Boarded up. Photo: Bill McIntyre, Flickr

Deprivation, joblessness and child poverty: these are three issues for which Tower Hamlets is notorious. Headlines in the pages of the humble East London Advertiser as well as the Guardian and the Times have told the story of deep-rooted problems in the East End borough for many years.

The national charity End Child Poverty identifies Tower Hamlets as the worst borough in London for rates of deprivation, with 53 per cent of children coming from families living on unemployment benefits. It is by no means a new problem for the borough; its history is steeped in tales of extreme overcrowding, lack of well paid jobs, and high rates of disease.

These issues pose a weighty challenge to the borough’s politicians, and the battle for control over the area’s two parliamentary constituencies has become more and more brutal with each consecutive election. In 2006, the general election year in which Respect candidate George Galloway unseated Labour’s Oona King, allegations of “dirty tricks” in the local elections, including massive postal voting fraud, were rife. The Respect party went so far as submitting a dossier of dozens of alleged offences to the police.

More recently, in June 2009, Martin Smith – chief executive of Tower Hamlets council – was awarded a £500,000 payout after allegedly being forced out by council leader Lutfur Rahman. On March 17th of this year, Lutfur Ali, the assistant chief executive of the council who was brought in after Smith’s departure, was forced to resign after a high-pressure campaign against him led by Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan. Gilligan had made a Channel 4 documentary alleging that headhunters involved in Ali’s recruitment doubted he was qualified for the job. He claimed in a series of blogs that Ali was also connected to the Islamic Forum for Europe, an organisation he has taken pains to denounce as “fundamentalist”.

But a spokeswoman for the council was reported to have said at the time of the allegations: “If we had to rebut every inaccuracy Andrew Gilligan put out we’d be here for a very long time.” The Respect party, of course, claim Ali was the “first Muslim victim” of the “Tory-Labour witch hunt”.

It is clear that while the politicians have occupied themselves in mud-slinging matches with their opponents, the state of Tower Hamlets has continued to worsen. Take, for example, the fact that the number of households with more than one person per bedroom has been growing for the last 30 years, shown in the graph below.

Number of households with more than one person per bedroom in Tower Hamlets

Statistics from http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk. © Office of National Statistics, for England and Wales

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What do the 4 main parties in Tower Hamlets propose to do about the borough’s problems?

Conservatives

Tim Archer, parliamentary candidate for the new consituency of Poplar and Limehouse, claims he needs a swing of only 5.5 per cent to win the seat. He has fought a general election once before, and says he preferred to contest a seat in the East End rather than stand for a safe Tory seat.

On his website he claims his “number one priority” is health, and backs the Conservative promise to increase spending on the NHS and give patients more freedom of choice. Another proposal he supports is to reintroduce dental checks for school children. This could make him popular in a historically unhealthy constituency where GPs and patients have recently taken to the streets to demonstrate against proposed NHS cuts.

The Conservatives’ argument that they would do better than Labour for the NHS in Tower Hamlets was strengthened in February when the lead member of the council for health, Dr Anwara Ali, defected to the Tories. She said: “Gordon Brown’s obsession with top down targets and a tick box culture has ruined the morale and goodwill of the national health staff. Ill health and early death in the East End is a direct result of Labour’s failure to bring real reform to the NHS.”

The East London Advertiser reports that Tim Archer’s other key priorities are housing, education, crime and anti-social behaviour. He says he wants to see more neighbourhood police on the streets outside office hours when there is more likely to be anti-social behaviour.

Tory candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, Zakir Khan, is looking to make history, not only in Tower Hamlets but in the country, by becoming the first Bangladeshi Tory MP. He is known among Conservaties for promoting youth community projects.

Labour

Former fireman Jim Fitzpatrick has been Labour’s MP for Poplar and Canning Town for 13 years. He is now minister for farming, food and environment. He says his priorities are housing, employment, public services, health and policing.

He courted controversy in August 2009 when he and his wife walked out of a Muslim wedding, reportedly after hearing that men and women would have to sit in separate rooms. He also claimed last month that the Islamic Forum for Europe was acting like a party within Labour. He said: “They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power.”

His voting record shows he is against MPs being able to claim furniture allowances, and for the more rigorous scrutiny of MP expenditure, having voted for the rejected bill of July 2008 that proposed to strictly regulate parliamentary expenses. This vote was taken before the expenses scandal of last summer.

Jim Fitzpatrick’s main policies are lower council tax, working for a “cleaner safer borough”, reducing youth unemployment, supporting older residents, and providing for more “family sized homes”.

Listed by The Guardian as one of the most powerful Muslim women in Britain, Rushanara Ali aims to win the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow. It was once a Labour constituency, until Oona King was unseated by George Galloway in 2006. She said: “I’m confident that we can win this seat back, but it’s important to work across the community. At the last election we were divided, particularly around the issue of Iraq. It’s really important that we rebuild trust in this area.”

Liberal Democrats

The Lib Dems have made housing a priority locally, which can only be a good thing in a borough as overcrowded as Tower Hamlets. “With 23,000 people on the housing waiting list, we cannot afford to have even one home empty in Tower Hamlets – The number of empty homes is a scandal. We should put pressure on owners and investors to ensure they do not leave housing vacant for months at a time. There are people and families who need those homes,” says local councillor Stephanie Eaton.

Jonathan Fryer is standing in Limehouse and Poplar, proposing to lobby for affordable housing. He promises that no tax will be charged on the first £10,000 of earnings, and says he supports the national policy to “campaign for ethical British foreign policy in which peace and justice come first”.

Ajmal Masroor will stand in Bethnal Green and Bow. He is a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, and is chairman and director of Communities in Action. He is also a television presenter on the Islam Channel and has presented programmes broadcast on Channel 4 and BBC One.

Respect

The notorious George Galloway is standing down in Bethnal Green and Bow, saying he always intended to allow somebody else to take the seat. Abjol Miah is stepping up to take his place. He proposes a wealth tax on bankers and says Respect will work to reverse university cuts.
George Galloway is now standing in Poplar and Limehouse.

Photo: Frankybaby

Workers went without showers, punters peered through closed shop windows, and lunchers went hungry in Shoreditch yesterday as a seven-hour power cut plunged part of East London into darkness.

Nearly 2,000 homes and businesses from Aldgate to Old Street lost electricity at 7.23am yesterday morning, and power was not fully restored until mid-afternoon. Even traffic lights went out, causing chaos at the busy four-way junction of Bishopsgate and Shoreditch High Street.

Renowned restaurant St John’s on Commercial Street was forced to close over lunch, along with local branches of Office and Strada. All bore apology notes to customers in their windows until the early afternoon.

Residents were left feeling disgruntled.

“It was just so annoying,” said Lauren Barnes, a 21-year-old student who lives off Commercial Street. “I couldn’t shower, the freezer stopped working, and there was no internet for hours. I had to have a candlelit bath.”

EDF Energy attributed the blackout to an underground cable fault and apologised to the 1,842 customers affected.

Photo: Monday Club D'n'B

A Hackney nightclub that has earned an international reputation among clubbers is facing the threat of closure because of police concerns about noise, drug abuse and misuse of its drinks licence.

Clubbers across the capital are bracing themselves to fight for the renowned Shoreditch venue Plastic People against a move from the Metropolitan Police to have its licence reviewed, which could put its future in doubt.

The club, which is located on Curtain Road, was established 16 years ago and has since been described by reviewers and punters alike as boasting the best sound system in the country.

But the Metropolitan Police have made an application to Hackney Council to have the club’s licence reviewed on the grounds that the owners have not done enough to prevent crime and noise disturbance to neighbours.

Councillor Alan Laing, Hackney Council cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “Police concerns about Plastic People include issues around poor management, including the lack of a proper search policy, reports of open drug use inside, and alcohol served out of the hours authorised by its licence.”

After a four-week consultation period ends, the case is likely to be referred to a licensing sub-committee where evidence will be heard and the future of the licence will be determined.

The club management is hopeful that a compromise can be reached.

“This does not mean that all hope is lost and that Plastic People has come to its end,” said manager Bernard Koudjo in a statement.

“However, it does mean that we must do all we can to co-operate with the police and Hackney Council in order to ensure that we can keep the best dance music venue in London open for all to enjoy,” he added.

Local residents and businesses are invited to make their views known to the council, but Mr Koudjo urged club-goers who do not live in the vicinity to hold back on making complaints to the police and council, until a newly created committee called Friends of Plastic People can organise themselves to represent the venue.

In the meantime, a Facebook campaign called Keep Plastic People Alive has been established, and has attracted more than 10,000 members.

Members who had joined shared memories of the club online. “No other club is better,” said one commenter, while another said: “We aren’t the only ones that love this place – the industry folk do too.”

Plastic People is famous on the underground music scene for its eclectic mix of music events, including renowned dubstep night Forward.

Locally-based music promoter Takahiro Nakayama, a regular at the club, said: “I think it’s fair to say there’s a problem with noise. But the people who go to Plastic People don’t really take drugs – they are serious music people, and often don’t even drink. I think we should keep Plastic People alive because it’s a really great place for music lovers.”

International music acts such as Four Tet have also expressed their support for the venue with a mix entitled ‘Much Love to the Plastic People’, available online.

This threat of closure to the club comes just weeks after it was announced that the shutting down of popular Shoreditch venue The Foundry would go ahead despite public outcry over plans to have it demolished.

Art work by Kirstie Macleod. Photo: Macleod

Pulling back a thick curtain made up of hundreds of hanging threads, this is what the casual exhibition-goer will see: a slender young woman, dressed in an elegant floor-length gown with a sumptuous furry collar, diligently wrapping a long spool of yarn around a perspex cube. As they pull back the layers of threads to see into the space – a kind of artificial forest clearing – they will notice that inside the innocuous plastic cube lies the gore of a bloody, butchered heart.

This grim vision is a performance installation called Carmine, and it is the contribution made by 28-year-old British artist Kirstie Macleod to 20 Hoxton Square’s February 4th exhibition, Oral Tales. Based on the original folklore behind Little Red Riding Hood, Carmine may seem macabre, but it is Macleod’s attempt to harness the power and immediacy of performance art for the purposes of conveying a narrative. “I have loved storytelling and fairy tales ever since I can remember,” she says.

Macleod is not the only artist pushing performance art to its grim limits. In the artistic hub of Hackney, a profligacy of cheap warehouse spaces and green spaces has attracted the next generation of cutting edge artists. Some performers have developed a penchant for the grisly. And in the cold depths of winter, when the idea of taking refuge from the elements in a warm gallery seems inviting, there is a surprising amount going on.

In Hackney Wick, the Decima Gallery – made famous by collaborations with performance art pioneers Gilbert and George – is planning a special event for 13th February, Chinese New Year’s Eve. And an award-winning annual live art project called You Me Bum Bum Train is in the throes of planning an event in east London set for this July – last year it took place in an old Shoreditch factory called Cordy House. And even the East End’s most famous mainstream gallery, the Barbican Centre, is following the trend, holding a series of Performance Storytelling evenings throughout February.

“It’s certainly a very exciting time for performance art,” says Eloise Fornieles, a Hackney-based performance artist. She has just returned from exhibiting Carrion at the Haunch of Venison in Berlin, a 72-hour performance installation, in which the artist loitered, naked, in a gallery filled with discarded clothes. An animal carcass was hung in the middle of the room. Eating nothing for the duration of the performance, Fornieles proceeded to lance the hanging meat with letters of apology collected from the audience. Although the piece has now been shown in three different countries, it was originally exhibited at East London gallery Paradise Row.

Performing a piece of art instead of merely painting or sculpting a representation of it is what makes it powerful, believes Fornieles. “The strength of the medium is in its immediacy,” she says. “You experience it only really when you’re there. It’s just one of these practices that’s innate in human ritual, and so part of being human.”

Fornieles will also perform at 20 Hoxton Square’s Oral Tales evening, which forms part of TimeOut’s First Thursdays initiative – a project that sees galleries across London open late on the first Thursday of every month so that working people can come together and get a taste of the local art scene. Adam Waymouth, co-director of 20 Hoxton Square, says his gallery has never put on performance installations before, but expects them to become a regular part of its future programme.

“Performance pieces are a bit more than what [members of the public] would normally get in the gallery,” he says. “If people are giving up their Thursday evening, then they should be rewarded for going out of their comfort zones.”

Oral Tales, 6 – 9pm, 4th February. At 20 Hoxton Square, N1. Closest tube Old Street.

City airport expansion would be just plane noisy say Tower Hamlets. Photo: Juan Garcia

Tower Hamlets has joined neighbouring borough Redbridge in opposing expansion of London City Airport.

The move, which was made to restrict noise disturbance to those living on noisy flight paths in Poplar, Bow, and the Isle of Dogs, came after a council vote last Wednesday.

In July this year, the borough of Newham, where London City Airport is based, voted to allow an increase in air traffic to 120,000 aircraft movements a year, a 50% rise compared with 2006.

But Tower Hamlets will make it known that they oppose further expansion, and residents are being encouraged to make their views known during London City Airport’s ongoing consultation, the Noise Action Plan 2009 – 14.

Labour Councillor Marc Francis said it was important to respond by highlighting the nuisance inflicted upon residents.

“We are actively seeking the views of residents about this issue to inform the Council’s response to the consultation,” he said.

Lewisham Hospital. Photo: Clare Finney

In a damning indictment of its patient care, Lewisham Hospital was rated the worst in London this week.

The Dr Foster Hospital Guide, produced by a private-public partnership company linked to the NHS, gave Lewisham the third worst score out of all trusts in the country: just 3.43 out of 100.

It was named as being one of the 12 poorest performing trusts in the UK.

The Dr Foster report scored hospitals using a complex points-based system, taking into account aspects of care such as mortality rates, cancelled appointments and patient waiting times.

It highlighted that Lewisham Hospital was the worst in the UK for giving suspected stroke victims prompt CT scans, with only 23 per cent given the test within 24 hours of their admittance to hospital.

The mortality rate for patients suffering heart attacks was nearly 10 per cent above the national average, and the death rate for patients admitted with a broken hip was also unusually high.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), a body that monitors the quality of care provided by the NHS, rated Lewisham Hospital Trust as “good” in an annual report published in October.

Lewisham Hospital Trust, which has applied to be one of the UK’s Foundation Trusts, said in a statement: “We are surprised and disappointed at this scoring from Dr Foster, especially as we were rated in the top 40 Hospitals by CHKS, the UK’s leading independent provider of healthcare intelligence and quality improvement services, earlier this year.”

The revelations have proved embarrassing for the CQC and forced them to defend their ratings system, which is based on hospitals’ own self-assessment.

Cynthia Bower, chief executive of the CQC, said: “All of [the 12 hospitals named in the report] have been subject to scrutiny by CQC and where we had concerns, we have followed these up.”

She added: “We can and do act swiftly wherever we find reasons for concern.”

The CQC also pointed out that assessing a trust using a snapshot of statistics at a particular point in time is a flawed method.

But Bower was willing to admit that there was much to be done to improve patient care in hospitals like Lewisham.

“The NHS cannot stand still on safety. It needs to make further improvements,” she said. “Delivering healthcare is not risk free and mistakes will be made on occasion. But people must know that everything is being done, for every patient, every day to minimise safety risks.”

Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham, reflected that users may still be confused about the results.

He said: “There appears to be conflicting interpretations of the same data and until this Dr Foster organisation can explain how they have reached this conclusion it would not be appropriate for me to comment.”

We talked to people outside the hospital and found a very different response (see video below)

World AIDS memorial in Seattle. Photo: Andrew Conn

What do Reiki, cake-baking, and 80s-style cocktail bars have in common?

These were some of the ways local organisations showed their support for World Aids Day this Tuesday.

This year the theme of the annual event, which was first held on 1^st December 1988, was ‘human rights and access to treatment’.

Charities across east London hosted a range of activities to raise awareness of the illness, including a Cocktails and Dreams party and Dandy Boys auction held by Stepney-based AIDS charity Positive East.

A Reiki and Cakey afternoon will also be held in Mile End this Saturday to raise funds for the charity.

Meanwhile, primary care trusts in the four East London Lines boroughs held awareness events and offered free all-day HIV testing.

Tower Hamlets PCT gave out information and condoms at Chrisp Street market, Stratford Triangle and the New Vic College, and Lewisham Hospital offered testing all day with results available in 20 minutes.

By Clare Finney and Ellie Rose

Average ambulance travel times could increase by up to four minutes. Photo: Gavin Spencer

Plans to dramatically reduce outpatient appointments in a multi-million pound cost-cutting proposal are set to provoke anger and controversy in the East End.

Some 21 members of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts for north-east London, including representatives from Tower Hamlets and Hackney, voted unanimously on Tuesday evening to launch a 13-week consultation into how a proposed overhaul of local health services could be implemented.

The restructuring, if it goes ahead, could save the NHS £21 million.

It would mean that a minimum of 40 per cent of accident and emergency attendances in Tower Hamlets and Hackney will cease to be dealt with by hospitals, and will be absorbed instead by ‘urgent care services’ provided in part by local surgeries. Overall hospital outpatient appointments in north-east London are set to be reduced by 60 per cent.

Directors aim to cut time spent in hospital beds, developing instead a “robust strategy for care outside of hospital,” according to Heather O’Meara, chief of Redbridge PCT.

The complex document laying out details of the proposals was published last week. Directors say it was conceived through a rigorous process of consultation with clinicians and patients.

But many members of the public believe they have not been properly consulted because the plans have not been put into simple English. Officials admitted on Tuesday they had not written a summary of changes for the general public, but had produced instead several hundred pages of medical jargon.

Tower Hamlets resident Chris Bailey, 27, said: “This document must be a thousand pages long. How am I ever supposed to read it?”

Major concerns over the feasibility of the project revolve around increased travel times, as the re-organisation of hospitals would mean some patients need to travel longer distances in order to reach experts at specialised hospitals.

This change in patient flow could push up the average journey times of ambulances on blue lights in north-east London by an estimated 2.8 minutes, and ambulances not on blue lights by about 4 minutes.

Amid heckling from angry members of the public, Helen Brown, director for the acute care services review, attempted to present the benefits of the plans to the attendees of the meeting, held in public on Tuesday evening at West Ham football club.

Ms Brown explained that the complicated proposals involved shifting a range of patient services from hospitals to a network of new ‘polyclinics’. These multi-purpose surgeries are aimed at providing a wider range of services than traditional GP practices, including x-rays and other diagnostic procedures. They will also operate longer hours so patients can access care more easily.

Dr May Cahill, chair of the Hackney and City professional executive committee, describes polyclinics as “hubs of care”. There will be a network of up to 30 in north-east London, with up to eight in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

But critics see the plans as a cover for cuts. The recommendation earmarked by clinicians as the most viable could save the NHS around £21 million.

Ms Brown, however, denied that the review was financially motivated. She said: “The health of the population is not as good as we want it to be, not because of the individuals in the health services but because of the way the system is organised. That is why we are doing this.”

The consultation process will begin on 30 November and end in March next year. A final decision based on the findings will be made next July.

Popular pub is set to be replaced by this cylindrical hotel. Photo: Squire and Partners

This Friday marks the last chance for the public to object to plans to demolish popular Hoxton bar The Foundry.

Hackney Council have offered a two-week period for residents to lodge their opinions about the proposed 18-storey cylindrical hotel, which will sit on the junction of Great Eastern Street with Old Street, on the site of shabby chic bar-cum-art-gallery, The Foundry.

The plans – lodged by multi-billionaires the Reuben Brothers, who own the building – have prompted several campaigns to save the bar, which still offers drinks at the rare price of £2.50 a pint as well as showcasing the work of local artists and musicians.

The project has been criticised by conservation adviser for the Victorian Society, Heloise Brown, who said the hotel would be inappropriate to the area. “The proposed tower has more in common with the commercial buildings further west on Old Street, than with its immediate neighbours in Shoreditch,” she said.

The Foundry as it stands today. Photo: Ellie Rose

A Facebook group of nearly 3,000 members has also been set up under the name, ‘Save the Foundry Campaign’. One member, Alicia Montoya, wrote yesterday that the bar was one of the few remaining enclaves of avant-garde art and, more importantly, a place that always feels like home.

Manager of The Foundry Jonathan Moberly would not reveal what he thought of the new building plans themselves, but said: “We’ve always known that something would happen. [The Reuben Brothers] are property developers; that’s what they do.”

Mr Moberly said that rather than fighting the change, he is now concentrating his efforts on relocating The Foundry to a site nearby. “I think that would be more positive”, he said.