Is Stephen Grrenhalgh the "well off" mate of Boris Johnson and David Cameron a fit person to be promoted in this way?

Mayor's ally takes new role as 'council estate champion'
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor
12 Dec 2011
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David Cameron's favourite London town hall chief is to quit to become a champion for one of the capital's most deprived housing estates.

Stephen Greenhalgh, who has led Hammersmith and Fulham council for five years and is close to Boris Johnson, wants to help channel Whitehall and local authority funds to the White City Estate in Shepherd's Bush.

He said: "White City has been a huge disappointment over a long period of time in terms of money that has been spent. For example, Westfield opened in the area with 8,000 new jobs and very few of them went locally.

"Nearly £70 million of taxpayers' funds - or £17,000 per household - is spent in this area every year. Despite this, unemployment is twice the borough average, the area has high levels of overcrowding, relatively low educational attainment and relatively high levels of crime." Commentators said the move could lead to similar projects being set up around London.

Mr Greenhalgh said he would work with neighbourhood forums, residents' groups and businesses to decide how the money should be spent. Funding would be pooled and he also wants to appoint a "neighbourhood commissioner" to help tackle crime.

Mr Greenhalgh will step down from the council leadership in May but will carry on as a back-bench councillor.

In 2009, he was accused of planning a "social cleansing" programme of replacing White City council housing with private homes. Today Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, said: "Stephen Greenhalgh has a real obsession with housing estates. If he can't knock down or get developers to disperse them he's now saying 'can I go in myself and sort it out.'"
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Your piece is dated 12 December 2011. Today is 01 January 2012. And I am probably the first person to post a comment on this. What des that say abut the state of interest in deprivation funding and the myth that Big Biasness brings benefits to the local areas it imposes itself on? The "diagnosis" you attribute to the subject of your item could very well apply to Tower Hamlets. Newham, Hackney, Southwark, Lewisham, Lambeth and Islington. Poverty creation is alive and kicking across inner London. No holder of the elected post has been within a million miles of confessing to their role in this disaster. The role I speak of is in their failure, inability and negligence on the entire range of events in the chain of corruption around the degeneration funding that has been going on in one form or another in inner cities for the past 40 years. Your piece contains no evidence that the Cameron-endorsed and Boris Johnson-proximate Stephen Greenhalgh himself knows the answer. His appointment and the EVENING STANDARD's prominent reporting of it has more to do with propaganda than with the addressing of the problem of poverty creation in London via local councils.

- Muhammad Haque, London UK, 01/01/2012 14:58