This week NorthWestTwo organised a neighbourhood walkabout with local Councillors Matthews and Hashmi, officer(s) from Brent Council Street Care, John Rymer and Vikash Mistry from the Neighbourhood WorkingTeam along with the officers from the Mapesbury ward Safer Neighbourhood Team.

I also made a map - click on Read the rest of this entry

(more…)

The Government and The Post Office last year announced plans to close around 2,500 Post Offices in the UK, of which up to 169 offices in London are shortlisted. All this was announced in October last year. Now the Post Office has begun a six-week consultation on plans for the capital’s post offices… not that they are making a big thing about it on the website… you’ll find it in small text on the right hand side under ‘network changes’… Ken wants to get the consultation period doubled up to twelve. Brent Lib Dems say that if the proposed closures go ahead Brent will be left with just 24 Post Offices, compared with 40 when Labour came to power.

The Lib Dems are campaigning - I presume that means they will be making representations to the consultation panel on behalf of the citizens of Brent - and have an e-petition that Brent residents can complete in support of local Post Offices and against the Govt. & Post Office Ltd’s proposed cuts.

For Cricklewood and Mapesbury people concerned about the loss of Walm Lane Post Office - click and complete the e-petition.

Remember folks, although Dawn Butler (MP Brent South) may ”call for a rethink”, she ‘’support[s] the Government’s approach of allowing Royal Mail the freedom to respond to future commercial challenges and opportunities, and in particular enabling Post Office Limited to determine the future shape of the network within clear Government rules governing criteria for local access” (Opposition Day Jan 10 2007, Public Whip)

Barry Gardiner (MP Brent North) was previously Minister for Competitiveness at the Department of Trade & Industry and met with Post Watch back in 2006 to discuss Post Office closures. He also voted with the Govt for the euphemistic motion cited above.

What we will see over the coming weeks is a flood of photo opportunities in front of Post Offices… All you need to remember is that Dawn and Barry vote with the Govt on ‘national issues’ then campaign against the Govt on ‘local issues’, even when they are the same issue.

I spend a lot of time in Gladstone Park and I’ve recently taken an interest in the state of Dollis Hill House. I think that the kindest word to describe the building is ‘wreak’. There are plans (there are always plans) to restore the house from the Dollis Hill House Trust in partnership with Training For Life. I’m not sure what they are in detail… but the appear to involve getting a whole bunch of money together to renovate the building into a venue of some kind - better than flats… no worse than demolition.

I’m interested to know more details about the project, how it will be a ’social enterprise’, how it will fund its self &tc… more to come, I’m sure…

I’m now a Friend of Cricklewood Library. I join the group last month and attended a meeting. Going to be making a few Freedom of Information requests to Brent Council in search of data on public consultation exercises and service use.

More… when I’ve got my degree work finished?

Goldsmiths SU has successfully campaigned for changes in the opening hours of the colleges library and ICT facilities. I’m interested in exploring what other ways the information that is stored in the library building can opened up to the benefit of students and staff alike. I’m not so much speaking about new things that the library can do, rather I am interested in ways in which existing services and resources could be linked up, extending their use.

Currently recommendations for reading / viewing / listening are distributed to students as files to download from learn.gold.ac.uk (which we usually print) or in hard copy (which we then annotate). Students then navigate to the library website to find out whether a given publication is even available, and what its shelfmark is.

However, there is the potential to make the process of recommending, finding, borrowing and even commenting on the value and relevance of a particular library resource more seamless by linking-up the library website and learn.gold site.

(more…)