London grocer gets 0 food hygiene rating after inspectors spotted worrying practice with meat
Inspectors visited Alhayat following a tip-off fruits were being handled and prepared i…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #mediterranean #MediterraneanDiet #MediterraneanFood #CityofWestminster #foodhygiene #Mediterranean #mediterraneanfood #Pimlico #WestminsterCityCouncil
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2266985/london-grocer-gets-0-food-hygiene-rating-after-inspectors-spotted-worrying-practice-with-meat/
Westminster Council has validated a number of planning applications so far during June 2024 in Fitzrovia West. (This page will be updated until the monthly list is complete.)
Among the list this month are: change of use from commercial to residential at 17-19 Foley Street; amendments to previous permission at 16-18 Berners Street; and new mechanical plant and enclosures at 32-36 Great Portland Street.
To view the applications and make a comment, use the monthly list below and the links to the full application on the council website. There is a limited time to submit comments. If you have trouble with the link not working, use the application reference number and search Westminster’s planning website. The monthly list we publish is pulled from the council’s website and is correct at the time of publication.
Residents in the Westminster part of Fitzrovia can also seek advice on planning applications by contacting the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association (email: fna@fitzrovia.org.uk).
https://fitzrovianews.com/2024/06/14/planning-applications-in-fitzrovia-west-june-2024/
#planning #planningApplications #publicConsultations #WestminsterCityCouncil
A disabled elderly tenant was left in a flat needing repairs “for years” by Westminster City Council. The local authority has agreed to pay more than £21,000 in compensation as a result of their “significant failures”.
It said it was “deeply sorry” for the distress it had caused the tenant and felt the large payout reflected the gravity of its failures. Councillors voted unanimously on Wednesday 5 June to approve the payment.
A council spokesperson said: “Providing safe and secure housing for our residents is a key priority for the council and we accept that we have not met our own high standards.
“We are working with the resident and their family to resolve as quickly as possible and have offered alternative housing. The council has taken on board the lessons from this case as part of our wider work to and will work to ensure residents are given the best possible service in the future.
“We are making changes as part of our Housing Improvement Strategy, which includes routine reviews and a more joined-up approach to address complex cases.”
The council will now ask residents to share their health and support needs when they report repairs in order to respond to individual needs and is reviewing its complaints process. It has also rolled out customer service and safeguarding training across its housing services.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service also understands the head of housing has offered to meet residents to discuss their concerns. It has also made two offers of suitable housing and will continue to support the residents.
An internal review found there had been significant failures on the council’s part to deal with requests for repairs by the tenant. As a result, it will hand back £16,000 in rent paid since May 2020 and pay out £5,000 for distress and delays, which is blamed on staff moving on and a failure to log requests, according to a council report for the General Purposes Committee.
Westminster City was made aware of repair issues at the flat in May 2020 when the tenant, who is a wheelchair user and has multiple illnesses, asked for adaptations to be made before they returned from hospital. The council installed a level access shower and new central heating.
In July 2022, the council was contacted by the tenant’s local MP who complained about many years of disrepair at the property and how it was affecting the elderly and ill tenants. The complaint was dismissed by the council which said it had not received a request for repairs in 12 months.
The local authority also said officers had made attempts to visit the flat but were unsuccessful because the tenants, who have not been identified, needed their daughter there to help them. The complaint was escalated in September 2022 but it took the council six months to log it and another six weeks to respond.
It then took the council a further seven months to deal with the resident’s refusal of a compensation offer and a further four-week delay in addressing their request for a review. A review of the case was only triggered after the resident wrote in requesting £110,000 in compensation for the distress the delays had caused.
The review found the council did not address issues raised in the original complaint nor recognise the vulnerability of the tenant. It also found the council’s response contained ‘inaccuracies’ about ad-hoc visits being arranged and a failure of repairmen to log issues and pass them on.
The report said: “This review has found significant service failures in both dealing with the repairs and responding to the complaint, as well as missed opportunities to discuss a move to more suitable housing with the tenant.”
The tenant has since been moved into care while the joint tenant is receiving help finding permanent housing.
The council sought the permission of the General Purposes Committee to pay the tenant £21,407 in compensation. According to the council, compensation payments over £2,000 need to come before the General Purposes committee to meet its own financial regulations.
Westminster City Council: General Purposes – Wednesday 5 June 2024.
The BBC has been given the go-ahead to run a club for employees in New Broadcasting House at Portland Place after mistakenly applying for a 24-hour alcohol licence.
Employees and their guests will be able to order drinks and listen to live music broadly within “core hours” under the revised application approved by Westminster City councillors on 5 June.
New Broadcasting House is on the edge of Marylebone, bordering Fitzrovia where there are large number of people living near the building along Great Portland Street and Langham Street.
In the decision, the sale of alcohol will be restricted to 10am to 11.30pm from Monday to Thursday, 10am to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and from 12 noon to 10.30pm on Sunday; with a number of conditions attached to the licence.
The council’s licensing committee heard how the venue, previously located in Wogan House, will sit above the BBC’s newsroom in New Broadcasting House and won’t be accessible to the general public.
Lawyers representing BBC Club Sports and Leisure Ltd — one of two BBC divisions operating at the Portland Place site — said an application for a 24-hour licence had mistakenly been filed by an employee who they said worked on it alone.
According to a council report, the wrong type of application had also been submitted. The Met Police and Westminster City Council officers had originally opposed the 24-hour licence but withdrew their concerns after the application was revised reducing operations to core hours, council documents show.
Objectors at Wednesday’s meeting welcomed the changes to the application but said they were still concerned about the level of noise the venue might create. They accused the BBC Club Sports and Leisure of being “far from an ideal neighbour” .
One objector said: “[It’s] a shame because it is a significant presence in the [area] and there are benefits, but not for residents. The BBC, as an institution, isn’t following the complaints that they get.”
BBC Club Sports and Leisure said it operated the old venue without serious complaint. It also said live music at the venue would be “extremely limited” and drowned out within the building.
The revised application also states no sale or consumption of alcohol will take place outside the venue. The new licence will take effect as soon as a previous licence for Wogan House is surrendered.
A Westminster City Council report shows BBC Club Sports and Leisure applied for a new premises licence to give local authorities “clarity” over who would be managing the employee-dedicated social club. BBC Club Sports and Leisure operates under different management to the BBC.
The BBC has had a licence in place for New Broadcasting House since 2005 which will now become a de facto shadow licence. BBC Club was founded in 1924 as a private members club but is now an employee membership club consisting of an event space, a gym, food and drink services which is open to employees and their partners, according to its website.
Westminster City Council: Licensing Sub-Committee (1) – Wednesday 5 June 2024.
Decision: Broadcasting House, 2-22 Portland Place, London W1B 1DJ – 24/01030/LIPN.
Additional reporting by Linus Rees.
#LanghamStreet #licensing #localDemocracyReporting #WestminsterCityCouncil
The Labour Party has selected Camden Council leader Georgia Gould as its candidate for the Queen’s Park and Maida Vale Parliamentary constituency at the 4 July General Election.
“I am delighted to be standing for Labour in Queen’s Park & Maida Vale,” said Gould in a statement issued by the Labour Party.
“With Keir Starmer at the helm, Labour is back in the service of working people. We will put an end to 14 years of Tory chaos and decline with a plan for national renewal, built on a bedrock of economic stability.
“Only a Labour government can deliver the change we need to take back our streets, get the NHS back on its feet, break down barriers to opportunity and get Britain building again,” she said.
As well as the leader of Camden Council, Gould also chair’s the cross-party body London Councils.
“She campaigns on devolution, community power, housing and investment in young people. She has deep links to the community, having been born in St Mary’s hospital and spending her childhood living on Westbourne Park Road,” said The Labour Party in a press statement.
Adam Hug, leader of Westminster Council, applauded Gould on her successful candidacy, saying: “Big congratulations to Georgia Gould — a major star in the Labour firmament and the newest member of the Queen’s Park and Maida Vale and Westminster Labour families.”
Gould has been leader of Camden for seven years and “faced the unprecedented challenges of the Chalcots PFI fire safety scandal, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis,” wrote Richard Osley in the Camden New Journal.
Former Labour party member Andrew Feinstein, who is a candidate in Holborn and St Pancras, described Gould’s selection as a gain for Camden.
“At least Camden Council will be rid of Starmerite Georgia Gould — who was OK with tents being seized from homeless people in midwinter, saw a decline in social housing conditions and refused to even discuss calling for a ceasefire. Now let’s get Starmer out of Camden too!” he said on X.
Gould apologised last year after council staff and contractors were involved in an eviction of homeless people living in tents outside University College Hospital in Huntley Street, Fitzrovia. Camden originally denied they were involved but the operation was filmed and widely condemned.
Queen’s Park and Maida Vale is a new constituency and is roughly equivalent to and replaces the Westminster North constituency currently held by Labour MP Karen Buck who is retiring at the forthcoming election.
#CamdenCouncil #generalElection2024 #GeorgiaGould #politics #QueenSParkAndMaidaVale #WestminsterCityCouncil
A busy Soho street that “smells like piss in the summer” because so many people urinate on the streets could lose another public toilet.
Lift Coffee has submitted a planning application to turn the underground loos on Broadwick Street in Soho, which have been shut since 2021 after becoming a popular hangout for public sex, into a café and events space.
The operator secured a 25-year lease two years’ ago and could pour as much as £2mn into replacing the basement toilets with a coffee-themed workspace and a takeaway kiosk at ground level, according to council documents. But businesses at nearby Berwick Street Market said Soho can’t afford to lose another public toilet.
A map provided by Westminster City Council shows there are public toilets available at ground level in Broadwick Street operating 24 hours a day and a number of facilities nearby. There are also temporarily toilets between Thursday and Monday.
But Mohammed Mtour, 36, said the stench of urine on Berwick Street haunts him most mornings that he opens his fast-food stand. He believes drunken late-night revellers are to blame and says they use an alley behind his stall to relieve themselves. He also claims people urinate “every 30 minutes” on nearby Peter Street.
He said: “It’s terrible and it’s clearly a problem. When I come here in the morning, it’s disgusting.” He’s worried the stench is starting to affect his business.
Mohammed said: “If you’re a customer and standing there and smell bad smells, you think it’s coming from the business. But we have to keep our space clean. Customers don’t think it’s coming from behind them.”
Mohamed, 24, from Jerusalem Falafel, said he finds urine and faeces in the same spot every day while Jim from Quality Fruits, a small fruit stand at the end of Berwick Markets, said the problem is worse on weekends. Westminster City Council said Berwick Street is washed down daily by its street cleaners.
James Hughes, 47, who lives with his family at Trenchard House on Broadwick Street, says it’s mostly drunk people doing the urinating. He said: “When people have to go, they just go anywhere.” His daughter Mia said she can hear people peeing from her first floor bedroom.
According to data from a Soho neighbourhood forum research project, to be published later this year, 64 percent of weekly visitors to the area have witnessed public urination or defecation. It’s no surprise then that London ranks 24th in the world for the number of public toilets per square kilometre, according to a global study.
Analysis shows the UK capital had 0.39 public toilets per square kilometre in 2023 — slightly fewer than Jerusalem. Paris, which topped the rank, had 6.72 per square kilometre.
It’s this lack of a vital public service which is turning Berwick Street into an “open sewer”, according to Robin Smith, 63, who runs Soho Dairy — a coffee and cheese market stall. He blames the night economy, which he said is bringing people into Soho at the wrong time.
Robin said these drunken revellers are choosing between paying to use the loo at a pub or restaurant or doing it al fresco — something he said is unlikely to occur in the morning because people aren’t drinking and have access to toilets in their workplace. But Robin and his co-founder Keith Bickel, 65, say people aren’t to blame.
They said public toilets have been disappearing from Soho for a while. Robin said: “We aren’t against [the night time economy]. People are having a good time but there should be toilets.”
He said the problem became unbearable when al-fresco dining was introduced, which he said turned Berwick Street, where the markets are based, into an open-air toilet. Robin said: “What you’ve got is people rushing out after a drink and that’s a problem. People have moved out because people were pissing through their letter boxes.”
The business owner is at the end of his tether. He said: “Cleaning someone’s piss and shit every morning is time-consuming and unpleasant.” Keith said the stench of urine has come to symbolise the area. He said: “Come walking into Soho with your eyes closed and you immediately know where you are because of the smell.”
He said the lack of public toilets was a disgrace and said people constantly ask him where the nearest public toilets are. Keith said: “For a global city like London, it’s shocking how few toilets there are.”
The men agree addressing London’s public toilet problem will take long-term planning. They acknowledged public toilets have become popular spots for drug taking and sex but feel shutting them down isn’t the right idea.
Instead, they want to see a number of store fronts turned into “community shops” offering local amenities, including public toilets. He said: “We need toilets, we don’t need more cafés. There are cafés up and down the street.”
Tim Lord, chair of the Soho Society, agrees more public toilets are needed in Soho. He said the partying hotspot has the highest concentration of licensed premises in London, a figure he said has grown every year since he moved to the area three decades ago. He said Soho has significantly fewer public toilets than it did in 1990.
He said: “The council accepts that public urination is a health hazard and spends £15,000 every weekend on ugly temporary toilets. In 2022 the council decided to close the underground public toilets in Broadwick Street and to make them unavailable for public use for the next 25 years by granting a lease to a coffee shop chain. No one at the council can explain why.”
He said Broadwick Street smells of urine in the summer. Westminster City’s Paul Dimoldenberg, cabinet manager for city management, said street urination was completely unacceptable and that residents and businesses should not have to put up with it.
He said: “Making sure Westminster’s streets are clean and safe at all times is the council’s top priority. Our City Inspectors and street cleaning teams run a 24/7 service to deal with problems like street urination and defecation as quickly as possible.
“The council is spending £6 million this year on upgrading our public toilets in the West End. Currently, we have 12 public toilet facilities across Soho, Mayfair, and Covent Garden, and we provide an additional 25 temporary toilets in the West End at weekends and during special events.”
Dimoldenberg said the temporary toilets cost £6,125 not £15,000 as claimed.
Lift Coffee has been contacted for comment. Broadwick toilets were closed after they became a public sex hotspot at the height of lockdown when social distancing was strictly enforced. In 2022, Westminster City Council put the underground toilets on the market.
The Soho Society has been calling for more public toilets in the area for the past 15 years and in 2022, Westminster City Council spent £950,000 cleaning up after peeing party-goers. Special anti-pee paint has now been put all around Soho which will splash back anyone who sprays on it. The “Don’t Pee Off Soho” campaign is set to clear up the streets of the famous area after residents complained.
https://fitzrovianews.com/2024/05/23/cafe-plan-could-mean-the-end-for-public-toilet-site-in-soho/
#localDemocracyReporting #planningApplications #toilets #WestminsterCityCouncil
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Linus Rees