Arms and fists all up in the air again?

Last night was again the Council's AGM, we wouldn't have bothered to write a post as apparently it was very similar to last years. With councillors awarding themselves different jobs which have already been decided in closed door discussions. The Tories and Lib Dems made their usual plea for a more impartial mayor as it is constitutionally supposed to be an unbiased position, and not the former Labour Deputy Whip as the Council administration got.

Like we said we wouldn't normally bother to write about this, as it is about as regular as the tides in the Thames. However at the very end of the meeting we are led to believe that the often outspoken half of the dynamic duo, Cllr Paul Webbewood managed to lose control of his senses again. By all accounts he got up at the end of the meeting, marched over to the Labour front bench and threatened the Labour Councillor and Chair of Licensing Cllr Ray Walker. Why you may ask? Was it because his local watering hole was refused a late license? No, apparently it because Cllr Ray Walker wouldn't let Tory Councillor Eileen Glover be on the licensing committee.

So let's just go over that again, a Lib Dem Councillor tried to get into a fight with a Labour Councillor over the views of a Tory Councillor. An all-party Royal Rumble!

Greenwich Time get's a facelift

Following on from our last post about Greenwich Time and the role that it plays within Greenwich its interesting to note that this week sees a relaunch of the viewspaper. It would appear to be trying to mimic the style and front page content of a real local newspaper albeit with a strong tabloid influence. The front page has as its lead story a photo of Charlton Athletic's Zheng "Zizi" Zhi along with a tired, emotional and unshaven looking Cllr Chris Roberts. This is along with numerous competitions on the inside pages; there is still some space left over for what the communications budget is supposed to be spent on, that being informing the public about various official council activities, such as Council Housing and Jobs.

The front page also hosts an editorial from Peter Cordwell, the editor and publisher from Community First Journals, which by all appearances earn a vast amount of their income from Greenwich Council. It says "GT will find the people who are already beavering away behind the scenes to improve their neighbourhoods." along with "We'll also be promoting Greenwich Council services and initiatives working to make Greenwich greater". We can't but help remind ourselves that who pays the Piper, picks the tune.

The final passage of the editorial really caught our eye though, "Cynics like to say there's no such thing as communities, but we're having none of that... and we'll prove it every week in the new GT". In our view a real community would welcome it if people pointed out their flaws, afterall how are they supposed to improve otherwise, that and it keeps them honest. So we look forward to seeing the minimum 2 photos of Council Leader Chris Roberts and the photo of a random cabinet member for each edition. What will be interesting is if any of the reports will cover both sides of the story, as real local papers try to do, or even if these problems ever get a mention;

• Negitive Equity in Theamesmead
• The Ferrier fiascoes
• John Roan School
• Compleate Educational Failure
• - amongst other things

At the same time as all of this it looks like the Council are also conducting yet another survey, this time into Greenwich Time, take a look.

Informing the public?

Looks like the nonpartisan, kitty litter liner that is Greenwich Time was being delivered on the Polling Day for the Mayoral and GLA elections. Along with the usual pro Council stories and smiling photos of various Council Cabinet members there was also a piece covering the elections. Now, was it that Greenwich Council and the newspapers' controller in chief (Cllr Chris Roberts) wanted to help promote a candidate in the election, or was it incompetence?

The Council knew the date of the election, and did the normal thing any council would do and tell people how to vote but still failed to allow time for the newspaper to be delivered? When they realised that the election was on Thursday they called up the company that delivers Greenwich Time and at short notice got them to rush out the viewspaper?

So either incompetence, corruption or just yet another funny coincidence? You decide.

Either way, we wonder if Chris Roberts will let there be a photo of the new Mayor of London, the Conservative Boris Johnson? Or if only the GLA Representative, Labour's Len Duvall, will get any coverage?


Hat Tip: Indigo and Dizzy Thinks

GLA and Mayoral results in for Greenwich

Here are the final results for Greenwich for the Assembly Member;

Len Duvall	LAB			53,174
Andy Jennings	CON			37,040
Brian Robson	LD			18,174
Susan Luxton	GRN			15,607
Tess Culnane	NF			8,509
Stephen Hammond	CPA			5,079
Arnold Tarling	UKIP			3,910
Jennifer Jones	LL			2,045
Johanna Munilla	END			1,716
Chris Flood	SOA			1,587

The Turnout at 42.4% was, as we reported yesterday, much higher than in 2004.

So it looks like Len Duvall gets to keep his job, although now with Boris Johnson elected as Mayor he will presumably be leader of the Opposition Labour group instead. If this is the case, and with his experience from Greenwich Council as Labour being in control it is going to be interesting to see if he able to function well in opposition?

We shall have to see.

High Turnout in Greenwich

We're getting reports of a very high turnout in Greenwich for yesterdays elections. The count is being done today and the result should be out by around 6pm. We'll post as soon as we know what's going on.
Looks like this has been an interesting election afterall.

To be noticed, you need to vote!

Today is polling day for the London Mayor and Assembly, we have covered this election a little bit, here.

As we have said before we will not tell you who to vote for, but we will say this, if you want to be noticed and listened to, you need to vote. Otherwise the politicians and their parties will continue to thrive on apathy.

Go on vote, polls close at 10pm tonight.

A new way of tackling graffiti?

Has Greenwich Council come up with a new way of deterring tagging and graffiti? Thanks to a reader's email it looks like they might have, of course it might just be some enterprising local resident as well? Still, let's hope it works. These photos was taken near Vanburgh Road.

If it does turn out not to be the Council's Cleansweep department, but instead someone else then here at Greenwich Watch we wait for the Council's legal department to send the copy-write threats to anyone they think is behind it. Its not like they haven't done that before...

UPDATE: Looks like we're slow today, this has already appeared at another local blog, the Greenwich Phantom.

Trying to clear up a mis-understanding
There has been some talk about our last post both on this site and another local blog, Greenwich Phantom. Various people have accused us of "stealing" photos and stories. Whilst is it difficult to prove innocence we will try, as we know that credibility is all you have on the internet. As the Screenshot below shows we did receive an email and assumed that the sender was the person who took the photos, may not have been the case, if it wasn't we are of course sorry to the person who did take the photos. In the screenshot we have blocked out the email address of the sender of this email as we do not know if this email was sent as a joke, a misunderstanding or to try to lead us down the wrong path.



If you look at the time stamp on the email and compare it to the time that a similar post appeared on the Greenwich Phantom you will see that it was a couple of hours later. Now this is where the Greenwich Phantom may get their knickers in a twist again, we do not consult their blog before posting every post. Nor are we what you would call a regular reader, again, sorry but we're busy. Our post did not go up on Saturday due to paid work getting in the way and so it was not until Monday that the post went up. We do of course attempt to check what we can but only from sources which we would guess would be relevant, and so we did not check the Phantom's blog this time.

As soon as it was pointed out that the photos appeared on another site we posted an update pointing people in the right direction and other than that there is little we can do, we won't be taking the post down as we have never deleted a post or comment and we're not about to start now.

So, to the Greenwich Phantom and the real photographer, no we did not nick your story or photos we were emailed them and then posted them in good faith. We have now pointed people in the right direction and explained what happened. We are sorry if you do not accept that but if you have a problem in the future how about you come to us rather than trying to fire a warning shot on your blog? We took steps as soon as we could to do something about it but there is of course a time lag. As it would appear that they did appear first on your blog we congratulate you on getting the photos and on the photographer as well, they did make us laugh.

Now on to the real point of all of this, isn't it a shame that a nice little part of the world is always being vandalized?

Money still lost on Thamesmead

We've covered some of Thamesmead's problems before, epically with Negative Equity, looking at this map and article from the Evening Standard it would look like five out of the top ten streets in London for Negitive Equity are in Greenwich, and two are in Thamesmead. They are;

• Calderwood Street, SE28
• Erebus Drive, SE28
• Woolwich Common, SE18
• Glashier Street, SE8
• Greenhaven Drive, SE28

Even with CrossRail possibily offering people a way out it still looks like people could be stuck in Greenwich against their will. Still we wonder if Tilfen Land has made any money out of Thamesmead, because if it hasn't, it looks like it might have missed the boat.

Have you seen your local politician's recently?

You can always tell when there is a election happening, as suddenly from every nook, cranny and barstool your locally elected officials appear. As you might have noticed it is the Mayor of London election, with elections for the Greater London Assembly running at the same time. Whilst this website is more concerned with Greenwich Council we will cover what we can of this election, as it does of course affect the poor people of Greenwichgrad. This is the first election we will have covered as a blog, as we started about 2 years ago, just around the time of the last local elections for Council in May 2006. As we have said before, we will not tell people who to vote for, but just let you know the inside stories and try to cut though the spin.

First the Mayoral election, the two main contenders are the incumbent Mayor, Ken Livingstone for Labour, with the tories putting up the blond bombshell Boris Johnson, the Lib Dems for what they are worth, have put up the “special” cigarette' smokers favourite policeman, Briain Paddock. The full list is below;

2008 Mayoral Candidates

Richard Barnbrook - BNP

Gerard Batten - UKIP

Siân Berry - Green

Alan Craig - Christian Choice

Lindsey German - Left List

Boris Johnson - Conservative

Ken Livingstone - Labour

Winston McKenzie - Independent

Matt O'Connor - English Democrats

Brian Paddick - Liberal Democrats

Given the way it all works, with people getting two votes (main vote, plus second preference) the mayor is likely to be either Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson.

It is the election for the GLA representative which is more interesting for Greenwich.

The candidates for this are;

2008 GLA Candidates

Tess Culnane - National Front Party

Len Duvall - The Labour Party

Chris Flood - Socialist Alternative

Stephen Hammond - Christian Peoples Alliance\The Christian Party

Andy Jennings - Conservative Party

Jennifer Jones - Left List

Susan Luxton - Green Party

Johanna Munilla - The English Democrats Party

Brian Robson - Liberal Democrats

Arnold Tarling - UK Independence Party

As Greenwich is part of the GLA constituency of Greenwich and Lewisham the candidates are made up of people connected with both Greenwich and Lewisham. The current incumbent is Len Duvall for Labour. He is well connected with the Greenwich Council Administration, being a former council leader himself. He is also very well connected to Cllr Jackie Smith, Cabinet for Children's and Young People's services. Len Duvall currently chairs the Metropolitan Police committee, on behalf of Ken Livingstone.

Regular readers may also recognise the Tories' candidate, Cllr Andy Jennings, who got in May 2006 for Kidbrooke and Hornfair ward. We have covered how in the past Andy Jennings has tried his hand at blogging, but looks like he can't keep it up.

The Lib Dem's have put up baby faced Cllr Briain Robson, from Lewisham's Lee Green ward.

Greenwich and Lewisham excels itself in being the only GLA constituency which will see a Socialist Alternative candidate, Cllr Chris Flood from Telegraph Hill Ward, Lewisham. Mind you they would probably fit in quite well to Greenwichgrad.

UKIP's Arnold Tarling has stood in Eltham before, to become MP.

The Green's candidate is a councillor for Lewisham's Ladywell ward.

Right now given that Len Duvall is in one of the safest GLA seats for Labour, with 36,251 votes in 2004 it is unlikely that he will lose his job. The interesting battle will be for second place;

2004 GLA Candidates results

Labour - Len Duvall - 36,251

Conservative - Gareth Bacon - 22,168

Liberal Democrat- Alexander Feakes - 19,183

UK Independence - Timothy Reynolds - 13,454

Green - Susan Luxton - 11,271

Christian Peoples - Stephen Hammond - 3,619

Respect - Ian Page - 2,825

In 2004 the Tories came second, with the Lib Dems a close third. Since then Lewisham has gone into No Overall Control, with the Lib Dem's being the official opposition, with 17 Councillors, the rest of the Councillors are a mixed bag of Labour, Tory, Green or socialist party. UKIP were forth in 2004 however these days UKIP are less of a force so it can be expected that a few of the UKIP voters may go back to their natural home of the Conservative party. The Greens in Lewisham also have a couple of Councillors and so their vote could go up, although who they would take votes from these days is anyone's guess.

Greenwich would appear to almost be a mirror image of Lewisham, with the Tories the official opposition, with 13 councillors and the Dynamic Duo of Lib Dem's two councillors. In Lewisham, the Tories have three councillors. So in some respects these two parties are fairly evenly matched for second place.

We will continue to keep an eye on what is going on with the election campaign and will post anything interesting we see. If you have any juicy gossip about this election, especially the GLA part of the election then do let us know: Greenwich.Watch@Gmail.com

Council gets into a top 20 list

Ever heard of SOCITM? Nope neither had we, turns out that they are The Society of IT Managers, and recently they have put Greenwich Council's website in a list as being one of the top 20 Local Authority Websites. Yes, we were wondering if they had been looking at the same site the rest of us have to use, but still they seem to want to give the Council praise. Even Greenwich Council deserves some praise every now and again, and as it normally makes it into bottom 20 lists, it is nice to see it top out at something every once in a while.

But if you do a little looking into it all you realise that a couple of things. Firstly a couple of years ago the Council asked SOCITM for their expertise in computers and information technology, so its hardly surprising that when SOCITM come to draw up a list of top council websites Greenwich is included.

The second interesting thing is that part of the criteria for judging on this list was;

“... including accessibility, usability and take-up.”

If by take-up they mean the number of people trying to access the site to find out when their rubbish is going to be collected then yes, we can understand why so many people would be going to the site and why the Council finds itself in a top 20 list.

As for accessibility, well you just try and find council agendas and other public documents on the site.