Residents tackle Gang Violence
The local Guardian reports on Leyton residents’ efforts to stand up to gang violence
Add comment February 22nd, 2007
Archive for February, 2007
The HEET Project goes online
The HEET Project, a brilliant local not-for-profit organisation, which helps households and businesses to save money on fuel bills, stay warm and healthy at home, avoid becoming a victim of burglary or fire, and to save energy and cut carbon emissions has got a sparkly new website.
The HEET Project hopes its new website will help it reach more people and alert more Waltham Forest residents to the excellent services it provides.
I think Leyton ward residents will find the site a useful resource.
Health and social care professionals, as well as crime prevention workers, will now also be able refer clients to receive HEET’s free services via the website.
All they have to do is go the HEET Project’s website and download an online referral form.
I think the HEET Project is a brilliant. I hope many more local people will now begin using its services.
Go to www.theheetproject.org.uk or call Tom Ruxton, HEET’s Project Co-ordinator on 020 8520 1900 to find out more!
Add comment February 18th, 2007
Leyton Kids’ Free Travel Safe – For Now!
Some of you may of already read over at Omar’s blog that the London Assembly Tories’ disgraceful attempt to thwart the Mayor of London’s budget was unsucessful on Wednesday.
Mayor Ken Livingstone, (pictured above centre) was joined by Jennette Arnold, Waltham Forest’s London Assembly Member (pictured directly to Ken’s left), members of the South Eastern TUC, students and young people from all over the capital, to protest at the London Assembly Tories’ threat to the Mayor’s free travel for Under-18s scheme.
A little while later, I joined the protest with London Labour Assembly Members Joanne McCartney (pictured second from left) who represents Enfield and Haringey, Val Shawcross (pictured third from left) who represents Lambeth and Southwark, and London’s Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron (pictured centre) who leads on London’s Children and Young People’s policy for the Mayor. NUS activist Richard Angell (pictured far left) and Southwark Local Councillor Andrew Pakes (pictured directly to my left) also came along to show their support.
Commenting on the Assembly debate, which finally agreed the Mayor’s draft budget, Mayor Ken Livingstone said:
“The large number of Assembly members who voted to abolish the free bus travel concession benefiting thousands of families with children should be the cause of real concern across London.
They have not given up on these cuts.
The budget debate has seen free bus travel for under-18s safeguarded for now but there are some members of the London Assembly who seem to want to abolish anything that is free.
Free school milk, free entry to museums, the Freedom Pass, and now free bus travel for under-18s – anything that is free gets threatened.
‘The nasty wing of politics is alive and active on the London Assembly and we should not take today’s safeguarding of free bus travel for children as the end of the attacks on this scheme”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Well done to NUS and the Trades Unions, particularly the TGWU, for organising such a fab protest and for sticking up for London’s low income families.
4 comments February 18th, 2007
Save Leyton Kids’ Free Travel! Fight the Tory Cuts!
Juat another reminder that on Wednesday 14th February between 9am and 10am, the South Eastern Regional Trades Union Congress (SERTUC), will be holding a lobby outside the London Assembly’s annual budget setting meeting at London’s City Hall, 2 the Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA.
SERTUC has called for this action, in order to defend the Mayor of London’s funding for free bus travel for London’s under-18s, which is under serious attack from the London Assembly Tories.
At a pre-budget meeting on 30th January, the London Assembly Conservatives moved to abolish free bus and tram travel for all under-18s in full time education!
The Tories’ proposal is an absolutely disgraceful proposal, which would seriously disadvantage the many low income families living in Leyton ward.
Those of you who have been visiting this site for a while, will remember how last April I was able to take a group of mums and kids from the Beaumont Estate (the fifth most deprived estate in Britain) to Parliament, for a day out, during the Easter holidays.
Those families simply would not have been able to move around the great city of London – to enjoy the sights and landmarks that more affluent familites take for granted – without free bus and tube travel for their little ones.
The Mayor of London’s free kids’ travel scheme currently saves low income families living in London over £350 a year.
This may not seem a lot to the likes of the London Assembly Tories but in Leyton ward, where we have the highest unemployment rate in Waltham Forest, the highest number of school children receiving free school meals and the highest rate of infant mortality in the borough – linked to poverty, a saving of £350 is a lifeline.
Please show your support for SERTUC’s lobby by visiting the SERTUC website here.
You can also contact Assistant SERTUC Regional Secretary, Matt Dykes, on telephone number: 020 7467 1386 or email mdykes@tuc.org.uk to find out more about how you can help SERTUC’s campaign.
I also look forward to seeing any of you that can make it, at the London City Hall lobby on the February the 14th.
Save Leyton Kids’ Free Travel! Fight the Tory Cuts!
1 comment February 11th, 2007
