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Thursday lunchtime Caroline and I were joined by LandAid Chairman Robin Broadhurst and Trustee Suzanne Avery at Circle Sports, Hackney. With all the buzz around vibrant creative businesses and pop-up food experiences in Hackney, it can be easy to forget that it still remains one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK and its young people can have a hard time getting into employment.
This week (3 - 7 November) is National Pro Bono Week, which celebrates the free legal advice given by law firms to communities across the UK. LandAid launched its own pro bono programme in July this year. While the legal profession has a long tradition of giving pro bono advice, it is not as established in other parts of the property industry.
Yesterday saw the start of Living Wage Week, the annual UK-wide campaign organised by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF). The occasion was marked with a widely-publicised rise in the UK and London Living Wage rates for 2014-15 to £7.85 and £9.15 per hour respectively. This, the LFW hopes, will in principle improve the take home pay of 35,000 low-paid workers who are employed by over 1,000 Living Wage supporting organisations.
Today is LandAid Day, the annual day of fundraising where the UK property and construction sectors unite to do something amazing for disadvantaged children and young people. Across the UK, over 50 companies will show their commitment to our cause by getting active or doing something serious, silly and selfless to fundraise for LandAid.
Figures released by the Campaign to End Child Poverty yesterday paint a bleak picture, particularly for London's children. Our capital, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world, officially contains the highest child poverty rates in the UK. Ten London constituencies hold this unfortunate accolade. Bethnal Green and Bow, which has 49% children in poverty, is the highest in the country. The leafy environs of well-heeled Wimbledon, Twickenham and Richmond Park each have 15%. That's one child in seven.
Last Thursday, Russell Brand brought the public's attention to the Focus E15 occupation in Newham. A group of women and their babies were living illegally in flats earmarked for demolition after spending cuts meant their hostel was forced to close leaving the women to be rehoused outside of London, away from families and friends.
Things are warming up nicely for LandAid Day 2014, with some great fundraising ideas hitting our inboxes over the past week or so.
On Monday 22 September, officially the last day of summer, I accompanied LandAid chairman Robin Broadhurst on a visit to an unusually sunny North East, to see first-hand the positive changes that LandAid funding has brought to two Newcastle projects. First on the day's agenda was a trip to the YMCA in Walker, where Robin had been invited to officially open a refurbished premises on Welbeck Road.
Here at LandAid Towers we're gearing up for the next big event in the property industry calendar: Construction Rocks. Neatly sandwiched between the London TowerAthlon and LandAid Day, the construction industry's Monsters of Rock will return to Waterloo Vaults on the evening of 9 October.
