Stephanie Eaton, the sole Lib Dem councillor in Tower Hamlets, and probably the borough’s deepest thinker (ok,ok, I know it’s not a high bar..), has this to say on the Community Faith Buildings Scheme:
Thanks for offering me a chance to comment on the Mayor’s decision to allocate £595,000 to the improvement of faith buildings in the Borough. I’m going to come at this topic in a slightly oblique way but I hope you’ll see the point I’m making.
In Perth, Western Australia, where I was born, the Swan River holds great significance to the Noongar aboriginal people. The water is sacred because a dreamtime spirit in the form of a snake called the Waugal created the river on its journey to the sea.
The Swan River is ‘sacred’ for me too, but not in the same way that it is for the Noongar. For me, a non-believer and member of no church, I feel a similar sense of attachment to faith buildings in Tower Hamlets, and that’s why I support the policy of the Council contributing to their upkeep.
Of course, all Council spending has to be justified, and especially so when there are reductions in government grant. Last year Tower Hamlets Council had a reduction of 7% of its net revenue budget. But even after cuts we are a Council that spends £1,327 million per year. This year, we are increasing the level of general reserves by £11.7 million to £38.1 million. Unlike some other Councils, Tower Hamlets Council’s finances are in good shape. However £595,000 is a significant amount and could be spent in other ways. Some people will think that it should be spent elsewhere – because to spend it on faith buildings is to privilege religious groups at the expense of others.
To my knowledge there are no places that are “atheist only” in the Borough. But as an atheist, I have enjoyed concerts in St Leonard’s Church, discussed books in the lovely Nelson Street synagogue, seen history exhibitions in the London Muslim Centre. I love hearing the bells ringing out from St Anne’s Limehouse and am moved by the annual service to remember the victims of the Bethnal Green tube disaster at St John’s Church. Like many residents, religious and otherwise, I also sit in Museum gardens, use the Idea Stores, cycle around Victoria Park, and go to events at York Hall. All of these places have been developed with public funding and are supported by Tower Hamlets Council. Secular buildings and spaces that are welcoming to all enrich our Borough. Religious buildings can do so as well. I appreciate that not everyone wants to visit a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. I will never use the Mile End skate park but I’m happy for it to be there and to make my contribution to its costs.
Places and buildings are important to different people for different reasons. I do not believe the Waugal lives in the Swan River. But the river is a mystical place for me in my own way. There are faith buildings and secular buildings in Tower Hamlets that are special or sacred for one person or another. I think it’s good that the Council helps to preserve and enhance faith buildings as it does secular buildings and places. To do otherwise would be to deprive us all.
It would make a good Church sermon, this.
Trial by Jeory 
Interesting. A thinker indeed.
What exactly was the question you posed to her that garnered this response? Or was it simply a request for a comment (as the opening line may suggest)?
Tim.
straightforward comment
In which case it seems to be just that – a ‘comment’.
A slightly disappointing one though; while I am intrigued by her love of the Swan River and the mythical Waugal, they haven’t cost Stephanie money.
Neither, I suspect, is there a cosy relationship between the Waugal and an administration who don’t have Stephanie’s best interests at heart, but who are happy to take her money to fund electioneering to keep themselves in power.
I laud Stephanie’s thinking (and it’s a genuinely interesting alternative view of things), but I am surprised that she can miss the point so widely. Money is not mythical (much as the bankers may think otherwise.) Politics is about reality. And corruption is a day-to-day form of business for The Odious Rahman and his coterie of Islamic backers. A harsh view of her response would be that is obfuscates the real issues and seeks to draw attention away from the issues which I’d hope a non-Lutfur councillor would be working against.
Tim.
I’m sitting here wondering what she smokes…
That was EXACTLY my first thought too! (Although I didn’t want to be quite so direct!)
Excellent comment.
I’m baffled.
What precisely, if anything, is the political / residential perspective of LBTH’s sole Lib Dem on the controversial decision to use public money to fund religious buildings and not general non-religious buildings ?
I note the Lib Dem does not write the decision is CORRECT or WRONG so is the Lib Dem too afraid of upsetting people she wants to vote for her ?
In local politics, when representing the public, a strong voice and a strongly expressed opinion is always required not insipid waffle.
Curious Cat.
To be fair, I think she’s clear she supports it in principle. And she’s also standing down at the next election so she’s not after votes.
Ted,
Thank you for the clarification. I therefore withdraw my comment about votes.
Have you asked Mr Mayor for a comment ? 🙂 Many will be interested to read it.
Curious Cat.
After seeing your tweet Ted I think it’s really telling that Stephanie has been the only person to provide you with a response.
Very few Mosques, Synagogues Buddhist Centres etc have any historical significance in this country. Churches, St Dunstons in particular have been there for a thousand years plus. You can make a case for supporting them in limited instances because of their historical significance or community impact when faced with a huge pressing problem a condemned roof for example, and even then I wouldn’t be overly keen on it.
Stephanie should really spare us the multiculturalist claptrap. The council is not funding cultural exchange they are funding building repairs. If you have to fritter away our money why not fund religious organisations to run soup kitchens, education opportunities and cultural exchange initiatives? Why give them a grant to tart up their façade?
There may well be one or two with historical/cultural significance/merit, if that’s the case let them apply to English heritage, the lottery or the department for Culture, Media and Sport.
As far as I’m aware religious organisations were not asking for aid, the council proactively went to them, which is a choice and an outrageous one at that. We cannot afford this profligacy at the moment just before we’re forced to absorb several new rounds of cuts.
My fault. Labour sent its response yesterday. I wrote a post and thought I’d published it, but saw your comment and realised I hadn’t.
As a newly elected Liberal councillor in 1986 one of the first petitions for support I received came from the Sikh temple in Harley Grove. The Sikh community had recently acquired the building – a sometime Congregationist chapel and synagogue, but were unable to use most of the building because the roof was falling in. I told them that I didn’t think the council should support them financially, but we worked with them to get a grant from what is now English Heritage. The roof was duly repaired.
The seperation of church and state is mainstream to British Liberal thought, but is a difficult concept in Islam.
As a spiritual space in the borough I would strongly commend St. Pauls, Bow Common – a modern building in need of much money for maintenance as it happens. The Rev. Duncan Ross retires this year, but I hope his successor will maintain the traditions of his Christmas Midnight Mass, and also his opening his church to members of other faiths.
Weasel words as suits someone who’s spent three years sucking up to Lutfur for God knows what reason. On the specifics of the funding breakdown, she has nothing to say; on the general principle of money being shovelled at religious groups, a lot of waffle about how wonderful spaces that are sacred to someone are (can a portakabin doubling up as a mosque really be called sacred, anyway?)
And this from a member of the party that out of principled radicalism and anti-clericalism, disestablished the Church of Wales – chuck it, Steph!
Ted, not sure if you’ve picked this up. Lutfur linked Channel S and Medialink’s property development arm Dreamstar Ltd are about to decimate a beautiful listed building on Poplar High Street. Many will remember it as the old Poplar Town Hall and now the current home of controversial Barbican College. See application PA/12/02476 for details of a proposed hotel.
http://planreg.towerhamlets.gov.uk/WAM/showCaseFile.do;jsessionid=24FE15DA27EF828C77F085BEE230B939?action=show&appType=Planning&appNumber=PA/12/02476
We’ve been told permission is imminent under delegated authority – no member scrutiny! And this is all being done on the quiet despite concerns raised by opposition councillors. Conservationists please take stock! Besides ruining an absolutely stunning building, the adverse social and environmental impact will be phenomenal.
I just hope our community activists will cotton on in time if they haven’t already and help avert another Lutfur linked disaster.
Friends of Poplar,
This the former Poplar District Board of Works building:
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMFRVX_Old_Poplar_Town_Hall_Poplar_High_Street_Poplar_London_UK
It was owned by the council up until at least 2008 as Tom Ridge, a local historian and heritage campaigner, suggested that the council sell this building to Queen Mary University and the Wiener Library, instead of selling the Bancroft Library building to them:
http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/college_has_been_after_bancroft_for_years_while_council_officials_plot_to_help_1_665991
Has the building been sold then? To Dreamstar Ltd? Is it definitely no longer owned by the Council?
How though can this application be decided under delegated powers when it is a conversion to a hotel and it is a large English Heritage-listed building?! Wikipedia explains these powers as: “Planning applications for minor development, development which has no significant impact on the public interest, or those planning applications which do not attract public objections are generally decided by an authorised senior officer of the Local Planning Authority under such delegated powers.” As it goes on to say though: “Each LPA will have its own scheme of delegation and Standing Orders which prescribe the categories of planning application which may be determined under delegated powers. In any case of doubt an approach should be made to the LPA concerned.” You – or Ted, or your local councillors – should approach our LPA then.
The community activists you could try are a new group called Save Tower Hamlets Disappearing Heritage. (This started as Save Cheviot House From Demolition – which is actually another historic but threatened former LBTH Town Hall.) The group meets informally at the George pub on Commercial Road on Sunday evenings, but you could always get in touch via their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SaveCheviotHouseFromDemolition
Being a trouble maker I’ve forwarded this to the East End Waterways Group
with which Tom Ridge is associated (they probably know about the Cheviot House lot, but I don’t recall anything from them on this issue).
east.end.waterway.group@gmail.com
Consultation ostensibly ended on 29th October 2012, but no harm in rattling the cage.
Stewart Rayment wrote
“… Being a trouble maker….”
The public interest, which is usually different from the council’s often concealed interest, requires a lot more of these amateur ‘trouble makers’.
I wonder why ‘trouble makers’ never get MBE, OBE, CBE awards to thank them for their excellent public spirited work.
Astonishing thought it may seem, the same council hanky panky happens nation-wide. The worse examples are usually in Labour councils.
I bet this is another tip of the iceberg in LBTH.
Curious Cat.
Friends of Poplar, Stewart,
Do not know whose cage was rattled, but suddenly the full planning application for Poplar Town Hall has appeared but there is no decision:
http://planreg.towerhamlets.gov.uk/WAM/findCaseFile.do;jsessionid=5E8FAE4097BFFA03DC7CB06029AFABE3?appNumber=PA%2F12%2F02475
This just doesn’t make sense though. How can our publicly owned building be turned into a money-spinner of a boutique hotel? The ownership certificate (in the planning docs) says the owner is LBTH, Public Realm! Amy Jones (for agents Lambert, Smith, Hampton) says the building has “been released” by LBTH as surplus to requirements. No mention of being marketed (on the open market as all publicly-owned assets should be) and sold. How can Dreamstar do this? (The waters get even muddier when you recall that there was an Amy Jones who worked at Tower Hamlets council. Could be a co-incidence….)
This has to be sorted out. No wonder they’re now going to decide this under Delegated Powers, behind closed doors. How can they?!! Ted, can you investigate this? As if the scandals of the officer-supported demolitions of Cheviot House and the London Fruit and Wool Exchange were not enough.