UCL Academy - Sept 2010 Letter

Dear Sir,

So the reaction of Labour Camden to a five week delay in getting the go-ahead for the UCL Academy is to delay its opening for a whole year -they were out of office for four years yet already the memories of their previous 35 years of control come flooding back.

Not one senior person connected to the scheme for the UCL Academy seriously believed it was ever in doubt from a new Government which has championed the cause of academies in education. So this delay is a sign of a failure of political will in Camden.

Look at what happened over the previous four years: two judicial reviews in the High Court backed by CASE (the Campaign for Secondary Education),a national campaign against academies run out of Camden chiefly by local Labour Party activists; a tortuous tustle with governors at our secondary schools over aspects of the then Labour Government's requirements regarding the IT component of the Building Schools for the Future investment; and, yes, a very difficult time spent finding new premises for Frank Barnes School for the Deaf, which officers under the previous Labour Administration in Camden had wished to close down completely.

And it's that latter point about what officers wanted, and the response of elected members, which is relevant here. Every time a judicial review was announced Camden had to stop progressing the Academy and officers would come to members and say 'shouldn't we put back the timescale'. Every time there was a need to try again to find a sustainable solution for Frank Barnes or governors were causing IT sign-off deadlines to be put back, the officers would say 'shouldn't we put back the timescale'.

Of course it would be easier for officers (a good number of whom, excellent throughout, worked through holidays and weekends to keep to the project timescale) and contractors to slip back the timescale by a whole year. But that's not the point of public service is it?

Camden needs the UCL Academy because we are short of accessible secondary school places in Camden. The Academy was scheduled to open in September 2011 because that was the Labour Government's timescale for the wave of Building Schools for the Future into which Camden was admitted. Once that happened, it was public knowledge that the Academy would open in September 2011 and the previous Conservative-LibDemAdministration in Camden knew it had to follow through on this despite the set-backs that would inevitably occur along the way.

The other major political reason was to demonstrate how different we were to the previous 35 year Labour Administration in Camden. We remembered the huge delays and cost over-runs connected to the rebuilding of the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre and all the delays to the modernisation of Camden's social housing and were determined to be a local council which would keep officers in check and that would deliver on schedule.

Sadly, we're now back with a Labour Council which couldn't care less for the feelings of local families, which is delaying repair works to its social housing and which is unwilling to challenge officers when they say something is a bit difficult. Heaven help us when our Labour masters give them Islington to run as well.

Yours etc,

Boris' Sky Ride - Letter Sept 2010

Dear Sir,

A huge thank you to the volunteers from the Camden Cycling Campaign and elsewhere for their assistance to novices such as me in helping us to enjoy Boris' Sky Ride on Sunday. To find a stewarded route laid out to take us from Swiss Cottage to the Mall was a huge bonus and was very much appreciated.

My (far more experienced) family and I had a great day out!

Yours etc