Home Care In Westminster, CO

Westminster becomes the first local authority in the capital to get highest rating from regulator

Liza Begum

WESTMINSTER city has become the first local authority in the capital to get the highest rating by the Regulator of Social Housing.

The regulator praised the Labour-run council’s work in areas including repairs management, its lettings policy and compliance with health and safety requirements across its housing stock.

The RSH – which had been given more powers by the previous government – inspected the council earlier this month.

“There is evidence of Westminster City Council using the information it holds about its tenants to tailor services to meet tenants’ diverse needs and deliver fair and equitable outcomes,” the RSH wrote.

“It has made significant investment in programmes to enhance its understanding of who is living in its homes and how it identifies, logs and responds to additional support needs.

“Clear and accessible information is provided to tenants about Westminster CC’s services and performance, allowing tenants to access information and scrutinise how well Westminster CC is delivering those services.”

David Harvey [westminsterconservatives.com]

The RSH’s inspection included observing a committee meeting and three tenant meetings, as well as speaking to tenants and councillors and reviewing a range of documents.

It found the council provided evidence of systems to ensure the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas plus examples of how the authority had learnt from previous issues.

The regulator also praised the records the council kept of its housing stock, with a full condition survey expected this July.

Councillor Liza Begum, cabinet member for housing services (inset), said: “This rating provides an important validation of the steps we have taken to improve the leadership, governance and performance of our housing services and reflects the achievements so far.

“However, we know that there is still much to do to ensure residents receive the best possible service, and we fully acknowledge that this result does not mean we always get everything right.”

David Harvey, the opposition Conservative group’s lead councillor on housing, said: “But Westminster’s Labour administration also needs to acknowledge that there are still far too many individual cases that are not dealt with properly, which can be seen by the all too frequent rulings from the Housing Ombudsman.”

Politicians describe how mad the pavement obstructions have made them

THE problem of Lime’s hire bikes being dumped on streets in Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia reared its head again on Monday, as one of the company’s policy representatives fielded questions from councillors on the Camden side of the West End neighbourhood.

Harrington listened in to a “scrutiny committee” as politicians described with varying degrees of thespian rage how mad the pavement obstructions made them.

Bloomsbury councillor Rishi Madlani for one was furious that his time pushing his nephew around in a pushchair had been ruined because he had been distracted by the need to report bikes and scooters not being left in the right place.

He said councillors’ phones were full of pictures of nuisance parking and they wanted to know what the company was doing about it.

The figures actually do match the anecdotes as one in ten rides ends in bikes not being left in designated bays.

Camden has decided it will try impounding them and we’ll see how that works.

But the council is also offering Lime and Human Forest, another bike hire company, a two-year extension on its operating licences in the borough.

More than three million uses have been recorded and the popularity for them is obvious.

In that sense it all made you wonder what Monday’s session could really achieve. Lime’s rep took a pummelling on the dumped bikes rage and some safety issues, and came back with promises to listen and discuss matters internally.

But it could have been any session from the past two years. The councillors have made all of these complaints before and nothing has really changed – and being shouted at for an hour in a stuffy Town Hall room is a small price to pay for keeping a lucrative hire bike operation on the road.

It was interesting that nobody ever asks about the cost for users, perhaps because all of the panel have enough money not to worry about how much each of their own rides cost.

To be frank, using Lime can be expensive for others and the fees are prohibitive to even more.

That means a whole raft of London does not get to enjoy the benefits of zipping through town, pretending to be healthy on a powered e-bike – but does have to suffer the annoying flipside of blocked walkways and clacking hacked cycles.

The next time a company policy rep is called before a committee like this, they should be asked how they will make the service more affordable for all on price.

Do it, even if it’s just another point to nod at, “recognise” and take back, or, more likely, never to be mentioned again as the ink dries on new permissions.

Starmer’s government reaching in to almost borrow Reform’s policies, rather than challenge them

SIR Keir Starmer and his cabinet know that Nigel Farage and Reform are breathing down their necks, but what are they actually doing in response?

Despite the scale of Labour’s victory last year, the “honeymoon” at Downing Street lasted for about two seconds. Those who were meant to be emerging as the big beasts of the new government have proved unconvincing when asked about what will change people’s lives for the better. The growth mantra has failed as a rallying message for the country.

The weary-looking front bench types, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Yvette Cooper and Bridget Philipson, already look like they have run a marathon a day since reaching office.

And, so scared to say boo to a goose or a ghost, it’s sad to see Sir Keir’s government reaching in to almost borrow Reform’s policies, rather than challenge them.

Amid the desperation to appear tough guys on the Channel crossings they have lost any coherent narrative. If the voter you want to persuade is red and angry over refugees, they probably will never vote for Labour anyway. They probably won’t vote for the Tories either, as it happens.

But what if Labour didn’t slide into the hole of chasing this debate.

Oxford university academics Professor Jane Green and Professor Geoffrey Evans this week showed there is another way to win the next election. Their analysis, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, didn’t get huge headlines but expertly underlined the problem Labour is making for itself with its endless election mode conservatism.

While it worries about whether it has the right message on immigration and if the Daily Mail will shout at them, it is neglecting to provide messages of hope for the growing number of people struggling financially.

The professors reported that Labour may have lost 40 per cent of supporters within a matter of months of taking charge, and that half of those were people who had fallen into economically insecure times.

Professor Green said this week: “Financially insecure voters are the ones looking for political alternatives because they can’t see things getting better for themselves or their children. All the talk of culture wars and immigration misses their primary experience.”

She warned of “much more political volatility and further electoral fragmentation” if so many continued to feel so insecure in their own personal finances.

By-elections aside, the next time we can really test volatility in Westminster will be next year’s all ward council elections – the point where residents decide again who should run the council.

Having finally won power here last time, councillors may now need Sir Keir and friends to say more than reminding us they inherited a mess. The ‘if all fails, blames the Tories’ backstop has been removed from local politics now.

It could make for an unpredictable contest.

Kitchen at pub that inspired writer has forged a reputation for honing some of the best new talent in the capital

Rake at The Compton Arms

REWIND 80 years and the writer George Orwell mused on the perfect pub. In 1946, he wrote an article called The Moon Under Water, in which he listed its ideal attributes.

The pub would sell aspirins and stamps – but not dinner. Instead, it would offer snacks all day: mussels, liver sausage sandwiches, cheese, pickles and large biscuits with caraway seeds.

The Compton Arms in Islington was partly his inspiration: a historic and compact pub tucked away in Compton Avenue.

These days it does serve dinner – and of a very high quality. In fact, the kitchen here has forged a reputation for honing some of the best new talent in the capital during its short-term kitchen residencies. Past pop-ups include Tiella, Belly London and the team behind Four Legs, who went on to open The Plimsoll and Tollington’s, a Spanish fish restaurant inside an old fish and chip shop in Finsbury Park.

The current menu at The Compton Arms is from Rake, a duo of chefs serving what they describe as restorative British fare. Typical dishes might be beer-battered cockles, soused sardines and a beef sirloin with onion rings.

The pub itself is often packed with a good-looking local crowd. It has low ceilings and a warren of small spaces to spill out into: a dining room snug to the left and a back yard out to the right, where customers squeeze onto wooden tables and stools lining side return, decorated with designer tiles and trailing plants.

At the bar, Guinness costs £6.70 a pint and they mix a mean cocktail, from a Salty Dog to Hanky Panky.

We sat down for dinner, starting with their terrific bread and butter. The chefs bake three types: a house bloomer, soda bread and a dinner roll.

The beer-battered cockles and clams (£9) are served in a glass and decorated with fronds of fennel. You get toothpicks to skewer each deep-fried delight – crisp, succulent and highly addictive.

The zippy acidity of the soused sardines (£10) balanced them out nicely: large fresh fillets draped over a tangle of shaved fennel with orange.

We also tried the ray wing tenders (£12), chunks of the fish dunked in seasoned flour then deep fried and served on a crumpet with a dash of hot golden syrup. It was an interesting play of sweet and sour flavours – but a little too salty.

On Arsenal match days, the pub goes big on their trademark hotdogs (£8; gravy another £2).

We loved their chunky chips served with a mellow curry mayonnaise (£5). “Everything a chip should be,” said my friend.

Other main courses on the menu were salsify (an old-fashioned root vegetable) with a Scotch broth, an Arbroath smokey with poached egg and braised squid with ale and potato, all priced around £20.

Our friendly waitress told us to order the treacle tart with clotted cream (£8), which was simply sensational.

Orwell would no doubt have approved.

Rake The Compton Arms, 4 Compton Avenue, N1 2XD @rakelondon @comptonarmsn1 Kitchen closes on Mondays and Tuesdays

After two decades that have seen him perform at Glastonbury, and tour with the likes of UB40 and Madness, James Harper is returning to where it all began, writes Dan Carrier

Reggae and roasts, a sound idea – James Harper

PUTTING a needle on the record and waiting for the bass to hit – it’s a shared sense of anticipation that for the past 17 years James Harper and his sound system have enjoyed with thousands of others.

Now James and his Reggae Roast sound system are returning to where it all began. After two decades that has seen him perform in front of thousands at Glastonbury, tour with the likes of UB40 and Madness and play his own roots reggae-influenced bass music around the globe, it’s time to bring their music back to where it all began – a Sunday afternoon in a pub in NW5.

James, who grew up in Kentish Town, is the proprietor of Reggae Roast – and as he readies for a new Sunday event at the Gipsy Queen in Malden Road, Gospel Oak, he explains how he first started playing bass-driven music for 12 hours straight.

It was 2007, and a bar in a former carpet factory in Highgate Road had a nice sound system and a fair amount of space: James and his friends had a growing bag of reggae vinyl they wanted to play somewhere, and Sundays were free.

“We liked the place and it was perfect for serving up healthy portions of roast dinners and baselines in equal measure,” recalls James, who went to Acland Burghley School.

“I was a reggae vinyl collector and just wanted somewhere to play my records, but the concept of Reggae and roasts together proved really popular.”

James had a lot of music to soak up on his doorstep as a teenager.

“There are moments that stand out in my memory and made me want to run my own sound system,” he recalls.

“They were Jah Shaka events. I used to go and see him in Dingwall’s in Camden and The Rocket in Holloway. The first time I heard that bass – it was an experience I’ll never forget. He was simply the greatest soundman ever in the UK.

“Another sound that I followed when I was young was called Solution Sound. Every year they ran their sound system session in Clissold Park. Every year I’d go and think to myself: I’d love to do that one day.”

For the past 17 years, Reggae Roast has evolved from being predominantly a sound system with DJs to incorporating plenty of MCs, producing their own music, and now even selling sound systems to help promote and expand the sound system community.

“Our roots are embedded in reggae and dub music, but we also incorporate contemporary influences, blending genres like ska, dancehall, dubstep, and jungle, offering a modern twist on traditional reggae sounds,” says James.

“This has helped us stand out in the broader music scene – we wanted to bring our own unique flavour to what we do.”

Taking the music he grew up surrounded by, having the influences of other bass-driven music and watching originators from the sound systems at Notting Hill’s carnival to listening to Jah Shaka, James has soaked it all up.

“Reggae Roast represents a bridge between the roots of reggae culture and contemporary music styles,” he says.

“Our mission is to spread sound system culture as far and wide as possible, not only through our events and music but through educating our community about the culture and providing reggae and sound system products.”

James soon moved from playing other people’s music on his sound system to producing their own, opening doors to run stages at major music festivals and giving James the chance to work with his musical heroes.

“Producing our own music means I have been fortunate enough to work with truly legendary artists including Horace Andy, Johnny Clarke & General Levy,” he adds.

“These are people that I’ve been listening to since I was a kid – a real honour.”

Collaborations with MCs is an important element of any sound system event – and Reggae Roast have Mr Williamz in the RR stable to add live lyrics.

Mr Williamz’s 2024 album with Drum and Bass legend Shy FXscooped BBC Radio Six’s prestigious Album of the Year.

“We’ve been working with Mr Williamz, both in the studio and on tour as our front man,” says James.

“I consider Mr Williamz as one of, if not the best, Dancehall MC in the UK right now. I love working with him when we do our shows together. We have really good chemistry.”

The Reggae Roast crew featuring Mr Wiliamz and Josh Skints are taking over The Gipsy Queen in Gospel Oak on Sunday, March 2.

• See www.reggaeroast.co.uk