Socialist
Party councillors, Ian Page and Chris Flood
Challenging
Labour and defending the local community
Your Socialist Party councillors, Ian Page
and Chris Flood, are challenging Labour and defending the local
community.
We need more councillors like Ian and Chris
who are prepared to lead struggles against the onslaught of cuts
and privatisation that Lewisham Labour council say we have to
swallow. We say no!
The pathetic Lewisham Labour councillors are
even making cuts of 3.5% to all voluntary sector organisations.
This means the most vulnerable will be hit such as, the elderly,
disabled and community groups. We should be demanding more money
from this miserly government who give huge tax breaks to big
business and spend £5 billion to occupy Iraq.
But we’ll only get more funding for public
services and pay through campaigns and industrial action. There’s
no other way!
Ian and Chris are helping council
leaseholders (home owners) on the Honor Oak estate to build a
campaign against £20,000 refurbishment charges on
asbestos-ridden flats. Promises of concessions have been forced
out of the council. Many feel conned by the ‘right to buy,’
as the council is prepared to force people to sell their flats
to pay for the repairs (see inside).
The struggle for a new school goes on. Many
local school students still don’t have a secondary place. Ian
and Chris have pressed the council on a new site at Lewisham
College on Lewisham Way (more details inside).
Around the ward Ian and Chris are
representing local people and taking up a huge range of issues.
They’ve helped to resolve problems on the Kender estate over
cheap boilers, inadequate bins, and got charges for communal TV
dishes dropped. They are trying to encourage the setting up of a
tenants association.
They’ve argued that Telegraph Hill should
be included in the Brockley Cross traffic calming plan. Around
Hathway House and Evelina Road they’re representing tenants
complaining of poor work standards and lack of consultation with
the regeneration programme. Near New Cross bus garage they’re
helping residents who suffer from the noise.
They’re dealing with more than 50
individual cases, many have been resolved such as the re-housing
of a tenant in Briant St who had previously been refused
alternative accommodation: dealing with terrible conditions in a
flat on Pomeroy St: sorting out repairs to a house in Gellatly
Rd: helping with problems of parents of special needs children:
dealing with Council Tax and Housing Benefit problems. And much
more…
All this is vital work, but as a start to
changing the situation which causes these conditions, it’s
even more important for working-class people to struggle
collectively. Workers are starting to fight back. Low paid civil
servants, who often have to claim the benefits they deal with at
work, took strike action over pay recently with more planned.
Blair and Labour are despised and mistrusted.
But trade union leaders need to break their ties with Labour and
struggle to build a new party of workers and young people. With
a socialist programme this party could start to struggle for the
resources we need. To change conditions permanently we also have
to struggle for a socialist society, then money can be directed
to where it’s needed instead of into the pockets of the rich.
Asbestos scandal - time for an inquiry into
council behaviour.
COUNCIL LEASEHOLDERS (home owners) in the
Sector J area of Honor Oak estate, feel angry and conned by this
Labour controlled council. They were sold asbestos-ridden
council flats, without any warnings and now face council
refurbishment charges of up to £20,000 that include the
disposal of asbestos.
Many of those affected are elderly and have
no access to anything like that kind of money. But the campaign
pressure has worried the council. At a council meeting, under
pressure from Socialist Party councillors Ian Page and Chris
Flood, they agreed they would look at each individual case.
The council have threatened legal action,
including the threat of repossession against those who don’t
pay. But people from the estate are fighting back, setting up
the ‘Sector J Action Group.’ Maria Symes is a key part of
the campaign, she sums up the mood. "The council just don’t
get it, or don’t care, that people on the Honor Oak estate can’t
find 20 odd grand at the drop of a hat. We are determined to
carry on our fight and protect our homes from
re-possession."
The council estate refurbishment programme
was won a few years ago by a campaign supported by HOENA and Ian
Page. But leaseholders have been shocked by the threat of huge
bills being imposed on them.
Most flats were sold in the late 1980s and
1990s. But a chartered Greater London Council (GLC) survey in
1984 clearly identified widespread asbestos. The council
originally claimed they had not seen the report, but now say
some people in the council saw it. This report also recommended
that the maintenance about to be carried out should have been
completed in1991.
Leaseholders feel they’ve been deliberately
kept in the dark. Not only have they been exposed to severe
health risks but now they face what should have been largely
council costs.
Recently elected councillor Chris Flood has
now joined Ian in supporting this struggle. A public meeting has
been organised and campaigners lobbied the Labour council and
MP. They formally asked the council when they would be billed
and for how much. Ian and Chris have also raised it in the
council chamber.
The council arrogantly won’t give a
definitive figure until the work has been completed. But if
payment is not in full within ten months, interest will be
charged.
The action group wants an end to asbestos and
other unreasonable charges and to have proper consultation with
the council instead of being treated with contempt.
We think an independent inquiry, involving
local community groups, should examine the council behaviour.
The council should have clear guidelines delivered to those
living in flats with asbestos.
These would include risk assessments to
residents and workers when any work is carried out. In fact
having sold the properties in such an underhand way, exposing
people to asbestos, the council should be offering compensation
rather than demanding money.
Sector J Action Group has seen leaked figures
of the costs the
council are charging.
This includes not only the cost of removing
asbestos, but also:
1) £3,000 per property for
scaffolding. It should take 3 or 4 days for each property to
have its roof replaced.
2) £1,800 - £2,650 each to insure the
contractor’s property, to provide them with security, plus pay
their rent and wages etc.
Socialist Party Branch Meetings
The Socialist Party meets every Thursday
evening at the Toads Mouth Too Café, Brockley Road, Brockley at
7.30pm to discuss political issues and campaigns.
If you want to find out more about the
Socialist Party or our ideas, you’re welcome to attend the
branch meetings or feel free to contact Denise on 079064 06687
or Chris Moore at the Socialist Party National Centre on 0208
9888 777.
Our branch programme for the next few weeks
is:
Thursday 18 March ‘No to the ban on the
Hijab!’
Thursday 25 March ‘Council Tax- Lessons
from the Poll Tax’
Thursday 1 April ‘Economics- what is
the alternative to the current system?’
Thursday 8 April ‘Crisis in the Middle
East. What’s the solution to the failed road map to peace?’
RECENTLY SOCIALIST Party councillors Chris
Flood and Ian Page put forward a motion at a Lewisham
council meeting calling on the council and the three local
Labour MPs to oppose top-up tuition fees. Below we print part of
Chris’s speech.
"TOP-UP fees of up to £3,000 a year
will mean many more students leaving university with huge debts
of over £20,000. After tuition fees came in, we saw
applications to university fall, especially from the poorest
section of society.
Last year university applications from young
people in England and Wales rose after falling in 2002, which is
welcome. But the universities ‘clearing house’ UCAS said
applications from under-21 year olds in England rose by 1.5% and
by 1.1% in Wales, whereas those from Scottish students, who don’t
have to pay tuition fees upfront, increased by 2.9%.
The argument that students will actually be
better off as the repayment threshold will increase is dishonest
- student debt is set to double.
The government says higher education is a
ticket to higher earnings. This might apply to someone working
with a City firm but what about someone in public sector jobs
such as teaching and the NHS?
And the new funding arrangements won’t
solve the £8 billion black hole of under-investment in
universities. Oxford University Chancellor Chris Patten warns
that top up fees of £3,000 a year would only scratch the
surface of higher education’s funding crisis.
If we support this "co-payment"
system, "marketisation", in principle then we’ll be
supporting future ‘co-payments’ in health and other public
sector areas.
The government say everyone should contribute
something to their education, But people already do… it’s
called taxation!
They then say 80% of taxpayers never went to
university - so why should they pay? But on that basis why
should those without children pay for schools, or those without
cars pay for roads? Once political parties start to question who
should pay for what, the idea of national collective provision
crumbles.
This legislation will adversely affect
applications, worsen debt and do little to address the current
funding crisis. We call on this council and our three local MPs
to support Goldsmiths College, its students and future students
by opposing this legislation and by supporting our motion."
After hearing Chris speak, Lewisham council’s
Labour leadership ruled out voting on the motion on the grounds
that they don’t deal with higher education. But such
bureaucratic manoeuvres wouldn’t be able to save New Labour if
the burning anger over top-up fees was fully organised.
In brief
KENDER ESTATE – Ian and Chris are working
with Housing Association tenants to set up a tenants association
to ensure that Hyde Housing maintain services.
HONOR OAK ESTATE – Ian and Chris are
continuing to take up issues about disrepair arising from the
estate’s refurbishment work.
Your Socialist Party councillors’ surgery
times
Chris Flood email cllr_chris.flood@lewisham.gov.uk
Telephone 020 8694 3623.
1st Saturday of the month. 11am
to 12noon at Honor Oak Community Centre, Honor Oak Estate, SE4.
Ian Page email cllr_chris.flood@lewisham.gov.uk
Telephone 020 8692 0435.
3rd Saturday of the month. 10am
to 11am, Telegraph Hill Centre, Kitto Road, New Cross, SE14.
Chris and Ian. 3rd
Monday of the month. 5pm to 6pm, Sector J Clubroom, off Coston
Walk, Honor Oak Estate, SE4.
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