Here are some of the photos I took of the Meet the Candiates session at the Mapesbury AGM last month.
The North West Two Residents Association held its AGM on the 22nd April at the Windmill Pub on Cricklewood Broadway.
The NW2 Committee
NW2 began in September 2007 as a group local residents who wanted to improve the sense of community in the Cricklewood area. As Carol Granger, Committee Chair, writes “The Association was founded first to try to improve the sense of community in the area and provide opportunities for people in the neighbourhood to get together, and to get to know each other and maybe help each other out; but also to improve the appearance of the area (litter, graffiti, etc); to try to improve relationships with Brent and the officers who look after services for the area; try to make sure Cricklewood didn’t stay the Cinderella of Brent / Barnet / Camden. I think we only have to look around to see evidence that it is all working.”
NW2 thanked local Lib Dem Councillors Hayley Matthews, Chris Leaman and Sami Hashmi for their support and commitment to the group. The councillors have attended neighbourhood walkabouts and acted on local issues raised by residents and helped secure WardWorking funded for NW2 projects.
The full reports from the AGM are online.
Election hustings and MapRA AGM at St. Gabriel’s Church, Walm Lane, tonight.
Click on for a map.
The Mapesbury Residents Association are holding the groups’ Annual General Meeting on the 19th April. After the formal meeting there will be an Election Hustings. All the political parties have been invited and it will give you the opportunity to meet the candidates for election – councillors as well as MPs.
The MapRA AGM is a lively and informative event. With the usual high-quality nibbles, there are also stalls and information stands from the police, Brent Council and other local groups and organisations.
I look forward to seeing you there.
From your local Labour Action Team.
The theme of this newsletter is rubbish. Brent Labour argue that the charge made by the council for bulky refuse collection has lead to an increase in fly-tipping in Brent and pledge to ‘dump’ the £25 charge if elected. If that isn’t inducement enough for you, they claim that cuts, CUTS!, will reduce the frequency of rubbish collection.
The main flytipping problem in Brent is caused by unscrupulous builder, dumping domestic building waste. This wasn’t collected by Brent for free and was always the householders/contractors responsibility. Dumping the charge for collection won’t have any impact on this. Locally, co-ordinated swoops by MET police and Brent Council officers has been effective in stopping and seizing vehicles carrying waste without licenses. The local hot spots in Mapesbury that I know of haven’t been hit in months.
Vote to drop the charge. But know that the cost to the council of providing household item collection will still be passed on to us rate payers.
“A letter of complaint against Sarah Teather was sent to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, supposedly from a man at an address in Brent. Then a second letter of complaint was sent, again from this man, but giving a new address. However, this new address does not exist. There is a real address with the same house number and postcode (but different rest of address), at which there is one person on the electoral register – a woman who has the name of someone listed on Labour MP Dawn Butler’s register of interests as being a member of her staff.” Yes, very odd.
These claims were also being hawked in letters sent to Mapesbury residents by Labour candidate Angela Griggs.
Queen’s Park, Mapesbury and Brondesbury have all turned Yellow – congratulations to the Cllrs in these wards. You’ve been trusted with them – look after them. Make sure that you continue with the effort that it took to win the ward as you work the ward.
Noticed more people in yellow safety jackets walking around the streets recently? On Friday last week I saw a member of the Brent Council Street Care team out ward walking in Mapesbury. He was monitoring the recycling collection from both the kerb side boxes and the green wheelie bins – check we residents were using the service and using it correctly? checking up on the contractors? don’t know – either way his purpose was to be highly visible in the ward. Suit, yellow jacket, Brent Council Street Care printed on the back in big letters? A visibility exercise in the ward prior to the ward hustings tomorrow and the Mapesbury Residents Associations (MAPRA) Annual General Meeting?That’s probably just the skeptic in me… …but then this afternoon….
