The Brixton Green development is a community project to sustainably develop a large site on Somerleyton Road in Brixton. Its vision is to combine work spaces for local small businesses with mixed-tenure housing, creating a hub for social and environmental enterprises. Chuka is a strong supporter of the project, which hopes to start building within two years.
In this video local restauranteur and Brixton Hill resident Phillipe Castaing, who initiated the project, discusses its aims.
The development will foster social cohesion by combining owner-occupied premises with social housing and providing communal spaces for residents to come together.
A large communal garden will be the centrepiece of the development, providing space for urban agriculture, including vegetable growing, bee keeping and greenhouses – producing 120 tonnes of produce a year.
To find out more, check out the Brixton Green development’s website.
Chuka joined in the fun at the Mount Ephraim Lane Street Party yesterday where the local community came out despite the dodgy weather. Many thanks to the organising committee, a group of local mums with young children, for putting on such a fantastic event.
Last week’s Urban Art fair in Brixton was opened by Rachel Agnew, who Chuka met at the event.
Rachel was was chosen this year as the winner of a nationwide search for a new panellist on ITV’s Loose Women.
Urban Art is held annually on Josephine Avenue in Brixton, transforming the tree-lined street into an outdoor art fair. The event gives artists from across south London and beyond the opportunity to exhibit their work, showcasing a fantastic range of affordable art on sale to the public. This year, over one hundred artists exhibited and 10% of Sunday’s proceeds were donated to Trinity Hospice.
Chuka Umunna, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham, calls for urgent action to tackle global warming and welcomes the government’s low-carbon plan which will save Streatham residents hundreds of pounds a year.
The government has pledged that by 2020 40% of our electricity will come from low carbon sources. The government’s low-carbon plan outlines how Britain will lead the way in making the transition to a low-carbon future and how local people will reap the benefits in lower energy costs, new jobs and green technology.
Commenting on how the government’s plans will help local residents, Mr Umunna said:
“Tackling climate change is both the right thing to do and is in financial interests of local residents.
“Expanding wind power, home insulation and introducing ’smart’ electricity meters will complement the grassroots efforts already being made by local groups like Transition Town Brixton, Sustainable Streatham and the Hyde Farm Climate Action Network to reduce our carbon footprint, whilst saving local people money.”
Smart electricity meters will be installed in every home, allowing consumers and energy suppliers to accurately monitor how much electricity is being used. This means that energy companies won’t need to manually check meters and it will bring an end to estimated bills, both which will cut costs and home energy bills. Smart meters also reduce energy consumption, as consumers can be more conscious of how much they are using.
Streatham residents can look forward to their bills being reduced by up to 10% a year as a result of smart meters, which could save more than £100 per household per year.
The government has also made grants available for insulation to cut homes’ energy use and spending. A quarter of homes are set to receive full eco-makeovers by 2020. Streatham households will benefit by reducing their energy waste and cutting heating bills. The average annual saving made by installing cavity wall insulation is £115.
Mr Umunna says savings from smart meters and insulation will help local residents worst hit by last year’s gas and electricity price hikes by suppliers and reduce fuel poverty:
“These proposals are not just good for the environment but will be of significant benefit to energy customers in Streatham, particularly after the massive and unacceptable price hikes made by the energy companies last year.”
Last month, Mr Umunna visited the Hyde Farm Climate Action Network, a grassroots organisation which puts into practice reducing the community’s carbon footprint. He is also a supporter of Sustainable Streatham, a local group launched recently to encourage sustainable projects and to campaign on green issues, and Transition Town Brixton, a community-led initiative that seeks to raise awareness locally of Climate Change.
I have read with interest about Alan Milburn MP’s social mobility report published this week (there is a video of Alan talking about his report at the bottom of this post). For me, tackling outstanding inequalities and the lack of social mobility is a priority. Reading the reports and comment on this topic this week reminded me of an article I wrote for the Financial Times in August 2006, which I have reproduced below, for those who would like to revisit it:
The City has dramatically changed over the past two decades. The nostalgic image of the bowler-hatted gentleman sauntering to work is long gone. In its place reigns the slick-suited, BlackBerry-carrying guy or girl shouting across a crowded dealing room. However, there is one constant – the City is still overwhelmingly white.
Mention ethnic diversity in a City conference room and the ensuing awkward silence conveys a clear message: everyone knows it is an issue but no one wants to do anything about it. Some even deny it is an issue at all, with one senior partner of a City law firm reportedly claiming not to know the meaning of the term “diversity”.
Those of us who have worked in the City see few faces of colour in the glass palaces that populate the square mile, particularly in front office and senior roles. The facts are stark. Just 2.5 per cent of FTSE 100 board members are from ethnic minorities, according to Cranfield School of Management, and there is one non-white chief executive, Arun Sarin at Vodafone (an import from the US). Fewer than 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of the partners of most prestigious City law and accountancy firms are drawn from a non-white background, according to Legal Week and Accountancy Age. The investment banks cleverly give percentages based on global headcount rather than a City office breakdown – I wonder why? When one considers that almost one in three Londoners is from a non-white background, the figures are quite shocking.
“But there is a dearth of suitable candidates,” is the cry of City personnel departments. This argument does not hold up in 2006. Record numbers of ethnic minority students are entering higher education and they are more likely to go to university than their white counterparts. More of them are entering the professions than ever before, so why do disparities remain in the City? A recruitment agency, Talent! Recruitment, which specialises in hiring diverse workforces, was recently asked by a City accountancy outfit to find candidates for certain roles. Talent found diverse candidates with excellent degrees and from the “preferred” universities. The candidates were rejected on the grounds that they lacked “polish”. Herein lies the problem: culture and class.
It seems that senior managers are doomed to recruit in their own image. Above and beyond the required qualifications and skills, they look to recruit candidates they could have “a drink and a laugh” with and with whom they would feel comfortable working under severe pressure. Many of these mostly white, upper-middle class, middle-aged men have little experience of forging close relationships with people from another class, let alone from an ethnic minority.
The wine bar and the pub are the after-work venues of choice which, for example, excludes whole swaths of Muslim employees. Golf is often the corporate entertainment activity of choice – how many black people, other than wealthy footballers and Tiger Woods, does one see on a golf course?
Class determines access to the networks and mentors that provide careers advice and arrange work experience, which are important factors in helping young people choose their careers. More important, it determines which university you attend. African and Caribbean children who are largely drawn from the lower socioeconomic classes will gravitate towards universities close to their family home, primarily for financial reasons, rather than to the “preferred” universities. This means that City employers, who tend to focus resources on recruiting from the Russell Group of top universities, fail to reach these candidates.
So what is to be done? City recruiters who are serious about addressing ethnic diversity in the workplace must widen the pool of universities they focus on and they need to work with London’s ethnic minorities to improve access to work-experience programmes for youngsters. However, all of this will come to nothing if culture and class continue to be obstacles.
Those who buy the City’s services should use their purchasing power to force change. Barclays recently demanded diversity statistics from every City law firm it uses. There is evidence that this practice, which has been used in the US for some time, is beginning to spread but it is not enough. Action is needed from one of the biggest procurers of City services: the government.
If we are serious about building greater equality in Britain, we must tackle the rampant inequality in the City. In today’s world, money and power are inextricably linked. If ethnic minorities fail to progress in the City, their power and influence will continue to be compromised. In purchasing City services such as pension fund management, the government should invite tenders only from City businesses that publish diversity figures – that would be a start.
The next step would be to consider rejecting tenders from City businesses with workforces that do not reflect the society the government serves. The law may need to change to allow this, but it would certainly concentrate minds.
Update: The Labour government’s Equality Bill, due to receive royal assent in 2010, will make it clear that public bodies will be able to use procurement to drive equality. It will enable Ministers to set out how public bodies should go about doing so. With an annual expenditure of around £175 billion every year on goods and services – about 13% of GDP – the public sector will soon be able to use its purchasing power to promote equality thanks to the Bill.
Chuka, Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell MP, and Cllr Rachel Heywood, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Culture, talk about culture and the Olympics at the Lambeth Country Show.
Chuka attended the ‘Meet the Market’ event this week, organised by the Friends of Brixton Market.
The event showcased Lambeth’s greatest market, the challenges it faces and the exciting new possibilities and projects that could see it thrive in the future. Attendees sampled the market’s finest produce including Nigerian snacks, Colombian delicacies, organic wine, rave-reviewed Neapolitan pizzas and
cupcakes.
Also in attendance was local celebrity supporter, musician and entrepreneur Levi Roots.
Friends of Brixton Market is a voluntary, not-for-profit group for customers, residents and supporters of Brixton Market, who are working to protect the market and ensure it continues to thrive.
Chuka spoke last week at a parliamentary reception arranged by Sadiq Khan, MP for neighbouring Tooting, aimed at aimed at getting the Tooting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community more involved in politics.
This week, Chuka launches a campaign to bring the tube to Streatham. He and local campaigners are calling on Mayor Boris Johnson to ensure that Streatham is considered in any future plans to extend the tube southwards, and an online petition has been set up for supporters of the campaign.
In February, Mayor Johnson stated that it is his ambition to extend the Bakerloo line southwards to Lewisham and beyond. Last week we obtained confirmation that TfL is working on these plans, looking into the feasibility of such a scheme.
Chuka is demanding to know why Streatham is not being considered for any possible southwards extension of the tube when Lewisham, for example, is already well-served by the Docklands Light Railway extension which opened in 1999.
The Bakerloo line could instead be extended southwards from Elephant & Castle via Camberwell and Brixton to Streatham. This would have the added benefit of relieving congestion on Streatham High Road.
However, The Bakerloo line is only one of the options available for bringing the tube to Streatham. The planned Crossrail 2 scheme, running from Chelsea to Hackney, would considerably relieve congestion on the Victoria line, creating the potential for an extension of the Victoria line to Streatham from Brixton.
Commenting on the launch of the campaign, Chuka said:
“I have lived here for most of my life and people have been talking about the desirability of having the tube in Streatham for as long as I can remember.
“This campaign is a long term project. Public finances are going to be tight for the next few years but we need to build up a head of steam behind this now so that when there is more money about, we are in a good position to demand it is used to finally bring the tube here.
Streatham residents’ hopes of getting a tube extension have a long history of false starts and disappointment. In the original plans for the Victoria line included in the 1946 London Plan, it was intended that the line would run to Streatham and on to Croydon. This scheme even received approval in Parliament, but was never built because of a lack of finance.
Chuka said,
“Streatham has been ignored for far too long while other areas have benefited from better transport provision. It is bad enough that our direct Thameslink connections are under threat, but the fact that TfL is looking at extending the Bakerloo line without even considering our area as a station destination, is not on. We deserve better.”
“This area would benefit hugely from a tube station. As well as obvious
benefits for local residents, it would give a massive boost to the regeneration of Streatham and the local economy.
“We are going to work together to put pressure on TfL to consider Streatham a top priority for tube improvements in South London.”
Published and promoted by Nick Cattermole on behalf of Chuka Umunna and Streatham Labour Party, at 34 Streatham Common South, London, SW16 3BX
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The City has dramatically changed over the past two decades. The nostalgic image of the bowler-hatted gentleman sauntering to work is long gone. In its place reigns the slick-suited, BlackBerry-carrying guy or girl shouting across a crowded dealing room. However, there is one constant – the City is still overwhelmingly white.
This week, Chuka launches a campaign to bring the tube to Streatham. He and local campaigners are calling on Mayor Boris Johnson to ensure that Streatham is considered in any future plans to extend the tube southwards, and an 
