The Council has announced that normal collection services will operate until Christmas Eve
Christmas Day and Boxing Day – no collections
After Boxing Day – collections will be two days later than normal
New Year’s Day – no collections
From Monday 7 January – normal service resumes
Christmas Tree Recycling
Real Christmas Trees should be left out for collection on your normal brown bin day
Waltham Forest Lib Dem Leader Councillor Bob Sullivan has been appointed to a new panel set up to examine the questions surrounding the council’s £9 million Worknet programme.
Councillor Sullivan requested the enquiry in September and the panel has now been established by the council’s Overview and Scrutiny management committee. The panel will investigate claims that millions of pounds went unspent or were put away in the council’s balances.
Also on the panel will be Conservative Cllr John Moss and Labour Cllr Saima Mahmood.
Councillor Sullivan said:
“I’m pleased to have the opportunity to raise the difficult questions needed about the council’s Worknet programme.
“All of this £9 million should have been used to put our residents back to work but so far we don’t know how much of this money actually made it into these back to work schemes or if any of them were successful.
“The council, the contractors and cabinet members all have tough questions to answer. We need to know if these contracts were successfully delivered, if they weren’t delivered then what went wrong, and why residents didn’t know about it sooner?”
LIB DEMS CALL FOR COUNCIL RETHINK OVER PARKING IN THE BOROUGH
With problems over the CPZ consultation and plans by Waltham Forest Council to sell off the Stanley Road Car Park in Bakers Arms shopping area, parking is fast becoming a big issue in the Borough.
Lib Dems are opposing plans by the council to sell off the car park at Bakers Arms. And have gone further by asking the council to extend free parking times over the Christmas period to help local businesses.
Cllr Mahmood Hussain, Lib Dem Environment spokesperson said:
“With Christmas coming up, now would be the perfect time to help local businesses by extending the 15 minutes free parking time up to 30 minutes for the remaining few weeks. This would help our local shops compete with supermarkets and the big shopping centres nearby.
“And selling off the Bakers’ Arms car park is clearly the wrong decision. The car park is badly signposted at the moment but if we could bring it back into proper use it could be a great asset for local businesses.
“Cabinet members need to rethink parking in the Borough and focus on how it can help local businesses.”
Chair of the Bakers’ Arms Business Forum, Suleman Ahmed said:
“We should be taking advantage of the resource that we have in this car park at Bakers’ Arms. If the car park was better managed and better signposted by the council then it would not need to be sold off.
“Extending free parking would also be a great boost to local businesses in the run up to the Christmas period.”
Following on from the news that Walthamstow Police Station was to be sold off, the Police have now announced that Leyton Police Station in Francis Road will be shut down from next Monday 10th December.
The front counter services are being transferred to the Custody Centre, in Boreham Close, off Hainault Road.
The front counter will be manned from 7am until 3am daily. The same hours as currently offered at Francis Road.
Boreham Close is a cul-de-sac situated opposite Norlington Road.
The recent failures of Worknet highlighted by Nick Tiratsoo still leave questions to be answered.
We know that £2 million was allocated for the contractor Widows and Orphans but we still don’t know what the targets and outputs were in each case or how much money the council actually paid the contractor in total.
Councillor Sullivan has now asked the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny committee for a review into the failure of the programme and will be pressing the council for further answers over the coming weeks.
“In normal times this failure would be damning for Labour councillors but in these difficult economic times it is unforgivable.”
“It is unforgivable that they have let down our Borough’s unemployed, it is unforgivable that they have allowed this failure to go on unreported for nearly three years and it is unforgivable that most of this money will now not be spent on employment programmes for our Borough at all.
“The failure of this contract could even have implications across the council. We know we’ve had problems with our schools contractor and our waste contractor and taken together it starts to paint a worrying picture for council contracts as a whole.
“We clearly need a full enquiry to get to the bottom of how this happened before the council goes down this road yet again.”
When the Council and the ODA decided to implement the temporary Olympic Controlled Parking Zone, it was clearly stated that it would be withdrawn on the 9th September following the closure of the Paralympic Games.
The Council also stated that they would be undertaking a consultation with the residents to find out if, in the light of their experience during the Games, they wished to make the Controlled Parking Zone permanent.
The Lib Dems have now discovered that the Council has already published a Traffic Order allowing them to extend the temporary provision for 18 months. It also states that the Council will be considering ‘in due course’ whether the provisions of the experimental orders should be continued in force indefinitely by means of permanent Orders.
Liberal Democrats feel very strongly that there is no need for permanent parking restrictions in most of the roads in areas GO1 – GO10, as they do not have a history of parking problems.
All residents are urged to send in written objections to both the temporary 18 month extension and the permanent CPZ to the Council at:
Closing date for objections: 8th February 2013
Councillor Liz Phillips has raised concerns about Waltham Forest council’s contractor Babcock after it was revealed that almost 15% of the Borough’s schools are now in special measures following their two years as the council’s contractor.
In a written answer to Cllr Phillips, the Labour Cabinet member, Cllr Clare Coghill described the council’s risk analysis programme for schools as ‘a work in progress’ and said that the council’s priority had been ‘savings of £2m from the contract at an early opportunity’.
Councillor Liz Phillips, Waltham Forest Lib Dem spokesperson for Children and Member of the Council’s Corporate Parenting Board, said:
“Almost 15% of our schools are now in special measures and yet the council won’t be seeking any compensation from the contractor who presided over this mess.”
“Surely there should be something in our contract with this company that means at the very least they must pay for failing local kids and their parents?”
“In Waltham Forest we are now on our 4th Labour cabinet member for Children’s Services in just over two years. Perhaps if someone with a bit of experience would take responsibility for more than a few months then we wouldn’t be in this situation?”
The Council is negotiating turning Ive Farm Playing Field, which they have left derelict, into a campsite for the Olympics.
Is the Council keeping local residents in the dark about this, hoping that they can sneak it through without proper consultation?
Oliver Close, Villiers Close and Ive Farm Close residents whose homes back onto the site will certainly have objections particularly if, like the site in Walthamstow, it has live entertainment and bars serving alcohol.
The Liberal Democrat Group Leader and Leyton Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan says:
“There must be proper consultation with local residents, If the Council forces this through all proceeds should go towards bringing the playing field back into use.”
The report into Parking Provision across the Borough indicated that the Church Lane Car Park(in the shopping centre – next to Leytonstone Tube Station) was underused, and recommended that measures be taken to improve occupancy. It seemed strange, at the time, that this report should also include the provision of a multi-use games area (MUGA). Surely not a practical way of improving use by drivers!
FOCUS Team campaigner Mahmood Faiz believes that ideally a town centre car park should not necessarily be full every day, as it is a facility to encourage motorists to patronise the smaller local shops that do not have off-street parking of their own.
The photograph was taken on a normal weekday morning, and shows just two disabled bays vacant – hardly underused!