Local peoples’ encounters with Newham’s Co-create website has been less than warm, with the vast majority of Queen’s Market users preferring to keep well away from it.
What we’ve found so far from the Newham Co-create website:
- There is no safeguarding against people making rude comments about important community assets.
- The Council and their chosen consultants are not transparent on how the data they collect will feed into the entire consultation process.
- There are people who have worked for, are employees of, friends of or associated with Newham Council, so clearly the process is not an accurate reflection of real users of the market.
- There’s lots of confusion between the different working groups eg. Good Growth, Capacity and Viability, Green Street and Hamara Ghar. We feel this is a “cluster of attacks” on our community.
- There are no standard procedures, for example when one person left a working group they were not allowed onto another easily. Meanwhile we’ve heard of at least 2 Council’s “yes” people have been allowed onto multiple working groups.
- The process of who is chosen and who is left out is not clear – many market users feel aggrieved that they cannot have a say in the future of their local area because of rules like distance from the market, number of shoppers allowed or BAME women… market users from outside of the borough are not considered adequately either.
- The vast majority of local people are being digitally excluded simply for not being able to access online services. This process excludes many disabled, elderly and hard of hearing or less literate.
- Our communities have lots of other priorities like bringing up and feeding families, yet the community is seen as a ‘free’ resource while private consultants get paid from the public pocket. We think this is unethical.
- Time lines and events lists are unclear and keep changing on the Newham Co-create website.
- Too complicated – many local people have said that the language used is jargon and hard to understand, thus misleading.
Tell us your experience: one of the FoQM volunteers is interested in tracking the Council’s consultation process and how Newham’s diverse communities encounter it. Email friendsofqueensmarket@yahoo.co.uk to let them know about your experience of Newham Co-create so far.
LINK to Newham Co-create: https://newhamco-create.co.uk/
To promote and preserve a thriving publicly-owned historic street market 