The Clock is Ticking for Councillor Mohammed

Following the mayor’s unplanned commitment to rehouse over 200 families from the Victoria St building/Brimstone House at the 2022 AGM, it appears that the responsibility for effecting this promise has been dumped on the hapless Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Shaban Mohammed.

Mohammed was one of those suddenly elevated to the cabinet when Cllr Gray was removed in the wake of the Hirsh Inquiry. It is difficult to say what he has done, other than take a healthy second income whilst watching officers affect the construction plans made under the Wales regime.

Now he has to deliver and we are told that he has two months in which to come up with a plan.

200 plus families to be found accommodation in Newham. In two months. And what will then happen to Victoria St?

That will take some work.

It should be doable, but there will be repercussions for other families on the waiting list, and there are some 20,000 of them. When they find out that one group has received special treatment ahead of everyone else they may express some disquiet. It may be that he and the mayor are storing up more problems than they are solving.

He could have said to the mayor that it was foolish to make such a rash public promise; that any decision like that should have been discussed with colleagues and senior officers; that they needed to weigh up the implications before making such commitments. He could have resigned. He could have grown a pair. But he didn’t. And now he is lumbered.

Mohammed has less than two months to solve the problem of the mayor’s creation, or he’s out. Or so we hear.

We look forward to seeing the creative solutions that he comes up with.

He might well look like a rabbit caught in the headlights.