Having
moved into Norbury in July 2011 I find myself faced with having to decide how
to vote in the forthcoming by-election. It’s a difficult choice. Should I vote
Labour despite my continuing reservations about what it did under Blair and
Brown and the as yet far off distancing from that legacy. Do I vote Labour
because not to do so might help the Tory get in even though the Labour majority
in 2010 is over 16,000? Do I vote based on who the Labour candidate is, her/his
track record and vision for the future?
And if that record and vision is flawed should I protest vote instead for one
of the progressive minority candidates?
The
way Labour treats two policy areas may help me make up my mind. Firstly, the
future of the Croydon (and Wandsworth) Libraries. The results of the joint
tendering will be known in the next few weeks. The by-election provides an
opportunity to put pressure on the Croydon Tories to think very carefully about
whether to accept a bid and finalise a contract or to abandon out-sourcing the service. It also provides an
opportunity to obtain promises about safeguarding the funding for the heritage
and archives service. This is vital given the failure of the Tory controlled
Council to value local cultural organisations and heritage. Cultural activities have a particularly important
role to play at a time of recession, growing depression among those adversely
affected. Although also being a Tory controlled Borough Wandsworth sees
heritage as an important part of its activities, as I know as a member of its
Partnership group with local amenity and historical organisations.
The
by –election also provides an opportunity for a detailed debate about the
future of the local economy and Labour will need to put forward a set of robust
proposals rather than generalised waffle.
The
statistic that one in four Croydon kids are in the poverty trap, alongside the
collapsing economy in Croydon, the lack of action to support the business
victims of last year’s riots, makes it increasingly urgent for the development
of a local economic strategy for the Borough which will address the real needs
of the local people and not the profits that developers think they may be able
to make.
Poverty
takes many forms. Low income is just one factor. Other factors include long
term health problems, as first identified by Professor Peter Townsend at the
Child Poverty Action Group in the 1970s (‘the inequalities of health’), at a
time that the late Malcolm Wicks and I were active members. Croydon North needs a new MP who will continue
to work on the economic and anti-poverty challenge, continuing the real legacy
of Malcolm Wicks, not just paying lip service to it.
Croydon’s
Health and Wellbeing Board’s strategy for 2013-18 notes that people with long
term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and respiratory problems are
the most intensive users of local health services, and the numbers will grow.
The
electoral wards which experience the highest child poverty are Fieldway (46%),
New Addington (40%), Broad Green and Selhurst (36%), Woodside and S. Norwood
(33%), Waddon 31%, Thorton Heath and West Thornton (29%). Norbury is 24%.
Should we be
surprised? Back in 2004 I undertook a
project for what became South London Law Centres assessing the incidence of social
deprivation including Croydon. Although Croydon was not in the worst tranche of
local authority areas marked by social deprivation, there were a number of wards which resulted in the
Borough being included in the 88 Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy Boroughs
allocated special funding. The Government’s 2000 analysis of deprivation in measured
every ward and local authority area in England. It combined a number of
indicators relating to income, employment, health deprivation and disability,
education skills and training, housing and geographical access to services into
a single deprivation score for each area. Croydon had 8 wards in the most
deprived deciles: worst 10% Fieldway; worst 20% New Addington and Broad Green;
worst 30% Whitehorse Manor, West Thornton , Thornton Heath, Upper Norwood and
Bensham Manor. Clearly it appears that significant improvements have not
happened.
The
ConDem Government’s ruthless cuts are particularly being targeted at those
living in poverty so the situation will deteriorate.
The
Council seems obsessed with the grotesque plans of developers to build yet more
unaffordable high-rise apartment blocks, and replace perfectly adequate retail
centres, concentrated in the Town Centre, none of which address the real needs
of the Borough.
A
key issue is how can new jobs of the right kind
be created, rather than low paid
and insecure ones, or ones which suck in workers from a wide catchment area and
which do not benefit those wanting work near where they live? Retail does not have to consists of low
quality/pay jobs. As John Lewis and Waitrose show it is not just being members
of the partnership that is important, but also training, so that pride in the service and the visual
tidiness and cleanliness of the stores. The downside for many people however is
that both stores are in the higher price bracket and therefore unaffordable. The Co-op is more expensive than its main
rivals. It may claim to be good with food but it does too much promotion of
booze, crisps, sweets and chocolate. It clear that store management is muddled
and unfocussed, and that staff lack motivation and training.
Economic
activity starts with small businesses. If small businesses can survive the
first 18 months they have the potential to last and some develop into the next
generation of medium sized enterprises. The ideas the creation of a digital hub and a
‘tech city’ cluster of IT buildings in the Town Centre could help stimulate new
small businesses as well as provide a solution for empty or underused office
blocks. But it is probably dependent on landlords being prepared to offer cheap
rentals. The 3 year business rate relief scheme being offered by the Council
and the Great London Authority may ease that element of business costs but may stimulate landlords to put rents up
by the amount of the saving. Cashflow is often the problem facing the survival
of businesses, made worse at the moment with banks calling in loans/overdrafts
with little notice.
A
local economic strategy that is comprehensive needs to start from a careful
analysis of the economic, social and environmental needs of local people and
businesses in Croydon, both for the Borough as a whole but also for each
neighbourhood. This will become possible once the in-depth local data from the
2011 Census becomes available for analysis.
A strategy also needs to factor in the community dimension, and look at
alternative ideas suggested by organisations like New Economics Foundation, the
Transition Towns movement, Spacemakers, the Meanwhile Project, and the
experiences involved in the revitalisation of Brixton Market and the West
Norwood Feast. It needs to take into account the creative elements of the
former Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy of the 2000s and anti-poverty strategies
from earlier decades. Re-visiting previous initiatives such as the 1990s Living
Over the Shop can be important to local shopkeepers with underused upper
floors.
An
important element is building policy and services on the assessed needs of
individuals rather than shoe-horning them into generalised service provision.
The importance of this was strongly highlighted in 2001 RAMSEP study
examining the process of
‘impoverishment’. It suggests that there
are three types of poverty: (1) Intermittent/transitory: borders on
non-poverty; (2) Overall poverty: involving serious lack of resources, use of
survival strategies, and optimism, weak social ties; and (3) Extreme poverty:
involves resignation so that there is less control over the environment and evidence loss of
identity. Individuals react differently to their deprivation. RAMSEP suggests
that reactions involve different levels of loss of control of identify, caused
by (1) intensity of material deprivation – low availability of goods enjoyed
and/or basic services benefited from; (2) loss of engagement in informal social
networks and with formal social networks; and (3) lack of will and capacity to
act. It ‘is often possible to enter a vicious circle of impoverishment due to
an illness, due to the lack of professional help, due to unstable housing
conditions, due to a high crime rate in the areas, etc’. The ConDem assault on
every group that comes under the umbrella of RAMSEP’s analysis demonstrates
their failure to understand how individuals are adversely affected by their
experiences and circumstances.
Going
back to providing a digital hub, perhaps the advocates could offer new types of
service: free support for local
businesses to have websites and email systems set up in a way that supports the
ability to trade between each other; and one for community and voluntary organisations
to notify each other of their concerns, services,
activities and events.
The
Croydon North by-election enables the leading candidates to spell out what
their economic development and anti-poverty strategies will be. It would also
be good if they would promise if elected to initiate an inquiry into the
economic and social state of Croydon North through which to develop ideas and
networking. If Labour wins such an inquiry would assist it develop a new approach
to running Croydon for use in the local election campaign in 2014. This poses a
challenge to the way Labour operates locally. Picking the right candidate with
an open, enquiring and listening mind, who is not on the usual politician’s ego
trip, is therefore crucial.
Notes:
Digital
Hub ideas:
New
Economics Foundation: www.neweconomics.org.
Centre
for Local Economic Strategies: www.cles.org.uk.
To keep up to-date with news summaries on what is happening
in Croydon sign up for my History & Social Action EDiary & News: sean.creighton1947@btinternet.com.
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