We held the second Ward Residents Forum meeting at the Cricket Ground last week.  This meeting continues to be popular with local residents, as a lot of them turned up.  We had to book the large hall for health and safety reasons as there is a limit as to how many people the Pavillion can hold. 

I chaired the meeting and Cllr. Naheed Qureshi took the minutes.  Unfortunately Cllr. Winnie Smith was on holiday so missed out.  There was a presentation on the Councils Library Review by Lorna Lee, the libraries officer.  In contrast we did have a table with a ‘Save the Harrow Green Library’ petition.  A bit cheeky, but we felt that a lot of people who were campaigning in the Harrow Green area needed our support.

We then had the local Police report back as to what has been going on locally.  We now have one sergeant in charge of both Leyton and Grove Green wards.  The police did hand out a complicated chart of incidences in the area.  I will try and get a summary of the major crime figures and report back. 

There were 4 applicants for a place on the Cricket Ground Committee.  Three addressed the meeting as one of them did not turn up.  Each resident had one vote and by a large show of hands local resident Peter Towler was elected.  Well done Peter.

I updated everyone on the applications for betting offices in the area, as there had been a big upsurge of bookmakers turning shops and pubs into betting offices.    This was followed by list of suggestions as to what we can spend the £10,000 grant money on.  These will be worked up and reported back for decision, probably in November.  If anyone has further suggestion, then they need to contact me, Naheed or Winnie.

The open forum where any resident can bring up any query, problem or explanation of what is going on in our area ended the meeting.  Any questions that could not be answered would be investigated and reported back through the minutes of the meeting.  The minutes will be available on the Councils website.

The next meeting will be probably be in November.  We will notify the actual date in our FOCUS newsletter and  on our websites.

If you would like to help and get involved in local issues then do not hesitate to contact me.