Money to Burn in Canning Town

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How to Lose £700k and get Nothing in Return

In 2016 Canning Town Library at 103 Barking Road closed. The venerable old building stood next to the old Canning Town, Town Hall. Now a Community Centre run by local charity Community Links. That is, it was run by Community Links until they went bust and were taken over in 2018 by FOUNDATION a charity based in Leeds. FOUNDATION have acquired a 90-year lease on a building worth millions for a peppercorn rent, whilst much of the local community work that built Community Links has stopped and its co-founders have moved on to new pastures.

When the old library closed the council moved the books and the staff into a brand new purpose-built library and resource centre approximately 50 metres from the old library.

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So far, so good.

Under the Wales’ regime the old library was going to be let commercially. Nando’s, the chain of chicken restaurants, was going to open a new restaurant and training centre on the ground floor of the site. On the first floor they would have equipped and installed a community facility. They would have met the bill of over £1 million for the refurbishment of the property and paid a rental, believed to have been in the region of £300,000pa for the privilege. Plus, Business Rates on the property.

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According to the report in the Recorder in October 2018, Nando’s said, “We know the library building means a lot to the community. That’s why we’re planning to keep as much of the building’s original features and character as we can.”

Under this deal, the private sector would have spent over £1m in improving the site and in excess of £350,000 pa in rent and rates to Newham. They would also have provided around 20 permanent jobs, most of which would have gone to local people.

But providing local jobs and finance to the cash strapped local authority was not a priority for Mayor Fiazco and the Newham Labour Party. Several of their finest revolutionary cadres set out to botch the deal. The vanguards of the revolution descended on Barking Road, all six of them, and started to raise a petition. Alas, we don’t know how many names they got, but more importantly they recruited the great and the good from the local Labour Party and 40 of them opposed the proposal. (The online petition appeared to have garnered all of 28 signatures.)

What is more they did it on the back of a lie. They claimed that the library was the birthplace of the GMB Union. It wasn’t. They claimed that it was the venue for events at which Will Thorne and suffragettes Sylvia Pankhurst and Daisy Parsons spoke. They didn’t. They claimed a link with Keir Hardie MP. This too was false.

All of the names were local heroes in the early Labour movement in what was then the county borough of West Ham. But they didn’t speak at the library. They spoke next door, at the Town Hall. Part of the same estate, but an entirely different building. They spoke at 105 Barking Road.

The campaigners claimed to want the regeneration of the library as a community centre, but seemed oblivious to the fact that right next door, in 105, is Community Links. It was once one of the largest voluntary sector organisations in the borough and occupied the enormous property at 105 Barking Road for virtually no cost. Still, they went bust. Hardly an ideal blueprint for doing the same thing in the library. 

Well done all of you. You have successfully:

  • Set back the regeneration of Canning Town, leaving a decaying, empty eyesore,

  • Prevented 20 of the people you are supposed to represent from getting jobs locally,

  • Lost £1m plus of private sector investment,

  • Lost the opportunity to create a new community space, paid for by the private sector,

  • Lost over £300,000 per year in rent and rates that would have come to the council,

  • Ensured the continued charges of £144,000 per year in security costs

And nothing has happened since.

  • They did nothing to provide Nando’s with an alternative site, as implied in their letter of October 2018.

  • There is no plan to create a healthy high street, as per Cllr Dr Dasgupta’s letter.

  • There is no plan to give new life to the empty shell of a building at 103.

  • There is no plan to create a youth centre as per Mayor Fiaz’s pledge.

  • There is no plan to make it a thriving community hub, which is probably a good thing as it would have to compete with the council’s other one on the opposite side of the road! And what’s left of Community Links, next door.

  • There is nothing.

This lot has cost the council tax payers of Newham £700,000 for the benefit of keeping a decaying building empty. They have lost the rent and business rates that would come from bringing the building back to life.

The following are the names of the local luminaries who all opposed the development in a letter to the planning committee and are costing the residents of Newham nearly £12000 per month, whilst getting nothing in return.

Lyn Brown MP, West Ham;

Stephen Timms MP, East Ham;

Unmesh Desai, London Assembly Member, City and East; 

Cllr Shaban Mohammed, Canning Town North; 

Cllr Dr Rohit K Dasgupta, Canning Town South; 

Cllr Daniel Lee-Phakoe, Plaistow North; 

Cllr Hanif Abdulmuhut, Green Street West; 

Cllr Aisha Siddiqah, East Ham Central; 

Cllr Nazir Ahmed, Little Ilford; 

Cllr Jennifer Bailey, Wall End; 

Cllr James Beckles, Custom House; 

Cllr Daniel Blaney, East Ham North; 

Cllr Ken Clarke, Manor Park;

Cllr Ayesha Chowdhary, Beckton; 

Cllr Sasha Das Gupta, Forest Gate North; 

Cllr Mariam Dawood, Manor Park; 

Cllr Canon Ann Easter, Canning Town North; 

Cllr Belgica Guana, Canning Town South;

Cllr Omana Gangadharan, Wall End; 

Cllr Zuber Gulamussen, East Ham North; 

Cllr Pat Holland, Custom House; 

Cllr Lakmini Shah, East Ham South; 

Cllr Quintin Peppiatt, East Ham South; 

Cllr Mas Patel, Forest Gate South; 

Cllr Neil Wilson, Plaistow South; 

Cllr Delphine Tohoura, Canning Town North; 

Cllr Pat Murphy, Royal Docks; 

Cllr Riaz Mirza, Little Ilford; 

Cllr Abdhul Ali, Green Street East; 

Cllr Firoza Nekiwala, East Ham North; 

Cllr Lestor Hudson, Wall End; 

Cllr Joy Laguda, Plaistow North; 

Cllr Tony Mcalmont, Royal Docks; 

Cllr Carleene Lee-Phakoe, Plaistow South; 

Cllr Sarah Ruiz, Custom House; 

Cllr Suga Thekkeppurayil, East Ham Central; 

Cllr Winston Vaughan, Forest Gate South; 

Cllr John Whitworth, West Ham; 

Cllr Toni Wilson, Beckton; 

Cllr James Asser, Beckton; 

Cllr Anam Islam, Forest Gate North. 

Adding their names to a petition seemed like an easy way to curry favour or avoid conflict with their Trotskyist activists. Unfortunately, their spineless kow-towing is costing the people of Newham millions.