Councillor Victoria Obaze elected Speaker of Tower Hamlets
At Tower Hamlets Council’s Annual General Meeting last night Mayor John Biggs delivered his ‘State of the Borough’ speech. The Mayor, who recently marked one year since the re-election of his Labour administration, reflected on the journey of improvement the council has been on. Over the past four years the council has been transformed after […]
First anniversary of Tower Hamlets Labour landslide
Friday 3rd May marked the first anniversary of the local elections in Tower Hamlets which saw a Labour landslide with the re-election of Mayor John Biggs and the election of 42 Labour councillors. The election was a turning point for the borough and all but one of the disgraced former mayor’s councillors originally elected under […]
Mayor Biggs supports calls for greater controls on Short Term Lets
Mayor John Biggs has signed a letter along with other council leaders, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Airbnb to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government calling for ‘light touch’ regulation of short term lets. At the moment the law allows properties to be let out for a maximum of […]
Tower Hamlets Council’s spending power slashed
Tower Hamlets Council’s spending power slashed Council spending power per household in Tower Hamlets has reduced by £1,305.20 between 2010/11 and 2019/20 Nine of the ten most deprived councils in the country have seen cuts of almost three times the national average Eight out of the 10 areas seeing the smallest cuts to spending power […]
Tower Hamlets loses out on £7.7m of special needs funding
Special needs provision in England has lost out on £1.2bn because of shortfalls in funding increases from central government since 2015; Special needs provision in Tower Hamlets has lost out on £7.7m since 2015; Special needs funding is “in crisis across the UK”. New analysis from the National Education Union has found that Special Educational […]
Tower Hamlets Labour Group welcomes end of ‘no fault evictions’
Tower Hamlets Labour Group has welcomed the government’s announcement that so-called ‘no fault evictions’ or Section 21 notices will be banned. They allow landlords to evict renters without a reason at the end of their fixed-term tenancy. It has been Labour Party policy to scrap these evictions and following a successful campaign the government will […]
Over 1,000 councillors urge Government to increase school funding
A letter from the National Education Union (NEU) urging Education Secretary Damian Hinds to end the school funding crisis has been signed by 1,115 local councillors in England, including many councillors in Tower Hamlets. The letter was handed in to the Government’s Department for Education on Tuesday 2 April. Locally-elected council members from across the […]
Tower Hamlets Council declares a climate emergency
We have declared a climate emergency in Tower Hamlets. The evidence not only shows this, but also shows the extreme consequences we all face if we don’t take immediate action. We are very supportive of the petition calling for action on climate change, brought to the full council meeting in March 2019. 40 per cent […]
Tower Hamlets Council backs ‘Breaking Point’ campaign
Tower Hamlets Council today (Wednesday 20th March) voted to support the ‘Breaking Point’ campaign. The national campaign was set up by councillors to oppose the damage that the government’s austerity programme has had on local councils, and to call for the government to properly fund councils. Since 2010, when austerity was launched by the Conservatives and […]
Mayor Biggs welcomes increased funding for the Places of Worship Fund
The Mayor of Tower Hamlets John Biggs has welcomed the announcement from the Home Office that the Places of Worship Protective Security Fund will receive additional funding to help protect places of worship. The Mayor wrote to the Home Secretary to call for the Fund to be reopened in the aftermath of the terror attack […]
