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The “bogus claims” of Olympic protestors and the “cult of personality” at Greenwich Time – Nick Raynsford Interview pt 2

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As I walk into Nick Raynsford’s Westminster office, he begins  to tell me about a meeting that he has just had at Greenwich Park.

He talks at length about the benefits he believes the equestrian events will bring from a “new feature” in the children’s playground to a “restructuring” of the Blackheath gate. He also talks about the wider economic development that he believes the games will bring to the town.

But while he is obviously enthusiastic about holding the Equestrian events here in Greenwich, it is striking how dismissive he is of those who oppose them:

“The problem with the NOGOE campaign is that they have not been prepared to listen to any evidence at all. They have their own preset view that this is going to be a disaster. They don’t want it, they don’t like it and they won’t listen to any evidence. That I’m afraid discredits them in the eyes of most rational people and observers”

Raynsford believes that opponents of the events have deliberately been spreading false information about it:

“I have to say that those people who have been campaigning against it have used in my view some extremely bogus claims and made some very dishonest statements that have actually caused alarm and concern to people who genuinely love the park

“And these claims are completely groundless. The claims that trees were going to be cut down in large numbers, that the ground would be destroyed and all churned up and giving the impression that this is some sort of Grand National type event when it is literally seventy horses, on one day, doing one circuit, and that’s it.”

Raynsford also believes that Olympic organisers failed to communicate their plans to the public until recently. He says that LOCOG “let their eye off the ball” in the early stages and “were not as responsive as they should have been” to objectors.

But despite this, he still believes that there is strong enthusiasm for the Olympics in the town:

“The overwhelming majority of young people in the area are wholly supportive, and the interesting thing about this is that there is quite a split between those who have been most vocal against the Olympics who tend to be older, and those under 55, who are in my experience overwhelmingly supportive.”

Yet while he believes that the “overwhelming majority” of young people are “wholly supportive” he is dismissive of a recent survey carried out by Conservative Assembly member Gareth Bacon showing significant opposition to the equestrian events:

“That was completely unscientific and politically motivated and frankly I do not regard it as serious and it is trying to use this for political purposes and I think that is very unprincipled. I think the right approach here has to be to engage seriously with LOCOG and the Royal Parks Agency, which are the two agencies best able to judge how this can be managed and then to listen to their views.”

Throughout our conversation I am struck by the relative weight he places on the views of officers, experts and agencies against those of politicians and campaigners.

I wonder whether this is a result of his extensive work outside parliament in the private sector.  Does this work interfere with his main role as a constituency MP?

“I think that parliament would be a very much weaker place if MPs didn’t have outside interests. My interests are all in the area I have worked throughout my professional life, so it’s housing, it’s construction, regeneration, that sort of area where I have quite a lot of expertise. I ran a consultancy before I was elected so this is not doing something new and it’s certainly not cashing in on ministerial experience which is one of the other allegations that is made. It’s simply pursuing expertise that I have had as a result of my professional career which I think makes me a better MP to comment on what is happening here at Westminster. So in debates on regeneration housing and construction I can usually give a pretty informed view and without sounding too immodest it does usually command a certain amount of respect rather than just partisan responses.”

I ask him how many days a week he spends in Greenwich. He says that he spends “at least one” to which he adds

“I tend to work around a 70-80 hour week and I’m quite confident if anyone looked at the hours I spend they would see that I spend at least 55 hours a week on parliamentary or constituency business, so the outside work is not interfering with that.”

There is little doubt that Raynsford is closely involved in local politics and on the morning of our interview I spot him on page three of the council’s newspaper Greenwich Time.

In the picture, he is standing alongside Labour Councillor Peter Brooks, celebrating the acceptance of Oyster Cards on Thames Clippers.

I ask him how he can justify appearing in a publication that many people believe is just “electioneering on the rates”

“I think it is important that the council does have a mechanism to communicate but I think it does have to be very careful how it uses that. I took with a pinch of salt some of the criticisms that were voiced about this being party propaganda because it came to a head when the Evening Standard was running an absolutely vitriolic campaign against Ken Livingstone and I think that what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander”

Yet in my copy of Greenwich Time I also find reams of advertising for local businesses, a feature on Leona Lewis and even a TV guide. Isn’t this deliberately designed to weaken independent newspapers in the area?

“I think there is a general problem for local newspapers across the country irrespective of whether there are aggressive local council newspapers as well, so I don’t think it is entirely fair to say that the problems facing the News Shopper and the Mercury are simply the fault of Greenwich Time. I think it is a wider problem. I do think we have to have diversity and I’m a strong believer in keeping viable local newspapers and I would certainly not want to see Greenwich Time replacing them as the only voice locally.”

But what about all the non-council related content in Greenwich Time? How can the council justify that?

“I don’t know enough about, I haven’t spoken to Peter Cordwell the editor about his reasons for doing that. My prime concern is that this should be a means of communication between the council and local people.”

But if it is just about communicating with constituents, why have  there been so many front page pictures of Council leader Chris Roberts in recent months?

“I am not myself a great believer in the cult of personality and you will not see many photos of me in Greenwich Time” he replies rather uneasily. “I don’t seek publicity in that form.”

Read part three of the interview tomorrow and find out why Nick Raynsford thinks Ken Livingstone should not stand for London Mayor in 2012.

Missed part one of the interview? Read it here

Greenwich Market Hotel “will be built” – Nick Raynsford Interview Pt1

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Nick Raynsford MP has said that councillors were “absolutely wrong” to reject the redevelopment of Greenwich Market and says that he has “no doubt” that the hotel will be built. The comments came in an extensive interview for Greenwich.co.uk which we are publishing in three parts all this week.

The highly controversial market proposals were unanimously rejected by councillors earlier this year, but Raynsford believes that they will now go through on appeal:

“Having read rather carefully the officer report and I speak as a former minister for planning so I did have to take decisions on issues like this, I think the Hospital have got good grounds for an appeal”

“In that situation when a scheme has been strongly supported by the officers and it is rejected by the politicians then very often inspectors tend to agree with the professionals and grant the appeal.

“I think this thing will be built. I have no doubt.”

Asked whether he had spoken to Council leader Chris Roberts since he rejected the proposals, he replied:

“Yes I have and I told him I think he was wrong. He was absolutely wrong on this issue. I don’t always agree with him.”

Raynsford believes that “vested interests” misled the public about the scheme:

“The proposals didn’t get explained as they should have been to the public who were apprehensive, but you also had some people who had a vested interest in trying to present this as a Bluewater type scheme rather than what it was.”

Greenwich.co.uk: What do you mean by “vested interests”?

“Well Andrew Gilligan had turned his mind against the thing right from the outset. He was totally hostile to it, and he literally would not listen. His view was this was a totally awful scheme, and the article he wrote for the Evening Standard showed an illustration or Turnpin lane, and the argument was, this is all going to get knocked down. Nonsense. The only thing that was going to be knocked down were those steel girders that hold up the roof at the moment which actually protrude into Turnpin lane and make it a less easy area to negotiate. And the only change would have been rather more elegant supports holding the roof up. And that to my mind is not the product of somebody who has looked at it seriously.”

Raynsford still believes that the hotel will bring much needed economic benefits to the town:

“Greenwich has a huge international reputation but it doesn’t get the full benefit of that. It is known to be a beautiful place, but on the whole the tourism revenue we get is the revenue of a day trip destination. People come to London, and they say that one of the things they must do is go to Greenwich. They’ll probably take a boat down the river, they’ll spend five or six hours in Greenwich, go to the Maritime Museum, perhaps go into the park, to the Painted Hall and the chapel and perhaps the Observatory and then they’ll go back. So they come back to central London and they’ve probably spent  £10-15 in Greenwich and they’ve spent hundreds of  pounds [in the centre]”

Asked whether Greenwich Hospital will appeal the council’s decision he replied:

“Of course it is up to them, but I think they are considering whether they are going to make a fresh application or whether to appeal. Frankly I think that if they appeal they have a very good chance of success, because the officer report which is the serious professional appraisal, gave it very strong support… So a good scheme and I think that there is every chance that it will be built in due course.”

In part two of this interview, to be published tomorrow, read what Nick Raynsford has to say about the “bogus claims” of Olympic protestors and the “cult of personality” at Greenwich Time.

No Letter From Legg For Nick Raynsford

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As has been widely publicised, many MPs have received letters in the last week requesting the repayment of wrongly claimed expenses following a review by Sir Thomas Legg. The review has asked for thousands of pounds in expenses to be paid back to the public purse, including a request for £12,000 to be repaid by the Prime Minister.

Greenwich and Woolwich MP, Nick Raynsford, has confirmed that he received no such letter and has not been asked to repay any expenses.

Nick Raynsford said today:

“I know that the issue of MPs’ expenses is one that remains high in many people’s minds when they think about politics and I wanted to take the opportunity, in light of the Legg review, to make sure that residents in Greenwich and Woolwich are fully aware of my position.

“I have never claimed for a second home, nor for any furniture or fittings. My expense claim is the 37th lowest out of 646 MPs and the vast majority of my expense claim is spent on employing members of staff who assist me in taking up constituents’ cases whenever they come to me with a problem.

“The process of going through other MPs’ expenses will take time and will continue to generate negative comments about politics and about Members of Parliament. I hope that by making my position as clear as possible, local residents will be reassured about my position. If any residents have any queries about any elements of my claims for expenses, which were all published earlier this year, then they are welcome to write to my office to seek further clarification or to visit my website at www.nickraynsford.org.uk”

Nick Raynsford: The Challenge of Regenerating Greenwich

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Nick Raynsford MPGreenwich is a place of paradox – at the same time very familiar and yet unknown. Mention Greenwich to people living elsewhere in Britain or indeed overseas, and it will almost always strike a light. The home of time, site of the Prime Meridian, location of some of the country’s finest baroque architecture, the magnificent Royal Park with its unparalleled views over London. These are just some of the characteristics that make Greenwich world famous.

But much of the locality remains largely unknown beyond the Borough boundaries. The acres of formerly derelict land on the Greenwich Peninsula might until recently have been part of a different planet. The terraces of housing in East Greenwich nestling at the bottom of the Blackheath escarpment are equally unfamiliar. And traveling east towards Charlton, the swathe of retail and commercial buildings lying between the Anti-Gallican Pub and the river – once the historic ropewalk, so redolent of Greenwich’s naval history – are as anonymous as similar sheds in countless other cities.

When I was first elected MP for the area in 1992 another paradox of Greenwich was brought home to me brutally by an event which shocked the country. The murder of Stephen Lawrence just across the constituency boundary in Eltham, but very much part of the Borough, was a savage reminder of the problems confronting the area. Greenwich had suffered more than most parts of London from the collapse of the traditional heavy industries that had once provided the area’s economic bedrock. In the atmosphere of decline and despair that appeared endemic at that time, it was hardly surprising if racism and inter-communal conflicts reared their ugly heads.

It taught me early on in my time as an MP, the importance of bringing investment, economic development and regeneration activity that would not only create new jobs, but build aspiration, skills and hope. Transport was clearly critical. The shortage of efficient and reliable links to central London and across the river was a major obstacle to new investment. The arrival of the Jubilee line, the DLR and a long overdue riverbus service has begun to redress the balance. Better bus links and easier interchange between different transport modes as oystercard is extended to surface trains will also help. So too will continuing improvement in the reliability and frequency of South-Eastern train services.

But if improved accessibility is vital, so too is the replacement of the largely defunct 19th century industrial base with employers likely to thrive in the very different economic climate of the early 21st Century. Creative industries are an obvious example, with strong links to higher education. So the arrival of Trinity and Laban, the University of Greenwich on the old Royal Naval College site, Ravensbourne College and the O2 on the Peninsula have made and will continue to make a very significant impact on the local economy as well as the area’s cultural vitality.

Another paradox has been tourism. While Greenwich is internationally renowned, it has not realized the full economic benefit of that fame. Most visitors come as ‘day trippers’ admiring Greenwich but returning mainly to central London in the evenings, where the great bulk of their spending also takes place. Yet Greenwich is a beautiful place to stay, and local businesses would benefit from more overnight visitors, so the development of a wider range of hotels is also vital to the area’s long-term economic strength.

The key to successful regeneration is effecting change while protecting and preserving the best from the past. In Greenwich more than almost anywhere else on earth that is the challenge to which we must rise.

A donation was made to the Greenwich Association of Disabled People in lieu of payment for this article.

Greenwich Students Get Downing Street Tour

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From L-R: Rahima Choudhury (PSHE Teacher), Jenny Pham (pupil), Ramendeep Pawar (pupil), Nick Raynsford MP

Year 8 pupils from John Roan School experienced a trip around number 10 Downing Street after one politicially minded student wrote a letter to Greenwich MP, Nick Raynsford.

Ramandeep Pawar, 13, wrote to Nick Raynsford to ask him to invite Gordon Brown to John Roan School. The Prime Minister instead wrote back to Mr Raynsford inviting him to bring a group from the school to visit 10 Downing Street.

Ramandeep brought along 23 of his classmates, two teachers, and Headteacher Des Malone, along with him as they took a tour behind the famous black door.

Nick says: ‘It was a real pleasure to accompany children from the John Roan School on this visit. I was particularly impressed with Ramandeep’s initiative in contacting the Prime Minister. This shows that politics is relevant to all ages, and demonstrates John Roan’s commitment to encouraging their pupils to become active citizens in the community’.

Andrew Gilligan: Are We Getting Full Whack from Nick?

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“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.

Local MPs’ Expenses Revealed

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The redacted expenses of all MPs have been published on the Parliament website today.

Those hoping to find scandalous tales of moat cleaning and duck houses within the expenses of Greenwich MP, Nick Raynsford, may be left disappointed though. His claims are a dry affair, mostly consisting of stationery, stamps and meeting room space for constituency surgeries.

Nick Raynsford said:

“I believe that it is right that people should be able to see what expenses MPs have claimed to be reimbursed out of public funds.

I hope that the tighter rules and greater transparency now in place will help to restore public trust and confidence that has been shaken by the revelations of recent weeks.

Constituents will be able to see that the expenses I have claimed, which are among the lowest claimed by any MP, are for costs which are necessary for me to carry out my work and responsibilities as an MP, namely the costs of employing staff, running my office and communicating with constituents.”

One question mark perhaps hovers over the £2,000 a quarter he pays to the Greenwich Labour Party for the use of 32 Woolwich Road. Land Registry details show that the property is owned outright by Labour, and whilst the rent doesn’t seem excessive, other landlords around London are having to deal with a slump in rents and one wonders where’s the incentive for Nick to push for an even better deal on rent when its his own party that benefits from the income? And how much has the value of the property appreciated whilst the taxpayer has given it a guaranteed rental income?

Mr Raynsford’s office told me this “is the rental for office accommodation, also used for constituency advice surgeries and meetings.  The rental is based on a valuation carried out by a professional valuer”.

Elsewhere in the borough, Eltham’s MP, Clive Efford pre-empted the release of the material by publishing his own expenses on his website which is surely a welcome move. The usual office costs are all there but I was intrigued by the £399.99 purchase of a camcorder as an office expense. In the Youtube age, it’s not a bad idea to have the facilities to create videos, but if that was its purpose, shoudn’t it have come from the Communications Allowance not his office costs, and has anyone seen any videos produced by the Eltham MP?

He also ordered some office chairs from Staples, which is reasonable enough – but did they really require the £25 same day delivery option? I’m sure many have of us have ordered online and paused at the checkout to make sure we get best value on postage.

Mr Efford responded to Greenwich.co.uk with this statement:

As you are already aware, I have a website www.cliveefford.org.uk. To be as accessible as possible I am starting to put short videos on the site. One has already been posted. It originally went up in January this year but we had to withdraw it to sort out some technical issues although a version remained on Youtube. We have recently relaunched the video on the site and it can now be seen here: http://www.cliveefford.org.uk/newsarticles.php?id=2643&bp=3

MP for Erith and Thamesmead, John Austin, has already had his expenses covered in the Daily Telegraph. He has used the MP’s allowance system to claim for a second property, with the paper saying that after spending £10,000 of taypayer’s money on redecorations, he sold it for a £30,000 profit.

There’s a lot of material and I’m sure I’ve missed some noteworthy stuff. Let’s make this a team effort: if you spot anything questionable, feel free to add below in the comments.

29th June Update: Clive Efford has reponded and the post has been updated with his comments.