Thursday 13 April 2017

Lewisham Council #NewCross #Deptford #Bakerloo line extension set to cost 100s of local jobs

My latest article, please  act and respond to this consultation TODAY and please share across your social network this information ,
Click on the link to read


Wednesday 12 April 2017

Southwark Council top 40 staff earn over £100,000 a year.

This is my live TV News interview responding to the fact , Council top workers are earning over £100,000 a year for cuts and austerity..Its not on.

Please spread this interview across your social networks






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D679oD4BdJk&feature=youtube

Saturday 8 April 2017

Bakerloo Line extension and impact on New cross and Deptford , #Lewisham

Bakerloo line extension and its impact on jobs in New Cross and #Deptford
I have just attended Transport For London consultation on the tube line extension and slightly agog i seem to be the only one that has noticed the plans for a new, New Cross Gate station , that will lead to the demolition of all shops on the commercial site including Sainsburys, and more importantly the loss of hundreds of jobs that many local young people and woman with children , depends upon in part due to the flexible working hours, therefore the loss of these jobs would be devasting to local families in the area and off course the substantial loss of business rates these commercial units presently pay.
Many of you maybe aware of the location will note on the right of the station is a substantial land area which in my view would work better as a station site as would improve disability access and would be far better for families with buggies etc..the other real area of concern will be the loss of yet another petrol station, in the real world most people at some point need transport other than a bike and with the petrol station going on Evelyn street as part of the wider Timberyard development , The deadline to express your concern is this coming 21 April .
Website,. 
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/ 

email bie@tfl.gov.uk post Freepost ( no stamp needed ) TFL Consultations
or call them on 0343 222 1155 .
I will be raising this at the next Lewisham People Before Profit meeting to get as much all party support as possible.

Wednesday 5 April 2017

My Criminalisation of the Hungry campaign gets a lift in The Canary

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that police prosecuted more than 2,800 people for stealing food in London alone. But these hungry people weren’t shoplifters. Most were branded criminals for taking waste food from supermarket bins.

Criminalising hunger

Campaigner and author Ray Woolford asked for an FOI from the Metropolitan Police. It showed that the police gave 2,823 people “a charge or summons where food property was stolen”. Penalties range from jailing people for up to two weeks to a £150 fine. And some London boroughs appear to treat hungry people more criminally than others.
Hounslow charged the most people, with 147 individuals prosecuted. Barking and Dagenham, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Islington and Lambeth all criminalised over 100 people for food theft, while Kingston Upon Thames had the fewest at 36.
Woolford believes that police charged many of these people for taking waste food from supermarket bins. He told The Canary:
It costs supermarkets a fortune to store and transport food to landfill. That then costs a further £40 a tonne to dump. In 2017, we must have a better system in place about dealing and addressing the scandals of waste food. Is it civilised to be jailing and criminalising the hungry, many of whom may be homeless or have had their benefits sanctioned?

Waste food

Supermarkets throw away over 300,000 tonnes of food each year. But families add seven million tonnes to that figure. Meaning, on average, each family chucks out £450 of food each year. Meanwhile, over half a million people are reliant on just one food bank charity, the Trussell Trust. So the actual number of people having to get emergency food supplies each year is probably much higher. And London’s homeless population has more than doubled since 2010.

Tory Britain

Woolford said:
Can we in the present economic climate afford to drag these people though the expensive court and legal system? And then [lock] them up in our over crowded jails? While fining them £150 which, if they had had in [the] first place, [they] would have no need to root through dustbins to eat… Who’s the criminal here? Under the Tories we have been taken back to the 1930s.
The figures for food theft are just for London. Which means there could be a larger problem across the country.
This year, the government will have found money to save corporations £9bn in tax. Yet they are unable to find the money to help people struggling to eat. Something is very, very wrong in the UK.