Forum Topic

Your Voice Your Town

Does anyone know what Your Voice Your Town is supposed to do?Half a million to be distributed by a bunch of people who stuck their hands up to another bunch of people who stuck their ideas in. It says its going to make people 'feel safe'. Not BE safe, just FEEL safe. The people distributing the money and those receiving it don't need any qualifications in making neighbourhoods safer.In other words, half a million pounds distributed to who-knows-who by who-knows-who to do who-knows-what. https://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/201324/community/3274/your_voice_your_town

Paul Taylor ● 22d6 Comments

Thanks for that info Gordon. What have they done in Acton?

Paul Taylor ● 11d

The Ealing Gazette and its sister papers were in declines for a long time.But still at the top of the tree in terms of quality journalism throughout the 70s and 1980s the noticeable decline began in the mid -1990s. The advent of the all controlling Press Offices appearing when the Freesheet boom occurred in the mid 1980s did not help, leading to lazy spoon fed journalism which newspaper management saw as a means to cost cut.The Gazettes Sports coverage was very good, its picture quality and reporting standards really good right up to the early 90s. Sport said good for a good while longer.  Same happened to almost all the other rivals and sister publications in West London and West Middlesex.Nothing compares despite all the accessibility and gadgetry.

Raymond Havelock ● 16d

Like a lot of local papers now the Gazette and its sister titles are just advertising vehicles now, with a lot of press releases passed off as news.If there’s nothing worth reading people won’t read it.Luckily we have the council’s Around Ealing magazine to bring us the hard news. I’ve had three copies delivered to my house this week. Triple delight.As for the new method of handing out money to various areas it isn’t really democratic. Ealing, for example, has areas like Northfields and South Ealing that don’t really benefit from anything in the town centre. At least under the old system of ward forums there was a pot of cash to be used for genuinely local needs, and the forums themselves were important outlets for information, discussion and holding local councillors to account.Clearly the Labour lot dislike the scrutiny so did away with them. Now it’s increasingly difficult to find out much of what’s planned. Odd that, for an ‘open, honest and transparent’ administration.

Simon Hayes ● 16d

Although I agree that this new method of disbursing local funds seems much less transparent, perhaps we should give it a chance. The Acton handouts seem to be quite uncontroversial and the Lib Dems, who felt the new system were targetting them, don't seem to have kicked up a fuss. I'd be interested to know when the Ealing Gazette was an effective guardian of the public interest. I have lived in the borough for over 30 years and when I first moved here it was only worth picking up for the sports coverage.

Gordon Southwell ● 16d

Indicative of one party state methods, closet party members 'approved and selected ' residents and exclusion of all those who for decades do huge service to residents from those who sweep streets and clear debris to those who scour and expose planning and other politically messed with services and, as those who have lived and grown up here for generations know all too well, corruption, ineptitude and total incompetence not just in this borough but neighbouring ones have been exposed.When the Ealing Gazette was a proper independent Newspaper not reliant on council notice income, it exposed this kind of Town Hall overreaching constantly and the one consequence was very few got away with it and the more ludicrous schemes and characters were nipped in the bud.That prevented one party dominance of councils and Ealing was very much a windscreen wiper borough with small majorities either way. It was far more accessible, had far better standards of genuine Senior Officers dedicated to Borough and not career climbers.It was far, far better and the local paper far more effective than In-house policing and flushing out the wrong unsafe elected or other.  Even then that did not stop many bad decisions but at least it was fully reported in a far more open and clear way.

Raymond Havelock ● 22d

Ealing Council say YVYT is a replacement for the now defunct Ward Forums.The Council wants a new process to involve those citizens who are not just the 'usual suspects 'e.g.those who scrutinise Planning Applications, run residents' groups and have experience in town planning...This new process will gather together a group of normally supine residents who will make recommendations as to how 10 - 15% of the new developer tax (Community Infrastructure Levy- CIL) is spent locally.The Hanwell YVYT is using social media as a way of YVYT members to communicate with each other. Normal email is just not special enough for them.

Eric Alan Leach ● 22d