Charedi community must tolerate inconvenience like everyone else

This is the statement made by Labour Councillor Ned Mulready at Hackney Council's planning sub committee on Tuesday 10 January.

He is talking about a private school for ultra orthodox Jewish pupils at 91 Amhurst Park which is one of many schools set up around Stamford Hill without planning permission.

"The judgement of whether or not to grant planning permission for a school comes down to the need for the school versus the harm it causes to the amenity of residents.


I’ll first address the need for the school. There is absolutely no need for this school to be on this specific site. The school has been built because a group of parents in the local area have decided to opt out of state education for their kids.


Now that is their right but it is a choice. They might see it as an obligation but, in law, it isn’t. It’s a choice. And we must see it as such.


The fact that there is a large group of people in an area with a preference for religious schooling over state education, in my book, doesn’t mean there is a need for a religious school, just that there is a desire.


Now, I can see how it could be argued that if there is a desire for a certain specific type of education from a large part of the local community - a type of education they have a right to choose for themselves - then you could say there is a need for a school which would provide that sort of education.


I wouldn’t agree with that definition of need.


But I can see how you could get to it.


So if we take that as given. Assume that there is a need for a school of this type (I refute that but lets just go with it).


We then come down to the judgement of where the school needs to be. Or rather, where there is a need for the school to be.


There is absolutely no reason why this school has to be built on that site or even in the Stamford Hill area.


You don’t have a right to a school on the same couple of streets that you live on. There is absolutely nothing in any law or regulation that says you do. You have decided that none of the local state schools are for you and that you are going to build your own. Fine. That’s your right.


But the onus is surely on you to find appropriate land to build on. And if you can’t find that land in the small area of Stamford Hill then you move out a bit until you do. And if the site you find isn’t perfectly located for the children who will go there, then you just have to deal with it.


And I think this is something that the Charedi community generally will have to come to terms with as the number of children in the community grows exponentially.


I travelled for two and half hours everyday I went to school there and back. That was a massive inconvenience. But I don’t think for a second that I have a right not to be inconvenienced.


I am aware that there are Charedi customs and traditions regarding having schools and synagogues in the vicinity. And I make no judgement on that. We are a religiously tolerant society and I would hate for that to be threatened.


But we are not a religious society and in law we see those who follow religious customs and traditions as doing so through choice. Therefore the fact that there may be Charedi customs and traditions regarding this should have absolutely no bearing on the assessment of need."

Cllr Mulready sits on the planning committee but was not allowed in the room during the vote or to take part in other discussions after declaring a personal interest in this planning application. Some of the issues here were addressed in the last piece: Does school row expose 'Charedi coup'?

Should you avoid ψηφισάτω (666) on Halloween?

Until this post was written Blood and Property had a symbolically significant number of posts in its archives.

Wikipedia gives some of the background on the source and meaning of 666. However none of it's that scary, at least not in a supernatural kind of way.

But with Halloween impending and Blood and Property sounding like the title of a horror movie it seemed sensible to push past the number of the beast.

It provides an excuse to revisit October 2009 when Blood and Property asked Hackney politicians if they had ever had a brush with the supernatural. Should the operation be repeated?

Back in 2009 several Hackney politicians replied but some have moved on, like the former leader of the Conservative group who had ghost troubles in a property in Stoke Newington.

Now there are lots of new faces on the benches in Hackney Council and their supernatural views remain uncharted meanwhile older hands may have updates. (Today's Financial Times 'exposed' a potential Conservative MEP as a ghost hunter and expert on the paranormal).

So would it be in the borough's best interests to recalibrate the ghost index? Or did Meg Hillier have the right attitude to Blood and Property's idiotic questions?

Latest on Hackney occult

Otherwise Ancient Hackney is keen to address the devil's work in your area. The most recent post (a lengthy piece of research into an advertising campaign for New Age Games on Hackney Downs) contains this reassuring comment: "It never surprises us when we discover occult symbolism contained within government literature, so on seeing The Venus Map... our response amounted to nothing more than a raising of the eyebrows."

And something on Hackney UFOs too: http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2011/10/hackney-ufo-1970-source-material.html

Gangs or no gangs...will we ever know?

When a Hackney youth club closed down in August the Hackney Gazette reported (21 Oct) that it had something to do with a lease... or some "minor refurbishments".

A week later, in a full council meeting, Hoxton councillor Philip Glanville claimed that the club's management had closed it down because of gangs. He said that the claims had been made in emails to the council from SkyWay, the organisation which runs the Blue Hut youth club.

In the Gazette's October story a council spokesperson said that the club would re-open in the new year. Those plans are still in place but the story of the club's closure remains mysterious because of these claims about gangs.

Skyway's allegations were pursued by Hoxton's Labour councillors - Clayeon Mackenzie, Philip Glanville and Carole Williams. Cllr Glanville said that the Dalston-based SkyWay didn't report these gang-related problems to the police or the council or anyone else.

He brought the issue to the attention of a full council meeting in October when a report by the Children and Young People (CYP) Scrutiny Commission was published which claimed that Blue Hut was running well.

The report described the Blue Hut project as one that dealt specifically with gangs. It trained

15-24-year-olds to show their peers that, "there is an alternative to the gangs many young people will see on a daily basis."

Six months before the club was closed down by the alleged gang activity the CYP Scrutiny Commission visited and reported that: 'Staff at the Blue Hut said that the results so far have been very positive and they have seen a number of the peers grow in maturity & confidence..."

Glanville said that when Blue Hut closed "none of us could really believe that turn of events" adding that "SkyWay's initial response was that it was plagued by problems, we were worried that events had so quickly changed for the worst, or that something may have been misrepresented".

Now the centre could reopen with no further explanation of the alleged gang problem and why it wasn't reported.

Blood and Property called SkyWay but no one would comment or even say that the organisation was officially making "no comment".

The reopening may be good news but something must have been wrong for this to have happened. Either there was a gang problem or there wasn't. It seems unlikey that the decision by SkyWay to shut down the project was only due to a problem with a fire escape as it is now being portrayed.

Hopefully it hasn't been made difficult for SkyWay to explain the true nature of the situation.

In April a 16-year-old girl was shot dead in a Hoxton chicken shop (Hackney Hive report with interesting comments) which resulted in a number of teenagers as well as a couple of men in their twenties being charged.

So the idea that there might be a gang problem in Hoxton is not exactly far-fetched - it just doesn't sound like a valid reason to close down a project designed to deal with gang problems.

Did gangs close Hackney youth centre?

A Hackney youth centre closed down last week, apparently due to gang activity. It had been open for a year.

Cllr Rita Krishna and Cllr Gulay Icoz told Hackney Council on Wednesday that the Blue Hut youth club had closed down.

I think it was Hoxton councilllor, Philip Glanville who added more detail. He started talking about gangs and the previously optimistic comments of Skyways, the voluntary sector organisation which ran Blue Hut. He appeared to be suggesting that Skyways ducked-out out of Blue Hut too easily. He said that voluntary providers also hadn't 'come up to scratch' in the borough (Hoxton Hall - also).

But in relation to Blue Hut, the implication was that Skyways didn't have problem with gangs six months ago but this changed... "One of the reasons they walked away is that they said that there were 'issues'"

I don't 100% know that's what was meant. I'll have to find out in the week unless someone can tell me.

(plans for the youth centre from 2003 - Skyway site and video)

Description of Skyway project in Wednesday's report including a recommendation to base other projects around its strategy. P. 184 of Council agenda:

Blue Hut - Peer Support Programme

The Peer Support Programme is a pilot project currently being run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and there has been huge interest from young people wanting to be involved in it. It is teaching the young people involved that they can give something back to their community and become positive role models for their peers. Through the programme, they can show there is an alternative to the gangs many young people will see on a daily basis and provide positive role models to the youngsters in their areas.

The programme has been running since October 2009 in its current form although a pilot project on a much smaller scale was run from March 2009 with 3 peer coaches.

In total there have been fifteen young people involved in the programme so far and their ages range from fifteen to twenty four

Page 184years, although most of the young people involved have been between seventeen and twenty one years.

The young people receive support through the development of an individual learning plan, and as part of this they received an in-depth initial meeting and then monthly one to ones which focus on their progress and development in relation to their individual learning plan. The peers specialise in one area, such as drama or sport, and they report to a specific member of staff who is trained in their area of interest and who can offer them continued support and advice. The peers also complete training which is both accredited and non- accredited.

The peers all complete a ‘train the trainer’ course, and this included units on safeguarding, working with young people, running activity sessions, equality and diversity, and confidentiality and data protection. They also completed an enterprise training programme over 4 days. The peers also complete training on working with young people in relation to drugs and alcohol.

Peers are recruited to support activities across all aspects of SkyWay’s programmes and therefore they have sports peers, media peers (music and film), youth work peers and bike maintenance peers. All of the young people involved receive training and paid work experience in the area they are interested, for example sports coaching, media sessions or youth work. The work that they do is constantly monitored and only once the workers are confident in the young people’s abilities and skills and they have completed the relevant training and have had an enhanced CRB check will they be allowed to lead sessions with other young people.

In addition to this, each peer will complete qualifications that are relevant to their interests and will be identified through their individual learning plan; this could include for example Level 1 or 2 in FA football coaching or Level 2 in Youth Work.

The Peer Support Programme has been increasingly popular with young people and it is currently oversubscribed. Staff at the Blue Hut said that the results so far have been very positive and they have seen a number of the peers grow in maturity & confidence, and the young people involved have developed communication, self reliance, team working and leadership skills.

The Commission members talked to one of the young people involved in the Peer Support Programme who told them he felt it was important to develop young people through the programme as it helps to bridge the gap between the young people and youth workers.

Page 185

Recommendation Three

The Commission was impressed during the site visits and through talking to young people by the range of training and qualifications young people are able to gain through youth centres and activities and strongly support and encourage these opportunities.

The Commission was particularly interested in the Peer Support Programme run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and its aim to develop young people to lead activity sessions with their peers and younger age groups.

The Commission recommends the Youth Service look at the Peer Support Programme currently being run by SkyWay organisation at the Blue Hut and consider adopting a similar model in council maintained youth centres in Hackney.

Charity slams Hackney council staff: rude, lazy, unhelpful

I haven't checked out any of this but it looks pretty damning: http://piliontrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/borough-of-hackney.html

Pilion is a charity that works with Islington Council and seems to have recently won more funding from it.

The author of the Pilion charity's blog clearly hasn't had a happy time dealing with Hackney. He or she says: "Over the past two months my teams have been trying to support and advocate for a number of vulnerable people. I mean a young man with mental health and learning difficulties who is fleeing two youth gangs that want to kill him; A young 20 year old woman, fleeing domestic violence and pregnant; An old age pensioner who is illiterate and is being evicted by the Council for rent arrears, when her pension and benefits pay directly to the Council's Housing benefit department."

The author says Pilion staff had dealt with the Housing Department, Mental Health Team, East London NHS, The Homerton and Learning Disabilities saying: "All staff in all departments have similarities in so much as they are rude, abrupt, refuse to give information and are lazy unthinking, uncaring brainless fodder."

The blog posting also complains that managers were not interested in dealing with the complaints and politicians were no better: "All turn a blind eye and don't want to look at the problems being caused by the Public Servants they employ."

Hopefully this was just a bad day. If not then all Hackney residents should beware of lingering in the borough too long: "as all you will find are brain dead "Job Lotters" sucking the life blood out of those who cannot get out."

Other news - The Daily Mail reports that Hackney Council is on the verge of signing a deal with the US for use of London Fields Lido for the Olympics. The Mail said: "A source said: ‘The US team toured London and were surprised by the lack of quality pools. ‘Right away they recognised London Fields as best for training and were very keen. The British tried to get involved but it looks like they’re too late."

Democracy problem in Stamford Hill?

Is there a pact between Jewish politicians in Stamford Hill not to stand against each other in elections?

Some Hackney politicians have commented on this - unfortunately most of it was off the record. One suggested that there may be a pact between the Lib Dems and the Conservative Jewish candidates not to stand against each other.

But this week Cllr Matthew Coggins, leader of the Hackney Conservative group denied this.

The evidence suggests that Orthodox Jewish candidates don't oppose each other, whichever political party they represent. If this due to a comfortable arrangement between politicians in opposing parties, it would be antidemocratic.

But the conspiracy theory - and its implications for democracy - is not the only explanation.

1. A religious principle?

One non-Jewish councillor said: "The main reason they won’t stand against each other is a reluctance to promote division within the community. They don’t want to encourage that.
At the same time they are not terribly interested in it. There are religious principles about not having these arguments publicly."

The same councillor claimed that there may be a scriptural justification for this avoidance of conflict. Asked if there was some specific text that dealt with this he said: "There is, yes, but I’m not entirely clear about what it is. But it is not a rule."

Ian Sharer, leader of the Lib Dems said there was no religious reason why candidates from the Jewish community couldn't stand against each other: "It is not a scriptural thing. The basic thing is that the Jewish community votes for Jewish councillors. They don't care which party you're in. They support you if you're Jewish."

2 Not enough candidates:

One councillor said: "Another reason why they aren’t standing against each other is that there aren’t people there who want the job."

He said that parties didn't have Jewish candidates queuing up and said that Labour had been looking for an OJ councillor for years before Joseph Stauber defected from the Lib Dems.

But Ian Sharer said that having more than one Jewish candidate in an election made it "confusing" and that these conflicts could get "nasty and a bit silly". But he didn't say there was a formal agreement not to stand against each other, adding that it had happened in the past.

3. Conspiracy:

That Jewish candidates agree not to split the Jewish vote and so do not stand against each other.

The evidence is simply that Jewish candidates very rarely stand against each other. I've been told - but haven't checked - that the last time Jewish candidates stood against each other was in the New River by election in 2005 when Harvey Odze (Conservative) and Mani Silver (Lib Dem) stood against each other.

But prior to that there is a long gap going back to Abraham Pinter - who became a Labour Councillor in the 80s/90s.