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Question about death of community association still needs an answer
• COUNCILLOR Andrew Marshall’s reply (Restoring services, July 17) to my letter about the death of West Hampstead Community Association appropriately starts with a patronising misperception and ends with the predictable aspiration which comprise equal portions of p*** and wind.
At the start, by patronisingly “understanding” my “anger” he avoids dealing with the points I made. He ends by challenging readers to self-destruct by identify themselves as opposed to “services for local people...”
What he does not do in the bits in between is to attempt to answer the major question. Why was the liquidation proceeded with before local people, whether notified by association or by its council representatives, had a chance to consider and to discuss the dire position into which it had fallen and to do something?
He does not deny my central point, that the whole charade was choreographed in order to sell property belonging to the council. He admits “one building will be sold.” He does not say that the other two will not be sold; and further admits that there is no question of the “regeneration” initiative being provided with anything comparable in self-controlled properties/spaces, from which the interests of the community, as seen by the residents, will be supported and protected.
The Liberal Democrats have form in this kind of thing. Their actions are not original. They are new only in the sense that they are only now being applied in Camden. Residents of Richmond are already familiar with them, as regular readers of the “Rotten Boroughs” column in Private Eye will notice.
Residents there see themselves as being swamped by schemes such as this. The buzz words there are “rolling programmes of asset capitalisation” and “surplus site disposal”. Sound familiar?
Residents of Camden are just beginning to see what the Lib Dems’ only intention is.
And, pathetically, it is exactly what the previous New Labour overlords and apparatchiks got stuck into between 1994 and 1997. Look how they went on to do so well on the national scene! They are household names now – and in one case achieving international recognition in a court of law – and successful in metrocentric circles. No names. No pack drill.
Their party is now, of course, a thing of the past. Having rid themselves thoroughly of troublesome lefties the party outline remains in place but if you tap it all you will hear is an empty echo.
My regret is that the ghost will take years to exorcise until it is time for a fresh Labour initiative to emerge, as before. Hopefully, when the times become extremely hard and so divisive as to be destructive to the society we have struggled hard to maintain there will still be a residue of conscience on which to build.
K McCARTHY
West Hampstead
A mandate?
• BACK in 2006, clearly in Camden citizens had a need to hear promises such as the Camden Liberal Democrats’ election manifesto, as our previous administration had their heads buried so far up the clouds that they had forgotten the dictionary meaning of an election mandate.
I quote from the Lib Dems’ manifesto: “We will: offer genuine consultation and choice; implement a system of ‘local decision forums’ throughout Camden, for local people to meet in order to discuss and decide local spending priorities; devolve decision-making on local issues to ward councillors working closely with the forums; provide advice and training for community leaders involved in the forums and other community groups, to ensure their views are heard. For Camden Liberal Democrats this is a central aim: we promise to work with you, ask you what you want, and genuinely listen to what you say”.
Two years down the line, I am rather surprised to find that increasingly the administration in power today appear to be saying that they have an election mandate – therefore this means that no matter how much opposition there is against a proposal, the election mandate they have somehow gives them the right to ignore it. I shall leave it to citizens of this borough to decide how much of the manifesto has been achieved and how much was hype.
MERIC APAK
Vice-chair, Caversham Neighbourhood Partnership
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