Tower Hamlets: New Mayor, huge task

I would like to congratulate Mr Lutfur Rahman on his victory. He has huge task ahead of him. He needs to create a cross party cabinet and bring together experts and advisors who would work to deliver an inclusive, prosperous and vibrant Tower Hamlets.

I would suggest to Mr Rahman, the first directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets to make a five point plan to make Tower Hamlets a place that locals would feel proud to work and live.

Here is my suggested five-point plan:  

Community cohesion: The damage done by the Labour Party’s fabrication factory in Tower Hamlets churning out allegations and gossips about Mr Lutfur Rahman’s alleged fundamentalist and extremist links has deeply divided this borough.

The dirty politics exported by foreign political organisations and their hard-line UK members has given rise to a poisonous and extremely polarised political environment here in Tower Hamlets. People who are busy manufacturing lies should either provide solid evidence or shut up.

In the meantime Mr Rahman should be allowed to get on with the democratic mandate he has been entrusted with by the voters of the borough.

He must create a task force composed of members of all communities, gender, age and most importantly grass root community member to focus on exploring ways and suggesting strategies which would bring the divided communities of this borough together. He should ensure that the usual suspects do not highjack the task force.  

This borough needs a mayor who can befriend even his ardent enemies and work for the interest of the people and not a political party. 

Economic hub and green business zone: I would like the mayor to take active steps in creating wider partnership between private sector and the communities to redress the social and economic deprivation in this borough. He must champion pioneering programmes that will create wealth in the borough and for the people of the borough.

He needs to bring investment from the private sector especially from the multinational companies to create better and more accessible apprenticeship and training schemes with work placement guarantee for 6-12 months for young people between 18 and 30.

The mayor should declare the ghost town tobacco dock on the Highway located at the South of the borough a green economic zone inviting green technology and service companies to set offices and green jobs. The mayor must champion a culture change, instead of local people being dependent of benefits or handouts the residents of Tower Hamlets could become the trend setters of tomorrow. The mayor can help negotiate reduced business rates to attract new businesses and further provide incentives for green businesses.

Investing in social and affordable housing: The Mayor must focus on addressing the acute shortage of affordable homes for the local people. Families are being broken up, pushed out of the borough and in many cases relocated to cities hundreds of miles away from their loves ones.

The Mayor must find innovative ways of building new homes and I would suggest that he suspends all housing developments apart from social and affordable homes for the next ten years. If he has not reduced the waiting list by 50% within the first term in the office I would say the mayor has failed. People need homes, families need secure and affordable houses, not one bed flats! End this one bed flat building nonsense now.   

Education: Our kids are still leaving schools without basic and acceptable level of literacy and numeracy.

The borough does not have enough schools to cater for all the children of this locality. I would say the Mayor should identify useless projects such as Rich-Mix centre and convert them into schools or places for skills training.

This borough needs at least 2 more good quality secondary and 4 primary schools. Our children must be on level playing fields with the rest of the country. Poor education puts them in a disadvantaged start in life and this must not be allowed to continue.

Educational achievement is not about massaging GCSE exam results or showing glowing statistics; education is about empowering young people to become productive members of their society and active citizens.

The Mayor should never revert to the years of spin doctoring by education consultants employed under the Labour administration. He should simply empower teachers to be able deliver good education and parents to take pride in the education of their children.     

Environment: The new Mayor must exercise his executive power to put in place wholesale environmentally friendly reforms and encourage culture change.

For example he could immediately institute comprehensive recycling programme, thus ending irresponsible culture of throwing rubbish indiscriminately. He should explore ways to open up more community allotments, build interconnecting safer cycle routes and place penalty for food wastage by catering industry.

These are some of my suggestions and of course I expect he will have a more comprehensive programme in mind. In my opinion this is the crucial measure of how serious the mayor is in sustainable future for our planet. I would like to see a wide ranging initiatives and this borough to become carbon neutral within my lifetime.

Mr Mayor, I would like to wish you all the best and if you need any help from me or any of the citizens you know where to find us. Good luck. 

*Ajmal Masroor is a former Libdems parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, broadcaster and runs Communities in Action Enterprises from Tower Hamlets.