We should not forget that whilst we have major national strike action in the City of Westminster along Praed St, Paddington by Rail and hospital workers over the past year at both Paddington Railway station and St Marys Hospital, lets not forget those action taken more locally by traffic wardens and housing officers.

The first local action involves parking wardens who are on the front line of road rage from car owners whilst bringing in a substantial income for councils like @RBKC and @CityWestminster So NSL should be offering them a decent liveable wage anyway. This while they have made £39 million on this contract from the Westminster City Council while bringing tens of millions into the Council coffers. Parking wardens in both boroughs do a tough job for low pay and contractor NSL need to get round the table and make a fair pay offer as soon as possible. This looks as though it will be resolved in the near future in Westminster City Council and hope this appears also to Royal Borough of Kensington as well. So it was good to meet with many of the workforce over the past few weeks during their dispute and listen to their concerns.

At the same time, housing workers at St Mungo’s are at strike whilst they receive extra grants from City Hall, SW1 for work with street homeless, yet they are forcing poverty wages on their street workers. This while St Mungo’s has £22 million reserves and senior management have six figure salaries like for the CEO and others. 

So do join they picket lines this morning at Rochester Row, SW1 in front of St Mungos offices.  They and the traffic wardens deserve decent pay rises in the worst cost of living crisis for a generation and l trust locals will support them. 

The headlines in the our local paper, the Westminster Extra, on Policing over the Coronation chimes with the devastating conclusion of the Baroness Casey Review of the Met being ” institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic”  as it appears to be going from one crisis to another even before the incidents during the day of the Coronation. 

That is the arrest of night time volunteers handing out rape alarms to vulnerable women; locking up republicans for 16 hours for the crime of unloading some placards and detaining a royal “superfan” for 13 hours because she happened to be sat near some protesters.

Since the Coronation, its officers have been filmed shooting two dogs and tasering their owner; admitted keeping crucial evidence relating to the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry locked up for years in a safe near Senior Officers and an Officer been sacked for punching and kicking a 14 year old boy and then lying about it. 

Furthermore, Baroness Doreen Lawrence further added that the Met has failed to change some 30 years after the death of her son and the MacPherson Report as well.   

So it’s quite clear the additional Public Order powers, given days before the Coronation, should not have been given to the Met, in the first place until it sorts itself out under special measures already. 

As my one of my old primary schools – St Stephens Primary, Westbourne Park Rd (next door to the Cow pub)  – closes, it reflects on the families no longer prepared to bring up children in Central London locations like Bayswater. 

​​According to London Councils, there is a predicted 7.6% decrease in reception pupil numbers across London from 2022-23 to 2026-27 which translates to a decline of 96,424 to 89,121 pupils over this period. 

London’s birth rate is the main reason for the decrease in demand for school places. However, there are other factors at play which are also affected the number of applications as boroughs are also experiencing shifts in their local child population as a result of families leaving London during the Covid-19 pandemic and following Brexit. Let us hope we don’t see other primary schools closing in the City of Westminster. 

The government is once again letting down Westminster residents and many others by postponing the rebuilding of St Mary’s hospital to after 2030. The urgency of works at St Mary’s is confirmed by Prof Tim Orchard, CEO of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust response to the announcements who states quite clearly “ If we wait until 2030 to start building works at St Mary’s, it would become impossible to patch up our old facilities, many of which house clinical services. As the provider of London’s busiest major trauma centre and host of the NHS’s largest biomedical research centre, that would be hugely damaging for the health and healthcare of hundreds of thousands of people.” So watch this space in the lead up to the next General Election.  

There was a great send off for Flight Sergeant Peter Brown at St Clement Danes Church by the RAF for one of the last “Pilots of the Carribean“. He was a resident of Warrington Crescent, Little Venice, W9 for many decades and someone you would regularly see along Formosa St and also his favourite park bench at the top corner of Warrington Crescent.

We will have to do something more local for him and his neighbours, like a plaque or something going up on his old home or his favourite park bench.  I trust our councillors can do something fitting for him, as for many here his passing is as sufficient as the Coronation we had a few weekends ago. 

In the 1980’s the lack of educational attainment amongst British Bangladeshi children was noted as underachieving greatly but things have changed considerably now, as they outperform their peers amongst White British. So it was with great pleasure l went to the Surma Centre GCSE Awards to celebrate and recognise the outstanding success of Bangladeshi students in Camden and by implication other boroughs like Tower Hamlets and Newham. This even when many would have studied during COVID pandemic in isolation and on-line.

So things have certainly changed since my days with O levels, very much for the better and long may this continue. We just have to make sure that they get job opportunities that marry up with their outstanding results. 

Thanks to the TUC to organise all the Trade Unions to come and protest at Parliament Square last night, as the Commons voted on the undemocratic, unnecessary and unworkable Tory Anti-Strikes Bill. Good to hear that Labour Party will repeal this legislation when in power. 

10 years ago on the 24th of April, a 8 storey commercial building called Rana Plaza on the outskirts of Dhaka came crashing down on killing 1,138 people in the factories housed in the building and many thousands injured as well. This tragedy devastated the lives of thousands of families, bringing world wide attention to deathtrap workplaces and rampant exploitation in the garment industry. 

The incident brought up major issues like factory safety; freedom of association; wages; employment injury insurance and legal obligations on companies. On factory safety, the Bangladesh Accord was launched in May 2013 as the first independent and legally binding agreement between brands and trade unions to work towards a safe garment and textile industry bringing improvements to over 1500 factories. With Freedom of Association, despite changes to labour law and an initial spike in unionisation in the first years after the collapse, freedom of association has again come under severe pressure in Bangladesh. With wages, minimum wages in the garment sector in Bangladesh have been reviewed every five years since Rana Plaza collapse, they remain at levels keeping workers in poverty at 8,000 BDT per month when a living income for a family in Bangladesh is said to stand at 36,700 takas. As for employment injury insurance, some $30 million dollars was paid in compensation to victims after 3 years of consumer campaign pressure but a more payment system of employment injury compensation is needed. And finally the EU is moving towards a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive on legal obligations on companies to respect human rights. Some like France, Germany, Norway have brought strong national legislation to build strong legal frameworks for corporate accountability unlike the UK. 

Whilst all this is happening, we will not forget the victims of Rana Plaza on this 10th anniversary. So l was glad to see on the streets of London, many who “remember the dead and fight for the living”  

Success in saving the 205 route to Paddington

In the last edition of SEBRA for Autumn 2022, l reported the efforts to save the 205 bus route still going to Paddington. I am glad to say TfL saw the wisdom of myself along with many rail operators along the Euston & Marylebone Road to continue this bus route between the railway terminuses and tube stations, as it’s a critical part of the integrated transport we expect in Central London. 

We had the 160th birthday of the tube from Paddington to Farringdon in January, at platform 5 & 6 of Baker Street and these should continue throughout the year. What was disappointing was that nothing as yet has been done at Paddington Tube station on Praed St even though it was the beginning of the tube service and a response to connecting Paddington station with Central London, over 160 years ago which was then copied around the world. 

Some historical lessons can be learnt for Old Oak Common as well from Paddington’s railway stations experience of linking up with the rest of London, when it’s being discussed whether it should be the terminus for HS2 given the huge cost overruns.   If this did happen it would mean Old Oak Common would become the new Paddington of the 21st century and this will happen anyway as the terminus will be the temporary terminus for HS2 coming to London. 

Strike Action continues along Praed St    

Strike actions continue along Praed St in response to the cost of living crisis but this time not centred around Paddington Railway stations and rail staff but St Mary’s Hospital and the nurses and ambulance staff. They chanted “claps don’t pay the bills” on their picket lines and got a lot of support from passing traffic. 

For the first time in their history, tens of thousands of Royal College of Nursing members took part in strikes during December to demand fair pay and improved patient safety. As the government has failed to act, they have been forced to continue their action into 2023. Strikes will take place across England again from the morning of the 1st of March to the morning of the 3rd of March. 

While the Ambulance strike, Unison argues that industrial action is always a last resort, and the NHS is in crisis and without proper investment from the government it will only get worse.  We are living in the worst cost of living crisis for 30 years, as everyone’s struggling, with the government’s pay award amounting to just an extra 72 p an hour. And as for patient safety, the number of staff vacancies are at a record high and without enough staff, the NHS simply can not deliver safe and efficient care.  In a nutshell, Unison members simply want a pay rise that is a better match for inflation.   

Metropolitan Police 

With the recent scandal of domestic staff use in Little Venice, we must be mindful of Modern Day Slavery in Paddington particularly with migrant domestic workers. They are at more risk of abuse as they were kept outside of the Modern Slavery Act and thus a missed opportunity  to provide any legal protection for them.  

Saying this, l do know the Met Police Trafficking and Kidnap Unit works closing with NGO partners to encourage victims to formally report any allegations of servitude. A significant amount of work had taken place between the MPS and organisations that support domestic migrant workers to ensure they received appropriate help and support if exploited when l was previously at City Hall. So let’s make sure we send potential migrant domestic workers working under modern day slavery, are pointed to the right bit of the Met. 

Council Taxes for 2023/24 in West Central  

Westminster Band D households will pay £912 a year from April, an increase of £48 (predominantly from the GLA precept) for the financial year 2023/24. Nearby Hammersmith & Fulham Council, which has the third lowest average council tax bill in England, is upping the charge by 4.99%, meaning an average bill of £1,306.  

This will see a big investment in temporary housing, the lowest Band D council tax in the country & and free school meals form the centrepiece of Westminster City Council Budget to make for a fairer city for all in our City.  

While the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea are similarly freezing their Council Tax like Westminster City Council but at a level already higher than either at Westminster or Hammersmith & Fulham.