Campaign for Queen's Park Community Council

[Susanna Rustin]

On Jan 22 we launched the campaign for a community council in Queen's Park, Westminster - ie the electoral ward between Kilburn Lane and Harrow Road, Chamberlayne Road and Fernhead Road. (I was pleased to see our neighbourhood is included in the Transition area though I haven't posted here before.)
The launch, in the Beethoven Centre on Third Avenue, was great - and was on BBC London news!
The idea for the community council came out of discussions following the announcement of drastic cuts - we've had an elected neighbourhood forum for years, but now it has no funding.
We're now collecting signatures door to door - we need 800 residents to sign to trigger a governance review by the local authority. And posters are starting to appear in windows.
It's very exciting, particularly because if it goes ahead, ours will be the first community council (a parish council, in legal terms) in London!
The point of the council will be to give the community a stronger voice, particularly in tackling some of the problems our residents face - chiefly poverty.
And I hope we'll be able to link up with other groups like yours and do some green stuff locally.
For more information see http://www.campaign4queenspark.org/

[Susanna Rustin]

hi again, I'm really hoping to get some more green initiatives going in the neighbourhood as well (in my dreams we put community-owned solar panels on every south-facing roof) so let's keep in touch.  we could at least try to plant some carrots somewhere not too far from harrow road... Susanna

[Rob Cope]

That's very interesting, good luck with it (since I assume I'd have to be in QP ward to be involved).

 

I do suggest some kind of FAQ doc on the site with who/what/where/why/how much? type questions dealt with.  

[Susanna Rustin]

hi, thanks for this.

There's quite a lot of information on the website http://www.campaign4queenspark.org/.

We've got some funding from Paddington Development Trust, the social enterprise who've been working in north westminster for years. they've had their govt funding cut but have managed to raise some funds to support the community council (which will replace the neighbourhood forum they helped set up).

there will also be a precept added to the council tax but we aim for this to be set very low. 

Yes, it will only cover Queen's Park ward. and the council won't have many 'powers' as such but we feel it will have a hugely important advocacy role. the National Association of Local Councils has lots of stuff on its website about how the whole process works.

we're in the Economist this week! 

http://www.economist.com/node/18184314?story_id=18184314&CFID=1...

[Rob Cope]

Hi Susanna,

 

Interesting initiative.  Can you point me to more info re the legal process & how it's going to be funded?  Also I assume it's only covering Queens Park Ward (I'm just over the border in Harrow Road ward).

 

I've lived under parish councils outside London , they tend to have very limited powers & budgets, would this council have any more powers?

 

Incidentally I suggest its formal name be Queens Park Westminster or similar, to avoid confusion with the (Brent) Queens Park & the several existing Queens Park Community Councils on Google.