Eurovision, East London Energy, Council Tax Rebate, MSG Sphere, Walking and Cycling Update (Honour Lea Avenue safe crossing), Litter, Park Charge, and Abercrombie Road

First things first, I’m going to be away for a week from tomorrow. I’ve been told my council email is unlikely to work out of the country, so if you have any urgent queries, please reach out to Cllr Danny Keeling at danny.keeling@newham.gov.uk. Similarly if you have any queries with me at the moment that haven’t yet been addressed, and you need those addressing, please reach out to Cllr Keeling.

EUROVISION

Thank you to those of you who talk part in discussions with me about whether you’d like to see Eurovision come to London/Newham. After it was confirmed that the BBC would be hosting Eurovision in the UK, I reached out to the Chair of Council to see if they would grant permission for an Urgent motion calling for Newham Council to support a London bid, and recognising Newham as having the highest Ukrainian-born population which was thankfully granted. Unfortunately, the Chair then pulled permission for this for reasons that aren’t particularly clear. Nonetheless, it’s fantastic to see that our calls to hold Eurovision in Newham has been covered in the press. https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/eurovision-uk-host-sam-ryder-24650582 It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to hear my motion at this Full Council, but we’ll see where we are in September. I think it’s so important we ensure Eurovision is a moment of European solidarity with Ukraine, and that we hold the most Ukrainian Eurovision possible. There are some more details including the full text of my motion on my Twitter thread at https://twitter.com/natehiggins/status/1554537064808562688?s=21&t=9n9vPfXdePQtGEtOTOkEUg

EAST LONDON ENERGY

Thank you to everyone who attended our public meeting with Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz and Hackney Wick Councillors on East London Energy. There was some really helpful information coming out of that and the beginning of some plans that sound really promising. I’ll be sharing the recording as soon as I’m able to – I haven’t yet received it. Thank you to Mayor Fiaz for hosting and for agreeing to do the event together to avoid the need to duplicate work! It looks like there’s promising opportunities for contract renegotiation, and both Mayor Fiaz and myself are working on getting the full details of the contract made public. Thank you to the Chobham Manor Residents Association and particularly Nigel Godfrey for shedding some light on the pricing structure and inefficiencies in the network, which will be helpful on further action.

COUNCIL TAX REBATE

Thank you to everyone who has emailed me about the council tax rebate. I’m glad I’ve been able to help in some cases, but for people still waiting to receive theirs, some of whom who will be waiting to hear back from me on this too, I wanted to provide some more information on what has been going on. I also want to apologise if you are waiting – it’s been a tricky environment to get clear information on, and I started to somewhat distrust what I was being told, and I was worried about passing on information which turned out not to be true. When the first requests started coming RE unpaid council tax rebates, I passed these on to the council, and for most of them was told that manual payments had been made in response to the complaint, and that resident would receive the money within a few days. In a large number of cases, many of these residents still did not receive the money for weeks after (and some still do not have it). I developed a real lack of trust in what I was being told by officers. I had a question to Full Council yesterday (which was postponed from the 18th of July) to try to begin to address some of what has gone on here, and have also escalated this complaint to the Chief Executive of Newham council. Through this, I have learned there has been a number of technical problems, causing delays of weeks or more, and also issues with identity verification. Communication on this has been less than ideal, leaving me and the residents I’ve been trying to help in the dark. I didn’t want to put any more residents through this stressful process where we were being promised that things would happen that then did not. But now that I have gotten to the bottom of this, I’m hoping to be able to help. For many people who pay be direct debit, if you still have not been paid, there’s a strong chance that this has been caused by an issue with identify verification. The UK Government places strict requirements on councils to verify the identity of anyone it is sending money to under this programme. If the council does not do this, then it won’t be reimbursed by the Government for the payments. Councils do this verification on a platform provided by the Government, and all payments must wait for this approval before being sent. This platform does not provide a reason when verification fails. The council’s back up plan when this happens is to credit council tax accounts with the £150 instead, which it has permission from the Government to do. Where this is due to happen, letters about this are now in the process of being sent. This letter will set out the timeline of when this will happen, which I have not been informed of. The council is still working out the technical details here. I know this isn’t ideal. I asked a further question about this at Full Council yesterday, particularly in relation to the timeline, but this wasn’t entirely clear. I’m hoping to be able to follow this. One of the main problems is where there are joint names on the bank account and not on the council tax account, or vice versa. I pressed that communication could have been clearer on this. If you’d like to see the full exchange on council tax rebates at Full Council yesterday, you can do this at https://youtu.be/q7tOYr8rbxU?t=6195 If you are still waiting to hear from me, and you urgently need support due to a lack of payment, please contact Cllr Danny Keeling at danny.keeling@newham.gov.uk or Cllr Charlene McLean (cabinet member for Resident Engagement and Resident Experience) at charlene.mclean@newham.gov.uk as I am unlikely to be able to reply within the next week. There may be something that can be done to get the support you need.

MSG SPHERE

I know many residents will be concerned about the recent approval of the MSG Sphere by the London Legacy Development Corporation. I had a motion before Full Council yesterday which aimed to get the Mayor of London to get involved. Whether you support the development or not, it cannot be okay that every elected member representing the community has expressed opposition except for Sadiq Khan, and for the sphere to go ahead. Sadiq Khan has not yet expressed a position, but he does have the power to get involved. Unfortunately, this motion was derailed after the Chair of Council refused to allow a series of votes on multiple amendments to the motion, instead aiming to combine all the votes. This led to really complex debates over amendments to amendments, which burnt all the time that we had. It will now be heard in September. My view is that the Chair’s actions were unconstitutional, and I’ll be writing to the Council’s Monitoring Officer to officially complain. It’s unclear what the motivation for making this decision was, but many attendees at Full Council also agreed that the decision to combine the votes was not allowed under the rules, and it predictably led to complete chaos wasting everybody’s time. This was completely predictable. I’m quite frustrated that this happened, and will be seeking answers. I know that some residents do support the Sphere. I have to say I think from my conversations with residents, this is a minority view, but your view is valid and respected. The issue is that the process by which it has been decided to approve it is democratically illegitimate in some many ways to so many people, that we have to fight for residents views to be heard. This kind of action undermines public consent for all kinds of development. Nobody moves to the Olympic Park expecting it to stay exactly the same, but being told to install blackout blinds or to put cyclists lives at risk at Angel Lane or to put Stratford station at further risk of fatal overcapacity issues can not be accepted. The full text of the MSG Sphere motion, and the various amendments, is available at https://mgov.newham.gov.uk/documents/s157687/Order%20Paper%20V.2.pdf

WALKING AND CYCLING UPDATE (HONOUR LEA AVENUE SAFE CROSSING)

Last week I met with LLDC’s Walking and Cycling project manager twice in an attempt to push the need for a safe crossing, and fixing of dropped kerbs, on Honour Lea Avenue. I can happily confirm that this project is very high up the list of priority projects for her, and that a decision is due to be made on funding of these projects this autumn. I came away from the meeting very satisfied that she understood just how pressing this work is. I will communicate any more I hear on this. I also understand now that a closure of Olympic Park Avenue is very unlikely due to the use of it for deliveries / transport to the  Velodrome. However, the bridge at Olympic Park Avenue / Westfield Avenue may become one way, and work is being done to consider a change to the junction at Abercrombie Road / Temple Mills Lane. Both of these things will reduce the likelihood of Olympic Park Avenue being used as a rat run. I’m also convinced we will see action on Leyton Road and some surrounding streets to make these safer for cyclists. It’s important that we make safe routes for cyclists – not just to keep them safe – but to keep people safe in our mixed spaces. I know so many people are concerned about the risk to people from Uber/Deliveroo riders (who, to be clear, are being put under increasingly unreasonable delivery time expectations), and if there is safe and satisfactory cycle infrastructure, I believe this will help keep our children and elderly residents safe. I should have more to say on this in September/October.

LITTER

Another one of my questions at Full Council yesterday was about litter, and I was able to speak to the relevant cabinet member after council too. You can see this exchange at https://youtu.be/q7tOYr8rbxU?t=6083 It’s clear that more needs doing to protect our community from the litter we see during and after the large scale events held in our community. I’m hoping to arrange a conversation between relevant partners from LLDC/TfL/Newham council to see more done on this.

PARK CHARGE

There isn’t much to say about this just yet, except that we’ve been informed that the relevant Deputy Mayor at the Greater London Authority has started an investigation into the Park Charge with a decision on action due by the end of September. Unfortunately, submissions from residents aren’t due to be part of this investigation (I asked!) but there are a wide range of stakeholders involved including:

• Barge East
• Bobby Moore Academy
• Chobham Manor LLP
• Chobham Manor Residents Association
• EastBank Partners, including UCL
• East Wick/Sweetwater LLP
• East Wick/Sweetwater residents
• Get Living London
• Greenwich Leisure Limited
• Here East
• International Quarter London
• Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
• London Borough of Newham
• London Borough of Hackney
• London Borough of Tower Hamlets
• London Legacy Development Corporation
• Mossbourne Riverside Academy
• Westfield

I’m convinced this will help the GLA see how unreasonable the Park Charge can be for some residents and how, combined with ELE / the cladding crisis, this is adding up to just a mountain of costs for people. The terms of reference for the review are to:

• Undertake a fact-finding review of the Fixed Estate Charge at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
• Review similar models and how they operate
• Take evidence from stakeholders on their view of the charge and funding the Park
• Consider alternative funding approaches
• Analyse the long-term financial sustainability of the Park
• Make costed recommendations to the Mayor on the future of the charge.

I will let you know more when I hear more.

ABERCROMBIE ROAD

I am well aware of Abercrombie Road being used to race cars, making a huge amount of noise, creating severe danger for residents, and adding to anti-social behaviour. I discovered this was not on the council’s list for the proposed Public Space Protection Order consultation, and I have asked them to look again at whether it qualifies.

All of that being said, I hope everyone has a fantastic summer and I hope to see some of you about over the next few weeks!