For a better Tower Hamlets
it is time for a political change
Tower Hamlets is a fantastic place, it has so many amazing assets like Brick Lane, Victoria Park, the Tower of London, its docks and canals, Canary Wharf, and the river Thames. But its politics is not one of those assets! As a result, it could be a much better place to live, work and grow up in.
We have many challenges and opportunities to try and improve Tower Hamlets for everybody. We should be debating those opportunities between now and the 5th May 2022 when we elect the next mayor for Tower Hamlets. The Council has loads of money in the bank and there are things it could do to improve the quality of life and to reduce the cost of living here.
To have that debate, I will be running to be the next Mayor of Tower Hamlets. I will stand as an independent candidate, a member of no political party.
Am I going to win? Probably not, but that is not why I am doing this. The main focus of my Mayoral campaign will be with your help to produce a people’s manifesto. To have a debate in the coming months about how we can improve Tower Hamlets and my campaign will be designed to encourage that debate. And if we can come up with some really good ideas then I will pay the £500 deposit to be a candidate so that you can vote for them. Hopefully, other candidates will also wish to implement them, which is what I want to encourage. It might also be a complete waste of time, but it will be fun and interesting to do it. You also still have your 2nd preference vote.
Next May's election will be competitive with Lutfur Rahman versus John Biggs. But I worry in that contest between who was the best (or worst) mayor in the past that the debate about the future won’t happen.
Part of my campaign will be educational, explaining what the Mayor can or cannot do (but could influence), what the issues are, what some of the solutions could be. I will put some ideas in to get the conversation started but also make clear what after almost eight years of being a Councillor and twelve years of being a resident what I would do if I had any power. But if you have any ideas, let's hear them. How would you improve Tower Hamlets? Let me know by email at [email protected] I also set up a new Facebook group for some of these conversations: called Tower Hamlets Issues
Andrew Wood
PS there is another reason for running as an official candidate. It helps me to scrutinise the election, for example, the decision by the Labour Party to ignore the Council’s Monitoring Officer, to keep distributing contrary to her clear instruction’s leaflets using Council officers contact details on party political leaflets. As the 2nd official candidate, I can now state that causes my campaign harm, which may encourage the Police and others to take this more seriously.
Some possible questions answered in advance
Why do this?
Will this not split the vote and allow another candidate to win?
This maybe the last election held under the 2nd preference vote system, where you get two votes – your 1st choice and a 2nd choice, if your first-choice candidate does not get enough votes your 2ndchoice vote will be counted and may well determine who gets elected as Mayor.
The Conservative government is changing the rules after May to First Past the Post, the candidate with the most votes wins, with no 2nd vote, they are doing this because it helps the Conservative Party. I disagree with this model and consider it less democratic when you are selecting a leader like a Mayor with such power.
What if you did get elected, how would you run Tower Hamlets with no other Councillors in your ‘party’?
The job of Councillors is to scrutinise the Mayor. The job of the Mayor is to make decisions. They have two very different jobs even if many do not realise that. In theory the Mayor, does not need Councillors but given the workload, they usually pick some Councillors to be their Cabinet members to spread the workload. I could do the same but would pick the most competent and experienced from across the political parties. I will have a plan ready for what I would do if elected, again the hope would be to convince others to adopt similar plans.
You will only get votes from the Isle of Dogs?
If elected, any mayor should make decisions to benefit the whole of Tower Hamlets and most of my issues and concerns affect the whole of Tower Hamlets so I will be campaigning to be the Mayor for the whole of Tower Hamlets.
BUT I do believe the Isle of Dogs has had a poor deal because other politicians believe the island is not important politically, in part because of low voter turnout here. I want to convince other politicians to take this area more seriously and show them that while they may not win here, they can lose votes here which may affect their results in a tight race.
Is John Biggs a bad Mayor?
No, he is hard-working and diligent. But there is a problem at the Council with the structure and culture of the organisation. Too many failures and somebody has to take responsibility. And there continues to be a lack of real transparency.
Am I still a Conservative?
No, I will be standing as an independent candidate, which means not a member of any political party, I have not been a member of the Conservative Party since February 2020.
But I continue to be a member of the Conservative group on the Council. I did this to ensure that an opposition group continued to exist on Tower Hamlets Council, to hold the administration to account. And to be able to write letters to Conservative ministers.
Are you standing to be a Councillor as well?
Yes, for Canary Wharf ward as an independent. In the unlikely chance I get elected as a Mayor as well as a Councillor then "their election as councillor will be disregarded and the office of councillor will be deemed to be vacant."
Some examples of what I mean by ideas for a Manifesto
Hard power – developers and fly-tippers know that the consequence of misbehaving is minimal, maybe a £400 fine for fly-tipping. We should be much more pro-active about using our legal and soft power to deal with bad behaviour.
Service charges & communal heating schemes– a major issue locally, the Council could do a lot to help residents understand and to challenge service charges. Communal heating schemes is another area where more clarity and regulation maybe required. It could work with the local MP’s and government to try and change legislation or to get the Competition and Markets Authority more involved in these issues.
Playgrounds & play equipment – should Tower Hamlets Council itself build new playgrounds in areas of new development or rely solely on developers to do this? How should internal play space work or should it not be allowed?
Construction work on Saturdays – should developers be able to do noisy construction work in residential areas on a Saturday? Or should they be restricted to what they can do on Saturdays?
An out of hours noise team working every night from 6pm – which Labour promised to deliver in a previous election manifesto.
Commonhold – should all new Council properties which are for sale (part of the Council’s strategy) only be available as commonhold and not leasehold? This is where the residents and not freeholders are in charge of making decisions about the buildings?
Recycling – start by delivering pink bags to every home in Tower Hamlets together with a leaflet explaining what can be recycled, collecting days etc – and see what happens. Make sure every building has enough big paladin bins for recycling.
Poor door segregation – should we encourage developers to have one entrance to a building for all residents (even if service charges means that there maybe different lift shafts & post rooms) or separate entrances as we do now to segregate social housing from private housing (which is usually done for accounting reasons related to service charges)
Should affordable residents be able to access other private facilities like gyms if they pay an extra contribution on their service charges?
Fire Safety – should Tower Hamlets Council, the Council most affected by fire safety set up a fire safety office together with the London Fire Brigade to provide advice for a period of 5 years to affected residents and to provide the evidence to government on how to deliver safe new tall buildings? By for example commissioning a report into the NPW fire.
Dog Poo – should we consult on introducing fines for people who do not pick up after their dogs? I pick up after my sisters’ dog every weekend, should others do the same?
Youth Centre – should the Council have lots of small youth centers 100% Council funded (although the numbers have been cut back a lot over the years) or fewer but much bigger centres like the Barking & Dagenham Youth Zone which attract charitable funding?
Improve sports facilities - rebuild St Georges leisure centre with new homes + a floating Lido in the docks + rebuild Tiller Road leisure centre as part of a residential development + improve John Orwell as a sports centre + deliver more outside exercise equipment.
Local decisions – where should they be made? – should all decisions be made in one place (currently Mulberry Place and from next year the new £130 million Town Hall in Whitechapel) or should more decisions be made at a local level whether through formal local Councils or informal ward committees where each ward is given a sum of money to decide how to spend?
Parking
Plus many more. Where the Council has no powers today it can and should make the case to the government to find new ways of dealing with some of these problems.
We have many challenges and opportunities to try and improve Tower Hamlets for everybody. We should be debating those opportunities between now and the 5th May 2022 when we elect the next mayor for Tower Hamlets. The Council has loads of money in the bank and there are things it could do to improve the quality of life and to reduce the cost of living here.
To have that debate, I will be running to be the next Mayor of Tower Hamlets. I will stand as an independent candidate, a member of no political party.
Am I going to win? Probably not, but that is not why I am doing this. The main focus of my Mayoral campaign will be with your help to produce a people’s manifesto. To have a debate in the coming months about how we can improve Tower Hamlets and my campaign will be designed to encourage that debate. And if we can come up with some really good ideas then I will pay the £500 deposit to be a candidate so that you can vote for them. Hopefully, other candidates will also wish to implement them, which is what I want to encourage. It might also be a complete waste of time, but it will be fun and interesting to do it. You also still have your 2nd preference vote.
Next May's election will be competitive with Lutfur Rahman versus John Biggs. But I worry in that contest between who was the best (or worst) mayor in the past that the debate about the future won’t happen.
Part of my campaign will be educational, explaining what the Mayor can or cannot do (but could influence), what the issues are, what some of the solutions could be. I will put some ideas in to get the conversation started but also make clear what after almost eight years of being a Councillor and twelve years of being a resident what I would do if I had any power. But if you have any ideas, let's hear them. How would you improve Tower Hamlets? Let me know by email at [email protected] I also set up a new Facebook group for some of these conversations: called Tower Hamlets Issues
Andrew Wood
PS there is another reason for running as an official candidate. It helps me to scrutinise the election, for example, the decision by the Labour Party to ignore the Council’s Monitoring Officer, to keep distributing contrary to her clear instruction’s leaflets using Council officers contact details on party political leaflets. As the 2nd official candidate, I can now state that causes my campaign harm, which may encourage the Police and others to take this more seriously.
Some possible questions answered in advance
Why do this?
- Because I get so frustrated at how poorly the Council does in several areas (but not every area) and think somebody else could do a better job – the Council / Labour Party need a shock to the system which a narrow election result might help deliver
- Because democracy is about choice, and I think I can offer something different
- It gives me a platform to talk about some important issues
- But mainly because I think there is a small chance, I can improve the quality of the debate
- A Labour Councillor recently described the Council quite well in an internal meeting, they called it a small c conservative organisation. Slow, bureaucratic, avoiding hard decisions, always trying to blame others. Not really focussed on quality of life and cost of living issues. It needs to change and only the Mayor has the power to do that.
Will this not split the vote and allow another candidate to win?
This maybe the last election held under the 2nd preference vote system, where you get two votes – your 1st choice and a 2nd choice, if your first-choice candidate does not get enough votes your 2ndchoice vote will be counted and may well determine who gets elected as Mayor.
The Conservative government is changing the rules after May to First Past the Post, the candidate with the most votes wins, with no 2nd vote, they are doing this because it helps the Conservative Party. I disagree with this model and consider it less democratic when you are selecting a leader like a Mayor with such power.
What if you did get elected, how would you run Tower Hamlets with no other Councillors in your ‘party’?
The job of Councillors is to scrutinise the Mayor. The job of the Mayor is to make decisions. They have two very different jobs even if many do not realise that. In theory the Mayor, does not need Councillors but given the workload, they usually pick some Councillors to be their Cabinet members to spread the workload. I could do the same but would pick the most competent and experienced from across the political parties. I will have a plan ready for what I would do if elected, again the hope would be to convince others to adopt similar plans.
You will only get votes from the Isle of Dogs?
If elected, any mayor should make decisions to benefit the whole of Tower Hamlets and most of my issues and concerns affect the whole of Tower Hamlets so I will be campaigning to be the Mayor for the whole of Tower Hamlets.
BUT I do believe the Isle of Dogs has had a poor deal because other politicians believe the island is not important politically, in part because of low voter turnout here. I want to convince other politicians to take this area more seriously and show them that while they may not win here, they can lose votes here which may affect their results in a tight race.
Is John Biggs a bad Mayor?
No, he is hard-working and diligent. But there is a problem at the Council with the structure and culture of the organisation. Too many failures and somebody has to take responsibility. And there continues to be a lack of real transparency.
Am I still a Conservative?
No, I will be standing as an independent candidate, which means not a member of any political party, I have not been a member of the Conservative Party since February 2020.
But I continue to be a member of the Conservative group on the Council. I did this to ensure that an opposition group continued to exist on Tower Hamlets Council, to hold the administration to account. And to be able to write letters to Conservative ministers.
Are you standing to be a Councillor as well?
Yes, for Canary Wharf ward as an independent. In the unlikely chance I get elected as a Mayor as well as a Councillor then "their election as councillor will be disregarded and the office of councillor will be deemed to be vacant."
Some examples of what I mean by ideas for a Manifesto
Hard power – developers and fly-tippers know that the consequence of misbehaving is minimal, maybe a £400 fine for fly-tipping. We should be much more pro-active about using our legal and soft power to deal with bad behaviour.
Service charges & communal heating schemes– a major issue locally, the Council could do a lot to help residents understand and to challenge service charges. Communal heating schemes is another area where more clarity and regulation maybe required. It could work with the local MP’s and government to try and change legislation or to get the Competition and Markets Authority more involved in these issues.
Playgrounds & play equipment – should Tower Hamlets Council itself build new playgrounds in areas of new development or rely solely on developers to do this? How should internal play space work or should it not be allowed?
Construction work on Saturdays – should developers be able to do noisy construction work in residential areas on a Saturday? Or should they be restricted to what they can do on Saturdays?
An out of hours noise team working every night from 6pm – which Labour promised to deliver in a previous election manifesto.
Commonhold – should all new Council properties which are for sale (part of the Council’s strategy) only be available as commonhold and not leasehold? This is where the residents and not freeholders are in charge of making decisions about the buildings?
Recycling – start by delivering pink bags to every home in Tower Hamlets together with a leaflet explaining what can be recycled, collecting days etc – and see what happens. Make sure every building has enough big paladin bins for recycling.
Poor door segregation – should we encourage developers to have one entrance to a building for all residents (even if service charges means that there maybe different lift shafts & post rooms) or separate entrances as we do now to segregate social housing from private housing (which is usually done for accounting reasons related to service charges)
Should affordable residents be able to access other private facilities like gyms if they pay an extra contribution on their service charges?
Fire Safety – should Tower Hamlets Council, the Council most affected by fire safety set up a fire safety office together with the London Fire Brigade to provide advice for a period of 5 years to affected residents and to provide the evidence to government on how to deliver safe new tall buildings? By for example commissioning a report into the NPW fire.
Dog Poo – should we consult on introducing fines for people who do not pick up after their dogs? I pick up after my sisters’ dog every weekend, should others do the same?
Youth Centre – should the Council have lots of small youth centers 100% Council funded (although the numbers have been cut back a lot over the years) or fewer but much bigger centres like the Barking & Dagenham Youth Zone which attract charitable funding?
Improve sports facilities - rebuild St Georges leisure centre with new homes + a floating Lido in the docks + rebuild Tiller Road leisure centre as part of a residential development + improve John Orwell as a sports centre + deliver more outside exercise equipment.
Local decisions – where should they be made? – should all decisions be made in one place (currently Mulberry Place and from next year the new £130 million Town Hall in Whitechapel) or should more decisions be made at a local level whether through formal local Councils or informal ward committees where each ward is given a sum of money to decide how to spend?
Parking
- Should any new underground parking in private development be available for rental to other residents in the area if not used by the building’s residents?
- Should parking hours be extended later into the evening to protect the parking for those with permits?
Plus many more. Where the Council has no powers today it can and should make the case to the government to find new ways of dealing with some of these problems.