The stakes are high in the Hampstead Plan referendum
Postal votes have just been sent out for referendum to adopt the Hampstead Neighbourhood Plan, which is being held on 21st June. I am campaigning for a Yes vote, as are my ward colleagues and as are the Conservatives as a party. However, with the local elections having just taken place, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion of what the Plan means. I wrote the below column for this week’s Ham & High to help explain its impact and how it will benefit Hampstead residents. Whatever party you vote for, please back a Yes vote on...
read moreSquatting at Maison Blanc shows law has to change
I’ve been inundated with concerns that squatters have invaded the vacant Maison Blanc on Hampstead High Street for the last week or so. That corner is already overflowing with rubbish on account of the Hampstead Creperie, and the extra waste that is being produced by the squatters is ending up all over the street. And squatting makes it impossible for a new prospective tenant to view the shop unit positively: ensuring it remains unused forever. I have written before about squatters at the White Horse. While the Conservatives...
read moreLoose lips raise rents
The Camden New Journal published a story this week on a very expensive shoebox of a flat that’s gone on the market in Hampstead Village. I gave a quote, which I’ve reproduced in full at the end of this post. I’ve written before about how these salacious stories are harmful to private renters. Writing about Hampstead as if £1,100 a month for a mini-studio creates the impression that that’s what people have to pay. And if you’ve fallen in love with the area – as I did and many others do at first sight –...
read moreOliver elected as Camden’s Leader of the Opposition
I’m delighted to have last night been elected unopposed as the Leader of the Conservative group on Camden Council – and, as leader of the largest opposition group, Leader of the Opposition in the borough. Camden’s dynamism, diversity, and pluralism are unrivalled anywhere in the country, but that’s sadly not been the case politically. Under my leadership, Camden Conservatives’ main mission is to stand up for residents and give a voice to anyone that doesn’t want Camden to become a mono-cultural, one-party state. Half of voters in...
read moreHampstead Town stays blue!
I’m delighted to have been re-elected in Hampstead Town. We also managed a slightly larger Conservative majority than we managed in 2014: with our third-placed candidate now 153 votes ahead of the highest non-Conservative, compared to 124 in 2014. The joy at this result was greatly tempered by the disappointing results elsewhere in Camden. It was a difficult night for Camden Conservatives overall, with us losing three seats in Swiss Cottage and two seats in Belsize. This result was the consequence of a tireless local campaign. I am...
read moreQueen Mary’s House must retain key worker accommodation
The Camden New Journal and Ham & High published the below letter from me, Cllr Stephen Stark, and Cllr Tom Currie about our opposition to the loss of key worker accommodation at Queen Mary’s House. As Hampstead’s councillors, we are concerned by the proposal to fully transform Queen Mary’s House – the former hospital that now houses NHS staff at the top of Heath Street and East Heath Road – into luxury flats: a project dubbed ‘Hampstead Gardens’. With the movement over the decades of services that were at Queen Mary’s to the Royal...
read moreFull Council Meeting: 26 March 2018
There was a meeting of Camden Council on Monday, 26th March. As part of my accountability to residents, below are the actions I took at the meeting. I spoke and voted in favour of the motion to lobby to make misogyny an aggravating factor for sentencing and for the police to record violence motivated by hatred of women as hate crimes. I also used the speech to criticise a colleague that had earlier that evening made a chauvinistic comment. The motion was agreed unanimously. (R) I seconded and voted for a motion to suspend the standing orders...
read moreCamden must follow Conservatives’ lead on electric charging points
The Camden New Journal and Ham & High published the below letter from me about the leadership that the Conservatives are showing on electric car charging and the slow progress being made in Camden by comparison. I was pleased that the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on electric cars was welcomed to Belsize Village on Saturday to endorse Camden Conservatives’ plan to install 2,000 electric car charging points across Camden. As an environmentalist, this is a subject that I’m passionate about, and a policy that Camden Council is...
read moreCamden must stop being a soft touch on fly-tipping
The Camden New Journal published the below letter from me about the soaring levels of fly-tipping and littering in Camden and calling once again for a doubling of fines for fly-tipping, as I have been calling for for well over a year. I was shocked to see the doubling of fly-tipping and seven-fold increase of littering in the borough in the last year, uncovered by my colleague Henry Newman and covered in last week’s CNJ. But I was even more shocked to see Camden’s Cabinet member for waste collection haughtily dismiss the surge, rather than...
read moreHow can councillors justify higher allowances?
On Monday night’s meeting of Camden Council, councillors passed Camden’s budget. The budget includes an eye-watering 5% hike in Council – bringing the increase since 2014 to 17% – and cuts in many front-line services. Unlike the Conservative alternative budget, it would have let a large number of sensible, fiscally-responsible policies – like hiring more police at half-price or installing electric car chargers at 75% off – slip through out fingers. Against this backdrop, where Labour claim not to have any...
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