File:The Laurels & Turners Court.jpg

English: 5 March 2011. The Laurels Healthy Living Centre is on the ground floor below some of the flats in Turners Court, St Ann's Road, London N15.

One of a group of linked photos to support local residents in their opposition to a planning application for a 100 hours pharmacy at the Health Centre. The application was made by the Bridge Renewal Trust - a mainly publicly-funded local quango. (See note below.)

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§ Click on the map (top-right of the page) to see where this picture was taken. § For the planning application and objections posted on Haringey's website please click here.

§ Website of the Bridge Renewal Trust. (BRT) (N.B. Grammatical errors in the quotations below from the BRT website are as in the original text.)

In March 2011 the BRT's website includes their "Vision". It was very high-flown stuff. And full of positive aspirations. Four "Aims" were especially interesting. (Shown below in bold. My own comments are in italics.)

1: "To make it easy for local people to influence, access and use local services." (My Comment: Though until March 2011 this had not included its upstairs neighbours.)

2. "To ensure local services are integrated and relevant to local needs." (My comment: Which made it very odd that they were pressing ahead with a new pharmacy even though the Pharmaceutical Committee of the Primary Care Trust (PCT) had said there was no need for one.)

3. "To act as a delivery catalyst to supplement and support our partners provide effective, responsive and innovative health and social services". (My comment: It's unclear who these "partners" are. Apparently not the PCT. Nor the neighbours. Nor the Residents' Associations in the area who lodged objections to the 100 hour pharmacy. And not the existing pharmacists in the area who also objected. Perhaps they were worried about competition? As well they might, given that they run commercial businesses. But without unfair state-subsidised competition from a trust with public grants for premises and salaries.)

4. "To represent the voices of our communities in building optimum service delivery that impact positively on the wider determinants of health including housing, environment, crime and employment". (My comment: Judging by the comments of residents, residents' associations and others who posted online objections to the 100 hour-a-week pharmacy, the BRT had then convinced many of its neighbours that the exact opposite was the case. )

§ The Bridge Renewal Trust (BRT) is the so-called "successor body" to the Bridge NDC [New Deal for Communities]. The NDC was a ten-year project in South Tottenham funded by the (then) Labour Government. It officially closed on 31 March 2011 and its remaining funds and assets were transferred to the BRT - a new quango. The BRT is a company limited by guarantee and registered as a charity.

§ Quango: Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization.