Cllr Dermot Poston

Councillors met at Woolwich Town Hall last night for the first full council meeting since the summer recess.

Royal Hill school building

The Victorian school building in Royal Hill which has latterly been used as an annexe for Charlton Special School could be returned to use as a primary school, it was revealed.

In a written response to a question from Cllr Spencer Drury (Conservative, Eltham North), the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Cllr Jackie Smith (Labour, Thamesmead Moorings), stated that the council “is considering plans for the reopening of the school to meet the growing demand for primary school places in west Greenwich”.

The John Roan School

Councillor Alex Wilson (Conservative, Blackheath Westcombe) asked for an update on the re-building of The John Roan School. A written reply from Councillor Jackie Smith revealed that a design team was in place, the process to appoint a building contractor was “well advanced” and work was expected to start in approximately 12 months.

Sleeping Arrangements

Former Liberal Democrat Paul Webbewood used the opportunity of Public Questions to ask council leader, Councillor Chris Roberts, if he had ever slept at Woolwich Town Hall. “No”, replied Cllr Roberts.

Blackheath Fireworks

Cllr Alex Wilson (Conservative, Blackheath Westcombe) said that the decision not to contribute to this year’s Blackheath Fireworks felt like being “a dinner guest who has walked away at the last minute without helping to pay his share of the bill”, and asked for the cut to be justified by the Council.

Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Peter Brooks (Labour, Thamesmead Moorings) said there were “65 million reasons” to justify the decision, alluding to the £65 million the council expects to have to cut. Cllr Brooks said that the share of the costs for Greenwich Council was £37,000 which equated to “a job a bit”. He said he was “given about two days in the middle of the recess to come up with this decision” and it wasn’t a decision taken “lightheartedly”.

Disposal of land in Commerell Street

The council resolved to try and sell two houses it owns in Commerell Street. The council has estimated that selling the land will raise £550,000 which it intends to spend on its new Housing Delivery Vehicle, financing decant costs in Kidbrooke and Woolwich and other urgent capital works on council-owned homes. The council will need to gain permission from the Secretary of State for Local Government before proceeding with the disposal.

Nouvelles Racines Free School

A Conservative motion welcoming the attempt to set up a new free school teaching the International Baccalaureate was debated by councillors.

Cllr Dermot Poston (Conservative, Eltham North) praised the “vision” of parents and teachers behind the school who he said had a “passion” for educating children “in depth”.

Cllr Adam Thomas (Conservative, Eltham South) said that the parents and teachers proposing the free school wanted to “make a difference to the education of children in this borough”.

Cabinet member in charge of schools, Cllr Jackie Smith said it was “wholly unfair to debate in this chamber one particular proposal that is still being assessed by the Department of Education”.

She said that the council was “corncerned about free schools” which she said had “too many unknowns”. She pointed that the borough already a diverse range of schools which within the local authority “family”.

She said she didn’t wish to debate the merits of the IB but didn’t think funding should be taken away from other children in the borough to “set up a bit of elitism”.

Cllr David Grant (Labour, Greenwich West) accused Greenwich Conservatives of “jumping on Mr Gove’s decidedly rickety bandwagon” and said their motion was “trivial and foolish”.

Cllr Alex Grant (Labour, Blackheath Westcombe) – himself a former student of the International Baccalaurate – said it was a good course but not a “magic bullet”. He also commented that there was “nothing to prevent any state school in Greenwich from starting to do the International Baccalaurate”. He said that as a “through school” catering for all ages, he thought it would be “overwhelming” for young children to be sharing a playground and school building with 17 and 18 year olds.

Cllr Nigel Fletcher (Conservative, Eltham North) said that there was a “mindset” within the Labour group that they could allow experimentation and parent involvement with schools “but only up to a point” because “at the end of the day, the council knows best”.

A Conservative councillor has told a council meeting that she was airbrushed out of an edition of the controversial weekly council newspaper, Greenwich Time.

The claim was made by councillor Eileen Glover during a debate at Wednesday night’s full meeting of the council at Woolwich Town Hall.

The councillor for the Eltham South ward told the meeting that she had ensured she was in all the photos taken by Greenwich Time at an event in her ward attended by the Council Leader but by the time it went to print, she had been “airbrushed out”.

She was only able to make an appearance in a later edition by changing her hair so that she was unrecognisable to the Leader of the Council, she said.

The debate over Greenwich Time was prompted after Greenwich Conservatives put forward a motion calling for weekly production of the newspaper to be ended.

Cllr Nigel Fletcher (Conservative, Eltham North) questioned whether the newspaper offered value for money and asked if it could really be considered a “front line service”. He expressed his doubts over the impartiality of the publication before mocking the content in this week’s edition.

“Is it really a core function of this council to provide, for example, a review of Toy Story 3? Do we really have a duty to inform our residents … that Prince’s new album is his most ‘soulless yet’?”, he asked. He said ending the weekly printing of Greenwich Time would be an “easy cut”.

Cllr Maureen O’Mara (Labour, Greenwich West) commented that Greenwich Time’s council property pages were “very important” to residents who wanted to move, describing it as providing an “essential service” for those that couldn’t or wouldn’t get the information online.

Cllr Dermot Poston (Conservative, Eltham North) told colleagues that he regarded it as a “political newspaper” and that he “bitterly resents” it. He said the ruling party have “lost any sense of fairness and democracy”.

Cllr Matt Clare (Conservative, Eltham South) used his maiden speech at a full council meeting to say how he would frequently see “No Greenwich Time” notices whilst going door to door during the election campaign. He asked why only Greenwich and Tower Hamlets were delivering newspapers on a weekly basis if it had “such demonstrable benefits”.

Cllr John Fahy (Labour, Woolwich Riverside) reminded fellow councillors that the Conservatives “fought the election on the arguments of Greenwich Time and lost”. He criticised local freesheet, the News Shopper, for printing “10 pages of stories in Lewisham and beyond, and perhaps 2 or 3 stories about the community in Greenwich”. He said that in raising the issue, it was “payback time” for the opposition because during the election, the “News Shopper was the extension of Conservative news”.

West Greenwich councillor, David Grant (Labour) also suggested that he had been “airbrushed out” of a Greenwich Time photo but said that because of the cabinet system of the council, it was inevitable most of the coverage would be on the executive although he said would like to see more backbenchers featured.

The Leader of the Council, Cllr Chris Roberts (Labour, Glyndon), said that in strict terms, Greenwich Time is “not a political newspaper” and nor could it be according to the law. In fact, council lawyers check it line by line before it goes to print, he revealed.

Cllr Roberts said the paper was “very close to being self financing” and that the cost of producing it had fallen from 22p per copy to just 3.5p per copy. “We are already making significant savings which run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds”, he added.

He said it was “absolutely right that we should prioritise our spending” but printing Greenwich Time meant the Council was “able to deliver statutory notices almost at no cost”.

The Conservative motion was defeated.

Greenwich Council Meeting: 27th October 2010

I was airbrushed out of Greenwich Time, claims councillor