Andrew Gilligan: Are We Getting Full Whack from Nick?

“IMAGINE what the last six weeks have been like, waiting for that call from the Telegraph,” a Yorkshire MP friend said to me the other day. Well, on Sunday, they came for our very own Nick Raynsford.

Until now, inner-London MPs, like Mr Raynsford, have been spared the worst of the expenses horrors. They cannot claim the additional costs allowance - even Parliament appears to draw the line at allowing somebody whose constituency is six miles from Westminster to have a second home.

As greenwich.co.uk revealed last month there has, of course, already been the small matter of Mr Raynsford paying his local Labour Party £2000 a quarter for the “use of surgery and office facilities,” even though the contact details for his office (an 020 7219 number) show it is actually based at the Commons and many of his surgeries are not held at the Labour Party office but at other venues including Woolwich Town Hall and West Greenwich Community Centre.

But now something perhaps more controversial has come up. Raynsford, we learn, is one of Parliament’s highest extra-curricular earners - £148,000 a year, to be precise. To speak of second jobs doesn’t do him justice - he actually appears to have seven jobs.

They are vice-chairman of the Construction Industry Council (£50,000 pa), chairman of Rockpools, a recruitment firm for the public sector (£33,000), chairman of the National House Building Council (£25,000), non-executive director of the housing information provider Hometrack (£18,750), president of the building training agency Constructionarium (£9,000), non-executive director of the Fire Protection Agency (£7,000), and writing assignments at Building magazine and the Municipal Journal (£5,000 plus), not to mention that other little earner - Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich.

Now, I don’t in fact mind MPs having other jobs. We often complain that politicians are too cut off from the “real world,” that they waft up a sealed political career tube from student activist to MP’s researcher to trade union official to Westminster without at any point making contact with the world of work inhabited by most of their subjects.

Raynsford doesn’t fit into this category. Long before he was elected to Parliament, he had a strong record as a housing expert, campaigner and advocate. He became a competent and well-respected housing minister in Tony Blair’s government. There shouldn’t be any problem about his taking jobs in the field now he is a backbencher - so long as he is punctilious, which I’m sure he is, about telling us of his interest when he speaks.

But does such a large number of other commitments leave our MP too little time for the core work? Raynsford told the Telegraph: “On average, I work between 55 and 60 hours a week on Parliamentary and constituency affairs, and my private interests do not adversely affect my ability to discharge my public responsibilities.”

The evidence on this is mixed. Raynsford is a rather active parliamentarian. According to the official parliamentary search engine, he has spoken in the Commons chamber on eight occasions so far this year. According to the Public Whip website, he has attended just under 85 per cent of votes since 2005.

Since leaving the Government Raynsford has also taken part in some fairly high-impact rebellions on key issues. He voted on the rebel side in the Government’s two greatest defeats - against the proposal to detain suspected terrorists without charge for 90 days, and on the settlement rights of ex-Gurkhas. He has opposed and voted against the Heathrow third runway. He voted for a 100 per cent elected House of Lords.

Raynsford also, of course, publicly called for Gordon Brown to stand down as prime minister last month. Could this possibly have anything to do with him being fingered to the Telegraph for his extra jobs this month?

In the constituency, however, his activity levels seem lower. With others, Raynsford has successfully campaigned for a Crossrail station in Woolwich. He has chaired the “key stakeholders consultation group” on the redevelopment of Greenwich Market (and got pretty cross with me when I suggested the plans weren’t much good.) He holds six surgeries a month.

But Raynsford is relatively little seen in the local papers. The most recent press release on his website is nearly a year old. So far in 2009, he has scored just four mentions in the Factiva local press database (not a full record of all the local papers - but by comparison his Greenwich borough colleague, Clive Efford, Labour MP for Eltham, has ten mentions.)

Raynsford has also been accused of not responding to constituents’ letters. I, too, have written to him in the (albeit quite distant) past and failed to get a reply.

Raynsford’s latest annual report to constituents outlines the following set of constituency activities for the year to spring 2009. (By the way, it’s worth noticing that the report, although produced from public funds, has the same colours and typefaces as a Labour Party election leaflet.)

He “[met] regularly with TfL and South East Trains (sic) to discuss their plans and make sure they are responsive to local residents’ concerns.” He has been “working closely with the Olympic Delivery Authority and Greenwich Local Labour and Business to ensure that training programmes [from holding the Olympics in Greenwich Park] are in place and job opportunities are made available locally.”

He has been “working to ensure that regeneration schemes in Greenwich continue despite the economic downturn.” He has helped secure improved paving and lighting around Westcombe Park station and claims “significant progress over the past year” in the project to bring new buildings to a number of local schools.

As readers may know, Southeastern Trains will in December reduce the number of direct train services from Greenwich to Charing Cross, although overall peak services into central London will increase. Job and training opportunities from the Olympics in Greenwich appear conspicuous by their absence, although Mr Raynsford has told Greenwich.co.uk that 137 jobs at the Olympic site have gone to local people. The regeneration schemes at Greenwich Pier and the old District Hospital site are stalled (Boris Johnson proposed to kick-start the latter with mayoral funding, but the Government has called it in). The market development seems to be going ahead despite there being no clear need for it.

Far from there being “significant progress” on new school buildings, works have not yet even started on any of the five schools involved, five years after the programme was first announced (neighbouring Lewisham, which announced at the same time and under the same Government programme, has already finished two of its school rebuildings.)

None of this, of course, is Raynsford’s fault. And it is in many ways refreshing that we have an MP who seems more interested in national issues than in the kind of pavement politics and social work that tie so many parliamentarians down. Pavement politics is, or should be, what councillors are for.

Still, given the many problems with our dear council, perhaps it could be argued that Greenwich needs Nick Raynsford more than the National House Building Council and Rockpools Recruitment does.

Andrew Gilligan: Beardie, Don’t You Dare Shave Our Marathon

I HAVE never understood what people see in Richard Branson. His trains are serial offenders against civilised transport, his airline is nothing special and, contrary to his image as the great tycoon, most of his other businesses are distinctly bonsai affairs.

Now, having wreaked so much damage elsewhere in our public realm, the deadliest beard since Lenin is swivelling in our direction. From next year, Virgin replaces Flora as the sponsor of the London Marathon - which, of course, starts in Greenwich Park, passes through Greenwich town centre and spends more than seven of its 26 miles in the borough.

But in my paper, the Standard, yesterday, Sir Richard is quoted as saying he wants to “come up with a better route” because the current one is not “glamorous” enough. It passes, he says, too many dull places in east and south-east London and not enough tourist attractions.

It is stunning how much of what we’ve come to think of as the essence of Greenwich is, all of a sudden, under threat. The Marathon now joins the Market, the Village Market, the park, the Cutty Sark and the foot tunnel on the danger list.

For as our 40-watt council presses blindly on with its plans for a one-off sporting event actively wanted by almost no-one, the Olympic horseriding in the Park, councillors appear to have been completely oblivious to this very real threat to a much more important and genuinely loved Greenwich sports occasion.

The contrast between the stage-managed North Korean spend-fest that is the Olympics and the Marathon could not be greater. The Marathon is democratic: it is the people dressed as bananas we care about, not the manufactured elite athletes at the front. On the morning of the race, you can go into the park and mix freely with the competitors - best of luck if you want to try that in 2012. The Marathon is free for everyone to watch. The Olympics won’t be accessible to most Greenwich people even if they are rich enough to pay.

The Olympics are a giant edifice of lies. The Marathon makes no promises it cannot keep. The Olympics are costing £9.3 billion and could rip up our precious park. The Marathon manages to be one of the greatest sporting spectacles in the world without doing any damage to anything and without costing any taxpayer a single penny.

Now it is perfectly true that south-east London is not glamorous. That’s why I like it, actually. We are protected from fashionability by that impenetrable mountain range of council estates along the Old Kent Road. Madonna and Guy will never be spotted shopping in Somerfield, thank God.

But South Londoners, black and white, embody the real essence of our great city, rather than the rootless cosmopolitanism of the north. We are contrary. We will never be told what to think by Vogue or The Guardian. North London had New Labour; South London had the peasants’ revolt. Turn up the volume on Heart 106.2!

That is precisely why the Marathon, the ultimate people’s sport, should keep on running through the people’s streets. The idea that the route is dull is a slander, too. As anyone except Branson must know, Greenwich is one of the prettiest places in London, the East End is just about the most happening part of town right now, and the Isle of Dogs has been transformed over the exact lifespan of the Marathon itself from vacant wasteland to Europe’s premier financial powerhouse.

The Park, the Observatory, Charlton House, the Naval College, the Cutty Sark (restoration permitting), Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and Canary Wharf must count as tourist attractions, surely? Anyway, if East London is too dull to host a sports event, what does that say for the Olympics?

Beardie is threatening to run the Marathon himself next year, when it will still be more or less on its current course. May I suggest that the people of south-east London line the route and give him, as he passes, the benefit of their unglamorous views?

Andrew Gilligan: Tunnel Closure: Bad News on Two Fronts

GREENWICH foot tunnel will be closed to all users for ten months during its refurbishment, council officials have said.
 
Shaun Collins, director of Thames Clippers, the major ferry operator serving Greenwich, told greenwich.co.uk: “We have been asked to tender for a replacement ferry service. We have been told unofficially by Geoff Horseman [Greenwich Council official] that the period of closure will be around ten months or possibly a year. That would be the closure of the whole tunnel, not just the lifts.”
 
In a separate development Peter Brookes, deputy leader of the council, has said that when the tunnel finally reopens the lifts will be “automatic,” raising concerns about security and job losses. Currently the lifts are not automatic and are staffed at all times when they are open, with four attendants on duty across the tunnel and its Woolwich sister.
 
Mr Brookes claimed the refurbishment and the change to automatic lifts would lead to “better security.”
 
The two tunnels are used by around 1.5 million people a year. The Greenwich tunnel is an important tourist attraction and a vital link for cyclists, used by around 250 bikes an hour at peak times.
 
As greenwich.co.uk reported earlier this year, both tunnels are to be given a “substantial refurbishment” running from September 2009 to March 2011 and costing £11.5 million. But news of the closure has horrified local traders, who say a prolonged shutdown would be “disastrous” and could drive them out of business. 

Many cyclists are also opposed and have promised to challenge the closure order. Anthony Austin, chair of Greenwich Cyclists, said: “There’s no point in closing the tunnel. It’s not clear they need to close the stairs when they are doing the lifts. We cyclists have come to use it as an absolutely essential link.”
 
Greenwich Council continued to insist today that no official decision has been taken on how long the tunnel will close. “We are still working out the period of closure,” a council spokesman said.
 
However, minutes of a meeting about the refurbishment between the council and local cyclists’ groups posted on greenwich.co.uk also suggest a substantial period of closure. The minutes were agreed by the council.
 
At this meeting, which took place on 12 May, Mike Freestone, the council’s assistant director for transport and highways, confirmed that the lifts would be closed “for the whole [18-month] refurbishment period” although the tunnels themselves would “probably not be closed for so long.”
 
 
Mr Horseman, the council official who spoke to Thames Clippers, was not present at the meeting but he is quoted by another of the participants as saying that the closure would last “six to nine months.”
 
Mr Brookes, who was at the meeting, admitted that “whilst [the tunnel] is closed, there will be major disruptions.” Mr Brooks rejected suggestions that the tunnel be closed only overnight for the works, saying: “If we choose contract work for nights, it may not be of value, we need to do things more economically.” A “hope” was expressed that some of the closures could be phased.
 
The council says that the lifts will close in October or November and the tunnel will not close before next year.
 
When the tunnel closes, cyclists - who are banned at all times from the DLR - face an eight to ten-mile diversion to reach Canary Wharf from south London. At the meeting with cycle activists, Mr Brookes admitted that any proposed replacement ferry service would “not be frequent.”
 
The DLR link will itself be closed on several weekend over the next eight months as part of the 3-car upgrade programme.
 
The council says the closure is intended to provide “state-of-the-art conditions” in the tunnels in the run-up to the Olympics. It has been widely condemned as unnecessary window-dressing.

Greenwich Market: What People Really Think

WHAT fun to see the Greenwich Society keeping its end up as the unofficial ad-man for the market redevelopment. In a letter to my paper, the Standard, its chairman, Tim Barnes, faithfully transcribes several of the developers’ standard PR lines, including the untrue claims that the plans have been “extensively consulted on” and that they have 75% support.

To put that into context, I thought that today I would bring you the actual views of the Greenwich Market traders. Unlike, say, the Greenwich Society, I took the trouble to ask them what they thought. And as you will see, only one trader out of the ten I spoke to expressed unequivocal support for the redevelopment. That’s 10 per cent - so someone did even worse than Gordon Brown last week!

Michael Brandt, Red Gecko: “I don’t actually think it needs demolition. I think it needs a bit of a facelift - if it ain’t broken, why fix it? It will be off limits for a long time. These projects never really keep to schedule. [During the construction phase] people will suffer.”

Stephen Chong, Greenlands Health Foods: “I can see that some refurbishment is necessary, but not at the expense of changing the whole feeling and ambience of the market. This is unique, there is nothing like it. It’s been there 200 years, it’s one of the reasons why people come to Greenwich. I can understand the need to refurbish, but not wholesale refurbishment. [The new design] is a bit sterile.”

Maria Livings, Lush Designs: “The roof needs replacing but I’m worried it’s going to be bland. I’m really anxious [about that] - I would hate the idea that all the stalls were dressed the same. My main concern is that it isn’t going to be like Spitalfields. What’s happened [there] is sad - it’s a bit like a shiny ghost town.

“I don’t mind the cobbles. A cobbled floor looks nice. For a town centre [Greenwich] is very scruffy. It could do with a facelift. But it wouldn’t take a huge amount of effort - it needs soap and water, not redeveloping.”

Mick Gebbett, Hide All: “I think it’s probably the right thing to do. We’ve been here since 1987 and Greenwich Market does need lifting. We have discussed it quite a lot. The biggest concern for me is to make sure it’s completed by 2012, that’s important.”

Rob Toogood, Compendia: “I’ve got mixed feelings about it. It looks like they’re going to apply for planning permission to establish a [temporary market in a] tent down by the pier. It’s a well-presented tent with some secure retail units around the outside. It might work out OK - but not necessarily. I do get the feeling that some of the pedestrian flows in Greenwich town centre have not been analysed very well. I’m a little bit concerned that the temporary market is right down from the main drag, away from the park and town centre traffic.”

The new permanent market space “could affect the dynamics of the market - the pillars [supporting the roof] are moving into the middle, which will chop up the space a bit. The stallholders have some misgivings, but overall they’re quite positive. In terms of the other shopkeepers, certainly several of them are annoyed at the change.”

Anonymous shopkeeper: “In my opinion the market tenants are too frightened to speak out publicly against the plans, in case they are not offered a shop in the new market. At the recent community liason meeting on the 14th May to discuss the relocation of the market stalls, it was too late to raise any objections, as the plans had already been submitted. I wasn´t invited to be in the consultative group, but was represented by two of the market tenants who never got back to me.

“I happened to go to have another look at Hays Galleria today, and have a horrible feeling that Greenwich Market will end up like that with a few token barrows selling souvenirs, surrounded by seating for the hotel’s brasserie bar, and chain stores- Next, Assessorize.etc.”

Anonymous stallholder #1 (NB - all the stallholders requested anonymity - several said they had been asked not to talk to the press): “I see no reason to change. It seems quite nice as it is. It has got quite a nice balance as it is. I can’t see the logic.”

Anonymous stallholder #2: “Look around you - does this look like a market in need of regeneration?”

Anonymous stallholder #3: “We haven’t been told very much about it but we quite like the market now. I do good business here. I have seen the new designs and I don’t like them - they are not in keeping with Greenwich. They [the developers] say they have consulted some people but they haven’t consulted most of us.”

Anonymous stallholder #4: “Nobody has told us a thing. We don’t know what will happen to us and we are worried.”

Andrew Gilligan: Is the Market Development in Financial Trouble?

GREENWICH Hospital may be running into financial difficulties with its controversial plan to redevelop Greenwich Market, a leaked email shows.

The email, obtained by greenwich.co.uk, shows that the Hospital’s property consultant, Gleeds, is appealing for “grant funding” from Greenwich Council to help it complete the £29 million “regeneration.”

Greenwich Hospital confirmed to us that it has also approached the Heritage Lottery Fund for help with funding the redevelopment.

Its spokesman, David McFarlane, insisted that the approaches were for funding “at the margins” and “the whole project team is working on the assumption that we can fund [the redevelopment] from our own resources.”

However, Martin Sands, the Hospital’s director, does say in the charity’s latest annual accounts that the Hospital suffered a drop in the value of its assets of £6.5 million last year “as a result of a sharp decrease in the stock markets.” Its quoted investments declined by more than 13% over the year.

Those accounts only cover the period to March 2008, since when there has been a far more dramatic collapse in the values of shares and property - likely to have taken the Hospital’s losses to far greater levels.

The impact of the credit crunch appears to have been one reason why the Hospital’s planning application for the Market site - originally expected in “autumn 2008,” according to the annual report - has been delayed until now.

Mr McFarlane told greenwich.co.uk in autumn 2008 that the scheme was being reworked “to keep the cost base down.” As a result of the reworking, the most revenue-generating aspects of the scheme have been increased - such as the “boutique” hotel, now increased in size by 73 per cent on the original proposal, from 60 to 104 rooms.

However, the latest email shows that with the crisis in commercial property showing no signs of easing, the reworking may not have been enough.

The email was written on Monday this week by Tonderayi Matopodzi at Gleeds, the property consultants used by the Hospital, and is to Mervyn Fernandes, an officer at Greenwich Council.

It says: “We are currently exploring whether any potential grant funding may be available through Greenwich Council for our client, Greenwich Hospital, who are propos[ing the] Greenwich Market regeneration.

“The project will have a strong impact on inclusion and cohesion, sustainability and prosperity..[it will] enhance Greenwich’s attractiveness as a world heritage site, conserve and enhance the historic environment [and] keep many of the familiar and much-loved features of the Greenwich island site.” No specific amount was demanded in the email.

At the time of writing, Greenwich Council have not told me what their response to it was - I’ll update this post when I hear from them. There would clearly be an outcry if Greenwich Council actually agreed to pay public money towards the destruction of historic Greenwich.

I, for one, would strongly dispute that the redevelopment will enhance the world heritage site or “conserve the historic environment.” The application to the Heritage Lottery Fund is pretty cheeky for a proposal that will clearly destroy part of Greenwich’s heritage. And it also seems deeply questionable to appeal for money from the same body, Greenwich Council, which is supposed to be determining your planning application.

Does the demand for funds mean that in planning terms the scheme is already a done deal? Had the council had effectively given Greenwich Hospital the nod, I asked McFarlane? He insisted not: “We have had a lot of discussions with the council, we hope we’ll get a recommendation for approval, but we’ve had no tip-offs,” he said.

Richard Fleming, UK head of restructuring at the accountants KPMG, said last week that commercial property failures so far were just the “tip of the iceberg… we predict a wave of fallouts in the commercial property market as the true value of losses becomes apparent.”

With retailers everywhere cutting back, with vacancy levels increasing exponentially and with that kind of warning out there, it does indeed seem a very risky time to start building a new shopping centre.

Media, local and political opposition to the redevelopment continues to build. The current issue of Private Eye carries a critical piece. In my own newspaper, the Standard, the leader of the opposition on Greenwich Council, Spencer Drury, calls the scheme “aesthetic vandalism” which is “out of keeping” with the World Heritage site.

In the end, however, the forces of the financial markets may prove to be the most powerful ally of our market. Here’s hoping.

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