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Lewis Baston: Lib Dem by-election boosts in two Labour seats – what do they mean?

Council ward contests were held in Haringey and Hounslow last week
Lewis Baston

By-elections were held last Thursday (9 March) in two borough wards: Haringey’s Tottenham Hale and Hounslow’s Heston West. Neither contest was thrilling and their results were similar – Labour holds with reduced shares of the vote on low turnouts with the Liberal Democrats gaining support. But they do tell us a little about the patchwork of communities that make up modern London and about how by-election support works.

Tottenham Hale ward lies east of Tottenham High Road, which runs straight north along the course of the Roman road Ermine Street and on the north side of the rather newer Monument Way, which takes traffic from the middle of Tottenham to the much-simplified gyratory at Tottenham Hale. Its northern boundary, separating it from Northumberland Park, runs between residential streets. To the east is the flat, watery Lee Valley and the boundary with Waltham Forest, crossed here at Ferry Lane. Down Lane Park is near the geographical centre of the ward.

The best-known landmark is Tottenham Hale station, rebuilt to become one of north London’s major transport intersections where the Victoria Line meets the rail route out to Stansted and beyond. There is also the Harris Academy Tottenham secondary school, founded in 2014. Much of the ward consists of Edwardian terraced housing, with the street names indicating the period in which it was built – Boer War battles like Mafeking and Ladysmith, and British military leaders like Buller and Carew.

Despite all the culture war scare stories and the anti-imperialist politics of the “Corbyn council” elected in Haringey in 2018, the street names of Tottenham Hale have not been decolonised. However, the people who live there reflect London’s multicultural reality. There is a large black population, mostly of African origin, but also a lot of people of mixed race and smaller minority ethnic groups.

Newer housing, mostly family houses and low-rise council blocks, has gradually added to or replaced the Edwardian stock over the decades and the housing is still being renewed. Large blocks of student accommodation have been built just to the east of the station, adding a new element to the local mix. Overwhelmingly, people in Tottenham Hale rent their homes either from social providers or private landlords.

Tottenham Hale is an extremely safe Labour ward, with vote shares of over 70 per cent for the party far from uncommon and the rest divided between other parties. There has, nevertheless, been political turbulence within the ward. the now former councillor Lorna Reid was deselected in 2018 when borough Labour politics was bitterly divided between Momentum and the previous leadership. Her successor, Ruth Gordon, still represents the ward alongside veteran Reg Rice, and is Cabinet Member for Council Housebuilding, Placemaking and Development.

Screenshot 2023 03 12 at 10.37.09

The third member of the Labour trio elected in 2022 was a new face, Yannis Gourtsoyannis, a doctor of infectious diseases who had been active in campaigning nationally and within the BMA about the concerns of junior doctors and NHS issues more widely. The 2022 Haringey selections had been hard-fought as in 2018, and his selection was one of the few bright spots for Momentum, who generally suffered losses to supporters of the new leadership of Peray Ahmet. But he stood down in February, citing personal reasons.

With a safe ward like this the key contest was the Labour candidate selection, which was won by Seán O’Donovan (pictured above), a Tottenham-based advice worker who had contested Fortis Green ward in 2022, narrowly missing out to a Lib Dem, as his two Labour colleagues were elected. O’Donovan’s Tottenham Hale campaign emphasised the investment in new council housing that was taking place there and improvements to Down Lane Park. Five other candidates came forward, with Independent Miraf Ghebreawariat and Amelia Allao for the Christian People’s Alliance joining those of the other three main parties. Emma Chan stood for the Greens, Angelos Tsangarides represented the Conservatives and Allen Windsor carried the Lib Dem banner.

The campaign was routine, with the non-Labour candidates trying to capitalise on issues like fly-tipping and crime and, in the case of the Conservatives, opposing the council’s introduction of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. It was no surprise when O’Donovan was elected. He received 818 votes – 59 per cent, down on the 68 per cent the Labour team won last year. Windsor came second with 15 per cent, up from eight per cent. All the others fell well below 10 per cent. Turnout was a low 20 per cent.

***

Finding a common theme between the Tottenham Hale contest and the one across the capital in Heston West ward is an exercise in contrivance, but I am going ahead anyway. That common theme is transport.

Heston West covers the area of the former Heston Aerodrome, which for a period in the 1930s was London’s second airport after Croydon. It was closed in 1947 after the start of the expansion of Heathrow, which was called London Airport until 1966. Heston’s moment in the spotlight had come in September 1938 when Neville Chamberlain famously returned from Munich with a piece of paper which he said promised peace for our time. Part of the Heston airfield site was later used for the M4 motorway and the Heston service station, which opened in the mid-1960s.

The residential areas in the Heston West ward lie on both sides of the M4. The smaller part is around North Hyde, adjacent to Southall across the Grand Union Canal, and the larger bit is by Cranford Lane. There are no rail stations in the ward, but the Hounslow West Piccadilly Line station is not far from its southern end.

The suburban west of Heston has been settled since the airfield’s 1930s heyday in a variety of styles, including 1930s semis, low-rise council estates and a few high rises. The electorate in Heston West is ethnically mostly south Asian and highly religiously diverse – a plurality are Sikh (32 per cent), followed by Muslim (25 per cent), Christian (21 per cent) and Hindu (11 per cent). It is part of the belt of Asian communities stretching westwards from Southall through Hayes and Slough.

Heston West has consistently voted Labour, although usually by smaller margins than Tottenham Hale –  the Conservatives used to get close in this suburban ward in their better elections such as 1982. But it still counts as a safe Labour seat and in last year’s full council elections the party’s majority was well over 40 per cent.

The vacancy was caused by the resignation of Labour councillor Adriana Gheorghe. The election was fought by the main four parties plus one Independent, Bartosz Kuleba. Labour’s Emma Siddhu, described by the local party as a “local mum”, was the clear favourite from the start. The Conservatives fought an active campaign, with their young candidate Muraad Ali Chaudhry emphasising the party’s opposition to Sadiq Khan’s extension of the London Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to the regional boundary.

Heston West is a low-income ward in outer London where, by London standards, a high proportion of people use their car to get to work – around 40 per cent compared to well below 20 per cent in Tottenham Hale. It is therefore the sort of place where Conservative campaigning on ULEZ might fall on receptive soil.

Siddhu (in main picture, centre) held the seat, but Labour’s share of the vote dropped from the 64 per cent achieved last May to 52 per cent. The Green vote also fell sharply. Yet the Conservatives were not the beneficiaries of these reductions. Their own vote share slipped too, just a little. It was Lib Dem Chaitan Shah, who gained, polling 22 per cent from a standing start. Turnout was 21 per cent.

***

Why did the Lib Dems pick up vote shares in these two contests? A cynic might observe that the party in London is soon to choose candidates for the London-wide list section of next year’s London Assembly elections and that this encourages aspirants to get themselves known among members – who will choose those candidates – by helping out in council by-election campaigns.

But even without such an incentive, Lib Dem party culture is such that ordinary members are prepared to travel across London to deliver leaflets on cold, wet winter evenings in hostile territory. They seem to enjoy it. The Tottenham Hale and Heston West results both demonstrate that a bit of campaign effort can be rewarded with a respectable vote, even in areas where the Lib Dems have no track record. If Labour activists have paid relatively little attention to their safer wards, it helps opponents arguing that the area has been neglected and needs a local voice to stand up to the council leadership.

Certain local issues are present in many different kinds of community, such as fly-tipping, antisocial behaviour, traffic and crime. Low turnout by-elections such as these two can produce sizeable bumps in the Lib Dem percentage share, but these don’t mean very much in the longer term. The 2023 by-elections in Tottenham Hale and Heston West will soon be forgotten, even in the wards where they took place, though they will be remembered for longer in the O’Donovan and Siddhu households.

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Categories: Analysis
Tags: Conservatives, Haringey Council, Hounslow Council, Labour, Liberal Democrats

Dave Hill: Latest High Speed 2 delays confirm the government is slowing London down

Whatever the thinking behind pushing back bringing the new line into Euston the decision continues national government's degrading of the nation's economic powerhouse
Dave Hill

My now-retired literary agent introduced me to the expression “shit, or get off the pot”. It summarised her message, more delicately expressed, to publishers dithering over whether to ask me to write a book and how much to cough up for the privilege. The aphorism came to mind when absorbing the government’s decision to (again) delay the High Speed 2 project, including by pushing back the date for its arrival in Euston.

What is the right thing to do about HS2, whose scope has shrunk and costs have soared? Search me. Alexander Jan, rather in the spirit of my ex-agent, thinks the government should set itself some limits and devolve decisions about the project’s future to the affected regions. Others, including Sadiq Khan, want it to get a grip and press on.

The London Chamber and Central London Forward have warned that slowing down HS2 will mean higher bills in the end, and that holding up its link to central London will hamper the capital and the interdependence between it and other English cities. What is not in question is that London, once again, has been pushed to the back of the queue.

The predictability of this is matched only by its folly. Even as London’s economy demonstrates its resilience by pulling clear of Covid faster than anywhere in the UK, more evidence has emerged that its strength cannot be taken for granted.

In recent days Centre for Cities has demonstrated that the capital needs national government to help it to return to the rates of growth it attained before the 2008 financial crash, and Tony Travers has listed the policy changes required to help London to help itself, its people and the rest of the country. Greater devolution, consistent long-term tax sources and investment in public transport are common ground.

Yet London’s accommodation crises deepen, Transport for London is still struggling to make ends meet, the boroughs are the same, incremental “levelling down” continues, and the Conservatives in Westminster continue to hamstring the Labour Mayor instead of giving him greater autonomy. The 2019 Tory election manifesto declared the days of “Whitehall knows best” over. The Tory government’s behaviour towards the elected leader of the capital city has been the complete reverse.

It is difficult not to interpret the HS2 decision about Euston in that anti-London light and the context of the electoral politics of “levelling up” – it might be wrong to suspect the government didn’t think it could be seen to peg back the leg between Birmingham and Crewe without hobbling the “metropolitan elite” too, but the temptation is hard to resist. A big hole in the heart of Camden won’t be filled for at least ten years.

Whatever, its simultaneous neglect and top-down stifling of London does nothing for the capital or to address the regional inequalities “levelling up” purports to be about. Martin Wolff wrote in the Financial Times that “the UK has two regional problems, not one, and, as a result, a huge national problem too”. The budget is due next week. Will it contain any signs that our most centralised of central governments knows how to solve it? Will it take my erstwhile agent’s advice?

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Categories: Comment
Tags: "levelling up", Euston, Euston station, High Speed 2

Diana Beech: London’s students are the happiest in the country

The latest survey data contradict perceptions of the capital as a lonely and inhospitable place for higher education
Diana Beech

With a student population of over half a million – and growing – London must be doing something right when it comes to attracting students to any one of its many world-leading higher education institutions.

Perceptions of the capital as a lonely, expensive and unhappy place to study may be thought to tarnish London’s appeal as a satisfying study destination, but a new report from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) shows these assumptions are unwarranted.

According to analysis of national survey data conducted by London Higher – the membership organisation of which I am chief executive – with the support of current students from City, University of London, students in London are more likely than those in all other English regions to say their experience of higher education has exceeded their expectations and that they feel better prepared for life after graduation.

The Living and Learning in London report also finds that London’s students are, along with students in the north-west of England, the most likely to say they would choose the same course and higher education institution again, and are more likely than students anywhere else in the UK to say they are very satisfied with their lives. Indeed, the report reveals that London’s students are among the happiest in the country, with more significantly more of them rating their happiness at nine or ten out of ten than counterparts elsewhere.

Of course, there is no such thing as a single London student experience. That is because London is home to such a range of universities and higher education colleges – from small, specialist performing arts conservatoires through to large, multi-faculty universities. These all offer students different courses, ranging from higher technical qualifications and undergraduate degrees through to research Masters and PhD qualifications.

London is also home to an extremely diverse student body. The capital has one of the largest populations of “commuter students” – students living in their family home while studying instead of moving away – in the country. It has one of the largest populations of mature students aged 25 and over, and it welcomes the largest international student population of any UK region. One third of London’s students now come from overseas.

While all these groups are known to require enhanced institutional support to aid their successful participation and retention, UK universities are clearly meeting their needs. The national survey data shows mature students and commuter students are more likely to say their experiences of higher education have been better than expected, and international students are more likely than “home” students to say they regard their courses as providing good value for money, despite paying higher fees.

Further to this, London’s domestic student body is ethnically and socio-economically varied. Earlier research by London Higher’s AccessHE division shows that, by 2030, non-white students will constitute almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of those entering higher education from the capital and, if present rates of progress continue, the percentage of learners from free school meal backgrounds from London entering higher education will reach 73 per cent by the end of the decade. With such a spread of backgrounds and circumstances, achieving good overall ratings for the student academic experience is no mean feat.

In the current cost of living crisis, which is affecting the capital acutely, some might be surprised to learn that students in London are more likely to say their courses provide good value for money than those in other regions of England. Only students in Scotland give higher value for money ratings, but there domestic Scottish students do not pay tuition fees, showing there are many more factors at play in the capital apart from cost that make London’s students feel they are getting good value out of their studies.

For the past three years, London has been ranked the world’s best student city, beating rivals in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia for indicators including student mix, desirability and employer activity. The new analysis of HEPI’s and Advance HE’s national student survey data adds important fresh colour to what London’s students rate most highly about their academic experience, including teaching quality, course content and institutional facilities and resources.

In doing so, the analysis also shines a light on small, specialist institutions – of which London has many – where students tend to be happier and think their courses are serving them well, probably due to their smaller staff-to-student ratios and the nature of intense, specialist higher education provision.

With demand for higher education in London and the south-east set to grow sharply over the next decade, the capital is certainly in a strong position to deliver for the students of the future. Much, however, depends on a sustainable funding solution – as fees remain frozen while operating costs rise – together with a reaffirmation of the UK’s international education export ambition, which puts the capital at its heart and builds on London’s capacity to deliver a high-quality student experience for a diverse student mix.

Diana Beech is chief executive of London Higher. Follow her on Twitter and London Higher too. Image from cover of HEPI report.

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Categories: Comment
Tags: education, higher education, London Higher

More outer London buses planned as City Hall challenges claims ULEZ will “hit poorest hardest”

Sadiq Khan and TfL are taking steps to improve public transport in suburban boroughs amid opponents' assertions about harmful financial effects of his anti-pollution policy
Charles Wright

Transport for London have launched plans for an additional 400,000 kilometres of bus routes in outer London, as Sadiq Khan again locked horns again with opponents claiming that his planned further expansion of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to cover the whole of the city would “hit the poorest the hardest”.

Consultation is now underway on plans for improvements to bus services in Barnet, Brent, Havering and Wandsworth, with more plans promised in the coming weeks – all part of Khan’s promise of a “million further kilometres” of bus routes alongside the ULEZ expansion, which is scheduled to come into effect on 29 August.

Meanwhile new analysis from City Hall takes issue with claims that the poorest Londoners will suffer most from the scheme, which are now being made by Chelsea & Fulham MP Greg Hands, the recently-appointed new Conservative Party national chairman.

Data from the 2021 Census and deprivation statistics show that the poorest residents of outer London are in fact significantly less likely to own a car than better-off residents, with 46 per cent of the worst-off not owning one or a van, according to the Mayor’s team, compared with just 16 per cent of the best-off who don’t own one.

“What this data from the Census shows is that not only are people from deprived backgrounds exposed to higher levels of air pollution, but they’re much less likely to drive a car and therefore contribute to emissions. That’s just unfair and unjust,” the Mayor commented. “Tackling air pollution and addressing the climate crisis is important for every Londoner, but it would be completely wrong to sit back and let those Londoners who contribute least to our toxic air suffer the very worst consequences. It’s a matter of social justice.”

Better buses are seen by TfL as a key part of encouraging a shift to “active travel” – categorised as such because passengers walk to and from bus stops – which is a further objective of the ULEZ expansion. “More frequent, direct and usable services will help make buses the natural choice across the city, which is especially important as we tackle economically damaging congestion, health-damaging toxic air and climate damaging carbon,” said TfL’s public transport service planning chief Geoff Hobbs.

A range of other improvements are also in hand, including more real-time information signage at bus stops and “hundreds” of new or upgraded shelters. And TfL boss Andy Lord suggested at a TfL committee last week that “live conversations” were underway to bring forward more improvements. His comments came after board member Lynn Sloman suggested it was important to show “that ULEZ is part of a wider package which is about improving the public transport and active transport offer in outer London”.

Such provision can be seen as a recognition for outer Londoners of what think tank Centre for London recently described as a “lack of other practical transport options that pushes them towards cars”. The centre’s own analysis of census data finds that, while the poorest do not drive, 69 per cent of outer London households have access to or own at least one car or van, compared to 42 per cent in inner London.

TfL estimates that 85 per cent of vehicles driven in the expanded zone area are already compliant with emission standards, and expects City Hall’s scrappage scheme to help reduce the number of non-compliant vehicles relatively quickly. The £12,50 a day charge for driving a non-compliant vehicle in the ULEZ, controversial as it is, could be a step on the road to sustainability in the face of climate change.

The consultations on the various bus changes are as follows:

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Categories: News
Tags: Andy Lord, Centre For London, Greg Hands, Lynn Sloman, Sadiq Khan, Transport for London, ultra low emission zone

Alexander Jan: The trouble with High Speed 2 – and how to get out of it

Costs are soaring, scope is shrinking and the government should work with regional leaders to find a productive solution
Alexander Jan

Last week saw another low point in the sorry tale of High Speed 2. Its beleaguered chief executive made the latest in a long line of announcements that will have depressed anyone hoping the project will be completed any time soon. This time the bogeyman is construction price inflation – materials and equipment costs are ballooning in a post-Brexit, post-Covid world. As a result, the company is looking again at its procurement strategy and the prospect of extending yet further the timelines for completion.

The contrast between HS2’s status today and when it was given the green light in 2010 couldn’t be greater. With Britain basking in the afterglow of winning a thrilling race to secure the 2012 Olympics and the completion of the 186 mile per hour High Speed 1 rail link between St Pancras and Paris, the Labour government announced HS2 to much applause and fanfare: it would be a motor of regeneration and the bringing-together of Britain; it would link mainland Europe to the North of England and beyond; and a station at Heathrow would reduce the need for shorter flights, freeing up scarce slots for long-haul operations.

The transport secretary of that time, Andrew Adonis, proclaimed that the first 120 miles between London and Birmingham would cost no more than £17.4 billion (£24.6 billion in today’s money). The overall cost of the entire 335 mile “Y” shaped system linking in both Manchester and Leeds as well as Birmingham was said to be about £30 billion (£42 billion today).

Being a railway rather than a road or airport, the project managed to win backing from all sides. Conservative shadow transport minister Theresa Villiers vowed to start building it two years earlier than Labour (subject to a review of the route). The late Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT transport union, supported it too as long as it was (of course) publicly owned and operated.

And while a few on the green side of politics were critical, rail passenger champions and the rail lobby were dead keen. Anthony Smith, chief of what was then called Passenger Focus (now Transport Focus), said it could revolutionise intercity travel as long as it was not “a bolt-on rich man’s railway.” Michael Roberts, chief of the Association of Train Operating Companies, noted that “the commitment that all three parties have shown to HSR [High Speed Rail] is a vote of confidence in the industry and will help place train travel at the heart of a successful low-carbon economy”.

Thirteen years later and a project we were promised would transform the economic geography of Britain is in deep trouble. It is a sorry tale, perhaps worthy of inclusion in both Peter Hall’s Great Planning Disasters and Anthony King and Ivor Crewe’s The Blunders of our Governments. It may well end up ranking alongside Concorde, NHS computers, nuclear power and major London road building schemes as an exemplar of how not to deliver major public infrastructure projects. Somehow, despite all the modern project management techniques, transport planning analysis and earlier political support at the government’s disposal, HS2 has been undermined by fundamental and familiar problems.

Firstly, costs have exploded. The cost of the route from London to Birmingham is now estimated to be £47.3 billion (in today’s money) and counting – more than double the original estimate in real terms. The branch to Manchester – the others have been axed or reduced – brings the latest projected overall cost up to between £62 billion and £83 billion – again as much as double the original estimates. And these prices are calculated from before much of the double-digit construction inflation that has been coursing through the industry over the last few years. Former HS2 chairman Sir Terry Morgan told a House of Lords committee “nobody knows” what the final costs will be.

Secondly, HS2’s performance is being “descoped” and, as already noted, the route cut back. Very high speed rail has major cost and engineering impacts on the track alignment, technical specifications for the bridges, tunnels and track, and for power and signalling equipment, as well as the trains themselves.  Originally specified to run at 248 mph – arguably an absurd speed for an island that is 600 miles from top to toe – this has been brought down to 224 mph.

Further downgrades are being floated. Frequencies too are under review. Originally specified to run with 18 trains an hour, few would be surprised if the government reduced this to ten. And a scheme that by some estimates might end up costing the taxpayer £100 billion no longer includes the righthand branch of the “Y” to Leeds, which was lopped off last summer. No longer does it buy a connection to HS1 or Heathrow airport. The solution for Euston, which involves adding something alongside the existing station, threatens to be an architectural disappointment.

Thirdly, there is a big question over how much demand there will be for the railway. Some might (rightly) say the death of commuting and office-based work has been exaggerated, but the truth is that the economic case for HS2 was not great even before Brexit and Covid. And since then, much of the demand projected has evaporated. Professor Stephen Glaister, a leading transport expert and former chair of the Office of Rail and Road, damned the line with faint praise, saying the case for HS2 was “at best weak”. Many thought improvements to the West Coast mainline would make more sense (although previous attempts to upgrade it ran years late and over budget too).

Like it or loathe it, one thing everyone can probably agree about today is that HS2 is now in the worst possible place. Relentless downgrading means that the long term benefits – modest as they were – are diminished further. There is no sign that costs are anywhere near certain or under control. And the project is casting an ever-greater shadow over public expenditure. HS2’s “burn rate” means it is slated to consume more cash per annum than the Department for Transport’s renewals programme for the national road network or Network Rail’s entire capital programme on an annualised basis. It is at risk of dominating national transport budgets for years to come, taking down dozens of better value, more modest projects in the process.

As politicians and civil servants fret over what to do, swathes of Camden, Birmingham and leafier areas have been razed to the ground and turned into unending construction sites. (We are promised seven years of disruption to the Euston Road for utility works alone). Had demolition and environmental damage on this scale been undertaken for building a motorway, those who side with more sustainable modes of transport would have perhaps rightly been outraged. But somehow, because it is a railway, the price for many usually green advocates is one worth paying.

How we have ended up in this state of affairs will no doubt be for academics and committees of inquiry to judge. Right now there is a pressing need to work out what should be done to make the best of a bad job. This might require radical, painful choices to be made by government.

One option would be for the government to be frank about the version of HS2 it is truly prepared to pay for, with a nailed down budget, route and timeline. It would then convene the Mayors of London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands and leaders of other areas affected by HS2.

The government would provide them with a choice: to opt for the scheme as proposed or to come up with alternative projects. They might recommend cancellation of the project in its entirety or perhaps a scaled back version. A lower cost rail link between London and Birmingham could perhaps make use of bits of HS2 already being built. Whatever the decision, the resources released would then be committed to their regional transport priorities.

This approach provides everyone with a clear choice between continuing with HS2 or releasing investment for trams, buses, regional rail and metros, which we know are far more effective at driving local economic growth and employment. England’s major cities, especially outside of the south east, would at last get the sorts of resources they really need to deliver growth – and in doing so relieve the government of yet another major political headache.

In a world in which HS2 has increasingly few friends, not only would such alternatives provide better value for money, they might prove more popular with the public too. The government is in a terrible bind over HS2. The choices it faces are highly unattractive. But this bullet train needs biting now, before it runs away any further.

Alexander Jan is an economist and independent commentator. Follow him on Twitter.

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Categories: Comment
Tags: Andrew Adonis, Euston station, Heathrow, High Speed 2, RMT, St Pancras, Theresa Villiers

Croydon: Mayor will again put forward budget proposals rejected by council last week

Jason Perry says no "viable alternatives" have come forward from the opposition, which will have to decide whether to keep blocking the plans as a legal deadline looms
Dave Hill

This article was last updated at 13:15 pm on 8 March 2023. Mayor Perry’s budget was passed that evening after the Labour group eventually abstained.

Mayor of Croydon Jason Perry is to re-present the same budget proposals to Croydon councillors, including a council tax rise of 14.99 per cent, despite a meeting of the full council rejecting them last week.

In a formal statement to the council’s chief executive, Perry says the leader of the council’s opposition Labour group, Stuart King, “has suggested that an alternative plan must exist in order to balance the budget without a council tax rise. It does not”. He added: “The only other possible solution would be to borrow another #66m over the coming three years,’ which would saddle the Council with even more debt, even higher yearly payments to service the debt and repeat the mistakes of the past”.

Perry’s statement goes on to reject three specific suggestions he says Labour made, saying “these one-off proposals are not viable alternatives” and that this view has been confirmed by the relevant council officer.

Meetings were held earlier this week between the mayoral team and members of the 34-strong Labour group – the Town Hall’s largest, despite the Mayor being a Conservative – to discuss its suggestions for changing the proposals, but the Tories have not found any of them acceptable, arguing that reducing the size of the council tax hike would mean further cuts in services which cannot be funded in other ways.

There had previously been discussions with the two-member Green Party group, who have also put forward an amendment. That amendment will need a two-thirds majority to be carried in its own right tomorrow night. That is highly unlikely to be secured. In theory the Greens’ suggestions for revising the budget could have been incorporated before the second budget-setting meeting as part of a deal that would have entailed the Greens voting with the Tories to provide the simple majority required for that draft budget to pass. But that is not going to happen.

The same level of opposition to the re-presented proposals is expected, meaning they will again be supported by the 33 Tory councillors and the Mayor himself and rejected by the majority – the 34 Labour and two Greens and the sole Liberal Democrat.

What will happen? There is a legal requirement to set a budget by 11 March. Failure to do so means the council cannot collect council tax and makes councillors themselves liable for the council’s losses. Labour will be under great pressure to avoid that occurring. Abstaining, presumably under protest, is one option they have. Another theoretical possibility is that enough of them or members from the other two opposition parties give up and go home to eventually leave the Tories with a majority on the night.

The wider politics of this form part of the backdrop. Perry has been presenting himself as the straight-talking realist about Croydon’s difficult financial circumstances – “to protect vital services we have to find solutions even when they mean making tough decisions” – and Labour as lacking the bottle to sort out a mess that accumulated when they ran the council prior to Perry’s election last May. Jason Cummings, the council’s cabinet member for finance, says “there is only one option available”. In his judgement “no one has come up with a viable alternative to the 15 per cent council tax rise”.

But Labour is hoping to enhance its reputation among Croydon voters, and not only at borough level by saying the 15 per cent hike – which has required special dispensation from the government – is too much. The party’s London region has issued a statement from Ben Taylor, who is Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the Croydon South constituency, currently held by Tory Chris Philp, a government ultra-loyalist who strongly supported a switch to the directly elected mayor system of local government from which has produced Mayor Perry. Philp has a substantial but not impregnable majority of 12,339. “To return with the same rejected plans would represent an insult to the 25,000 local people who signed the petition against his unfair and unjust budget,” Taylor says.

That seems to be exactly what Perry plans to do, despite surely knowing he will have to give ground if a budget is to be set. Will that ground be conceded before tomorrow night’s meeting or will Croydon Town Hall become the stage for an extended political grandstanding competition before the seemingly unavoidable budget compromise is found?

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Categories: News
Tags: Council Tax, Croydon, Croydon Council, Jason Perry

Richard Derecki: The “short, sad and strange” life of Lizzie Siddal

She rose from poverty in the Old Kent Road to become both an artist and an artist's muse
Richard Derecki

Highgate cemetery, October 1869. The workmen dig steadily through the earth. A nearby bonfire keeps away the chill and provides some light against the dark of the night. Soon their shovels scrape the top of the coffin. The coffin is raised and its lid eased off. A well-dressed man steps forward and with apprehension takes sight of the body. Romantic legend has it that despite being in her grave for more than seven years Lizzie’s body had not suffered from decomposition, that her mane of red hair had continued to grow and now filled the coffin. Wrapped in her tresses was a small book of poetry that her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had written and in a final act of sacrifice committed to the earth with her body. Now he had a new muse and he wanted to recover and publish what he believed were his finest love poems.

Born in Hatton Garden in 1829, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal – her surname originally had two “l”s but she was later persuaded to drop one of them in order to appear more genteel – came from a large, downwardly mobile family. Her father was involved in a long-running and unsuccessful inheritance dispute which drained the family’s finances and absorbed his energies in fruitless legal battles.

When Lizzie was two the family was forced by circumstance to move to the Old Kent Road, a poorer, more run-down part of London, from where her father ran his ironmongery business. Like many children of the time Lizzie had no formal education but was probably taught to read and write by her parents and is said to have developed a love of poetry after reading some Tennyson she discovered on a scrap of newspaper. All the children had to find work as soon as they were old enough, with the girls employed as poorly-paid dress makers.

While working as a milliner in a shop on Cranbourne Street, off Leicester Square, Lizzie was spotted by the young artist Walter Deverell, who wanted a model for a scene he was painting from Twelfth Night. She was a “stunner”, as his friend the poet Willian Allingham wrote after her death. “She was sweet and gentle and kindly…her pale face, abundant red hair and long, thin limbs were strange and affecting.”

Lizzie was perfect for the depiction of Shakespeare’s character Viola Deverell had in mind. He asked his mother to approach the shop owner and also sought permission from Lizzie’s mother, as modelling was not something a respectable young woman would do unless she was related to the artist or sitting for her own portrait. But the money was good, the work less demanding than making bonnets hunched over a work bench for hours on end, and it opened up unheard of opportunities.

Deverell was part of a distinctive circle of young artists, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, that wanted to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy of the Royal Academy – to return to a detailed observation of nature, to experiment with new techniques, to use bright jewel-like colours, and paint subjects that would provoke the imagination and beg questions. The Pre-Raphaelites drew inspiration from Shakespeare, from the mythology of the Court of King Arthur and from religious parables. At the centre of the group was the hugely talented Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the planet around which the other artists revolved.

As Lucinda Hawksley has written in her sympathetic and affecting biography of Lizzie, The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, “Rossetti in his youth was deeply attractive, with flowing black curls and intense seductive eyes. He breathed passion, raw vitality and excitement into every gathering. There was something mesmerising about him, a quality that attracted men and women to love, admire or want to emulate him.” But he could also be selfish, controlling and prone to jealousy. He first met Lizzie in the winter of 1849 and she soon became his main source of inspiration. He was to draw and paint her obsessively, even after her untimely death.

Lizzie still posed for other artists and the money was helpful for her family and then later to establish her own independence. She modelled most famously for John Millais’ painting of Shakespeare’s Ophelia who, distraught from Hamlet’s rejection, collects flowers in her bridal gown before drowning herself in a river. For days Lizzie lay in a bath-tub of water as the wedding dress she wore billowed around her so Millais could capture the change in the texture of her wet hair, the fading bloom of her skin, how the water dulled the silver embroidery of the dress. She became ill after laying for too long in the cold and Millais was forced by her father to pay her not insubstantial doctors’ bills. Little did Lizzie know that over time her own story would become entwined with that of Ophelia, the fragile, tragic, doomed lover.

Drawing on the themes that inspired the artists who painted her Lizzie developed her own artistic practice. She sketched, drew and painted and wrote hopelessly sad and melancholy poetry too. Though she seems to have had little formal training, Rossetti tutored her for a while and her work was widely admired. The art critic John Ruskin bought a collection of her pictures and had her on a retainer for more. Some of her art went into public exhibitions in London. This was quite a coup as female artists were rarely taken seriously.

Rossetti’s infatuation with Lizzie stalled and, despite living together for periods of time, proposals of marriage failed to be followed through. This left Lizzie in a vulnerable state. She was known as Rossetti’s mistress yet there was no engagement ring. He failed to introduce her to his family, perhaps held back by their unequal social standing, and his barely hidden affairs cut Lizzie deeply.

She began to suffer bouts of serious ill health and would journey from London to seek convalescence at seaside resorts in the south, only for Rossetti to track her down and re-start the relationship again. Lizzie self-medicated with laudanum, easily available and sold over the counter without any form of medical prescription, which further affected her physical and mental well-being and she struggled to create art.

Finally in May 1860, after coming close to death, she and Rossetti married. They could now live openly together and there were happy times as they made a home together in a little cottage close to Hampstead Heath. They spoke of plans for the work they would create together, but Lizzie was not able to stay well for long. After losing an unborn baby in May 1861, she sank into depression and despair. She would sit in her room alone, gently rocking the empty cradle. Ten months later Lizzie was dead. She overdosed on laudanum, perhaps because she realised that the new baby she was by then carrying was not moving and she could not face more misery.

Although her life was, as one of her friends wrote, “short, sad and strange” some of Lizzie Siddal’s art has survived and is being reappraised in an exhibition at Tate Britain which will celebrate her work along with that of the Rossettis – Dante, his sister the poet Christina. Lizzie’s watercolours and drawings will be shown for the first time for 30 years. It will give today’s audiences a chance to appreciate the talent and creativity of a young woman against whom the odds were so heavily stacked.

Main image is from Dante Rossetti’s painting of Lizzie Siddal, Beata Beatrix, which was completed in 1870 after her death.

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Categories: Culture
Tags: Cranbourne Street, Hatton Garden, Leicester Square, Old Kent Road

Ben Rogers: Whisper it, but London’s architectural design standards have gone up and up

Some of the capital's tall buildings are disliked, but the overall story is a positive one
Ben Rogers

I recently found myself at lunch with three seasoned architects. Our host’s flat commanded a view of central London’s fast-changing skyline, which naturally stimulated a conversation about the state of the capital. Comments made included:

  • “It’s complete anarchy. The developers can do whatever they want.”
  • “I could not agree more. London is finished as any sort of model for urban development.”
  • “There is just no understanding of the character or the history of the city.”

My companions had practiced in the city since the early 1960s and as I looked at the prospect before us, I understood their disillusion. I suspect we will regret many of skyscrapers that have gone up in Battersea and Nine Elms and elsewhere, especially along the river. Tall buildings have their place in any modern metropolis – they are part of what makes a big city exciting. But their impact on the skyline and local streetscapes, together with the demands they tend to place on natural resources and the lives of their inhabitants, mean that they need to be planned, designed and managed to the highest standards – standards that have evidently not always been met.

But I also wanted to stand up for the generations now in charge of our capital. For there are, whisper it, good grounds for arguing that overall standards of planning and design in London have gone from strength to strength and are certainly higher than anywhere else in the country. It’s widely known that London’s schools have improved dramatically over the last few decades, with the capital having the best GSCE results of any part of the country, especially for free school meal children. A similar story can be told about local government and health services. London might be a very unequal city with more than its fair share of poverty, but its public services are better than most. What if this is also true for design and architecture?

Of course “good design” is a subjective quality. But the judgement of professionals working in London and other regions seems clear. I am chair of the charity Design South East. We support public engagement in the planning process and provide design review services and training for developers and planning authorities across London and the south east of England.

The charity’s long-time chief executive, Chris Lamb, is unequivocal: “People might complain about what they see in London, but the city just has higher standards than anywhere else. You leave London and you enter a different world, which is why we focus so much on places outside London.” His views are echoed by the architects and designers who sit on our design panels – panels that review and strengthen schemes before they seek formal planning approval. Things get build in Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey and beyond that wouldn’t see the light of day in the capital.

And in fact there are ways of measuring design. In the 2000s the New Labour-created Commission for Architecture and Design (CABE) developed a framework for assessing the quality of new housing drawing on 20 design indicators and used it for a national housing design audit.

In 2019 Professor Matthew Carmona of UCL produced an update. The findings made for grim reading: he found that three-quarters of the 142 large-scale housing-led projects he reviewed were “poor” or “mediocre”, a fifth should have been denied planning permission outright and the remainder badly required improvement. However, design standards as a whole had improved moderately from the CABE audit a decade before, with London, by far the best performing region, improving most. Fifty per cent of the London schemes were found to be good or very good, compared to 38 per cent for the south east and only six per cent for the east of England.

Moreover, we don’t have to rely on expert opinion and academic surveys to get the point. Anyone who has lived in London for more than a decade will have seen evidence of improvement. The regeneration of King’s Cross is surely better than anything that would have been achieved 25 years ago. Development surrounding the Olympic Park is a bit uneven – I’d rather not have to walk through a shopping centre to get to it. But the park itself is a handsome and welcoming new part of our city, and likely to become more so as the V&A, Sadlers Wells and other East Bank institutions open their doors (main photo). Future generations will no doubt appreciate the way it provides a showcase for some of the leading architectural practices of our time – the likes of Zaha Hadid, Hopkins and Partners, Allies and Morrison and O’Donnell and Tuomey. It’s certainly way ahead of what most other Olympic cities have achieved by way of “legacy”.

Almost everyone now understands the drawbacks of segregating activities into different zones and recognises the value of urban mix. My sense too is that you see fewer of the really banal office and housing developments than you did in the past. More generally, public space has been reclaimed across the city. Pavements have been widened, squares redesigned and pedestrianised, and cars somewhat contained. This is true in central London, most obviously in places like Trafalgar Square or the splendid recent Aldwych-Strand pedestrianisation, but also in outlying and less glamorous parts of the city.

Screenshot 2023 03 06 at 19.43.35

Last week I visited the offices of Karacusevic Carson Architects – responsible for Hackney’s King’s Crescent regeneration (above) – which has grown to employ 80 people. They belong, with practices like Peter Barber and MAE, to a new generation of London-based architects reviving the lost art of designing innovative and dignified public housing for councils and housing associations. No other UK region sustains practices like these and neither do many cities elsewhere outside some of the bigger European capitals.

What explains this relatively good story? I suspect various factors are at play. Buying and developing land in London is expensive, so investment in good design can look reasonable as a proportion of overall development costs. And London’s wealthy businesses and residents can and will pay more for well-designed homes and offices.

But these sorts of explanations only get you so far. You might expect the expense of developing in London to squeeze out standards, just as it squeezes in density. And by no means all of those occupying new buildings have money to burn. We also need to consider the nature of London civil society. The public, after all, are given a voice in determining what gets built and the London public seem particularly adept at exercising that voice. The capital’s density means that new developments impinge on far more people than those elsewhere. And London, with its rich networks and highly educated population, finds it relatively easy to mobilise a large and expert public to challenge poor development and demand better – including, increasing the preservation and rehabilitation of decent buildings from the past (though poorer London localities struggle)

London local government also makes a difference. As already suggested, the capital’s councils seem to be among the best performing in the country, in part perhaps because they attract more skilled and ambitious officers, in part because their physical proximity allows skills and innovation to spread quickly.  The benefits of agglomeration are not limited to the business sector. A survey of design skills in local authorities, by Matthew Carmona and Valentina Giordano, reveals that use of design codes is higher and use of design review much higher in London than in other regions.

And then is there is the Mayor of London. From the beginning, planning was seen as the keystone of the strategic powers of the office and the London Plan – the strategic spatial plan for the capital – and associated policies have emerged as influential documents. The current London Plan includes a prominent 50-page chapter devoted to design, setting out policies for the design process (including public engagement, use of design codes and design review), sustainability, local character, space standards, density, tall buildings, activity mix and public realm. No doubt the chapter could be improved. But I defy anyone to read it and say design standards are neglected.

In addition, all three Mayors so far have sought to strengthen planning and design through their power as developers and funders and, in the case of Mayoral Development Corporations, as planning authorities. The design of new Transport for London stations has been widely praised. Each Mayor has channeled funding into local schemes – for example through Ken Livingstone’s 100 public spaces – and financed capacity building and quality assurance efforts in local authorities and other public sector organisations.

They have also set up vehicles such as the Architecture and Urbanism Unit, Design for London and the Mayor’s Design Advisory Group, and supported Urban Design London (originally funded through TfL, growing from a London wide remit to a national one), Public Practice (which places urban design professionals in local authorities and other public bodies) and Future of London (a not-for-profit supporting the professional development of local planning officers).

Sadiq Khan has, if anything, expanded on the work of his predecessors through his Good Growth by Design programme. He has strengthened London Plan policies and appointed a series of design ambassadors.  Late last month he published the latest iteration of his Architecture and Urbanism Framework – a list of built environment practices, including engagement specialists, planners, designers and public realm consultants who have been given a mayoral quality kite mark. Of the 273 practices that applied for pre-approval, only 65 made it to the shortlist. Of course, London could do better. But credit where credit is due.

Ben Rogers is chair of Design South East, Professor of Practice, University of London, and Distinguished Fellow at LSE Cities. Follow Ben on Twitter.

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Categories: Comment
Tags: architecture, East Bank, Ken Livingstone, Olympic Park, Sadiq Khan