MILE END RESIDENTS' NEWS: Community Consultation on Tower Hamlets Community Plan

Saturday, 7 August 2010

Community Consultation on Tower Hamlets Community Plan

This morning Mile End Residents Association (MERA) attended the LAP 5 and 6 Community Plan review of Tower Hamlets Community Plan.

We didn't quite understand how the meeting was supposed to distinguish between comments relevant to Tower Hamlets as a whole and those relating to LAP 5 and 6 (LAP 5 is Bow north of Mile End Road and LAP 6 is the area between Mile End and Bromley by Bow)

WHO ATTENDED?

Excluding council/partnership officers only 26 residents attended the meeting.

This is an appalling level of involvement with local communities and reflects very poorly on the quality of community engagement by the Tower Hamlets Partnership.

Not everybody attending lived in LAPs 5 and 6. Some people lived in Bethnal Green and some lived on the Isle of Dogs. Thus there is no way the meeting can be said to be representative of the views BY local people ABOUT the priorities for the local area

Local organisations can generate much higher levels of attendance of local people at meetings to discuss their local areas. However this depends on the involvement of those local organisations and making sure they get adequate notice of the need for a meeting to enable effective local publicity.

For example, in autumn 2009, in relation to Mile End, Mile End Residents' Association alone generated a much better level of involvement with the Core Strategy (ie how the Community Plan translates to planning developments on the ground) than anything achieved by the Council's Planning Officers.

WHAT PEOPLE SAID

In terms of the impact of current aims and objectives, the meeting indicated very considerable scope for improvement across virtually all the current aims and objectives of the Community Plan

The four issues which emerged as the top concerns at the meeting - at a Tower Hamlets level and based on identified aims were:

Providing affordable housing and strong communities
Reducing worklessness
Tackling and Preventing Crime
Improving access to and experience of local health services

In our view there were not enough attempts to identify what might be the current aims and objectives of the local communities. The officer focus on commenting only on existing aims and objectives was NOT helpful.

A recurrent theme of people attending concerned the lack of open, honest and real engagement with the Community in understanding both:

what community concerns really are (eg issues arising from the stock transfers and the lack of real resident-led housing management)
the potential of community organisations - such as MERA - for helping with listening to what local people think is important

OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMMENT ON YOUR PRIORITIES FOR TOWER HAMLETS

Download the Community Plan

Download the Community Plan 2020 (pdf, 4.09mb)

You can comment on the Community Plan update as detailed below. Remember to say what you think and don't just limit yourself to responding to the questions asked.

MERA will also be submitting a formal comment on the Community Plan to the Tower Hamlets Partnership Team responsible for the refresh.

Meetings

You can attend events outside your local area. There is one more opportunity to get involved with the Community Plan Refresh on Monday 9th August 2010: 6.30-8.30pm at Docklands Sailing Centre, 235a Westferry Road, E14 3QS.

Take part in the Community Plan Online Survey