The shadow of Canary Wharf

Here, in the shadow of Canary Wharf, the borough of Poplar and Limehouse, where these photos were taken, the percentage not being paid at least the London living wage is apparently 5.6%, the lowest in Britain. And that's a figure from the TUC.

So is this hooray for the benefits of trickle down wealth? Or is there some other way of interpreting this figure?

Last month, the TUC published a report on the UK's pay blackspots.  The link is to a Guardian report that highlights two of the very worst places in the UK for pay - and they happen to be just outside the North Circular Road. In the suburban London districts of  Harrow West (home to Harrow school) and in Chingford & Woodford Green (represented in Parliament by none other than Ian Duncan Smith), the percentage of working people paid less than the London Living Wage is greater than 42%.

I made a separate trip to Chingford and Woodford Green to find out what is going on there, but how are we to explain the low figure of 5.6% of people paid below the Living Wage in Poplar and Limehouse?

Well, that's 5.6% of the people EMPLOYED in Poplar and Limehouse not 5.6% of the people who live there. You see, dumped in Poplar and Limehouse are the towers of Canary Wharf. While some 95,000 LIVE in Poplar and Limehouse, over 105,000 people WORK in Canary Wharf.

Looking at my photographs of the working class estates of Poplar just in front of those towers, how many people living there do you think may actually work in Canary Wharf? Well a sure sign of that number being low is that I could actually move from my Brighton home into one of the flats seen in these images. Your average Canary Wharf worker may like the idea of a 10 minute stroll to wotk, but they do not want to do it from Poplar. Only a tiny percentage of those occupying those towers will be living in Poplar and Limehouse.

10 minutes to a different world...

As a related diversion, look what was written on the Living Wage in this issue of the Evening Standard....

"Despite London's economic boom, the recovery is not being enjoyed by all Londoners: low pay remains a significant problem. What is more surprising is the fact that pay rises are higher, on average, outside the capital. New figures show that over the past three years, pay here has risen by only half as much as in some regions."

That was a leading article on "Low-pay London" in the same newspaper on that same day. The leader finished "The capital's economy is booming again: low paid Londoners deserve their share." The Evening Standard wants London businesses to adopt a minimum Living Wage of £8.80 per hour.

But out there where it matters there is no sign of London businesses accepting a wage above the very minimum they can get away with - £6.31 per hour. There is no uplift on the national UK minimum wage for jobs in London.

This year the London Assembly published "Fair Pay: Making the London Living Wage the norm" quoting Boris Johnson as saying "I want the London Living Wage to be the norm in London.". The document is full of good intentions but unless legislated for, by making the Living Wage the Minimum Wage, this will never happen.

When London Transport outsources its cleaning work to companies that pay Tube cleaning staff less than the Living Wage, making those staff pay for transport to get to work (and travel between locations!) you just know that these words are just more populist entertainment from the Mayor.

A day out in Chingford and Woodford Green

Two facts:
1) This is a rock solid Conservative constituency, the domain of Ian Duncan Smith
2) This constituency has the biggest concentration of people being paid under the living wage in London, at 43% the second worst such 'blackspot' for low pay in the whole of the UK

Does that make any sense? I had to go to have a look.

A stroll around the Monkhams ward in Woodford Green left me in no doubt why this should be a rock solid Conservative seat.

Woodford Green Broadway - in colour

Monkhams Avenue - a fondness for mock-tudor hereabouts

Whoever was in the car had their audio at full volume. They spotted me taking the picture - and immediately turned it off

Neat gardens on Monkhams Avenue

Monkhams Avenue - Mock-Tudor and grand columns clash...

If the images look a bit Instagramish then it's because those are phone pics. Here are some proper black and white film images from my Pentax:

Woodford Green Broadway - this time in monochrome

The picturesque-in-all-but-name Potato Pond

Walking across the southerly splinter of Epping Forest that separates Chingford from Woodford Green is like entering a different world.

Chingford Golf Course is between Chingford and Woodford

It seems that Chingford is the natural home of the 'hard working family' beloved by Ian Duncan Smith. Perhaps, just as over the years the LGBT community and assorted slackers (like myself) have congregated in Brighton, people who want to own their own homes and are prepared to work long hours at low wages to achieve that end have assembled in Chingford. With Norman Tebbit as the previous MP for Chingford and Winston Churchill as a predecessor, perhaps an effect of having all these high profile names as incumbent MPs has been to attract more of the 'right sort' into the area.

Typical Chingford terrace - no doubt ex-council

Walking the Pomeranian

Typical Chingford semis

I am guessing that Chingford might be home to quite a few cabbies

No, not THE Guardian! But there was one on the shelf besides the towering Daily Mails

Take your shades to the Chingford United Services Club this Saturday.

Bread Pudding from Greggs, Station Road, Chingford

Spending cuts hitting hard.

Winston Churchill, bottom left. He was MP for Epping when Chingford was part of that constituency but will not have stepped foot in this hall.

End of the line - Chingford Railway Station

So why on earth, given these neat streets and what is a mecca for owner-occupation, does Chingford and Woodford Green pay its workers such lowly rates?

Well, many people living here clearly are very well paid. People getting on the train to their jobs in the City just half an hour away would escape local consideration contributing to the City statistic instead. I am guessing that there are a lot of self-employed in the area which would also take a lot of people out of the equation.

But for those self-employed that are themselves local employers, I suspect that many would be favourably disposed to the abolition of the minimum wage - they would laugh at the idea of paying the living wage. There may also be a tendency for the conservative elements (small c) to accept their lot and avoid organised labour, keeping local wages down.

Visiting a place like this makes me wonder whether the TUC low pay 'blackspots' have any relevance.  Once they once might have, but with people living in dormitory towns to go to their well paid jobs elsewhere perhaps it is far more valid to look at such statistics on a regional basis. But the TUC report and this Guardian article majored on the local statistics, perhaps for the very reason that they produce uncomfortable numbers.

Other curious details from my day in Chingford and Woodford Green:

 

There are very few pubs - I saw two in Woodford Green

The second was on Mill Lane - the Rose and Crown - after walking past this I saw none at all in Chingford

A real Post Office in Woodford Green - the main office in Brighton is downstairs in WH Smiths...

On Chingford Lane in Woodford, real council housing? Unlikely, but proper clothes lines and in the front garden too..

Finally, to underline this is big car territory, it was very difficult to cross the road - fences in the middle and on either side of the A104, Woodford New Road meant I had to walk a large distance before eventually finding a pelican pedestrian crossing to cross this single carriageway road. Here I had the longest wait I can remember for the green man to come up. Yes, it's different in Brighton with our dirty scraggy streets, but it does not take too long to cross them to get to the inevitable choice of pubs.

Final question. Could I afford to move to Woodford Green? Fat chance. Chingford, obviously ex-council - but this looks sweet http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43802815.html?premiumA=true

Chingford

Today I am off to Chingford and Woodford Green, a place just outside the north western corridor of the North Circular Road.

A place in love with Norman Tebbit and Ian Duncan Smith, and curiously a place where 43% of people are paid below the living wage (for London it's £8.80 per hour), the second worst such blackspot for low pay in the whole of the UK.

What awaits me in this, surely the ultimate stronghold of the Tory working class?