Andrew Wood Profile picture
Feb 2, 2022 12 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Things in Tower Hamlets are often worse than you think they are
We knew Children's Services had major issues after OFSTED failed them quite badly in 2017 but 4 children mentioned in this report had issues mainly post OFSTED
Report more critical of Police than Council &
1/
some signs of improvement in the report but by providing detail on cases across 6 Boroughs (4 in TH) it provides a snapshot of problems & makes recommendations
But quotes from those involved were stronger then official report
standard.co.uk/news/uk/rochda…
2/
The problem as a Councillor responsible for scutinising the Council is that we almost never get to see information like this unless somebody external writes a public report
The understandable need to protect children's anonymity = makes it easy to hide what is really going on
3/
Child CSA-22
"CS-A22 was found in 2017 with injuries suggestive of serious sexual assault after a two-day episode of going missing...The evidence demonstrates that she was the victim of sexual assaults from 2018 to 2019...There was some evidence of victim-blaming"
4/
Child CS-A77
CS-A77 was in care in Tower Hamlets from 2015. In 2017/18 and 2018/19 she went missing 40 and 47 times respectively from an unregulated placement...In late 2018, an assessment considered CS-A77’s life was potentially at risk due to a range of factors"
5/
CS-A81
"The risk assessments did not record the age or date of birth of CS‑A81... accepted that she should have been graded high risk & that the assessments were generally “on the back foot” & “reactionary” Overall, it recognised that CS‑A81’s case was “of the utmost concern”
6/
CS-A90
"CS‑A90 was a frequent missing child in Tower Hamlets and was attending parties in hotels when he was only 13 years old...frequently went missing from home or care without any effective responses...was deemed to be a victim of modern slavery"
7/
Appendix 4 from page 180 has an overall summary on Tower Hamlets
Report is here
Every Councillor & political candidate needs to read this report
iicsa.org.uk/reports-recomm…
8/
Reminder both the Councils Children's Services & Police are covered by this report
"In 2018, HMICFRS identified concerns about the extent to which children reporting sexual exploitation in Tower Hamlets were listened to by Metropolitan Police Service officers and staff"
9/
The report does talk about improvements
& there have been some changes in snr leadership in Police & Council recently
The culture of the previous Director of Children's Services though was to not talk about bad news (will talk later about serious case review for Syrian girls)
10/
But eventually, bad news does come out, why I said earlier things are nearly are often worse than you think they are inside Tower Hamlets
Things need to change which I will discuss later
11/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Andrew Wood

Andrew Wood Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Andrewwood17

Apr 22, 2023
This @TheEconomist article is very strange, odd & not really based on much evidence
It also repeats various myths without evidence, misses the big issues, and therefore comes to the wrong conclusions
A 🧵on its inaccuracies
a. no mention of leasehold or commonhold at all !
1/
b. it correctly says these buildings are expensive which is true but then talks about land value in England as one main reason why tall towers in big cities are expensive
Economist article in black, my comments in red
The main reason why tall towers are expensive is
2/ Image
because construction is v expensive
As evidence this agreement that Westferry Printworks could only deliver 21% affordable housing on a big site agreed by the developer, Tower Hamlets Council & the GLA
Construction costs £630 m
v
Land value £28m
v
Taxes (CIL & s106) = £49 m
3/ ImageImage
Read 20 tweets
Apr 20, 2023
The issues are more extensive than @PlanningMag article states
Councillors who made the decision to reject the resident's Yes vote in favour of the business No vote
Incorrectly, used the wrong business turnout % to suggest a higher proportion of businesses voted than residents
1/
Proportionally more residents voted than businesses
Councillors were also not officially told that:
Some of the business votes were illegal (three people voted more than twice)
49.5% of all the business vote came from a single office building
Cllrs also not told that there was
2/
an active Police investigation underway
"amid suspicions of a “possible conspiracy to subvert the referendum”, allegation of multiple voting, and claims that some business owners had exerted “undue influence” to sway the vote against the council’s plan"
standard.co.uk/news/london/po…
3/
Read 4 tweets
Mar 14, 2023
Problems with Homes of Multiple Occupation (HMO) & why a man died due to Council inaction
A man died earlier this month in a flat fire, had the Council been more proactive and responsive he might still be alive but an attempt to get them to do so in January 2021 was rejected
1/
18 people, primarily students and delivery couriers from Bangladesh, lived in a 2-bedroom former Council flat at the time of the fire, 22 beds were seen in the property including in the kitchen (mainly bunk beds)
2/
The owner had bought the leasehold flat in 2005 but the freeholder was Tower Hamlets Council and the managing agent Tower Hamlets Homes, their arm's length management agency
Neighbours made complaints about number of people & leaks from the bathroom in late 2021 and 2022
3/
Read 14 tweets
Mar 10, 2023
New independent private primary school in Canary Wharf planning application
CW Group has applied to build a new 9-storey (thin but tall) nursery and primary school in the middle of Wood Wharf
402 pupils (150 nursery pupils and 252 primary school pupils) and 80 FTE staff
1/
Summary here
constructing-london.com/wood-wharf-sch…
This would be a fee-paying school separate from the Mulberry Primary state school already built opposite this proposed new school so there would be 2 schools on site
2/
It will be run by inspiredlearninggroup.co.uk/about-us/about… and would be the 3rd private school in the area including River House & Faraday
I assume CW Group are behind the idea of building a new private school as will generate a long run income and be popular with some of their new residents
3/
Read 5 tweets
Mar 10, 2023
Local Plan consultation response - why the Local Plan needs to change
1st round of consultations on the new Local Plan ended on Wednesday - 2nd round of consultation should be later this year after they publish the draft policies
I wrote a 13 page response to it raising some
1/
of some of my issues with it & planning here in general
Fundamentally the objective of recent London and Local Plans has been to push most development in Tower Hamlets to Aldgate, Aberfeldy, Isle of Dogs including Blackwall & other parts of Poplar
2/
Development in most of the rest of Tower Hamlets is discouraged even when they have better transport links and better infrastructure than the growth areas listed above
3/
Read 6 tweets
Mar 6, 2023
I went to the @ConHome Defence & Security Conference today
Several questions from audience about what will happen in Ukraine
All those who answered said, they don't know the outcome
That assumes Britain has a passive role
Britain could determine the outcome by helping Ukraine
1/ Image
More western weapons would put Ukraine in a stronger position to win
(in the same way western support helped USSR defeat Nazi Germany)
@BWallaceMP mentioned 250 vehicles sent by Britain
But Ukrainians crowdfunded to buy 101 ex-British Army armoured

2/
vehicles themselves
(Ukrainians in UK find this harder to do as UK donation websites won't allow similar campaigns in the UK to buy 'weapons')
That we had 101 retired armoured vehicles incl. ambulances ready to go but were on the open market for sale suggests Britain not as
3/
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(