Hello Everyone,
This week has been another week where I’ve been focused on council finances and the actions we are accelerating following the C4 judgement by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) on the Council’s housing services. Senior officers met with the Regulator team on Monday afternoon to discuss the required Improvement Plan for housing services which is presently being developed and should be completed in the coming weeks.
As you’d expect, it is comprehensive so that we address all areas identified by the RSH judgement. The Improvement Plan will be based on detailed root cause analysis of the failings identified by the Regulator to understand the combination of factors that have resulted in the failings to mitigate this happening again. This will include analysis of why assurance and monitoring processes did not adequately highlight compliance failings at an earlier stage.
It will help give tenants the confidence that the right problems are being tackled at the right time; and make sure that the high standard outcomes I want for our residents living in our council homes are delivered and sustained. I’ll be keeping you posted on all things on the Regulator of Social Housing front, including the work underway to restore trust with our tenants who have been let down by the Council’s housing services.
That’s why this week I have also spent a lot of my time meeting residents who live in our council homes, including at the first of our Local Area Forums which took place at the Old Town Hall, Stratford on Wednesday. I’ll be doing more of that with my two cabinet members for housing services, Cllr Amar Virdee and Cllr Blossom Young, as we’ll be working with our tenants to co-design important aspects of the Improvement Plan as it relates to all things resident engagement and their experience of council housing in Newham. If you’re a council tenant or leaseholder, or live in a block or estate managed by the Council, please do sign up to come along to one of the Local Area Forums, you can find out details here.
I was really pleased this week to join partners in Newham celebrating Living Wage Week. There are now 92 Living Wage accredited employers in Newham, 32 of which are based in Royal Docks. The cost of living in London is the highest in the UK and low pay creates hardship and real challenges for too many in our community. The Living Wage has delivered lasting benefit for so many, I will continue to bang the drum and encourage all businesses in Newham to start the journey of accreditation so that a decent wage and financial stability becomes the norm for everyone in Newham. This week, Cabinet took a look at a whole range of activities and initiatives that I am pleased and proud to say will help us move forward on some key issues for Newham residents. We agreed to deliver our very first community led housing scheme, which we hope will turn a disused garage site in Canning Town into nine permanently affordable homes, including two and three bedroom flats and three bedroom maisonettes. We’ve been working on this with Newham Citizens and E16CLT, a Community Land Trust; a model where local assets are owned by local communities and ensures they’re protected forever for the benefit of the local community. This is all part of our Affordable Homes for Newham strategy. We also agreed to continue closer and continued work in Carpenters Road, Pool Street and Marshgate Lane with the London Legacy Development Corporation team to improve connectivity and green spaces across the borough - providing safer walking and cycling routes - as we continue our work to deliver a Fairer Newham. And we’ve agreed to appoint an operator to roll out 320 electric vehicle chargers to improve access to Newham residents and businesses. Part of the Just Transition Plan, agreed by this Council last December, this will ultimately deliver 3,000 such chargers across the borough by 2030 to encourage a permanent shift to greener transport and cleaner air. And as we continue our work to deliver a balanced budget for 2025/6 - despite the tremendous pressures put on us by the massive increase in a need for temporary accommodation - we are leaving no stone unturned in investigating any option to make savings or release assets which will bring in income. Please don’t forget the final online public engagement event next Wednesday and join us to share your views if you can. In one area discussed by Cabinet we agreed to sell a block of unused IT addresses, allocated to us at no cost but are no longer needed by the Council. This was likened by my Cabinet colleague Cllr Zulfiqar Ali, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, to finding an old masterpiece in the attic as it could fetch £2m. This can be reallocated into service delivery or meet the additional cost of what we deliver at present. As you’d expect, through a series of events in Newham we’ll be marking Remembrance Day on Sunday and Armistice Day on Monday next week. Remembrance Sunday commemorates the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars, and since. As does Armistice Day, which has been observed across the UK and Commonwealth every year since 1919 with a two-minute silence at 11am to remember all those, of all backgrounds, ethnicities and faiths, who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War. As we acutely and painfully know, and at this present time too, many lives are still being sacrificed to the madness of conflict and war. That is why I am a proud signatory of the global network of Mayor’s for Peace, and support the power of dialogue and actions in bringing people together to deepen unity and connection. The main event in Newham on Remembrance Sunday is at the East Ham Cenotaph in Central Park, where I will join His Majesty’s representative, fellow councillors, Council officers, the emergency services and armed forces, in representing the people of Newham in paying tribute to all those that we honour and remember. Members of the Royal British Legion will parade from East Ham Town Hall on High Street South to Central Park, with the parade starting at 10.30am. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 10:55am. I do hope that you will be able to join me in paying tribute – please do watch the parade, or gather in Central Park at 10.45am. There are also services at All Saints West Ham, St Luke’s War Memorial, Canning Town, St Mark’s Memorial, North Woolwich that you can take part in, you can see details of all these events here. As we mark Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day, I’ll be saying a prayer for all those lives lost through conflict and war in the past and in this present day. And praying for peace. Best wishes,
Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE Follow what I am up to via X/Twitter: @rokhsanafiaz | 
