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Martin Rowson wishes the 73 bus a Merry Christmas
GOOD NEIGHBOURS BECOME GOOD FRIENDS
by Jessica Crowe
Stoke Newington's new Neighbourhood Committee will meet for the first time on 19
December*. It will meet every three months as a formal meeting but will also be able to
hold more frequent events on specific issues chosen by local people and councillors. But
what will this mean for Stoke Newington's famous 'village community' and how will it
differ from the old Neighbourhood Committee?
First of all, there will be plenty of space for local people to raise local issues and
help set the agendas, rather than these being pre-determined by councillors or officers
alone. Each Neighbourhood will decide what local issues they want to scrutinise. They will
have the power to demand that council officers and cabinet members come to their meetings
to answer questions and explain what they are doing. And once a year in each Neighbourhood
there will be a Mayor's Question Time.
Secondly, there are now opportunities for local people to be 'co-opted' onto the committee
to work alongside the councillors to get things done. The first meeting will decide what
types of people could be represented on the committee through co-options, eg the police,
local tenants and residents' representatives, local school governors etc, and will invite
people to put themselves forward, taking a
decision on this at the next meeting. There is plenty of local talent and commitment to
making Stoke Newington an (even better) place. I hope people will want to contribute this
talent to the work of the Neighbourhood.
Cynics may fear that the Neighbourhood Committee will just be a talking shop, with no real
powers or budgets. I make no apology for service budgets not being split up and parcelled
out amongst the neighbourhoods. Hackney is still recovering from the effects of devolving
budgets, which led to duplication and the loss of financial controls and the cuts
everyone has felt in recent years. We cannot risk that again.
However, the committee will be very much more than a talking shop. Stoke Newington will
have its own support officer to follow-up the committee's decisions, plus a new
Neighbourhood Co-ordinator, to be employed through the government's Neighbourhood Renewal
Fund (NRF) to liaise with all the services at local level to improve co-ordination and
quality. Scrutinising and tackling service issues across the breadth of the council's
multi-million pound budget gives potentially a great deal more influence than deciding how
to spend a few thousand pounds.
The committee will also be responsible for drawing up a local Stoke Newington
Neighbourhood Action Plan, which will set out local priorities and help inform the
borough-wide plans that determine how the council and its partners' money will be spent in
future. The committee will have a budget from NRF to organise community events,
consultation and communication with local people to develop this local plan. I hope it
will use this budget as imaginatively as possible to try and involve people from Stoke
Newington's diverse communities also recognising that the new Neighbourhood includes
more streets to the north of Church Street. At the first meeting in December, there will
be a presentation on how the council plans to take this forward come along to
contribute your views.
Finally, yes, this is an experiment for the council and inevitably there will be mistakes.
But the new administration is committed to making it work. We know the council has a long
way to go in improving its services and its relationship with local residents. I hope the
Neighbourhood Committees will each make a contribution to achieving this from the
bottom-up. That is how the most lasting change is achieved.
* Starts 7.30pm St. Mary's Community Hall, Defoe Road N16
Jessica Crowe is a local councillor and Deputy Mayor of Hackney Council.
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