and says everything about how little the Town Hall leadership...
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EXCLUSIVE From 2015 to 2022 the number of senior staff in the Town Hall grew...
What follows looks in greater detail at an earlier post’s revelation (see links) that in the past few years, despite repeatedly complaining about government imposed cuts, LBWF in fact has spent...
View ArticleLBWF Chief Executive Linzi Roberts-Egan orders a review of how the council...
In a recent e-mail, LBWF Chief Executive Linzi Roberts-Egan tells me: ‘We are currently reviewing our FOI [Freedom of Information Act] and SAR [Subject Access Request] processes to ensure they are as...
View ArticleThe Housing Ombudsman makes three findings of severe maladministration in...
Taken direct from the Housing Ombudsman’s webpages, here https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/2024/02/01/waltham-forest-council-failings-in-three-different-cases/ ‘The Housing Ombudsman has made 3...
View ArticleSpeed humps in Waltham Forest: new evidence shows that activists’ call for a...
It is pleasing to report that the campaign for a review of speed humps in Waltham Forest is progressing well, led by determined activists in partnership with the Chingford Residents Association,...
View ArticleWalthamstow community activist Charlie Edwards’ court case shows that, though...
Some months ago, Walthamstow community activist Charlie Edwards lodged a claim for damages against LBWF because of the way it had handled a request for the personal information which it held about...
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Private Eye reports LBWF’s mushrooming number of expensive senior managers,...
From Private Eye, No. 1617, 16 Feb to 29 Feb. 2024
View ArticleLBWF is making 150 employees redundant, and imposing 105 separate spending...
Some of the choices that LBWF makes about the expenditure of public money are perplexing, to say the least. Consider first some recent history. Over the years, and when speaking publicly, leading...
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LBWF’s new core strategy, ‘Mission Waltham Forest: our plan for a more equal...
At its February meeting, the Council approved ‘Mission Waltham Forest: our plan for a more equal borough’ (hereafter MWF), comprising a new ‘strategic ambition’ and ‘core purpose’, which is to make...
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‘Affordable housing’ in Waltham Forest: Labour councillors talk up their...
(cartoon courtesy of WOOX) It’s been widely reported that some Labour councillors are bragging about a supposed breakthrough in the local provision of ‘affordable housing’. Politicians habitually will...
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