Church Farmhouse: closed by Tory councillors, ransacked, left to rot - now robbed and vandalised

Updated below: Barnet Council shuts the gate, after the horse has bolted ...

Apart from the election, Mrs Angry, is there anything much going on in Broken Barnet, this week? 

Well, yes: Finchley Literary Festival, which will run from the 24th May, to the 31st. 

 http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/p/finchley-literary-festival.html

Rather foolishly, Mrs Angry has agreed to take part, and is giving a talk, on the 28th, on what is supposed to be about Charles Dickens and his associations with the borough, but has got a bit sidetracked by related stories of bodysnatching, Dracula, slaveowning vicars, death in the workhouse,  demon postmen ... and an Irish bootmaker who asked Dickens for a loan of £1500 to buy the manor house, and - and  if you want to know more, you will have to come along.

So, doing some research in the British Library yesterday, by chance Mrs Angry found herself reading a biography of Mark Lemon, the first editor of Punch, very good friend of Dickens, and who spent what he considered to be an idyllic childhood living with his grandparents at Church Farmhouse, in Hendon. 

In later life Lemon often remembered Hendon with great fondness, and wrote about his memories of life in what was then a rural area, his grandfather farming 200 acres, and living next door to the old Greyhound inn, still there, of course, and the ancient church of St Mary's. 

Mark Lemon

Funnily enough, Tory leader Richard Cornelius has always struck Mrs Angry as bearing a notable facial resemblance to Mr Punch.  

But perhaps the satirical allusion is one which springs too easily to the eye, to those of us living here, in Broken Barnet.

 Totteridge, May 2010

The seventeenth century, Grade II* listed Farmhouse was bought by the local council in 1944, and became a museum in 1954.

In May 2014, the building stands empty, and decaying, having been closed three years ago, in order for our Tory councillors to flog it off for development. With great glee they ransacked the Museum's collection of local historical artefacts, threw some in a skip, gave others away, and auctioned the rest off in a church hall in the midlands.

Their enthusiasm for selling the Farmhouse, however, was misguided, and buyers for a delicate, protected building of this rarity have, unsurprisingly, proven too few. The joke is, of course, that our would be true blue entrepreneurs and property speculators have no business sense at all, which is why they allowed themselves to be so easily led by the nose over so many financial cock ups, especially the Capita contracts, swallowing such stories as the one about £16 million capital investment, and spending £80 million to make £160 million savings. In truth none of them could run a jellied eel stall and make a penny of profit, let alone an authority of this size. No wonder they wanted to delegate everything to the private sector.

The Museum now stands forlorn, abandoned, empty, and neglected, to such an extent that English Heritage have listed its status now as vulnerable. 

It was only the fear of occupation by squatters, as in the case of Friern Barnet Library, moved the council - eventually - to take on any security precautions to protect the building. A company ominously named 'Ad Hoc' supplied a 'live-in' guardian, for whom the council has just installed a shower room, with no regard for the sensitivity and integrity of the listed building's features.

It may be that the guardian in question is spending too much time in his new shower, sadly, as it has been reported that some time on Sunday night/Monday morning, around ten of the old yorkstone paving flags around the Farmhouse were dug up, and stolen. As local GLA member Andrew Dismore commented today:

"This is the inevitable consequence of the Conservative Council’s closure of the museum, and after over 3 years, their inability to find someone to take it on. Their so-called negotiations with Middlesex University are going nowhere, as it is clear they are not really interested in taking over this historic listed building because its uses are so limited. 

An empty unused building like this is an open invitation for thieves. 

The Council has been and is spending thousands on security at the former Museum, for little good it does; and Boris Johnson’s cuts in the police service haven’t helped either. 

The Council should be ashamed of themselves. they will have to replace the missing flags at no doubt considerable expense to the council taxpayers of Barnet, but it is difficult to see how new stones will be able to replicate the appearance of the stolen old ones. Conservative Barnet could not care less about our Borough’s history and historic buildings". 

Andrew Dismore, Labour candidate and former museum curator Gerrard Roots, and Labour councillor Arjun Mittra

During the course of the last four years, the Farmhouse has stood as a permanent indictment, a metaphor in stone, of the moral decay and incompetence of this ghastly, philistine, materialist Tory administration, where nothing is of value unless it can be sold in a market place, and heritage, history, and a sense of community is utterly redundant.

In this week, in which we go to vote for a new administration, it is with perfect timing that we witness the building robbed off part of the very fabric of its own history. It's no worse a crime, in the view of Mrs Angry, than being robbed of the museum, and an intrinsic part of the story of Hendon, and this borough, by councillors elected to protect our best interests, not sell our heritage to the highest bidder - or rather try to, but fail ingloriously even at their own intentions.

The plaque commemorating Mark Lemon's connection with Church Farmhouse is still there, on the empty building. It will mean nothing to the Tory councillors who closed it, and who won't have heard of Lemon, or care. 

But then again, after Thursday, some of the leading Tory councillors who were responsible for closing Church Farmhouse, standing in marginal wards, will themselves be history.

Updated:

According to Mrs Angry's spies, Barnet Council, with a typical display of masterly timing, has now acted to secure the gate to the Farmhouse ...
At some point this afternoon Barnet council chained and padlocked shut the front gates to the Museum, because of the theft of Yorkstone flags from the Museum's paths last Sunday. This will not deter thieves- they'll just bring along a pair of bolt-cutters. However, it will needlessly inconvenience residents and visitors who rightly expect to be able to access a much-used public right of way through a public garden set in a designated conservation area.

One Barnet: 'a brand that has served its purpose' - let's take back control of our democracy, say Barnet's bloggers

Over the last few years, the activities of the current Conservative administration in Barnet have been closely monitored and reported by a group of bloggers, determined to hold to account the elected members who have so blatantly defied the principle of democratic government, and fundamentally betrayed the best interests of the residents of this borough.

We have covered every faltering step of the course followed by the Tory councillors, from their first act, on being re-elected, and lecturing residents and staff on the stark economies necessitated by the demands of austerity, but voting themselves a big fat rise in their own allowances, closely followed by the MetPro scandal, a theme which set the tone for the next four years.

The MetPro affair involved the use by the Tory council of an illegally operating private security company, which barred residents from a council meeting, secretly filmed local bloggers and activists, had close contact with vulnerable children, and was being rewarded by casual but substantial payments, in the total absence of any contractual agreement.

Barnet’s bloggers subsequently revealed that far from being a single case of failure in proper regulation of procurement and contractual management, the council had thousands of legally non-compliant arrangements.

Local tax payers’ hard earned cash had been given away in these agreements, unquestioned: a real scandal, and on an unimaginably wide scale.

The next outrage we reported was perhaps one we should have foreseen: the silencing of dissent at all residents’ meetings, with enforced censorship rules, backed by a deliberate amendment to the local constitution,  meaning no member of the public was allowed to criticise, or even refer to anything deemed to be ‘council policy’.

The reason for this soon became clear.

Barnet was to be privatised, with a massive outsourcing programme, from which an in-house solution was excluded because, we were told, we needed a large amount of capital investment from a commercial partner.

There had been no mention of these plans in the 2010 Conservative manifesto.

Despite the lack of mandate, the Tory administration pushed these plans through, at the behest of senior management and private consultants.

Needless to say, as well as failing to present these plans to residents at the time of election, there was no consultation over the privatisation: a serious breach of regulations, and one criticised in the High Court by Judge Underhill last year.

Another policy imposed by Barnet Tories that was brought to account in the High Court was the catastrophic parking policy, which overnight sent the borough’s high streets into fatal decline, and alienated vast sections of the Conservatives’ own natural electoral base.

The Barnet Conservative manifesto for the 2014 elections is even more enigmatic than the version they offered voters four years previously.

When asked by the Barnet Press why there was no mention of One Barnet leader Richard Cornelius declared that it is a brand that ‘has served its purpose’.

Indeed it has, but whose purpose, and for whose benefit?

Certainly not the residents and taxpayers of Barnet.

Already we have seen the real motives of Capita exposed by their attempts to begin the commercial exploitation of this borough in the form of the development of ‘memorialisation’ of the dead in Hendon Crematorium, and the grossly insensitive removal of benches commemorating loved ones in the grounds, taken away and dumped in a corner of the grounds.

It seems an apt metaphor for the exploitation of our borough, by private enterprise, at our expense, sanctioned by our Conservative councillors.

         

And we must ask - if the privatisation of our borough, and the sell off to Capita of our local services has been so successful, why are Barnet Tories not rejoicing in this fact, and sharing their sense of satisfaction with voters? Why are they being so evasive about the real plans that they intend to impose, should they be returned to office this coming week?

Is it because the One Barnet brand is now so toxic, it must be dropped, and forgotten, and voters duped into approving another Tory council whose agenda is unstated, but is clearly going to endorse the privatisation of council service and expand this policy wherever possible?

We have read this week of plans to privatise child protection services. There can be little doubt that if they are returned to office, without consulting residents, Barnet Tories will be likely to extend the process of privatisation to any other council function they care to delegate. And increased pressure to make massive savings will inevitably lead to cuts in services on a scale as yet unprecedented.

There will, of course, be no proposal to deprive themselves of the same level of allowance they still enjoy, despite the limited function they will retain, in a borough where our vital services will be run not for our benefit, with direct control by them, but by a private company, for profit, at our expense.

In the accompanying footage here,John Dix, blogger Mr Reasonable explains why the takeover by Capita of our council services presents such a threat to the wellbeing of our borough, and what the future will hold for all of us in Barnet, should the Conservative administration be re-elected this week.

         

The choice for voters on May 22^nd is clear – vote Conservative, approve the delegation of control of your borough to private enterprise, and the shareholders of Capita – or take a stand, and begin to reclaim your democratic right to control your own destiny.

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

Things can only get ... worse: Barnet bloggers' joint letter to the local press, and Easycrem in Private Eye

Open up this week's local Times' letter page and you will find a joint letter from the Barnet bloggers, ie Mr Mustard, Mr Reasonable, Mr Tichborne, and Mrs Angry, vaguely on the theme of impending disaster, should the voters of Broken Barnet be reckless enough to vote the current assortment of Tory knaves, fools and hangers on back into power.

Here is a copy of the letter:

The Conservative administration that is seeking re-election later this month is clearly struggling to find reasons that might persuade residents of Barnet to vote their party back into power. They appear to be resorting to the tactic of rewriting history, in the form of interesting letters to the local press, and retaining a discreet silence on the matter of some less than welcome publicity given to their own policies in action.

First of all we note the letter written by Tory leader Richard Cornelius, in which he preposterously tries to claim that Friern Barnet Library – closed with the consent of the Conservative councillors – was in fact saved not by the occupation of squatters and a determined campaign by local residents, but by the actions of one of his own Tory colleagues.

Councillor Cornelius and his fellow councillors not only resort to rewriting history, but show a talent for creative fiction by continually failing to refer directly to the One Barnet programme, through which it has given charge of most of our council services to Capita, a private company, and speaking only of ‘a change programme’, which they claim has already delivered savings to local taxpayers. 

In fact the council is contractually bound to endorse and publicise the ‘success’ of the Capita contract – even before it is known if indeed the huge gamble represented by this agreement is delivering the promises so easily made during the tender process.

The real success of these contracts and the privatisation of our services will be in delivering huge profits to the shareholders of Capita, at the expense of local residents, whose services are no longer under the direct control of councillors, and a democratic system of  management, but subject to market forces.

Nothing could better illustrate the future we face as a result of these contracts than what is happening right now at Hendon Crematorium, which was added to the privatisation package as an ‘attraction’ to bidders, as there are lucrative profits to be made from introducing new charges from the death and bereavement of local residents. All of this is clearly detailed in the contract agreed and signed by our Conservative councillors, although it is known that few of them actually read in any depth the terms of the contract they were approving.

As revealed by the Times last week, Capita has begun a programme of removing memorial benches from the area surrounding the Garden of Remembrance at the Crematorium.

In the article it was claimed this is because of the state of disrepair of the benches.

In fact a visit to the grounds demonstrates this is not the case, and that the notices placed on so many benches states they are being removed for ‘development’ and ‘further memorialisation’. 

No doubt this development will include new charges for new memorials, and their maintenance - and healthy revenue for the shareholders of Capita.

There are already dozens of benches removed and dumped in a corner of the grounds, which is clearly a deeply insensitive way to treat what are for grieving family members perhaps the only mark of their deceased loved ones.

The distress that this programme will cause bereaved families, especially those who come to visit the grounds and find their benches and memorials have been removed, is indefensible.

The gross act of disrespect this shows in regard to the deceased residents whose memory these benches commemorate is truly appalling, and a perfect metaphor for the ruthless exploitation of our council services, sanctioned by this heartless Tory council.

Only recently we saw Mapledown School for disabled children lose vital funding as a result of the Conservative pre-election tax cut, which gave 23 pence a week back to residents, but at the cost of removing desperately needed support from exhausted parents in need of respite care for their children.

Tory councillor Reuben Thompstone attempted to deflect attention away from his own responsibility for these dreadful cuts by claiming in a letter that the school could easily afford to subsidise the respite schemes with money from its own reserves. In fact as he should have known, the school is simply not allowed to do so.

With this new attack on bereaved relatives, the true face of Conservative politics is revealed, and if this administration is returned to power, one thing is absolutely certain: there can only be worse to come.

Yours sincerely,

Derek Dishman

John Dix

Theresa Musgrove

Roger Tichborne

And yet again the antics of our Tory councillors have been rewarded by another story in Private Eye: hard to keep us out of the Eye, in fact: Rotten Boroughs could function entirely on the supply of jaw dropping tales from Barnet. This time it is, hardly surprisingly, the shameless start to Capita's grossly distasteful plans to screw as much profit as possible from their management of Hendon Crematorium:

Note to Crapita: Mrs Angry may have one of your blogger's discounted, pre-used grave waiting for her, but she is doing her damnedest to avoid the risk of going to heaven, especially if you're in charge.

More likely you actually won the tender for the other place, though, isn't it?

Sympathy for the devil, anyone?

Mr Postman, look and see - if there's a polling card in your bag for me, or - Mr Dismore visits TNT and asks some awkward questions

Mrs Angry brought to your attention, not so long ago, some very worrying evidence that suggested problems and delays in  the processing of electoral registration, and further difficulties posed by the risk of failure in postal deliveries, thanks to Barnet Council's use of TNT to deliver mail, instead of, as was previously the case, the Royal Mail.

Senior council officers have insisted there are no delays in registration, and in contradiction to staff, claimed there have been no 'backlogs' in processing any electoral forms. Yet Mrs Angry received a letter six weeks after sending in her own form, informing her that officers were now 'satisfied' she could be added to the register, sometime in May - hopefully before polling day, which would be nice. 

Whether waiting from March until May, and then only finding Mrs Angry's form after going through 'thousands' of others, after being told to by senior officers is not sign of a backlog is of course not for Mrs Angry to say.

Stories about the unreliability of TNT deliveries abound, and pose a direct threat to the electoral process here in Barnet: we have seen post dumped by the riverside, wrongly delivered electoral material, abandoned bikes, and missing polling cards. 

And then yesterday Labour GLA member Andrew Dismore issued this press release:

Dismore takes to task TNT managers

Andrew Dismore,  Labour London Assembly member and parliamentary candidate for Hendon, met senior TNT managers at their Colindale depot on 12/5/14, to see what they had to say in answer to  the poor performance of TNT since they started deliveries in Hendon at the end of February.

Mr Dismore raised  the many  complaints he had received, including the misdelivery of election poll cards, letters being delivered to one address for the whole street, and dumped mail, as well as security issues when post was left unlocked in bicycle panniers and TNT operatives riding on the pavement.

After the meeting Mr Dismore said:

“The managers were very apologetic and anxious to provide reassurance. They have sophisticated monitoring and tracking systems and equipment, but these systems are only as good as the TNT operatives themselves.

“They are starting from scratch and clearly have had difficulties with the “blind leading the blind” in setting up their rounds. They cannot match the 350 years’ knowledge of the Royal Mail whose experienced posties are aware of all the difficult addresses to find on their walks. No wonder TNT staff end up asking passers by for directions!

“TNT gave clear assurances that they will not be involved in any more deliveries of  sensitive election material for the 22^nd May  elections. The problem with  poll cards  arose  as the  result of a long chain of privatisation subcontracting  decisions.  Conservative Barnet Council contracted out the election distribution organisation to a company, FDM, instead of directly using the Royal Mail. FDM in turn contracted to TNT. TNT then decided to further subcontract the delivery back to the Royal Mail, where it should have been in the first place!

“It is no surprise  that things  went wrong, as one day’s deliveries instead of being passed to Royal Mail by TNT went to their own operatives instead. The net result  is that some people  in a key Council election  marginal ward did not receive their poll cards. In what is likely to be a tight election that could change the result, as the Council are refusing to reissue the poll cards that went astray. After the administration problems at the last General Election which affected the result, you would have thought the Council would have learned the lessons, but clearly they haven’t or simply don’t care.

“After recruitment direct from the Job Centre or the Work Programme, in my view part of the problem is that TNT’s 86 Colindale staff are all newly employed, on zero hours contracts without fixed hours and are paid by the hour. They only get a fixed hours contract after a year’s service. 

“The managers say security is a priority and their operatives should not ride their bikes on the pavement, and that this is  a training issue  for them , but this is a  common occurrence- indeed as I left their building I saw this happening!

“TNT are anxious to hear about problems with their service, so if residents have problems or complaints with undelivered or misdirected mail, or see TNT operatives riding on the pavement or leaving post unlocked and unattended, they should  let me know and I will pass the complaints  on.

“At the end of my lengthy visit and discussion with TNT I was also amazed to hear that TNT had invited Hendon’s Conservative MP to meet them to talk about his concerns, but he failed to respond.  Clearly he is not as worried about TNT’s performance as I am.

“I will be raising the issue of TNT at the next London Assembly Mayor’s Question Time as the Mayor who welcomed Dutch company TNT to the capital must get involved in ensuring the service is delivered properly and securely.”

 
The frankly ludicrous situation described in the press release regarding the devolved chain of contractual arrangements for delivery of the electoral post is a simple demonstration of what goes so horribly wrong when a service is privatised, and standards plummet: a perfect metaphor, in fact, for the reckless gamble our Tory councillors have taken in the massive One Barnet privatisation - you know, the 'change programme' that must not be named, or even referred to, in their own feeble election 'manifesto' for fear of - fear of what, actually? 

If Barnet Tories are so proud of what they have done, pimping our council to Crapita, and laying us out, the living and the dead,  to be screwed by them for every penny of profit, well - why not be out and proud about it? 

Is it because already, as we have seen in the disgraceful Crematorium affair, and the cock ups with council tax, payroll, taxcodes, and the phone lines, residents are beginning to see the real impact of private profit on the local services on which they depend? 

Too toxic a thought to associate with your local Conservative councillor, who approved the whole sell off, without even reading the £1 billion contracts? Best to maintain a discreet silence, in the circumstances.

One Barnet: a love that dare not speak its name, in the run up to election 2014.

It seems an extraordinary thing for the council to refuse to re-issue lost polling cards, in view of the proven failings of the delivery system. But then this election is being overseen by a new Returning Officer, and a new Monitoring Officer, in place of the previously safe hands of Jeff Lustig, who had overseen many elections and whose experience was invaluable. 

That said, there were unforeseen difficulties that arose in the last general and local elections, even under the beady eye of the previous regime - and if there are any issues that arise this time as a result of postal failures or delays in registration, one must hope that the council is held to account. 

If any such issues are identified, presumably there will be formal complaints to the Electoral Commission, and, one would hope, an urgent investigation. 

Indeed, some might feel there should be an investigation before the election.

A great big mess: Tory run Capitaville, two weeks before the election

So: about the election campaign, Councillor Cornelius? All going to plan?

Has your pre-election handout of 23 pence a week for every taxpayer in Broken Barnet done the trick? Are grateful residents rushing up to you in the street and offering you their vote?

Any sign of a Conservative manifesto yet, by the way? No?

It's just that, you know ... people are getting their postal votes and ... it might help, if they knew, when they were making their mark on the ballot paper, what your party stands for, and what you intend to do, in the next four years, should anyone think that you and the rest of your collection of shambling fools who have sold this borough to Capita for a quick buck and a trolleyload of empty promises ought to be rewarded with another chance to shaft us all. 

Let's see. Perhaps Mrs Angry can help. No need for a manifesto, really. Look at the evidence, for example, we have seen over the last few weeks, of Barnet Conservative policy in action.

The two massive contracts with Capita, now referred to so coyly by the Barnet Tory leader as 'the change programme', is of course in fact a billion pound privatisation of every council function that wasn't nailed down in some way - the contract for the CSG services alone came to 8,000 pages, and clearly was not properly scrutinised by the elected members, some of whom have broken ranks with the Barnet tradition of omerta, when it was all too late, and admitted they were given only the most limited, token gesture of access to the agreement.

As part of the DRS/Re contract, it emerged, once a redacted version was published, that our council is contractually obliged to tell the world about the 'success' of the Capita arrangement.

Ah but, Mrs Angry, you will be asking: what if the Capita contracts are ... not a success.

This is an impossibility. The Capita contracts are an act of faith. We place our trust, not in the Lord, but in market forces, and the life of the world to come, in Capitaville. Amen. 

Anyway, we know that the contracts are a success, and saving taxpayers lots and lots of money, because our dear Leader, Richard Cornelius, has said so, and we believe him.

But how, Mrs Angry, can the dear Leader know that the contracts are a success, when they have only just got going, and there have been lots of problems, and any savings cannot be net gains as we have spent more than £80 million in nine months alone, in setting up the outsourcing programme, in order to make £160 million in savings over ten years, and the upfront capital investment of £16 million we were told by the Leader and his fellow Tories was the whole reason for the privatisation has turned out to be not an upfront capital investment at all, but money we will have to pay Capita from ... the savings we may or may not make from the deal?

Ah. 

And let us look at that evidence of the last few weeks, shall we, of how well our Tory councillors are presiding over an administration that brings savings to the taxpayer, whilst maintaining excellent standards of council services? 

An Audit committee meeting which revealed so many serious failings in the management of contracts, not just with Capita, where any issues raised are inevitably dismissed as teething problems, or due to 'historic' causes beyond their control, but with parking contractors NSL, and agency suppliers Comensura.

A school for disabled school children robbed of funding for vital respite care, and told by indifferent Tory councillors to use their reserves to make up the loss. The school is legally unable to use these reserves, and after the matter caused them too much negative publicity, the Tories were forced into a u-turn, and then tried to deflect attention from their own scabrous behaviour by smearing the Labour group which fought to restore the funding.

Yesterday it emerged that the pupils of Mapledown are not the only disabled children designated as the target for Tory cuts. Here in the Barnet Press in we learn that 'Resources for Autism' is losing desperately needed funding, and is expected to remove eight of the 40 children who attend their support schemes as a consequence. 

As Director Lisa Dresner says:

We have to lose these kids. I cannot bear it. They are asking us which children shouldn’t be coming any more, but the real answer is none of them should not be coming any more. Our children will find it very difficult to access other things.
  
Tory leader Richard Cornelius is quoted as saying this scheme, unlike Mapledown, will not be granted a 'reprieve' from his cuts. Well, after all, this is the man who thought the average person in the street would think the Mapledown cuts, in the context of the 23 pence pre-election tax hand out, was perfectly fair.

How many other children's disability charities are paying the price of this election 'gesture', approved by Tory councillors whose enthusiasm for cuts in funding did not prevent them voting themselves big fat rises in their own allowances as soon as they got into power in 2010?

As for the 'success' of the Capita contracts, the One Barnet programme - the 'change programme' ...

Here also in the Press yesterday we find another interesting story about the 'success' - or rather not - of the Capita run payroll and pensions services, which last month underpaid council employees, and in some cases paid them nothing at all, and which in February accidentally put many Barnet pensioners on the highest tax codes, in what one former teacher, a Mrs Renee Kadish, described as 'a great big mess'.

Now Mrs Angry must declare an interest here, Mrs Kadish having known her since she was a mewling baby in a pram, and indeed, Mrs Angry having spent many happy days of her childhood in the Kadish household.

Mrs Angry can confirm that Mrs Kadish is a formidable woman, and a Torygraph reading resident of many years standing, and is not the sort of person to be naturally critical of council policies. Her reaction is, in other words, a good indication of the way in which the Capitalisation of the borough is, like the disastrous parking scheme and other Tory sponsored catastrophes, already raising the political consciousness of otherwise an otherwise complacent electorate. 

And then we have the matter of Hendon Crematorium.

The previous post explained what is happening now that Capita has its grasping hands on the many revenue opportunities offered by the death and bereavement of Barnet residents. 

In yesterday's local Times we read more about the grossly disrespectful move by the company to remove memorial benches that have been sponsored by grieving relatives of those interred in the Crematorium grounds.

The excuses offered for the insensitive disposal of these benches changes with every statement from the council and the Crematorium managers. First we heard that it was necessary due to 'health and safety'. Then, as Mrs Angry reported, it emerged that the notices on many benches explain the removal is due to 'development' or 'further memorialisation'. 

Yesterday we hear they need to 'make changes to the layout' so more people can have memorials. The council tried to claim the decision to take away the benches predates Capita.

Fine: prove it. Let's see when that decision was approved by councillors, and see which of them were involved. Or was it a delegated decision agreed by the Director, Ms Pam Wharfe? Let's see the documentation.

In fact, many of Capita's grubby little plans for extracting profit from our dead relatives is clearly laid out here, in the ludicrously redacted contract - http://www.barnet.gov.uk/downloads/download/1275/schedule_37 …  read from page 163 onwards. You will note that several sections just before this page have been redacted in full - and you may like to wonder why that might be.

God knows what follows is bad enough. 

Mrs Angry draws your attention to the following example of what Capita refers to a 'Monopolistic Market Penetration Growth Idea'. 

This is a form of commercial necrophilia, in truth, in which our loved ones, and our grief, will be targeted for the profiteering pleasure of Capita's shareholders. 

In this specific case, it refers to a whizz of a scheme to corner the market on charging for flowers to be laid (where?) to commemorate your dead relatives.

Opportunity Knocks for Capita:

Making it happen:
  

As you will read, with Capita, 'sensitivity in this area is paramount' ...  but this touching concern for the bereaved appears to have been forgotten fairly soon after the ink from the Tory leader's pen dried on those contracts, as we see from the blundering disposal of the benches.

It is absolutely clear from this example that Capita intend to target bereaved families, and wean them off the most regrettable tendency to want to lay their own tributes to their loved ones, and channel them into the correct mode of behaviour, ie one that will return lots of profit to Capita. 

Whether it is flowers, or benches, or any other way in which they can interfere with the mourning of the deceased and screw some money out of it, they are likely to have a go. 

Read the rest of the proposal, and see for yourself. Capita and our Tory councillors will defend this marketing as offering a service - you may take the view that it is simply an excuse for marketing something that should never be subject to commercial exploitation - the loss of someone you love.

Well, outsourcing the dead is the logical conclusion to the Tory agenda of profit before people, just as taking vital funding from disabled children in order to pay for an election 'gesture' is, in the eyes of Richard Cornelius and his colleagues, perfectly acceptable.

No need for a Tory manifesto, Councillor Cornelius, in fact - the record of the last four years, and the evidence of our own eyes since you signed those contracts is explanation enough of what is to come, if you return to power.

This is Capitaville, and this is Broken Barnet, May 2014.

Two weeks to polling day, and a chance to wrest power from the hands of this lunatic Tory council and their profiteering friends. The consequences should we fail to remove them, and to regain control of the democratic process are plain enough to see. 

You know what to do, then, don't you?

In Memoriam - at a price: welcome to Easycrem ... Capita's money making plans for Hendon Crematorium begin

Gone and now to be forgotten - memorial benches at Hendon Crematorium, dumped by Capita

*Updated 8th May with video: see below

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,

         Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

         They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,

         Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,

         
        Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

The need to mark the ending of a life is an instinct common to all traditions, all cultures, and all periods of history. 

Usually the privilege of a permanent memorial is reserved for those with means, of course, and for those less well placed in life, in death too, their memory is less likely to be given the honour of remembrance in any material form. 

It is only relatively recently that the families of ordinary working people could afford to erect headstones for departed relatives, and the increase in use of cremation means that memorials are now likely to be in the form of plaques or other tokens of tribute, and grief.

Many residents in Barnet have family members laid to rest in Hendon Crematorium. 

They may be interred with a headstone, or their ashes may have been scattered there. 

If the latter, it is likely that the families have marked their passing with a plaque or perhaps a memorial bench. 

It is no doubt the case that when these arrangements were made, it was on the understanding that this was a permanent act of memorial.  

If so, the families of those remembered in this way are mistaken, and many of them face the deeply distressing possibility that they will come to the Crematorium grounds to mark an anniversary, or simply to grieve for their loss, and find that the bench has simply disappeared.

We know this because of a short article in the local Times paper this week, in which it was revealed that any benches deemed to have been 'abandoned' will be removed from the grounds. According to the council this is on the grounds of 'health and safety', as many of these memorial items are breaching regulations because they are 'broken, have mould growing on them, or are in a state of disrepair'.
 
Memorials manager David Aspiris said: “We are concerned some people might visit once a year on anniversaries so we’re making a note of that and keeping the benches in good condition safe. 

We can’t say how long they’ll be kept for – I’ve got absolutely no idea – it depends on how much storage we’ve got.

But those which aren’t maintained are clearly not safe, and if something happens health and safety wise, it will be on our shoulders.” 

On their shoulders. 

Of course there are many thousands of instances every year of death and serious injury resulting from grieving relatives sitting on a bench in a memorial garden, and Mr Aspiris and his colleagues are quite right to interfere in this way. 

If only these benches had been maintained to a standard that reaches the level of safety that would allow the memorials to remain. Oh: hang on - why have these benches not been maintained, anyway?

In fact, why has the Crematorium, its incinerators, and its grounds, been neglected, over so many years, by our Tory council?

Why was the Crematorium added, at the last moment, to the DRS/ Re contract, as a 'sweetener' - an inducement to increase the sweaty palmed desires of companies bidding for the business?

Why did our supposedly cash strapped council vote to award £2 million to the Crematorium for improvements, as soon as they had agreed to add it to the tender, having deliberately underinvested in it for so many years?

Who won the contract, Mrs Angry, you may be wondering?

Let me remind you.

CAPITA.

Why was the addition of the Crematorium such a deal breaker?

Because in this world, as we know, the only certainties are death, and taxes, and a Capita run Easycrem can make great fat wads of cash from both sources, if given a free reign, and now that Broken Barnet is transformed into Capitaville, that is exactly what the company has: free reign, and a licence to print money. 

As explained in this post: 

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-loved-ones-or-processing-of.html

... there is a business plan ready and waiting to be put into action, so as to maximise the level of profit that Capita can extract from our deceased relatives, and our grief.

Of course, the council has already approved increased charges for burials and other related services. But the new plans by Capita? These, as the contract makes clear - if you bother to read it, which our Tory councillors did not - include having more funerals, quicker funerals, floodlit funerals, live streamed funerals, funeral dvds. They will provide services like flower tributes, after marketing them 'sensitively' to the bereaved. 

And, as one strongly suspects, the sudden interest in removing memorial benches is part of a wider scheme, to charge families for such forms of remembrance, or probably for 'maintenance'.

Time to make a visit to the Crematorium, and check what was happening.

This is not a place I like to visit, for one very good reason, a personal reason. 

When my own mother died, due to a 'misunderstanding' between the undertakers, and the Crematorium, her ashes were scattered, without our consent, in the 'Garden of Remembrance', rather than kept for collection and taken to the Catholic churchyard in Durham where most of my grandmother's family are buried, since they came over from Ireland.

This 'administrative mistake' (pre-Capita) caused me deep distress, and boy, would my mother have been furious. After it happened, I made a visit to the memorial garden, and sat there in tears, on one of the benches, for a long while. It is of course, the sort of place where people do sit, in tears, for a long while.

Yesterday I went there again, reluctantly, as it makes me feel so guilty. I had rung the Crematorium office in the morning to enquire about other relatives interred there, and a very helpful woman had produced a list of their known locations, and took my details, in case, as I had pointed out, there were any attempts to do anything which might affect their remains, or memorials. In the end, it transpired there are no memorials to remove - or so it seems.

Again I sat by the 'garden', and eventually became aware that there were a large number of benches around the edges -some with floral tributes, or cards, or personal items - and they all had laminated notices on them. The distribution of these notices in itself is grossly insensitive, in my view, and intrusive.

Walking around it became clear that these benches are most certainly not in a dangerous condition, nor very old, and the tributes left on many of them are relatively recent.

Normally I would not publish personal details, but in this case I think that the relatives of these benches ought to be alerted -this has a plaque for an Arthur and ?Ena Fitzgerald:

You can see that this bench still has a card from a grandchild, and other rather touching offerings tied to it. Other benches have photos, or religious material - this one below, with a prayer offering from Knock, for Mark and Sadie May, from the Mahon family:

None of these benches are in need of anything other than sanding down and a coat of varnish. Some of them were quite new looking, and it was impossible to see any argument for removing them: 

The 'mould' referred to in the article on some of the older benches is actually lichen, and perfectly acceptable, indeed an indication of the ecological value of the surroundings, an area fringed with old trees, and with a tiny brook running through it. The variety of birds in the quieter parts of the grounds speaks of the importance of maintaining the site in its natural state: what chance of that, though, post Capita? Remember that they intend to have the Crematorium grounds listed as an 'open space' - an ominous warning of what is to come.

The notice which is left on these benches claims they have been 'identified' for removal due to the 'development of this area for further memorialisation'. It says nothing about their state of repair, and it would suggest very strongly that these benches are being removed on a false pretext, and in order to facilitate Capita's own ambitions for income generation. No doubt they will try to impose charges for replacements, and maintenance. Why not? That's how they make profit for their shareholders.

The dead have always been a valuable commodity, of course. 

In the early nineteenth century, the risk of graverobbing by 'resurrection men', who made their living selling corpses for anatomisation by medical schools, was a real fear amongst the bereaved, with some graveyards driven to hire full time watchmen. 

Now we have private companies like Capita, at the invitation of our Tory councillors, preying on the opportunities offered by their lucrative new contract. 

From Easycouncil to Easycrem: the logical conclusion, after all.

I'd known my grandfather Charles, who died during the war, was interred at Hendon, but I had imagined he would have been cremated, like everyone else in the family. But records showed he was buried, in a plot located in a far corner of the grounds. 

The woman in the office had helpfully pointed out, giving me a rather disconcerting look, that my grandfather was seven foot under, and there was room for another burial. Clearly she had no idea I already have the promise of a blogger's discounted pre-used grave, written into the Capita contract.

It was a long walk to find my grandfather's burial place, trailing along a rather melancholy route,  through the Chinese and Greek sections - the benches there considerably older, but noticeably not festooned with threatening notices.

Impossible to tell which of the unmarked graves is his, only within a small area, right by the far edge, beautifully left to its own devices,  surrounded by ancient oaks, watched only by a large crow, sitting on one of the headstones. I stood in the late afternoon sunlight, suddenly touched by the proximity to a grandfather who died long before I was born, and spent most of his life away from home, at sea, a virtual stranger to his own children, and never known by any of his grandchildren.

A tranquil place, as yet untouched by the grasping intrusion of Capita's development plans, and only spoilt by the PA noise wafting across from that other corporate giveaway, the rugby stadium given to Saracens by our Tory leader, at a peppercorn rent, while they clean up with a sponsorship deal from the former Nazi supporting Allianz insurance company.

Et in arcadia ego.

No record of my grandmother's memorial, nothing for my aunt, or my uncle, or my great uncle Percy, who died after being gassed in the trenches of the first world war: disappeared without trace. 

Does it matter, leaving no trace? 

I think so. That's why I put a headstone for both my parents, and all the other members of my family who have no other memorial, up in that churchyard in Durham. My father's ashes I scattered partly there, and partly in Cornwall, in a place of significance to him. His own garden of remembrance, unsullied by the hands of Capita. When I pass through there, I rejoice in the fact that now he is part of the landscape he loved so much, in the wild, and free. But his name is recorded elsewhere.

When someone dies, you need somewhere to go, to mark your loss, and remember their lives. 

Otherwise, what are we, once we are gone? A name in a ledger, forgotten. 

And if for some people, their way of marking their loss is a fading card, or some artificial flowers tied to a bench, who has the right to remove that? 

As I left the Crematorium, I turned left out of the entrance - and something caught my eye, while I was regarding the delapidated state of the original Gatehouse and offices. A hole in the fence, and then - a curious sight, captured in the photograph at the beginning of this post. 

A hoard of hijacked memorial benches, at least a couple of dozen of them, stashed in a dark corner, some with plaques still visible, and still displaying tokens from family members. 

This is where memorial benches go to die, in Capitaville: held to ransom, and then quietly disposed of, if no one pays the price.

And here, in perfect form, we have a metaphor of everything that is wrong, in Broken Barnet: a devolution of responsiblity to the private sector, where everything has a price, if it must survive.

This is how we live now, in this borough, thanks to the Tory administration which brokered the billion pound contracts with Capita, and used my dead grandmother, and grandfather, and mother, and maybe yours too, to seal the deal.

If you think you have relatives buried or remembered here, you are advised to phone the Crapitorium and make sure they respect the last resting place or memorial of your loved ones: 020 8359 3370.

Oh, if you have problems getting through, as I did ... the phone lines? Also run by Capita. 

And if you are not happy about the use of your family members to boost Capita's dividends for its shareholders, you know what to do, don't you?

Don't vote for the same Tory council, on May 22nd. Vote for a Labour administration, and hope for a better future, and a past that is honoured, and remembered, rather than exploited for the last penny of profit.

*Updated 8th May:

Here is a press release from Barnet Alliance, followed by a brilliant musical tribute to Capitaville, with footage filmed this weekend in the Crematorium, sung by an enthusiastic choir of residents including the marvellous John Sullivan - Selling our souls to Capita:

 

Barnet Alliance for Public Services

How crass, how insensitive, how money-grubbing does an organisation have to be before the press will expose it?  Capita’s heartless removal of memorial benches from Hendon Crematorium is another outrage of privatisation that deserves more than a bland notice in the online local press. 

Barnet Alliance for Public Services has fought against Barnet Council’s ‘One Barnet’ programme because it recognised that private companies put their profits before the people’s interests. Bad enough when our Conservative council resorts to outsourcing services for the most vulnerable people in the community to enable private companies to make bigger profits out of care, but can the current councillors sink any lower than allowing Capita to squeeze extra profits out of grieving families? 

The facts have been presented in the Broken Barnet blog by Mrs Angry and the Barnet Eye blog by Roger Tichborne, both well known in Barnet. But Capita is a national, indeed a multinational, company, and people throughout the country should be made aware of its principles, its lack of ethics, its callous attitude. This is what you get when you privatise council services.

We are two weeks away from local elections on 22 May and people should be shown what will happen if they return Tories to power in local government.

This issue, a striking example of how services to residents will be run when privatised, is also highlighted in this video. The song, performed by resident John Sullivan and the Barnet People's Choir, is about the £16 million that Barnet Council told residents Capita was investing in the borough's IT systems … when in fact the council was actually giving Capita £16 million of taxpayers’ money for this purpose.

Mr Cameron sees Barnet as a flagship borough, spending taxpayers’ money to line shareholders’ pockets. The facts are easily available. The question is will Barnet residents allow this to continue, or will they use their vote to change their fate?