Dodgy evidence sees council win two more cases against Charedi schools

Hackney Council fought-off an attempt by a Stamford Hill school to have a long-running legal action thrown out court using evidence that magistrates branded as a "red herring". In another case a planning inspector doubted the evidence of witnesses.

Synagogue losses appeal in which Hackney Council accused witnesses of lying

A long-running planning dispute between Hackney Council and a synagogue in Stamford Hill - in which the council accused Ultra Orthodox Jewish (Charedi) witnesses of lying -  has been won by the council.

Blood and Property interview with Rabbi Abraham Pinter

Rabbi Abraham (Avraham) Pinter answered a number of questions about the Charedi Community in Stamford Hill and its effect on Hackney.

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: Charedi leaders not to blame

Rabbi Abraham Pinter: Cllr Mulready does not represent the whole community

Hackney Council claims Charedi witnesses lied in planning inquiry

A planning inquiry into an unauthorised synagogue in Stamford Hill ended with the council accusing ultra orthodox Jewish witnesses of lying.

Schools without planning permission mainly in Stamford Hill

Hackney Council has provided details of seven schools in the borough which are operating without planning permission, the majority of them are in Stamford Hill and appear to be ultra orthodox Jewish or Charedi schools.

Hackney canals, concrete, olympics and maps

Above is a call to arms for a Waltham Forest council planning committee on Tuesday. I haven't been following this story but will try and keep up. You can find the details of the proposals here, and it will be discussed at a meeting tomorrow, 7 February 2012. The story was recently covered by East London Lines.

Below is a map of where I have been counting canal boats - I don't really know why I'm doing it yet! If you click on the red dots you'll open a bubble which gives you a list of dates and the number of boats at that spot on those dates. Some of them have photos (Old Ford Lock for example) but most haven't and I'm working on that *(I've just noticed that the data is not the latest set either - it's all a bit experimental at the moment!).

I am also hoping to convert the data I have into eye-friendly charts, a task that has so far proven too much for me - I would be grateful for any tips.






If anyone is wondering what life might be like aboard a canal boat in Hackney here's one boat owner's fairly regular account (no mention of the recent snow yet but the stormy weather last month was covered).

Joe Lobenstein and sinister motives

A letter from former four-times Hackney Mayor Joe Lobenstein MBE is in the latest Hackney Gazette. In it he said he detected a "sinister motive" in  Nigel Lewis's letter about Charedi Schools in Stamford Hill.

Whatever that sinister motive may have been, Lobenstein never pinned it down.

Instead, after listing Lewis' complaints about a Charedi "closed-shop" and "coup" Lobenstein justified his attack on Lewis with one point, that Charedi kids don't commit crime.

He said that a look at the figures would show "that not a single pupil of Charedi schools in Hackney has ever appeared before a juvenile court or has been accused of any vices which are unfortunately so rampant in society today."

By complete coincidence, just yesterday I was in touch with former Hackney blogger Ben Locker who wrote a piece about this particular argument back in 2007. I'm posting his full blog post on a separate page for future reference.

Back in 2007 Locker wrote: "I was astonished by the argument one person put forward that Stamford Hill has a miniscule crime rate, thanks to the Orthodox Jewish community: even going so far as to say “when did you last hear of someone mugged by an Orthodox Jew?” Apart from the fact that it ignores a problem with unrecorded crime in the Haredi community, what on earth has that got to do with planning law?"

His astonishment was not shared by another Hackney blogger and member of the Charedi community "The Shaigetz" who said: "I, sadly, am less astonished. I have been hearing that justification, in its various forms, since I was twelve. Our superior children do not take drugs, wear ripped jeans or sport nose piercings, therefore we should be allowed to …[fill in the blank]."

(More recently Charedi youths were not immune to benefiting from the recent riots and The Shaigetz had interesting observations on the subject of unrecorded crime )

Lobenstein wrote a piece in the Jewish Tribune in which he criticised Geoffrey Alderman for being rude about Charedi schools in Stamford Hill: "Mr Alderman must have been dreaming when  he wrote that visiting the vicinities of Cranwich Road, Amhurst Park, Fairholt Road and Bethune Road, led him to believe that matters had turned ugly."

"Again, sheer and utter nonsense."

"I claim slightly superior knowledge over that of Alderman when describing Fairholt Road because I have lived there for approximately seventy years. The only school on Fairholt Road is St Thomas Abney School which belongs to the Church of England. No Jewish school is located in Fairholt Road."

Although he did mention "Planning application for the conversion of one local residence into a children's nursery is currently pending" I'm not sure if he was referring to Gur School at 85 Fairholt road which had already been running for more than six months with no planning permission.

In the same column - penned under the name Ben Yitzchok in the Jewish Tribune (May 2011 - pointed out to me by Geoffrey Alderman) - he also said: "Not a single school is operating without having obtained planning consent which invariably takes account of reaction of neighbours, traffic implications, health and safety regulations."

At the time the Gur school, in the road in which he lives, was operating without any of the above.

A couple of weeks ago the Hackney Gazette reported that the Gur school which got retrospective planning permission in July had failed to meet the conditions which came with it: "The council has since served several enforcement notices which have been ignored."

Report by Ben Locker of 2007 planning meeting in Stamford Hill

I'm republishing this courtesy of Ben Locker who wrote a blog called Hackney Lookout until 2008. He also wrote a piece in the Hackney Citizen with Charedi blogger "The Shaigetz" called The Goy next door 

June 27th, 2007

Whose law is it anyway? (pt 3)

About 15 years ago, I read a study that found racist attitudes were eroded when members of different groups came to live together in the same residential block. Partly this was because people got to see each other more often, began to share the same concerns and - the reason I thought most resonant at the time - because everyone enjoys having an audience when they’re complaining about how badly-treated they are by their boss, landlord or whoever else is in authority over them.

If there’s one thing that would help community cohesion in Stamford Hill at the moment, then it’s a bout of close-harmony whingeing about the many ways we have all been shafted by Hackney Council over the last decade or more. But one other thing’s for certain: if the various groups on the Hill continue to use shoddy and dishonest tactics themselves, no matter how admirable their motives, we’re not only sending a gilt-edged invitation to that local authority to shaft us some more, we’re going to find this place turned into a tinderbox.

That much was clear to me yesterday evening, when I went to a meeting organised by Hackney Planning Watch at Stamford Hill Library. I was two minutes late and skipped signing the register so that I could be one of the last allowed in. I bagged a spot by the wall where I could stand and not only get a good view of the speakers and everyone in the room, but could see out of the window and into the glass lined corridor opposite.

I’ve worked with Civic Societies before, and most would have been astonished by (and envious of) the number of local people who turned up to discuss a planning issue. There were about a hundred people in a room laid out for seventy, and there was a crowd of at least thirty more outside the door noisily demanding entrance. I could see quite a few trying to get a view of the meeting from the corridor.

So why the passionate interest? Put simply, the Council has released a document that contains suggested alterations to the regulations that control residential alterations and extensions in parts of the borough. If these suggestions are adopted, different planning laws will apply to residents in three areas: Queens Drive in Finsbury Park; Cricketfield Road in Hackney Downs; and 38 streets that comprise the core of my own area, Stamford Hill.

The new regulations are being proposed in Stamford Hill for a number of reasons. Firstly, the area is home to a long-established Orthodox Jewish community, members of which belong to families with an average of 5.9 children. Living space is in short supply and, to accommodate such large families, many have built extensions on the fronts, sides, tops or backs of their houses - and sometimes have done all four. A high proportion of these extensions would (under normal circumstances) have fallen foul of planning regulations but, for one reason or another, have been approved by the council. A significant number have been built with no reference to planning laws whatsoever, and have still not been awarded permission.

In other words, the extensions are a short-term solution to meet the needs of one rapidly-growing section of the community. Its members have been angered by a Council that is now more likely to refuse extensions and, with not a little justice, complain that it is unfair to crack down on these developments when they have been tolerated (or ignored) by the Council for years.

However, many of these extensions have angered other people who live in the Stamford Hill area. Some residents complain that the developments block the light that reaches their own properties. Others point to the noise nuisance that is exacerbated by larger numbers of people living in bigger properties near them. Many are angered by the fact that a good number of developments have wrecked the streetscape and damaged the original shape of Victorian and early-Edwardian terraces. Still more make the point that the developments are storing up trouble for the future, making Stamford Hill overcrowded, encouraging cowboy developers, giving people the incentive to carve up properties into flats and bedsits, and creating urgent problems with structure and flooding.

And underlying all this is a growing resentment nurtured by some people who feel that the Orthodox Jewish community appears to be given de facto special treatment under planning law. No wonder it was a crowded meeting.

Sadly, in such circumstances, good sense often takes a back seat when one’s own interests are at stake. For example, I was very grateful to Hackney Planning Watch (HPW) for calling the meeting, especially as I had no idea that there had been a consultation on the proposed regulations, let alone that it had closed. However, the first thing that I did after reading HPW’s leaflet was to go and find the planning document on Hackney Council’s website (it’s here. What this document does propose is changes to the regulations to front roof slopes, rear roof slopes, and rear extensions. What it does not do is “abandon our streets to unregulated property developers”, as HPW put it. Nor does it cover those developers who “are even applying to build three story houses in residential back gardens”. Nor was it appropriate - at all - for someone from the table to say to Councillor Coggins that “it was your party who sold off our social housing”. I happen to agree, but it was unfair and antagonistic to one of only three councillors who made the effort to show up.

That said, what the proposals are suggesting - and this is the thorniest point for me - that residents within three defined areas of the borough should be subject to different regulations than their neighbours a few streets away. For that reason I thought it highly disingenuous of Councillor Odze to argue that we will all still be subject to planning regulations. Yes we will councillor, but different ones: that is not equality under the law.

This is the point that, more than any other, needs answering and I think that members of the Orthodox community recognise that it is the biggest obstacle to the proposals becoming law. I can think of no other reason why, instead of answering that question, most of the arguments in favour of adopting the new regulations fell into the “Oh go on, we’re nice” category; most notably when a girl of about 12 stood up to make a prepared speech about how her own home was too crowded for her to do her schoolwork properly, how her family faces pressures that arise from her brother’s serious lung disease and how she did “not feel we have been accepted or given space.”

I sympathise, but there are many people across London with similar problems. Should the new regulations apply to them too?

Similarly, I was astonished by the argument one person put forward that Stamford Hill has a miniscule crime rate, thanks to the Orthodox Jewish community: even going so far as to say “when did you last hear of someone mugged by an Orthodox Jew?” Apart from the fact that it ignores a problem with unrecorded crimein the Haredi community, what on earth has that got to do with planning law?

To return to the wider point, though, there was much that was positive about the meeting that could be used as a basis for us all. By and large, all communities on the Hill are sympathetic to (and often adore) large families. Most of us agree that we need more space to have a happier family life (I know I would like a lot more). I also think we all agree that the council’s past inaction and its approval of certain developments have stored up trouble that is now bearing ill-fruit. And I think that, deep down, we all know that allowing inappropriate extensions will only provide a short-term solution for a small proportion of families.

What we need to be asking is what we do about the problem long term. And for that we should be asking ourselves some hard questions, such as whether allowing our planning system to become a communal issue is ever going to be for the wider good, no matter what the motives behind it.

We should then be turning to the council and asking some hard questions, like: Why hasn’t there been a proper consultation on this measure?

Why were the new regulations only published after the local elections?

Why did no member of the council’s ruling party attend last night’s meeting to listen to the citizens’ concerns?

And when we’ve got their answers we can get started on that close-harmony whingeing I was talking about. It will do us all a lot more good than finger pointing, jealousy or diluting the rather limited protection that planning law already gives us.

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'?

Planning protest

http://www.nohackneyhighrise.org.uk/?p=587:
"This Planning Application proposes four 7-10 storey high-rise high density residential tower blocks on the River Lee Navigation opposite North Millfields, in the Borough of Waltham Forest.Local Councillors representing Leabridge Ward in Hackney have asked for this Application (to WF) to be discussed at the Planning Sub-Committee Meeting at 6.30pm on Wednesday 3rd February. Hackney’s Planning Officers are recommending the Borough should put in an objection to Waltham Forest."

Did Hackney Council throw in the towel for £50m?

A couple of industry magazines report that Hackney Council could be investigated for pushing through Hammerson's updated plans for Bishopsgate Goods Yard - Bishops Place - too quickly.

Local architect Will Willingdale is quoted in Building Design and Construction News: “It was pushed through. Hammerson pretty much dictated how this planning application was going to be dealt with. I’ve never seen anything like it.I have spent 20 years submitting applications to Hackney Council and I have never been in a position to tell them when to deal with an application.”

The stories also said: "On behalf of several other architects — who don’t want to be named for fear of prejudicing future bids for work — Willingdale instructed solicitor Bill Parry-Davies to write to the mayor’s Greater London Authority."

According to the news stories Open Shoreditch claims that Hackney Council stands to make £50 million from the site, but only on condition of Hammerson securing planning permission, and that this constitutes a conflict of interests.

I might have got the wrong end of the stick but as far as I can tell Hackney's legal department is 25-30% understaffed and was, at one stage, farming out 50% of its work to private firms. This was while the council was dealing with Olympics related contracts. Also, for the last two years, the council's legal department has been looking for a new boss, only finding a new one in February 2009. (April 2007 The Lawyer reported the departure of Hackney's legal chief - has it really taken more than two years to find a new one? Apparently yes it has.)

So it doesn't sound too unrealistic that some things may have got less attention than they deserved.

Also I've been told by a former employee of a large architectural practice that these firms have a policy of challenging every single objection and to appeal every decision against them - however unrealistic their chances of success. This is done by better paid and more specialised lawyers and it is done in the knowledge that local authorities have limited legal budgets and are usually over-worked/understaffed.

This policy keeps local authorities on a permanent back foot and if any mistakes are made they will be in favour of the big companies.

A Google search for Will Willingden produced a less than rave review from Utility Week whose journalists were concerned when he proved difficult to contact. But Willingdale's claims sound believable.

(Gifty Edila, the new head of Hackney's legal department gets a mention in Andrew Boff's EastEight magazine over the council's long-running battle with Broadway Market shopkeeper Spirit.)

23,000 Hackney tenants used as a bargaining chip, Mayor claims

Someone was definitely playing politics at last night's full council meeting - but who?

I've got a feeling that the following report may be focusing on what Mayor Pipe wanted everyone to focus on - his allegations - rather than the passing of a controversial policy on housing extensions. According to some at tonight's meeting, this piece of local legislation has jammed up swathes of council officers for at least three years. (I don't know, most of this stuff was new to me)

It was also claimed that the council's position on this issue could prompt legal challenges from representatives of Stamford Hill's orthodox Jewish community who have been calling for looser planning rules in their communities to allow large families to modify their homes.

The council's position has been described as racist in the past - although such claims were not made last night, but feelings were high.

However the strongest comments came from Mayor Pipe, who accused Cllr Simche Steinberger - one of the champions of the orthodox cause - of abusing his position as chair of the borough's overview and scrutiny board.

In his statement to the council Pipe said that he had had to invoke emergency mayoral powers to ensure that 23,000 hackney house holds had their rents cut in line with government guidelines. The cuts will see these households save an average of £140 in rent per year.

Pipe claimed that efforts to push the decreases quickly through the council could have been hampered by Steinberger who, Pipe said, had refused to include the item in the formal council process unless certain conditions were met.

Pipe told the council that Steinberger refused to help unless his concerns about the handling of the controversial Residential Alterations and Extensions policy were addressed.

Pipe said that Steinbeger had been prepared to "withhold money from 23,000 households" in what he described as an "incredible abuse of his position." He said: "23,000 people could have had their rent decreases delayed and you used that as a bargaining chip." He asked what would have happened if he had not had special powers allowing him to by-pass the process.

Steinberger said: "What Mayor Pipe said is not what happened. I got a call in the morning saying what about this item. I hadn't seen any paper work and I asked officers what it was about." He said that Pipe had not returned his calls.

Cllr Coggins defended his fellow Conservative saying that Steinberger had a legitimate complaint about the way the council had dealt with the Residential Alterations and Extensions Policy. He said that he did not know that the item in question was related to rent decreases.

The council passed its recommendations on the extensions policy but not before a recorded vote was called. 34 passed the recommendations, 11 voted against and there was one abstention.

Guardian: Do Stamford Hill Jews need intergration?

And there's an interesting, but old debate at http://theshaigetz.blogspot.com/ in a piece called Yellow Brick Road.

Other stuff:

The deputy business editor of the Times thinks Hackney has made good progress and believes it is a beacon for enterprise: The success story that Labour is writing off.

And then there's the government commendation for the borough's homelessness team.

Will Hackney schools suffer if contractor folds?

Hackney contractor, William Verry, is likely to go into administration in what Construction News reports "would almost certainly be the most high-profile construction casualty of the recession so far." The Hackney contract appears to have been the last won by the company - in December 2008. Hackney's "Building Schools for the Future" programme proposes rebuilds or refurbishments for six secondary schools and four special educational needs schools.

The councillor who might be able to help is Cllr Rita Krishna, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.

At the moment this blog is what some might call 'churnalism' - copying everyone else's news. So nothing more to add to this at the moment. Is there another way? Maybe http://www.flatearthnews.net/

So back to the churnalism:

The story of what appears to be another gang killing unfolds in court. Prosecutor says a gang called the London Fields Boys had "violence on their minds" when they allegedly killed 14-year-old Shaquille Smith in London Fields in August 2008.

Hackney Council has successfully prosecuted two home owners for making alterations without planning permission. A report in Planning Resource said: "Both owners have spoken to London Borough of Hackney planning officers and agreed to carry out remedial works to resolve the breach. If this does not happen, the council will prosecute again."

Diane Abbott gets a mention in a Times comment piece: "It's a hard life for women about the House" describing the lot of women MPs, but it doesn't look like anything new.

Old but just for sake of having somewhere on this blog - children's charity, Chance UK wins funding reprieve from Hackney Council.