James Asser
My name is James Asser I’m a councillor for The London Borough of Newham. I’m the cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainable Transport and I’m also, for the last year, the Deputy Mayor
Can you tell us more about your connection with Rosetta?
To be honest I don’t have a huge collection with Rosetta other than the fact I’m in the borough and aware of them. It’s not an organisation I’ve worked with. I know some of my colleagues are very involved, but I’m aware of them because of their kind of great history and their huge involvements, so I’m on the sort of newbie side of things rather than the kind of long-standing friend, but when I was asked, I was very keen to kind of help out because I think, you know, it’s really important to support local projects and when they’re celebrating an anniversary there’s a kind of sense of a moment of being able to look back and being able to come to talk to someone and kind of give that support and celebrate with them, and then look and help them do the next 30 years, or whatever, the next distance is. It’s hugely important so I was really pleased to be able to help.
When did you kind of come across them?
I mean, I suppose, I’ve been aware of them since I’ve been involved in kind of politics and lectures here because they have a name of it is recognised and I sort of looked up the history in the background, and it’s a kind of similar story lots of things. I think he’s in East London thing where there is lots of need for kind of additional projects and support, whether that is art or education and somebody has a good idea and set something up are keen to kind of add to the kind of the diversity and the support there is and the opportunities there are in at this part of the world and clearly that’s, that’s the kind of kind of history or tradition. I think it fits in a kind of wider the East London tradition which goes back a long long time and I think there’s something rather nice about that. It might be a 30th anniversary, but if you go back there are similar projects and similar people trying to do similar aims and achievements and that’s something we celebrating itself ; that kind of community spirit that kind of has traditionally survived an existed and continues to evolve and develop no matter what communities come in and we see, you know, it changes all the time in this part of the world of there is a kind of constant thread of that kind of spirit of community and I think this is part of it.
How long have you been involved?
So, I’ve been I was elected as a councillor in 2018. I’ve lived in Newham since 2012. I can remember what I moved in because it was nice and easy. I moved n between the Olympics and the Paralympics. I’ve managed to move opposite the Excel, so as it was a huge Olympic venue I decided if I go in the gap between the two, I might actually have to get the removal van in there. I wasn’t entirely convincible the security, so there’s a distinct memory so I’ve been here 11 years, so I’m much, one of the newer people in the borough .I’ve never my family traditionally come from East London around Hackney into our Tower Hamlets way so I’ve sort of ended up where they started so to speak.
Talk about changes that have taken place since you have been here.
Over the last decade or so have been huge and a number of things. I mean I was trustee of a small mental health charity which ended up folding because of cuts and I think. you know, you see we know we hear a lot about the public sector and the huge pressure that has faced over the austerity years, but that has a huge knock on effect on the kind of voluntary and charity sectors too who were delivering lots of stuff on a local level for the local government supporting the community.
Thathas become much harder. A lot of places of struggled to survive and have to scale down what they do, so to see someone celebrate their 30th anniversary having survived, you know, third of that under the kind of you know the type of conditions, I think it is a great achievement in itself, but there have been huge changes. I think this is an interesting place Newham. I mean, that it constantly is evolving and now we’re seeing the kind of huge development of those areas of the Old Docklands are starting to be developed, you know there’s new people coming in. There’s a constant change. The East End has a history of, kind of, immigrant communities. People coming in, they grow, they develop, they move on. You see constant change. We’re seeing that over the last few years more Eastern European country communities are coming in. You know, we’ve now have one of the biggest Lithuanian Communities and one of the biggest Ukrainian communities, and there’s a constant evolution, and we’re doing a lot more with those communities and as you see, new kinds of traditions coming often in the arts. We were doing previously dance and food and cultures coming in. That blend will go into the Newham pot and enhance it and add to it in the way the communities before have. So, there’s a constant change and evolution as a constant growth and with the growth of Newham as well fast becoming heading towards being the largest populated borough in London, I think you’re gonna see huge numbers of people and there’s going to be increased demand for us to kind of bundle all together and make use of kind of charities and Arts organizations and hopefully we’ll see them grow and certainly around the docks as we’ve seen a lot of arts base projects building up and growing that’s got to be good for good for the community because there is always a demand for that and a need is probably a food word.
What is the role of art and culture?
Arts can seem something, somewhere far away and as we know, we’re often it’s grassroots stuff. It’s things that’s are going on in the community and that, that sense of it’s not for me were the words how used and have connotations which perhaps don’t necessarily know. I used to work for the TUC the Trade Union Congress in a section called Union Learn, which was about getting people back into education and often it was people who had left school with no qualifications or people who couldn’t read and write, and the big challenge was these were people who’ve got a missed even in the workplace or adult education because it was scary it’s horrible memories end was at school you know the HR department of training organisations it felt formal. We got them in because we would like had education stewards, like we had shop it, it stewards. If someone would do because it was someone knew and trusted they trusted. The trick was just to get them back in the classroom; it didn’t matter what they were doing, you know you’re interested in flowers, come and do a flower arranging course one evening. Once they’ve got through the classroom that cover stigma has gone. They’re in and you the world opens up all these other opportunities, so I think actually what you call it how you present it, whatever it takes to get people through the door, because once they’re in, they’re involved in it and we saw, you know, people who are 60s who couldn’t read or write, you know, I remember we saw somebody ,a guy who started as a cleaner in the bus station that went on to manage the bus station because he was able to progress. Having three nights at progress and that’s what we want to achieve I vividly remember speaking to a woman in her 60s who had been taught to read the door and she was n was a cleaner and I said what are you looking for, she said I love my job ,absolutely love being cleaner, it’s what I love what I enjoy doing. I said why have you done this then and she said so I can read my grandchild a bedtime story.
I doesn’t have to be massive dreams it can be something that just enhances your personal life and then I think it’s important to get people in, but I think the point about mental health issues over the last 10 years and stress has been particularly enhanced and exacerbated by the pandemic. You know, that period of losing contact, being locked in and everything turned upside down, has really shaken people’s eyes. We all feel it in different ways and I think some of the cultural stuff, where we call it art or cultural, or whatever it might be, just on a local level allows people to kind of reconnect with communities, find new things that will help support them, you know, with stressful busy lives. Just finding that one thing that you can turn your brain off from just have an hour you enjoy it and kind of relax, it’s usually important ,and I think local community projects like this are key to that. Some people may go onto other things and others, it may just be they get to meet somebody and make some friends and I think it should be whatever the person wants to take from it is the key thing to make it successful .
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I think too often education has become about getting a job, getting a qualification. There is a value in just learning stuff and learning it for pleasure. It’s a bit like picking up a book or a magazine to read something just because you’re interested in what it is. The journey is often as important as the outcome. For many people there isn’t an outcome, it’s just something they can do and something that will enhance their life and I think that too often it is not recognised.
Is there something else you might want to talk about, like the future?
So a lot of my work relates, is around the environmental stuff, so doing a lot suff with parks and outdoor things, and we’ve seen a huge growth an interest in that, so we’ve got Forest Schools popping up and walking groups, and lots of things,dog walking groups and all these things kind of feeding, and I’m going to see a dog walking group soon where they’ve just they do foraging and make jam because they found an area, we did an Orchard that while ago and actually turns out everyone who is our street now picks the fruit and makes things from it which we kind of didn’t expect. So for me, for the work I’m doing, I’m really keen to see more people getting outside. We’re trying to invest as a council in our parks and green spaces from just making the parts better and putting more investment into the things that wildflower planting. Enhance around a roundabout here, enhance a corridor there, just give people small things. I think it’s like the art stuff we talk about. It can be big projects like the Green Way which we’re spending a lot of money to a enhance it. It can just be a small community thing. We’re offering up grants for community projects. One of the thighs we’ve seen is a
huge demand for environmental projects, so I think lots of people are doing the culture side of arts which is outdoors, and so I’m really keen to help push that forward. I think long-term what we all need to see is at kind of end to this endless cutting all the time, this endless austerity tall the time that we’ve seen for the last 13/ 14 years and a move to where we can support and come see the value of things rather just cost of them. Lots of councils make
like hugely frustrating decisions, but it’s the things that perhaps aren’t seen as core that actually really enhance the community project. That Garden Club, the Walking Club, the Arts centre on the corner. Those are things that make a community. This is where we started, particularly for East London community has been hugely important. We risk tampering at our cost because we would lose something that has made the place what it is. So I’ve been keen to see us I think everyone would, have to kind of resources to be able to really kind of boost the kind of Arts culture, craft, however, we’re going to define it sector community sector in a stronger way than we have done in recent times.
