EASTeight » Betty Shanks

Haven for the elderly no more

Betty Shanks — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:45:55 +0000

The block run by the Tower Tenants’ Management Organisation (TMO) at 355 Queensbridge Road is a great example of how a well managed tower block can be made to succeed. When the old Holly Street was demolished, the developers left this one block with the condition that it should only be used for those over the age of 50. It has proved to be a great success providing a safe and comfortable home for many elderly people in retirement.
This will now all change with a letter to Kenneth Gilmour of the TMO from Jules Pipe confirming that it will no longer be exclusively for the elderly and that young families could move in.
Tower blocks are no place for families to grow up. There is no play space (landings are not playgrounds) and it’s only natural that young families are noisier than pensioners. Young families need homes with gardens and near to areas for children to play. There are plenty of elderly people who are rattling around in larger council properties because their families have moved on. A secure and peaceful environment like that at 355 would be just the kind of place that many would love to move to, freeing up their larger home for a young family.
Hackney have already got rid of Bayton Court, the sheltered home near London Fields. By making 355 less attractive to the elderly, they are removing yet another haven for them to retire to.

How local are our Councillors?

Betty Shanks — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:47:43 +0000

This is the first column I’ve written for a while so I’ll start off with Happy New Year!
When I was a Councillor I was also a lollipop lady and I used to carry a pen and paper so I could make notes about all the different problems that people used to come to me with. Residents knew I was there and, because I lived in my ward, I was easily contacted.
Most of E8 is in four wards: Dalston, Hackney Central, Haggerston and Queensbridge. Each has three Councillors. Of those twelve, how many do you suppose actually live in their wards? The answer? – Two. Only one actually lives in the E8 postcode. Poor old Dalston and Queensbridge have got no local residents as Councillors at all!
So when the candidates come knocking on your doors over the next few months for the election, chances are they won’t be asking you for your vote, they’ll be asking you for directions.

Big thanks to Homerton

Betty Shanks — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:03:09 +0000

Due to a fall I had while attending the Notting Hill Carnival I ended up having a stay in Homerton Hospital. I had to stay there last year as well and wasn’t impressed at the cleanliness and that I had to stay in a mixed ward. Mixed wards can cause a lot of distress for some elderly patients.
This time it couldn’t have been more different. The single sex ward was cleaned thoroughly every day and, even though my torn ligament caused me a lot of pain, the staff did their best to make me comfortable.
So I’d like to say a big thank you to all the staff and doctors at the Halley Ward. The only down side to this stay was that I now don’t have anything to gripe about. I’m sure I’ll be back on form for next month though.

What are they doing?

Betty Shanks — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:06:42 +0000

I went for a nice trip to the Isle of Wight not so long ago and caught sight of their local Council newspaper. In it, the Isle of Wight’s Mayor wrote a column explaining where he had been, what he had done and who he had met since the last edition. It made you feel that the taxpayers of the island were getting their money’s worth.
I think people we elect should start to report back on what they are doing, not just what they think. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t got a clue what these people do once we’ve elected them and how much time they are spending doing the jobs we’ve paid them for.
I think it’s only reasonable that, as their employers, we should have a look at their time sheets occasionally.

Nice job(s) if you can get them

Betty Shanks — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:22:21 +0000

I never received my polling card for the European Elections so I was deprived of the chance to vote. Mind you, down my street you wouldn’t have thought an election was going on. No leaflets, no canvassers and, to be honest, no interest. It doesn’t appear to the ordinary person that they get much out of the European Union or even Westminster nowadays.
Among the people who seem to get a lot out of both are Glenys and Neil Kinnock. If you add up all the pensions they get from being an MP, an MEP, a Commissioner and a minister they’ve got six publicly funded pensions: only one of which, Glenys’ teacher’s pension, was for a proper job.
Isn’t it time that politicians came and explained to us what it is they do for all this money?

Those expenses

Betty Shanks — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:10 +0000

I am so angry at the people we put in to represent us in government. They are using their position to fill their own pockets at our expense. If we, the public, were to cheat on our benefits or defraud the Inland Revenue there’d be a policeman knocking on our door with a threat of a prison sentence. What do the M.P.s get? It looks like nothing. Are we to accept “We are sorry, we will pay it all back”?
There are many citizens in England who are losing their jobs and are going through hard times. They, as well as the sick and the elderly, would like to receive a wage of the many thousands a year that M.P.s receive. But people like us have to make do with what we get.
Make all those M.P.s resign and serve time in prison, for as I see it what they’ve done is the crime of fraud. Maybe I’m wrong, but as far as I see it there’s one law for poor and needy and one law for the law-makers.

Recycling response

Betty Shanks — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:10 +0000

The lady below wrote in to disagree with my last article about recycling. She has a right to say what she wants and to be heard.
It makes me think that perhaps readers should try writing to the Council funded ‘Hackney Today’ disagreeing with what they say and see how far they get!

Dear EASTeight
I’m sick of people constantly criticising the council, especially people who should know better like Betty Shanks (‘former Mayor and people’s champion’). Doesn’t Betty know that the council has to pay for all rubbish that is sent to landfill – the so-called landfill tax – at a current rate of £32 per tonne, rising by £8 per tonne each year? Hackney’s bill was approximately £1.6m in 2005/06 according to figures from Defra.
Reducing the amount sent to landfill by encouraging everyone to recycle reduces the council’s landfill tax bill, and the money earned by selling the recyclable materials helps pay for the remainder, plus the cost of collecting and transporting it to landfill sites – the council is not “making money out of it” as Betty suggests.
Clearly, our council tax bills are reduced the more we recycle, so it’s a simple equation – if you want some money back, in the form of lower council tax bills, recycle more and reduce the amount of rubbish you produce.
PS. I don’t work for Hackney Council or have any connection with it, other than living in the Borough.
Karen Lawrence

We do the work – they get the money!

Betty Shanks — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:10 +0000

With all of us being told that we have to recycle, residents are doing their bit. We separate out the bottles, the cans, the paper and some of the plastics (though I’m never really sure which plastics). If you are fortunate enough to have a doorstep collection then it’s picked up for you (if you’re on an estate you are expected to drag it to the local overflowing recycling centre) Hackney then gets all the recycled rubbish and sells it off to the highest bidder.
Which makes me think, if they are making money out of it, why shouldn’t some of that money come back to the people who recycled? What about paying those who recycle theirn rubbish the most?
Or do they need the money they raise for more foreign trips for the Borough’s Mayor?

Junkets to China

Betty Shanks — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:10 +0000

Hackney’s after-Christmas present to tenants was a letter giving ‘options’ for rent increases. It would be an easier choice to make if we knew the money was being spent well.
The Chief Executive of Hackney recently wrote to the Gazette to say that the Mayor’s junket to China had cost £33,500, not the £37,000 that the Gazette had published. Well, that’s all right then isn’t it! Newham, which has most of the Olympic Park in its borders, spent £9,000. Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest didn’t send anyone at all thinking that it would be a waste of money.
Hackney says it sent Jules Pipe and others to Beijing to contact top companies to get them to invest in in the Borough. Most of these top companies have offices in the City of London. Why didn’t they just get a bus?

Care a bit – make room

Betty Shanks — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:46:02 +0000

I don’t want to be a kill-joy. It’s lovely to see so many people sitting outside the cafes on Broadway Market whether enjoying the sun (not much of that around at the moment though!) or for a bit of fresh air. The trouble is, some of us have to get around using scooters and other people have prams. Tables and chairs which have drifted into the middle of the pavement can be a bit of an obstacle course. The long term solution to this is to pedestrianise Broadway and have the whole surface flat which would give more room for getting past. Until that happens though, if people could just remember to leave a space to get by then it might save a few arguments.
By the time you read this, Spirit could have been evicted from the shop that he built with his own bare hands. It is up to Jules Pipe to accept that the Council is responsible for him losing his home and business. I only hope that peoples’ memories are long enough to remember this at the next mayoral election in 2010.