Walk quietly; carry a big stick - dealing with Waltham Forest council

12:57pm Friday 4th July 2008

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By Simon Munk »

What do you think of the local council? And what's the best way to get results out of the council for our communities? That's the question that's been bouncing round my head this week, since it all kicked off on the Walthamstow Yahoo Group.

The email forum is a place for locals to post up upcoming events, kick off debates and engage in the usual local arguments. Recently, there's been a bit of back-and-forth between two local characters. This war of words, over uncleaned streets and Lloyd Park stabbings among other hot topics, has come from two extremes of view over our local council.

In the red corner, there's Keith. I'd guess his view of the council is they're a pit of vipers – inept, bungling vipers at that.

In the blue corner, there's Philip. I'd guess from his posts that his view of the council is it is full of human beings, trying their best to do a difficult job and occasionally getting it wrong. What's the right view, though? How do we get the best out of our council – by treating them as vipers or humans? Clearly councillors and council officers don't actually have forked tongues (although they do sometimes speak with them). But despite them being human, often their decisions are far from their best.

Too often, local politics Walthamstow-style seems to be about party political point-scoring, too often we get grand schemes without the detail or thought to back them up. Too often, council officers seem to make decisions based on inertia and personal convenience, and without any real consultation or engagement with us, the community.

The Keiths of this world will write an angry, ranting letter when the council gets it wrong, maybe turn up at a committee meeting or two, perhaps even hold a demonstration. The Philips of this world would rather we engaged with councillors and council officers – write positive, encouraging letters, give praise where due. Me? I'm in between.

There's a place for positive encouragement, and it's certainly true that beaten-down councillors don't have much incentive to help out yet another mob baying for their blood. But there's also a place for angry protest.

I've been involved in a few of those, as well as being a regular "Angry of Walthamstow" objector to planning applications etc. And it works, if done right.
Our council is very aware of public opinion. Public demonstrations and letter writing campaigns really do work. The situation over the William Morris Gallery, for instance, may not be great. But it'd have been a lot worse without Antiscrap kicking up such a huge fuss.

I guess I'm saying that as a community we need to work with our local council to help them get things right for us as much as possible. But we also need to make an almighty stink when they don't listen. My motto for our community: walk quietly, but carry a big stick.