|
|
 |
| |
Lost trust?
• WHEN Gordon Brown was elected Prime Minister, the first words he used publicly were that he ‘wanted to build trust with the British people’.
At that time Tony Blair said that it was important to understand why parts of Margaret Thatcher’s government was right, that what gave him the real edge is that he was not as Labour as the rest of the Labour Party, implying that he did not care about the unfair, unjust decisions that he, along with Thatcher, had created over the last 30 years.
After ten years of Tony Blair, anyone who hoped that Gordon Brown would be different has been sorely disappointed. Did not Gordon Brown invite Thatcher to Number 10 for tea and cakes, to talk about the way forward for New Labour?
Having known Councillor Roger Robinson for many years, I have noted a passion for truth and fairness lacking in most politicians who tend to follow dishonest party dogma.
Those of us who have been Labour supporters all our lives have found ourselves disillusioned, with no one to vote for. There is a growing army of people who do not know who to trust any more.
ALAN PATTERSON
Somers Town Art
Hand it over
• I WOULD like to add my voice to those who condemn the Prime Minister for his decision not to use the precious land at Brill Place, behind the British Library, for public housing.
Anyone who knows anything about social housing in Camden knows that for a long time Camden residents have suffered a major housing shortage which is particularly bad for the needs of local disabled people (many of whom are elderly and have lived in the borough all their lives) in the provision of accessible accommodation and Somers Town residents as a whole have dire problems in getting rehoused. Statistics show that Somers Town itself, has one of the highest disabled populations in the whole borough.
There is long-standing evidence that reveals bad housing alone leads to poor health. While it is important for the Medical Research Council to have a new site it should not, by its own existence, have a negative impact on the general health of the population around.
So it is completely irresponsible for Gordon Brown not to immediately hand over this public land for local housing and so improve the general health of Londoners. He should realise that it is all right to change your mind, if you make a better decision that reflects the real needs of the community affected.
Keith Armstrong
Churchway, NW1
Right to life
• DR Anthony Kessel, director of public health for Camden’s Primary Care Trust, produced a wide ranging survey of health conditions in the borough for the trust’s 2006 annual meeting, identifying in particular the difference in life expectancy for those who live in Somers Town (69.9 years) compared with those who live in Hampstead Town (81.1 years).
He wrote at length on the absolute need for proper housing noting, “children living in bed and breakfasts have been found to be at increased risk of behavioural problems, stress, poor sleep, infections and gastro-intestinal problems”. And lifestyles, affected by income, employment and leisure, have a devastating effect on people’s health.
To counter these problems the trust has instituted through its GP and related health network a range of information and counselling campaigns.
Useful as these initiatives are, they are feather touches the trust is providing to overcome the core problem of Somers Town – the 11-year gap in life expectancy between these two areas.
Being more forthright, the trust could ask Camden Council’s scrutiny panel members who sit on the trust’s board, to table a motion at a council meeting asking for a detailed programme of housing improvement, including the building of additional homes for those it has identified to be in need.
With only a third of the population taking “sufficient exercise” to make them healthier, here is a task they can ask the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to address. particularly as the department has ex-BR land at its disposal following completion of the rebuilding of St Pancras station.
Somers Town people could take a hand in this matter by forming, say, a Somers Town We Have a Right To Life Trust.
This could be the body to take on ownership of land and then prepare a programme of renewal: as did the Coin Street community some years ago.
The then GLC was able to buy and arrange for this trust to have the land and means for starting Coin Street’s transition to the remarkable community it presently is.
Today the PCT and DCMS could do as the PCT did last year. It gave at nil cost the building and site at Capper/Huntley Street, being used by the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital pending completion of its Euston Road site, to the University College London Hospital Trust.
Thus, just as this public body transferred land and property to another public body, so could the DCMS hand over the ex-BR site to another public body – that is, a Somers Town trust.
Furthermore, the PCT made £1.5 million profit in 2006, which it gave to the Treasury. It could take this back and give it as a starter fund to the Somers Town trust, thereby helping it to put into place the organisational structure necessary to bring the trust into working existence.
All that is required to bring Somers Town up to modern standards is a little joined-up thinking, and an unambiguous resolve to put an end to the 11-year gap, once and for all.
ALAN SPENCE
Russell Chambers, WC1
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
