| Tidy up Tooting |
| Thursday, 15 November 2007 18:00 |
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I have arranged a meeting with senior representatives of Tescos this week to discuss local concerns and how Tescos can work with local business and the Tooting Town Centre Partnership. You can see a photo of me receiving the petition by clicking HERE. I also had a meeting with the Chancellor, Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, to discuss the Comprehensive Spending Review and the Pre Budget Report. I was particularly keen to find out the impact for public services and residents of Tooting. You can see a photo of us by clicking HERE. You can see the highlights of the PBR and CSR by clicking HERE. I spent most of Tuesday and Thursday in the Public Bill Committee of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. I have already set out in my blog, the implications of the Bill. You can see a summary of this reading the previous entry, dated October 22nd. On Friday, I spent from 8.45am until 5pm taking part in the recruitment process for a new Head Teacher of Gatton Primary School. Recruiting a new Head is one of the most important tasks of a Chair of Governors and the process has been a pretty long and hectic one. But I believe it has been well worth it. I then joined Cllr Nick Bowes (Labour Councillor in Tooting Ward) and Cllr Rex Osborne (one of the Labour Councillors in Graveney Ward) with a local journalist on a walk around of Tooting Town Centre. The local Guardian and Wandsworth Borough News has begun an excellent campaign to Tidy up Tooting. This is something Tooting’s Labour Councillors and I have been working on, as we feel that Wandsworth Council are not doing enough to keep our streets clean. I am pleased that the local paper is also campaigning to clean up Tooting and get the waste management service we deserve. To read more on this issue click HERE. After the walk about, I popped into the leaving party of Bob Nightingale, who is leaving Wandsworth and Merton Law Centre after 25 years. Over this period Bob must have helped literally thousands of local residents. The fact that he leaves the Law Centre in a much much better state to when he joined is testament, in no small part, to his phenomenally hard work. I then joined Cllr Billi Randall, Cllr Rex Osborne and Cllr Nick Bowes (all Labour Councillors) at 2 separate events in Tooting Temples to celebrate Durga Puja. Durga Puja is a festival held evey autumn to worship the Hindu Goddess Durga and celebrate her battle against Ravana, known by some as the king of the demons. The first event to mark this occasion was in the Sivayagum Temple and the second at Bina Hall. On Saturday, I had my usual surgery at Tooting Library. I then joined Tooting’s excellent Labour Councillor, Nick Bowes, in a coffee morning in the Estate Office of the Hazlehurst Council Estate in Tooting. A number of residents joined our local Safer Neighbourhood Team to discuss a variety of issues of concern, including anti-social behaviour, the cleaning of the estate, maintenance of the communal areas and the running of the estate club. Nick and I have agreed to take up these matters. You can see a photo of the coffee morning by clicking HERE. On Sunday, I was extremely proud to take to the stage at Wembley Arena before more than 10,000 people at the “Muslim Live Aid” event. It was a real honour to help the organisers and to make a speech at this historic event. Islamic Relief organised this event are doing some amazing work in Darfur. You can visit their website by clicking HERE. This event raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the long suffering people of Darfur, as well as raising awareness of the plight of those living in this part of Africa. Since 2003 alone, 400,000 people have been killed, 2 million people are refugees and more than 3.5 million people are reliant completely on overseas aid. This event received a lot of well deserved media coverage. You can find out more Darfur by visiting the DFiD website HERE. |
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