Clyde Loakes
Clyde Loakes is a British politician born in the East Midlands town of Northampton. He became Council Leader of the London Borough of Waltham Forest in north-east London, and in 2008 he was selected by the Labour Party as their prospective parliamentary candidate for the Northampton South Constituency in the 2010 General Election. In November 2008 the British Local Government Chronicle named Loakes on a list of The 50 most influential people in British Local Government. He is also nationally notable for his work towards improving Waltham Forest and North-East London.
Early life
He was born in Northampton in 1971. He moved from Northampton to attend university and after graduating settled in London. He works as a civil servant at the Department Of Trade and Industry.
Elected Councillor
Loakes was elected onto the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 1998 as a Local Councillor for the Ward of Leytonstone.
As a Waltham Forest Councillor he became the Council's Cabinet Member for Environment until 2003 when he became the Leader of the Labour Group on the Council and in July 2003 he became the Leader of Waltham Forest Council. He was re-elected as Leader of the Council after the local government elections in May 2006, and stood down in May 2009 to take up a position as Chair of the North London Waste Authority.
Leadership of the London Borough Of Waltham Forest
At 35 years of age Cllr Loakes was the youngest Council Leader in Britain . At the same time the Borough of Waltham Forest had some tough challenges. The Social Services Department was rated one of the two worst in Britain, and a Government Inspection awarded them no stars in a grading of the value of their work. Morale among Council staff was rated as very poor and there was a very high turnover of staff and a shortage of headteachers in Waltham Forest Schools. Years of political mismanagement had left the Borough a physical and financial mess.
Loakes is credited with overseeing Waltham Forest’s transformation. The Council claims to be the only one to have gone from zero stars to four stars during the lifetime of the Audit Commission’s comprehensive performance assessment and Loakes was credited with accomplishing this.
In the six years Loakes was Leader of London Borough of Waltham Forest the authority was revamped and improved and parts of the Waltham Forest area redeveloped and regenerated. However the changes brought about by Loakes's Leadership did attract controversy and criticisms from some sections of the Waltham Forest electorate (see below).
Loakes stated in his speech to Waltham Forest Council on the day he stepped down as Leader that he had transformed the London Borough of Waltham Forest "from a local government basket case to one of the best councils in the country".
Cllr Loakes listed what he considered to be the council's achievements since he took over as Leader in 2003, including being the only council in Britain to move from one stars to four stars in audit commission ratings.
Recycling and the "green agenda"
As part of his "green agenda" Loakes, in his position as Chair of the North London Waste Authority, proposed the closure of the old North London Waste Incinerator and proposed it be replaced by four new household waste and recycling centres, two new sorting facilities for metal, plastics, glass and other recycled materials, one composting plant that also turns biodegradable waste into a bio-gas that can then be used generate electricity and one heat and power plant that uses recovered fuels instead of fossil fuels.
Theses plans were to be adopted by all the north London boroughs - namely: London Borough of Barnet, London Borough of Camden, London Borough of Enfield, London Borough of Hackney, London Borough of Haringey, London Borough of Islington and London Borough of Waltham Forest.
Loakes said of the plan: "We hope that this approach will not only help us reduce north London's carbon footprint but will also enable us to offer our residents the best possible solution for managing waste into the future."
October 2009 saw and increase in the amount of recycling in North London and the range of rubbish that was recycled. More materials than ever before were accepted for recycling, including mixed plastics including yoghurt pots and margarine tubs, plastic bags, shredded paper and waxed cartons used for milk and fruit juice.
Loakes remains the Chair of NLW however his attempt to institute a salary of £22,000 a year for a job he had been doing for nothing was rejected by other members
Cycling in Waltham Forest
Loakes was a keen cyclist and sought to encourage cycling in Waltham Forest. This was done by installing secure new Cycle Sheds at many of the London Underground and railway stations in the Borough to encourage the use of the bicycle for commuting, and there was an large increase in the number of cycle racks around the Borough in public places. A cycle recycling scheme was introduced by the Council. Staff working at London Borough of Waltham Forest were also given financial incentives and shower and locker facilities to encourage them to use cycles in their journeys to and from work and while travelling on Council business.
Fast food and fried chicken
Waltham Forest became notable in national media coverage as Loakes announced new planning restrictions to ban fast food and fried chicken takeaway shops from being within 400 metres of schools or parks. This was largely welcomed by the public, although criticised by the businesses concerned as there had been a proliferation of fried chicken takeaway businesses opening outside school gates across London, and the unhealthy junk food diet of children was viewed as a cause of the decline in standards of behaviour, a rise in anti-social behaviour of young people and children and an increase in obesity among young people.
Waltham Forest as an open-access Wi-Fi Zone
During his Leadership Loakes announced that Waltham Forest would become London's second Wi-Fi Zone, allowing mobile computer users internet access in many public places in the Borough .
Selection as Labour Party candidate
The MP for Walthamstow, Neil Gerrard, had announced that he intended to retire at the General Election, Loakes was asked to put his name forward to fight the Walthamstow Constituency. However Loakes was unable to put himself forward as a Labour candidate: the Labour Party had declared that the Walthamstow Constituency would be decided from a women only list, and other genders were barred from standing as the official Labour Candidate for the area.
Loakes was instead successful in being selected as Labour Candidate for the Northampton South Constituency, which was won by the Conservative Party in 2005 but remains a notionally marginal constituency following boundary changes. , a new constituency created from a boundary change that effectively cut the old Northampton Constituency in half.
Unhappy with being expelled from the Labour Party following a controversy over all-women shortlists in local government elections the former MP for Northampton South Tony Clarke announced he would stand as an Independent Candidate against Loakes and sitting MP Conservative, Brian Binley MP in the next General Election.
Criticisms and controversies
Local campaign groups in Waltham Forest criticised Loakes claiming that during the upgrade of libraries in Waltham Forest during his council leadership, nearly a quarter of a million books had disappeared from local libraries. It was also alleged that thousands of library books were sent to Edmonton Incinerator during renovation works of Walthamstow Central Library and the closure of St James Street Library in Walthamstow and that there was much less space in the Libraries devoted to books as the available space was taken over by computer terminals.
A further campaign group called Antiscrap claimed that William Morris Gallery and the William Morris collection that was owned by the Council was under threat and may be sold and William Morris's former home put to alternative use, perhaps as a wedding venue.
The "Save Waltham Forest Theatre" campaign criticised Loakes's administration for the planned demolition of the last theatre in Walthamstow, Lloyd Park Theatre. The Council planned to apply for Government funding to demolish the theatre and redesign Lloyd and Aveling Park in Walthamstow, formerly the garden of William Morris]'s house. The Council claimed they were only able to secure the funding if the indoor theatre was demolished and replaced by an outdoor open-air arena.
There were also criticisms of a plan to demolish a little used and poorly maintained shopping arcade and 1960s post office block in Walthamstow and replace it with a state of the art multi-million pound modern theatre and arts complex. Some campaigners claimed it was an unnecessary change to a much loved shopping arcade, whereas others criticised the Council after the arcade and Post Office was demolished when the Council revealed the plans to build the theatre and arts complex had been scrapped and the demolished site was left derelict 78.
Allegations were made that under Loakes's Chairmanship of the London Local Strategic Partnership funds went missing due to financial mismanagement. Two whistleblowers claimed a company that was contracted by the Council to work with needy kids, EduAction, had siphoned off hundreds of thousands of pounds earmarked for the Youth At Risk programme from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund in 2004 and had not properly accounted for spending funds they had been given . Loakes denied any wrong doing. Although these claims were widely reported an investigation by the Metropolitan Police found that the claims made against Loakes were without any foundation.
Further claims were that roads and street cleanliness was at a poor standard in Waltham Forest and this also claimed the blame was all Clyde Loakes's fault 9, although they offered little quantitative evidence to support that claim other than a string of photographs showing fly tipping, untidiness and poor road design in the Borough .
