Church Street Labour Councillors Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki are supporting four more local projects as part of the Ward Budget. Councillor Barbara Grahame said: "These four new projects will improve life for Church Street residents of all ages across the ward and will bring real benefits to local people." The four projects are: * £5,000 for outdoor sports activities to be commissioned thr...

What ever happened to the separation between church and state? According to an article in the Scotsman, the CATHOLIC CHURCH had a hand in deciding that 30,000 young Scots girls (12-13 years old) were NOT to be given sex education when given the cervical cancer vaccine. It might be worrying, but it is fact that many are sexually active at this age - but who are we to say whether its right or wrong?...

Church Street's three Labour Councillors, Ahmed Abdel-Hamid, Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki have launched a petition to protest at the £100,000 cut from Portman Early Years Centre's budget. The petition reads; "We the undersigned call on Westminster City Council to review its decision to withdraw £100,000 from the Portman Early Years Centre budget this year with further cuts n...

Councillors call for Lucan memorial benches to be re-located. Councillors Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki, Church Street Ward's Labour Councillors, have urged Westminster City Council to relocate benches which are to be moved from outside the Townshend Estate in Allitsen Road, St John's Wood, to Lisson Green where there is currently a shortage of places where residents can sit in the Estat...

The Leadership Centre for local government has launched a new website: The councillors’ guide to social media. The site has a variety of information for councillors, and is particularly accessible for those who haven’t yet tried this way of communicating. Here’s a flavour: Top ten reasons to use social media   Banished! Ten social media myths   Getting started   To...

Labour Westminster Councillors have stepped up their campaign for Westminster Council to acquire the long-vacant car park site on the corner of Edgware Road and Church Street and to promote a mixed development, including new social housing for families in the Church Street area in housing need. Labour say that this long-derelict site could provide scores of new homes for local residents instead of...

Church Street's Labour Councillors Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki have called on Westminster City Council and CityWest Homes to deal with a serious and persistent problem of a colony of seagulls nesting and breeding on the rooftops of Morris House, NW8, a residential blocks in the vicinity of Church Street Market. The birds have been nesting for a period of years on the rooftops of Morris Hous...

Labour's Church Street Councillors Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki have revealed that Westminster Conservatives have failed to collect a £100,000 payment from Tesco which was due to the Council following the granting of planning permission for the new Tesco store on Lisson Grove which opened in 2008. The £100,000 payment is earmarked to pay for new shopfronts for independent retaile...

Labour Church Street Councillors Barbara Grahame and Aziz Toki have called on Westminster City Council to start Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) proceedings to acquire the long-vacant site at the corner of Edgware Road and Church Street in order that it can be used to build more affordable homes and improve shopping facilities for Church Street and Little Venice residents. Councillors Grahame and T...

There's an interesting article on the BBC, about Pope Benedict sending out five hundred invitations to leading figures in the arts around the world. He plans to open a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the arts, his mentor Pope John Paul wrote: "The Church needs art, but can it also be said that art needs the Church?" It's a strange situation given art was largely funded by the church t...