by Nancy Taaffe, Waltham Forest Socialist Party and Waltham Forest Trades Council assistant secretary
Campaigners, including Socialist Party members, gathered outside Waltham Forest Town Hall to lobby the council, which was about to ratify its cabinet decision to close the Markhouse Centre, a centre for adults with learning difficulties, serving local adults and their carers for over 40 years. Around 50 people use it.
After standing in the general election in July as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, a number of people had written to ask whether, as we had stood on an anti-austerity platform and had a consistent record of campaigning against such cuts, we would help to keep it open? I took this campaign to the local trades council, and we organised a joint meeting with the Markhouse Centre supporters’ group. We immediately got to work campaigning.
No expense spared
The council had claimed that the building would cost £1.2 million to repair, with the boiler alone costing £100,000. We have pointed out that they have £50 million in reserves and spent at least £25 million renovating the town hall! Sitting in the public gallery felt positively palatial and it was quite obvious that no expense had been spared.
The local trades council hosted a public meeting in October, we pledged to be present at scrutiny committee meetings, cabinet meetings and then the full council. We spoke to the workers at the centre, we engaged with the carers’ group, and we spoke to the press. The councillors would like it if what was said in the council chambers, stayed in the council chambers; campaigners were determined for that not to happen.
A survey, commissioned by the council from a company called Evolve Norse and called ‘independent’, condemned the building. The council has a 25% stake in this company, with a councillor and council official on the board! Councillors eventually admitted that using the word ‘independent’ was inaccurate. The officer involved has now (fortuitously) left the council. The health and adult care scrutiny committee has commissioned another company to ratify the original report.
We won’t go silently
We believe if we hadn’t been out campaigning, the centre would have silently been closed. But the campaign has paid off, at least temporarily, and the decision to close the centre was pushed back, with a new decision due towards the end of February.
On the night of the lobby, dozens of people also turned out to oppose car parking charges. The local Tories took to the plinth outside to lead the charge against the council. We made sure they didn’t get away with going unchallenged for their 14 years of year-on-year cuts.
The Markhouse Centre is the first big cut by this Labour council under a Labour government. The parking charges look like the next attack. After Christmas, cuts to council tax relief are coming down the line.
We will fight back against every attack, and continue to make the case for councillors who are prepared to resist further austerity by backing needs-based council budgets. As part of that we will continue to stand against the cutting councillors at the ballot box.
Labour council rubber stamps closure of disabled adult day centre
◴ 12th December 2024
by Chris Corney, Waltham Forest Socialist Party
The Labour council cabinet unanimously passed the decision to close Markhouse Centre in Waltham Forest — without even taking a proper vote, just a murmur of agreement — to jeers and cries of “cowards” from the public gallery.
In a final attempt to persuade councillors to stop the planned closure of the centre for disabled adults, Socialist Party members joined service users’ families and supporters at Waltham Forest Town Hall on 3 December.
Socialist Party member Kevin Parslow, spoke to the council chamber in his capacity as secretary of Waltham Forest Trades Union Council. He branded it a terrible decision for the 51 adults who use the service, and the workers whose jobs will be lost.
The decision was based on the alleged high cost of building repairs in a bogus ‘independent’ survey report. Service users produced evidence that, far from being ‘independent’, the survey company had Labour councillors sitting on the board of directors. Evidence was produced to councillors that the figures for repairs were wildly exaggerated, but to no avail.
It seemed that the decision had already been made months before, as it is likely that the council wants to sell the land for the centre to developers. 51 disabled adults will now lose what for many was a second home, their carers will lose vital respite, and the workers could lose their jobs.
‘Difficult decisions’
One Labour councillor called it “one of the most difficult decisions in my ten years as a councillor”. But she did not respond to demands that the council should use some of its £50 million reserves to keep the centre open, and demand proper funding from central Labour government.
People’s budget
She and her Labour colleagues showed no appetite to follow the methods used by the Militant (now the Socialist Party) led Liverpool Council in the 1980s. Mobilise local people, set budgets based on need, and successfully extract funds from central government to provide housing and protect vital services.
Waltham Forest, and other Labour councils up and down the country, have tamely passed on cuts to services. They try to blame 14 years of Tory austerity, but now they demonstrate that getting rid of the Tories has made no difference.
Private developers
The dwindling estate of publicly owned properties is being sold off in order to sustain profits for private developers, as the price of decades of economic capitalist failure is passed on to the most vulnerable.
The fight goes on. Service users are threatening judicial review of the decision. The Socialist Party supports every effort to save this vital service.
By mobilising the whole community to resist cuts, the remaining services will be preserved, and decades of Labour and Tory austerity will be reversed. Bold protest action can maximise pressure on this cutting council to reverse this scandalous decision.