title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: From 1956, with the Housing Subsidy Act 1956 the government subsidy was restricted to only new houses built to replace those removed by slum clearance, and more money was given to tower blocks higher than six stories. With this subsidy, neighbourhoods throughout the country were demolished and rebuilt as mixed estates with low and high-rise building.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: At the same time the rising influence of modernist architecture, the development of new cheaper construction techniques, such as system building (a form of prefabrication), and a growing desire by many towns and cities to retain population (and thus rental income and local rates) within their own boundaries (rather than "export" people to New Towns and "out of boundary" peripheral estates) led to this model being adopted; abandoned inner-city areas were demolished, and estates of high-rise apartments blocks proliferated on vacant sites. Whole working class communities were scattered, and the tenants either relocated themselves to neighbouring overcrowded properties or became isolated away from friends in flats and houses, on estates without infrastructure or a bus-route.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Glasgow led the way and others followed. Tower blocks became the preferred model. The councils visited Marseille and saw the results of Charles Édouard Jenneret's (Le Corbusier's) vision. The argument was advanced that more generously sized dwellings could be provided this way, that communities could be re-housed close to existing employment opportunities and there would be far less disruption to local shopping and leisure patterns. During the 1950s and 1960s, the number of high-rise dwellings rose significantly. In 1953, just 23% of public-sector approvals were for flats, with only 3% high-rise (defined as blocks of six stories or more). By 1966, however, high-rise housing accounted for 26% of all homes started. A National Dwelling and Housing Survey carried out in 1977 also found higher levels of housing satisfaction amongst owner occupiers than council housing tenants. The survey found that 90% of owner occupiers were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their accommodation and only 4% "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied", while for council tenants the equivalent figures were 74% and 14%, respectively.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Subsequent research at the London School of Economics has tried to cast doubt on claims that only high rise developments could accommodate the population density required for these policies.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The post-war governments considered the provision of as much new housing as possible to be a major part of post-war policy, and provided subsidies for local authorities to build such housing. The Conservatives competed with Labour for the popular vote over who could build more houses, abandoning Bevan's principle that numbers weren't enough – that the homes had to be spacious and well built, too.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The use of system building methods was later seen as possibly being a short-sighted, false economy, as many of the later houses are in a poor state of repair or have been demolished. On many estates, older council houses, with their largely superior build quality, have outlived them – more incredibly, they have even been outlasted by a large percentage of Edwardian and late Victorian private houses.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: A number of types of system building used in flats have serious flaws. They were initially very popular with tenants due to their generous space standards, and with councillors and housing officials due to their speed of construction – but have suffered problems, especially poor protection from damp and weather ingress, as well as other design defects and poor management. Also, studies such as "Family and Kinship in East London" found that people moving to such estates lost their old social networks and failed to develop new ones. As noted by one study:


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: "There was, however, one way in which slum clearance rather than enhancing housing standards actually threatened to reduce them: the building by experimented prefabricated methods, of large impersonal estates of high-rise buildings, lacking many of the amenities common in similar developments on the continent."


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The last major push in council home provision was made under the Wilson government of 1964. The energetic Minister of Housing Richard Crossman accepted the truth that the provision rate was too slow and instructed authorities to exercise their compulsory purchase powers and construct large overspill estates. In Birmingham he forced the building of Castle Vale and the 15,590 dwelling Chelmsley Wood estate, Solihull.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Laws restricted councils' investment in housing, preventing them subsidising it from local taxes, but more importantly, council tenants were given the Right to Buy in the Housing Act 1980 offering a discount price on their council house. Proposed as policy by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and carried out under the remit of Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Heseltine, the Right To Buy scheme allowed tenants to buy their home with a discount of 33–50% off the market value, depending on the time they had lived there. Councils were prevented from reinvesting the proceeds of these sales in new housing, and the total available stock, particularly of more desirable homes, declined.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The "right to buy" was popular with many former Labour voters and, although the Labour government of Tony Blair tightened the rules (reducing the maximum discount in areas of most housing need), it did not end the right-to-buy. Labour did relax the policy forbidding reinvestment of sales proceeds.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Following its election in 2015, the Conservative government has announced proposals to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Social housing is being sold off under right to buy, new social housing is not being built to replace it and waiting lists for social housing have become very long, up to 18 years. Over a million people are on the social housing waiting list and a quarter of people on social housing waiting lists have been there for 5 years or more. The number of social homes is at a record low, over 100,000 households were on council waiting lists for over 10 years. Council houses sold under right to buy are typically sold at half market value, some of the money from the sale has to go to the Treasury. Councils can replace only one in three of homes sold under right to buy.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Housing Acts of 1985 and 1988 facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations. The 1988 Act redefined housing associations as non-public bodies, permitting access to private finance, which was a strong motivation for transfer as public sector borrowing had been severely constrained. These housing associations were also the providers of most new public-sector housing. By 2003 36.5% of the social rented housing stock was held by housing associations. In some council areas referendums on changing ownership were won by opponents of government policy, preventing transfers to housing associations.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Wakefield district council found itself unable to maintain its supply of council housing and transferred it all to a housing association, in 2004; this represented the second largest stock transfer in British history. Housing rented from the council accounted for about 28% of the district and around 40% of the actual city of Wakefield.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Many districts of the country have less than 10% of housing rented from the council; the national average stood at 14%.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: On 16 May 1968, the problems associated with tower blocks were brought into sharp focus after the partial collapse of Ronan Point, a system-built tower block in Newham, east London, as a consequence of a gas explosion. A similar incident caused significant damage to one side of a block in Manchester.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Although these incidents were due to a series of failures (not least being the illegal connection of gas cookers by unqualified friends of tenants), subsequently all system-built tower blocks were usually built with "all electric" heating, to prevent the occurrence of such an explosion.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The same year Manchester started the construction of the Hulme Crescents. Thirteen tower blocks connected by aerial walkways and the four long curving south facing blocks of flats and maisonettes connected by walkways and bridges. Five thousand homes were constructed in eight years. Three thousand of these were the deck access flats, almost immediately the constructional problems became apparent: they leaked, ducting failed and they were too expensive to heat. A child died falling from a deck and by 1975, and they were declared unsuitable for families with children, the elderly and the disabled. In 1975, 96.3% of the residents wanted to leave. 643 families petitioned to be rehoused. They were demolished between 1991 and 1994.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Proportion of houses and flats built by local authorities and New Towns in England and Wales, 1960–80 (a)


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: While some tower blocks have been demolished, many that occupy convenient city centre sites (such as The Sentinels in Birmingham, Trellick Tower and Great Arthur House on the Golden Lane Estate in London) remain extremely popular with residents and have even been subject to an element of gentrification, caused by the onward sale of leases purchased by original tenants under the right to buy scheme to more affluent purchasers.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: In 1988, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher set up the first of six housing action trusts designed to regenerate some of Britain's most deprived council housing areas, which involved refurbishment or demolition of council properties in these areas, as well as improved community facilities and scope for new private and social housing developments. The North Hull HAT was set up to regenerate a large area of predominantly interwar council housing in the north of Hull, Humberside. Liverpool HAT covered 67 of the worst tower blocks on Merseyside; 54 of these blocks were demolished and replaced by new public or private sector housing developments, while the remaining 13 blocks were refurbished. Stonebridge HAT in Harlesden, London, was the final HAT to cease to exist when it was wound up in 2007, mostly covering an area of council housing built during the 1960s and 1970s. Waltham Forest HAT in South London covered several council estates, mostly built during the 1960s, and lasted until 2002, with the final phase of the regeneration being completed several years later by English Partnerships. Tower Hamlets HAT involved the regeneration of three council estates, mostly consisting of flats, in East London. Perhaps the most notable HAT was the one founded in 1993 to regenerate the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham, which had been built in the 1960s. The original master plan for the redevelopment of Castle Vale saw 17 out of 34 tower blocks on the estate earmarked for demolition, as well as 24 of the estate's 27 maisonette blocks, but by the time of the HAT's demise in 2005 all but two of the 34 tower blocks had been demolished, as well as all of the maisonette blocks and more than 100 bungalows. Community facilities on the estate were also improved, and the main shopping centre was completely redeveloped.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: In London, many council estates are being demolished and replaced with luxury housing, resulting in a net loss of social housing. Campaigners fear almost 8,000 homes could be lost during the decade following 2018. Among estates for regeneration, over 80 will be partly or completely demolished.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The design and character of a council estate is related to the government initiative that allowed it to be built. The estates of the Addison Act are mixed tenure estates with generously proportioned semi-detached houses designed to be fit for heroes, albeit only affordable by the most prosperous workers. The generosity changed in the 1930s, with the push to eliminate the slums. Aneurin Bevan's, new towns and estates planned to the Tudor Walters standards were designed to be the pinnacle of housing to which all classes would aspire. This gradually changed through the 1950s and 1960s, partly due to the increase in private housebuilding under Harold Macmillan, as well as due to dropping standards, especially with the adoption of system-building by many local authorities across the UK in the 1960s. Nonetheless, space standards in council homes (based on those prescribed by the Parker-Morris Report remained above those of many privately built dwellings at the time.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The earliest council estates were built within the borough boundaries on low value land that was walking distance from the places of employment. When that was exhausted, peripheral estates were built on the edge of the town. Residents needed to commute by public transport or bicycle, as almost none of the people living in these areas had cars until well after World War II. Councils bought vacant land in neighbouring boroughs to build overspill estates. In Greater Manchester, this included Wythenshawe in the 1920s and then Hattersley in the 1960s. Later, infill estates were created on small pieces of brown field land that had been vacated by contracting heavy industry.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Some pit villages, such as Grimethorpe in Yorkshire, are almost entirely composed of original council housing. Leeds has Seacroft – the 'town within the city'. Sheffield boasts the award-winning Park Hill. Both Seacroft and Park Hill are now undergoing major redevelopment. In Tyneside, large council estates include Byker and Walker in Newcastle, Felling in Gateshead and Meadow Well in North Tyneside, the site of violent civil disorder in 1991. Meadow Well has been largely redeveloped since this unrest, with most of the old housing having been demolished.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The very earliest council estates were in London, as they were permitted to finance houses ten years before non-metropolitan area and these were 'block estates' that is estates of tenement blocks, or in modern terminology estates of low or medium rise flats. The first was the Boundary Estate. The alternative was the 'cottage estate' trialled at Totterdown Fields, which emulated


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: garden city principles, though this was hampered until the 1906 Hampstead Garden Suburb Act and the 1910 Town Planning Act, removed some of the restrictions imposed by the 1875s byelaws. The Progress Estate, Well Hall Road, had an open spaced layout that gave a pleasant environment to residents.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Tudor Walters Report was adopted and council estates opened up. They were designed to Radburn principles with wide feeder roads joining short cul-de-sacs. Houses were separated by at least from the facing houses. The former gridiron street pattern was deprecated.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (also known as the Addison Act after Minister of Health, Dr Christopher Addison, the-then Minister for Housing), and the resulting wave of mass council housing in the early 1920s was among the first generation of houses in the country to feature electricity, running water, bathrooms, indoor toilets and front/rear gardens. However, some council houses were still being built with outdoor toilets, attached to the house, until well into the 1930s. Some of the earliest council houses did not feature an actual bathroom; the bath could often be found in the kitchen with a design that allowed it to double as a work surface. These new houses had two, three, four or five bedrooms, and generously sized back gardens intended for vegetable growing. At the best they were built at a density of houses of . However, later in the 20th century these houses were modernised to feature modern bathrooms and indoor toilets.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Wheatley Act 1924, reduced the expected standard in a council built house. Under the Addison Act a house would be but after 1924 it would be .


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Flats and bungalows were first built by local councils during the interwar years, but in relatively low volumes. Most interwar council houses were built on completely new estates.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Housing Act 1930 encouraged further mass slum clearance. There was a cut in funding and the housing density on the peripheral estates was increased; leading to a poorer build quality. The former tenants of the inner city properties, were displaced far from their workplaces unable to afford the higher rents (though reduced from the 1919 levels) or the cost of transport. Although the standard of housing improved, stable communities were broken up, and with it, support networks.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: It was not until the 1950s that mixed estates of multi-storey flats and houses became a common sight. Until then it was rare to see blocks of flats that were more than three or four storeys high. An early and famous development of council flats was at Quarry Hill in Leeds. Modelled on Karl-Marx-Hof flats in Vienna, the complex was built by Leeds City Council. At the time they were considered revolutionary: each flat had a motorized rubbish chute leading to a central incinerator. The complex had its own offices, shops and gasworks. The 1970s sitcom Queenie's Castle was filmed there. Long-term problems with the steel-frame structure led to demolition, beginning in 1978 and there is now no evidence of their existence. Though not in UK, the Oliver Bond flats in Dublin, Ireland were built in 1936 and have a similar design to many of the council estates in the UK today. The Red Road flats in Glasgow were once the tallest residential buildings in Europe; but all eight towers were demolished in the 2010s.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: By the 1990s, many multi-storey flats and low-rise flats and maisonettes (mostly built in the 1950s and 1960s) were being demolished, due to their deteriorating condition, structural problems and a difficulty in finding new tenants when these properties became empty.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: One notable regeneration programme featuring tower blocks was that of the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham, built between 1964 and 1969 to rehouse families from inner city 'slums' in areas including Aston and Nechells. 32 of the estate's 34 tower blocks were cleared between 1995 and 2004, with the remaining two being refurbished and re-opened as "vertical warden-controlled schemes". All of the estate's 27 maisonette blocks were also cleared, as were more than 100 bungalows. The remaining low-rise stock, however, was retained. The two remaining tower blocks were comprehensively refurbished. The sites of the demolished flats have been replaced by both private and social housing in low-rise redevelopments.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The mood had changed and new council garden estates were built. These consist of low rise dwellings, mainly houses with gardens. The high residential density, equivalent to a tower block, is achieved by pedestrianisation of the estate, which allowed the dwellings to be very close together, separated by pathways not -wide roads. The resident's car park is next to the service road. Front doors open onto pedestrian areas, which thus provide safe play areas for children. An early late 1960s example of this design is Cressingham Gardens. This estate popular with its residents, and they have resisted all attempts to be resettled.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Becontree in Dagenham is the largest area of council housing in the UK with a population of over 100,000. It forms the bulk of a town. It was built during the 1920s and early 1930s. Otherwise, the largest estates are Wythenshawe in the south of Manchester and Bransholme in the north-east of Hull.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: In Scotland, Glasgow has the highest proportion of social housing. The largest estates include Drumchapel, Easterhouse, Castlemilk and Pollok. In Edinburgh there are several smaller peripheral estates such as Craigmillar, Wester Hailes and Sighthill. The large council estates in


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The debate on public housing provision is politically polarised, as can be seen in the large number of parliamentary acts referred to above. The left saw council estates as a great achievement, while successive Conservative administrations attempted to curb their spread. In 1951, they changed the raison d'être from being affordable homes for all to homes only for the most needy, thereby breaking up the social mix by grouping dysfunctional families together.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Council estates could then be stereotyped as "problem places", where social difficulties like crime and welfare dependency are expected. Estates with particularly marked economic and social deprivation are derogated as sink estates. Council house residents may be stereotyped as an underclass. In reality, council house residents are ethnically and culturally diverse. Suggestions for crime prevention include:


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Those who regard stable homes as a family's right see public housing differently from those who see it as welfare. They are comfortable that council housing was generally typified by unimaginatively designed houses with generously sized rooms. They could cope with aggravating estate rules that could forbid tenants "personalising" their houses.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The system favours those who have already secured tenancy, even when they are no longer in dire need. The combination of security of tenure and subsidized rent gives little incentive to tenants to downsize from family accommodation after their children have moved out. Meanwhile, those who are on the waiting list are often in much greater need of this welfare, yet they cannot have it; once a council house has been granted to a tenant, they cannot be evicted except for anti-social behaviour, serious offences committed at the premises. Recent policy decisions to reduce the supply of public housing have exacerbated this problem. The Cameron government addressed this shortage by imposing a bedroom tax to encourage movement.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Social policy economists, such as Culyer and Barr, have been critical of the role that council housing plays in attempts to help the poor. One large criticism is that it hurts labour mobility with its system of allocating housing to those in the local area. Working-class people thus face a disincentive for moving across district lines, where they would be further down the waiting list for council housing in the new districts.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The movement from a close urban society with multiple emotional and practical support mechanisms to new out-of-town estates with few informal facilities has been recognised since the 1930s. Again, when residence is restricted to the poor and dysfunctional, the effect is greater. Council estates have been blamed for creating isolated communities and fostering there a mentality where residents have low aspirations.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The Housing Act 1996 imposes a duty on local housing authorities in England to rehouse victims of domestic violence. The authority simply needs a 'reason to believe' that the person is homeless for them to be eligible for assistance, and that they are in priority need of accommodation. Failure in this duty has led to cases of victims returning to their abuser.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: The legal status and management of council houses, and the social housing sector, has been subject to lobbying and change in recent years. Local authorities now have new legal powers to enable them to deal with anti-social behaviour and the misuse of council houses by organised gangs or anti-social tenants. An example is when a gang uses social housing as a "crack house". Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) were created by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and ASBIs were created by amendments to the Housing Act 1996, enacted by the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. Tony Blair launched the Respect Agenda in 2005, aimed at instilling core values in the tenants of council houses. Recently bodies such as the Social Housing Law Association have been formed to discuss the impact of legislation in the social housing sector and to provide training and lobbying facilities for those who work in that area.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Dwellings completed by local authorities, New Towns, and Scottish Housing Association, 1945–80 (thousands)


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Proportion of houses and flats built by local authorities and New Towns in Scotland and Scottish Special Housing Association, 1960–80 (a)


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: Between 1978 and 2016, the amount of social housing started to be built failed to keep up with population growth from 2008 onwards.


title: Public housing in the United Kingdom

text: In 2011 almost 40,000 English socially rented homes were built. Just 5,900 social housing homes were completed in 2017 which is the smallest proportion of overall housing building since records began. Government funding for social housing in 2018 is widely considered insufficient. London and some other local authorities are moving people out, away from their work and their social networks due to lack of available social housing. In 2018 it is promised that the government will build just 2,500 social homes per year. Most newly built homes will be too expensive for the poorest people. In 2019 in England official figures demonstrated that only 37,825 new homes were built for letting at discounted rents though the national housing waiting list is over 1.1 million households.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: Thomas Gagliano (born Tommaso Gagliano; ; May 29, 1883 − February 16, 1951) was an Italian-American mobster and boss of what U.S. federal authorities would later designate as the Lucchese crime family, one of the "Five Families" of New York City. He was a low-profile boss for over two decades. His successor was his longtime loyalist and underboss, Tommy Lucchese.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: Gagliano was born on May 29, 1883, in Corleone, Sicily. In 1905 he immigrated to the United States, in New York City, and married Giuseppina "Josephine" Pomilla, who was also from Corleone. Gagliano and his brother-in-law Nunzio Pomilla were partners in lathing and hoisting companies in the Bronx. He was underboss to Gaetano "Tom" Reina until he became the boss of the family in 1930. The Reina family controlled a monopoly on ice distribution in the Bronx. Gagliano along with Gaetano "Tommy" Lucchese and Stefano "Steve" Rondelli were viewed as the most powerful members of the Reina family.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: Frank Gagliano was a distant relative of Tommy Gagliano and the son of a deported mobster. He was also the cousin of mob boss Thomas Eboli's chauffeur and bodyguard, future Genovese crime family underboss Dominick Alongi who would later achieve notoriety when they were among the many mobsters arrested fleeing the famous 1957 Apalachin Meeting. He was a blood relative of mobster Joseph (Pip the Blind) Gagliano, who became a childhood friend and early accomplice of future government witness Joseph Valachi. The two performed many burglaries and armed robberies together.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: During the late 1920s, a bitter gang rivalry arose in New York between Joseph "the Boss" Masseria, the most powerful mobster in New York, and Salvatore Maranzano, head of the Castellammarese Sicilian clan. Masseria had demanded more money from Reina, prompting Reina to consider switching allegiance to Maranzano. When Masseria heard about Reina's plans, Masseria murdered him in February 1930. To head Reina's gang, Masseria appointed one of his loyalists, Joseph Pinzolo. Both Gagliano and Lucchese hated Pinzolo and resented Masseria appointing an outsider as gang leader. In September 1930, Pinzolo was shot and killed by unknown assailants. To replace Pinzolo, Masseria appointed Gagliano as head of the Reina gang. It is speculated that Gagliano and Lucchese formed a secret alliance with Maranzano at this time while still professing loyalty to Masseria.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: As the war continued, Masseria began suffering more defeats and key defections. On April 15, 1931, Masseria was assassinated at Brooklyn restaurant by several of his men. These defectors, guided by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, had made a deal with Maranzano guaranteeing their power if they switched sides. However, after Masseria's death, Maranzano started promoting himself as the "Boss of All Bosses" for all the Italian-American criminal gangs in the country. Feeling betrayed and threatened, Luciano arranged Maranzano's assassination a few months later in September 1931. During this period of instability, Gagliano remained in control of the Reina gang.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: After Maranzano's death, Luciano restructured all the Italian-American criminal gangs into several crime families regulated by a commission of family bosses. The aim of this restructuring was to settle disputes without bloody gang wars. The New York City gangs were divided into five crime families. Gagliano took over the old Reina family, with Lucchese as his underboss. As a boss, Gagliano became a member of the commission.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: Gagliano steered the family through a period of high tension between the Five Families. In 1936, Luciano was sent to prison and then, in 1946, deported to Italy. With Luciano's absence, power on the commission was held by an alliance of bosses Vincent Mangano, Joe Bonanno, Stefano Magaddino and Joe Profaci. Gagliano had to be very careful in the face of this alliance, and was keen to keep a low profile while furthering the business interests of his section of Cosa Nostra, in industries such as gasoline rationing, meat and black market sugar. He usually issued his orders through his close allies, particularly Lucchese, who served as the family's public face and "de facto" street boss. As a result, very little is known about Gagliano between 1932 and his death from natural causes in the 1950s.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: In 1932, Gagliano was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 15 months in the Atlanta Penitentiary.


title: Tommy Gagliano

text: The actual date of Gagliano's death is uncertain. In 1951, Lucchese stated during the Senate hearings on organized crime that Gagliano died on February 16, 1951.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Jason E. Chaffetz (; born March 26, 1967) is an American retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2009 until his resignation in 2017. He chaired the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2015 until 2017.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz came to prominence in 2015 for his extensive investigations into Hillary Clinton. He rescinded his endorsement of Donald Trump in early October 2016 but expressed his intent to vote for him three weeks later. Having investigated Clinton and the Obama administration extensively, Chaffetz drew criticism after the 2016 election for declining to investigate certain potential conflicts of interest relating to President Donald J. Trump, and that of other individuals involved in his 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent presidential administration.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: He resigned from office in 2017, six months into his fifth Congressional term, and has since been a commentator, Fox News contributor, and author. In 2021 Chaffetz joined the Government Accountability Institute.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz was born in Los Gatos, California, and raised in California, Arizona, and Colorado. His father, John A. Chaffetz (1935–2012), was a businessman, and his mother, Margaret "Peggy" A. Wood, was a Christian Scientist who later became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ran a photography business. In the late 1970s, his father became involved with the ownership group of the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team. His father later wrote "Gay Reality: The Team Guido Story", a book about a gay couple who competed on "The Amazing Race". His younger brother, Alex, runs a Colorado-based media consulting firm.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz's father was Jewish, and his paternal grandfather Maxwell (Max) Chaffetz (1909–1986), the son of immigrants from Russia, was an FBI Special Agent. Max Chaffetz was the brother of Hammond E. Chaffetz, who pioneered federal antitrust prosecution policies later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in "United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co.", before building Kirkland & Ellis into one of the most powerful law firms in the United States, as well as the second cousin of Washington, D.C. real estate developer and philanthropist Morris Cafritz.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz's father's first wife was Kitty Dukakis (née Dickson), who later married Michael Dukakis, future Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee. The relationship between Chaffetz's father and Kitty Dukakis lasted four years and produced Chaffetz's elder half-brother John Dukakis (born John A. Chaffetz), who was later adopted by Michael and Kitty Dukakis. While in college, Chaffetz worked as a Utah co-chairman of Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign. As reported in 2009, Chaffetz remains close to his half-brother and the Dukakis family.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz attended high school in California as well as Middle Park High School in Granby, Colorado, followed by Brigham Young University on an athletic scholarship, and was the starting placekicker on the Brigham Young University football team in 1988 and 1989. Over two seasons, Chaffetz converted 16 of 25 field goal attempts (64 percent) and 89 of 94 point-after attempts (95 percent). As of 2011, he still held the school's individual records for most extra points attempted in a game, most extra points made in a game, and most consecutive extra points made in a game. Chaffetz graduated from the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications in 1989, with a B.A. in communications.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Raised Jewish, Chaffetz joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during his college years. In 1989, he met his future wife Julie Johnson at a wedding in Arizona when he was a senior and Julie was a junior at Brigham Young University. They married in February 1991. After college, Chaffetz worked for about a decade in public relations for a multi-level marketing company, Nu Skin International.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz became a Republican after meeting Ronald Reagan in 1990, when Reagan visited Chaffetz's employer, Nu Skin, as a motivational speaker. However, his political views had been drifting more to the right even while working for Dukakis. In 2003, Chaffetz applied to be an agent in the United States Secret Service but was not accepted because "better qualified applicants existed". In 2015, the Secret Service Inspector General found that agents illegally accessed Chaffetz's personnel file that included that information after Chaffetz began heading investigations into the Secret Service.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In 2004, Chaffetz was the campaign manager for Utah gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman. Huntsman won the race, and when he took office in January 2005, Chaffetz became Huntsman's chief of staff. In 2005, Chaffetz started Maxtera Utah Inc., a corporate communications and marketing company. In 2006, Chaffetz was appointed by Huntsman as a trustee for Utah Valley State College. Chaffetz has also served as a member of the Highland City planning commission and as chairman for the Utah National Guard adjutant general review.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: On January 1, 2007, before the 110th Congress was sworn in, Jason Chaffetz announced that he was "testing the waters" for a Congressional run against six-term incumbent Chris Cannon, for the Republican nomination in the 3rd District. Nine months later, on October 1, 2007, Chaffetz formally entered the race for the Republican nomination. That same day, David Leavitt issued a press release announcing his campaign had raised $100,000 to challenge Cannon. Leavitt, brother to popular three-term Utah governor and Bush Administration cabinet member Mike Leavitt, more than doubled Chaffetz in fundraising for that quarter. A March 2008 "Deseret News"/KSL TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates released two days before the party caucuses showed Chaffetz with 4% support.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: After the nearly 1200 3rd District delegates to the state Republican convention were elected on March 25, 2008, Chaffetz sent a mailer announcing that he would run a different kind of campaign. He would have no paid staff, no campaign office, no free meals for delegates, no campaign debt and no polling. He committed to spend between $70 and $80 per delegate, telling voters, "How you run your campaign is indicative of how you're going to be in office."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Although Cannon was one of the most conservative members of the House, Chaffetz ran to his right. He said that Cannon "has failed us for not instituting conservative principles", consistently calling for a return to the core conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability and a strong national defense. He campaigned on stronger measures to fix legal immigration and remove the incentives for illegal immigration, an issue he continued to press throughout the campaign. The week before the convention, David Leavitt told "The Salt Lake Tribune", "if Jason Chaffetz beats me [at the convention], Chris Cannon will be the congressman. Jason Chaffetz has no resources, no organization."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: At the May 10, 2008 state convention, Chaffetz won 59% of the 3rd District's delegates to Cannon's 41%. He came a few hundred votes short of ending Cannon's career; had he tallied 60% of the delegates, he would have won the nomination without a primary. Leavitt finished a distant third, and immediately endorsed Cannon. Primary polls had shown a close race: a May 2008 poll showed Cannon leading Chaffetz 39% to 37% among likely voters, and June 2008 poll showed likely voters favoring Cannon by 44% to 40%. On June 24, 2008, Chaffetz defeated Cannon by a vote of 60% to 40%. It was considered an upset victory as Cannon was endorsed by George W. Bush, the state's two U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, and nearly all of the state Republican establishment. Cannon also outspent Chaffetz by 6 to 1. Cannon's primary defeat spurred worry among Republican incumbents.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz faced Democrat Bennion Spencer in the 2008 general election, along with Jim Noorlander of the Constitution Party. Chaffetz's firm position against asking for earmarks created some controversy during the general election campaign. Chaffetz said, "Until there's reform, I will not ask for them. They're a cancer within the system and I want to extract them." Ultimately, Chaffetz won election with 66% of the vote. However, he had effectively clinched a seat in Congress when he won the Republican nomination. The 3rd is one of the most Republican districts in the nation; in 2008 it had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+26.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz announced at the start of the congressional term, in 2009, that he would be sleeping on a cot in his office, rather than renting a Washington, D.C., apartment. Chaffetz said, "I'm trying to live the example that it doesn't take big dollars in order to get where we want to go. I can save my family $1,500 a month by sleeping on a cot in my office as opposed to getting a fancy place that's maybe a little bit more comfortable." His family will continue to live in Alpine. "We are now $10 trillion in debt. $10 trillion. Those are expenses that have to be paid at some point", he said. If he can tighten his belt in these tough economic times, Chaffetz said, Congress should be able to as well. Chaffetz appeared on the "Better Know A District" segment of "The Colbert Report" on January 6, 2009, where he was defeated by Stephen Colbert in leg wrestling.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz won reelection to a second term, gaining 72% of the vote and defeating Democratic nominee Karen Hyer. "The Salt Lake Tribune" endorsed him in the race, writing "U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has delivered as advertised for Utah's 3rd District."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In early 2012 Chaffetz worked as a representative of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign during primary season, shadowing the campaign of rival Republican candidate Newt Gingrich to offer rebuttals to reporters following Gingrich speeches. He refused to endorse Haitian-American candidate Mia Love, who ran against incumbent 2nd District congressman Jim Matheson, for the newly created 4th District seat. Nationally, Love had received campaign support from 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, House Budget Committee Chairman and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In his own 2012 election, Chaffetz won election to a third term, gaining 76% of the vote and defeating Democratic nominee Soren Simonsen, an architect and chairman of the Salt Lake City Council. The campaign was a "low-key" race in which Chaffetz was heavily favored.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In the 2014 election, Chaffetz won election to a fourth term in a race in which he was again heavily favored. He received about 72% of the vote, defeating Democratic nominee, Brian Wonnacott.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In the 2016 election, Chaffetz won a fifth term, defeating Democratic nominee Stephen Tryon, a former Overstock.com executive, with about 74% of the vote.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In November 2014, Chaffetz won a four-way race to become the chairman of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He was only the fifth Member of Congress in 89 years to become a full chairman after just three terms. He ran on a promise to emphasize reform, telling "Politico" that "the pitch I made to the steering committee is we really have to triangulate the problem if we're actually going to get to reform. In order to fix the problem long term, we can't just be the highlighter pen. We do a good job highlighting things, but we don't do a great job of fixing things."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz faced protests and jeering at a town hall meeting in February 2017. Attendees questioned Chaffetz about his political positions and whether he would hold President Trump to account. Chaffetz later accused the crowd of being paid protesters, and said that he may now avoid providing a venue "for these radicals to further intimidate." Chaffetz's unsubstantiated claim attracted scorn and anger from the town-hall attendees, some of whom sent mocking "invoices" to Chaffetz.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: On April 19, 2017, Chaffetz abruptly announced that he would neither seek reelection to the United States House of Representatives nor run for any other elected office in 2018. At the time, he also implied that he might not finish out the current term. He took a three-week leave of absence from Congress to recuperate from foot surgery. Chaffetz announced his retirement from the House on May 18 effective June 30, six months into the two-year term. His resignation triggered the first Congressional special election in Utah in 87 years, which was won by Provo mayor John Curtis.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In 2021 he joined the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative think-tank, as a distinguished fellow. The group was founded by Peter Schweizer and former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon. The group claims to expose corruption, misuse of taxpayer funds, and crony capitalism within the Democratic Party.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: After leaving office Chaffetz became a commentator and author. On July 1, 2017, the day following his official resignation from Congress, Chaffetz became a contributor to Fox News. He was a 2017 visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP)


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: He is the author of several books published since leaving office. His first book, "The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda" was published in September, 2018 and became a "New York Times" bestseller. The following September he released "Power Grab: The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and Our Republic." 2021 saw the release of Chaffetz's third book, "They Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: The Truth About Disaster Liberalism," which commentator Jeffrey Lord called a "seriously important book", as well as a podcast, "Jason in the House".


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has repeatedly voted in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act. In March 2017 Chaffetz drew criticism for and later walked back on a statement comparing the cost of healthcare coverage to the cost of purchasing an iPhone. In an interview with CNN he said, "So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz described Obama's attempts to introduce an inheritance tax on value over $5 million as "one of the most immoral things you can do".


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In February 2015, Chaffetz threatened Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser with possible jail time if she implemented Initiative 71. The ballot initiative would legalize small amounts of cannabis in the district and was approved by about 64.87 percent of the voters in 2014. In a letter, Chaffetz asserted that D.C. officials who implemented the initiative would violate the Antideficiency Act (an 1884 act that bars government agencies from spending funds that have not been appropriated by Congress) because Congress had passed a Republican-supported appropriations rider providing that "none of the funds contained in this act may be used to enact any law, rule or regulation" to legalize or lessen the criminal penalty "for any Schedule I drug, including marijuana." Chaffetz's statement was rejected by Mayor Bowser, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, and D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who stated that I-71 was the law and implemented it as scheduled.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In 2017, Chaffetz stated that he planned to seek a congressional vote to overturn D.C. legislation allowing terminally ill individuals to end their life. Local organizations decried Chaffetz's move, and District political leaders considered it an attack on the principle of District of Columbia home rule. Chaffetz also led the charge in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the District of Columbia's legalization of same-sex marriage in 2009.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. In his 2008 stump speech, Chaffetz claimed global warming was a "farce." He has voted in favor of legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz advocates for the sale of millions of acres of publicly owned land to the highest bidder. In January 2017 Chaffetz introduced a bill, the Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act (H.R. 621), which would have transferred 3.3 million acres of public land in ten Western states from the federal Bureau of Land Management to state ownership. Chaffetz said that the land served "no purpose for taxpayers." On February 1, following a backlash, Chaffetz announced via Instagram that he was withdrawing the resolution.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has opposed federal protection for Utah's resident greater-sage grouse, a bird whose population has shrunk from 16 million 100 years ago to about 200,000 today. In 2007, a court ruled that political tampering by Julie A. MacDonald, then-deputy assistant secretary for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, had "tainted" the bird's assessment, and a new review was ordered. In March 2010, U.S. interior secretary Ken Salazar assigned the bird "warranted but precluded" status, paving the way for its future protection.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz scored 0% in 2015, and 3% lifetime, on the National Environmental Scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz criticized the surge of 30,000 troops President Obama authorized for the war in Afghanistan, saying that the United States does not have a clear policy or exit strategy.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has been vocal against the White House and State Department's handling of the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US Consulate compound in Benghazi. The Administration first stated the attacks were sparked by a spontaneous protest, then later stated the violence was a planned terrorist attack.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: He criticized United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice's initial comments calling them "somewhere between an outrageous lie and total falsehood."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has been criticized for politicizing the Benghazi incident, acknowledging in an interview with CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien that he had "voted to cut the funding for embassy security" and that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010. "Absolutely," he said. "Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In December 2009, Chaffetz championed legislation to limit the use of full-body imaging scanners at airports unless a metal detector first indicated a need for more screening. The images have come under intense scrutiny from privacy groups for allegedly letting security administrators view images of undressed passengers.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have had a rocky relationship since he joined Congress. In his freshman year, in what critics have described as political grandstanding, he accused TSA agents at his hometown airport in Salt Lake City of unfairly targeting him to pass through a full-body scanning machine—a device Chaffetz believes is invasive. The Republican lawmaker said he believed he was targeted partially for his opposition to granting TSA screeners collective bargaining rights. A FOIA request by the "Deseret News" for video of the incident showed it to be a "tame and rather civilized exchange between the two." TSA's November 2009 report following their internal investigation primarily supported the Chaffetz version of the story. The union representing some of the officers said at the time that agents followed proper procedure and that an officer who had recently returned from military service in Iraq had not even recognized Chaffetz.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In 2014 and 2015, Chaffetz headed congressional hearings into United States Secret Service security failures in response to incidents at the time including a White House fence jumper, a CDC security guard being armed while riding an elevator with President Barack Obama, and agents crashing a car into a White House barricade. In a hearing on March 24, 2015, Chaffetz accused Joseph Clancy, then-director of the Secret Service, of "keeping Congress and the American public in the dark" by not allowing witnesses to testify regarding the car crash.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In June 2015, James Comey announced that the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had been the target of a data breach targeting the records of more than 18 million Americans. The OPM director Katherine Archuleta faced criticism at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the wake of the revelation of the Office of Personnel Management data breach. Republican Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz said to her, "your systems were vulnerable, the data was not encrypted, it could be compromised, they were right!" and asked her why she ignored a recommendation to shut the system down in light of its vulnerability.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Regarding Jakelin Caal Maquin, a seven-year-old girl who died in the custody of US Border Patrol on December 8, 2018, Chaffetz said on Fox News: "That should be the message, don't make this journey, it will kill you."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In November 2009, Chaffetz co-sponsored a bill in the House with Rep. Jim Matheson to block the importation of foreign nuclear waste into the United States, putting him directly at odds with Rep. Rob Bishop and Utah senators Bennett and Hatch, who had historically supported importing foreign nuclear waste into Utah with restrictions.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Beginning with his time as a Dublin, California city councilor, Eric Swalwell was targeted by a Chinese woman believed to be a clandestine officer of China's Ministry of State Security. Swalwell's general relationship with a suspected Chinese agent, Christine Fang, has been characterized as problematic, particularly given the high-profile role that he occupied – a member of the House Intelligence Committee – within the intelligence community. Chaffetz said that Nancy Pelosi "is the person that appoints people to that select committee. Why did they have to have him in that committee when they know that he has potentially been compromised? Rep. Swalwell has not denied the fact that this actually did happen."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz opposes same-sex marriage. After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, Chaffetz led the charge in attempts to overturn the decision taken by mayor of DC.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: On the one-month anniversary of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Chaffetz chaired committee hearings on the First Amendment Defense Act, which would prevent the government from taking discriminatory action against people from taxpayer-funded entities and would protect tax exemption status of parochial organizations if they refused service to LGBT individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, the NAACP and Planned Parenthood Federation of America were among those who criticized him for it.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz opposes net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers should not be allowed to discriminate or charge differentially by user, content, website or platform. In March 2015, he held hearings as to whether the Obama administration had secretly influenced the Federal Communications Commission when it adopted rules to ensure net neutrality.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In a September 2015 hearing, Chaffetz questioned Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards on her salary, and displayed a chart that he claimed was taken from Planned Parenthood's annual report that showed Planned Parenthood-provided abortions going up while cancer screenings and preventative care going down. In fact, the chart was actually taken from a Web post by an anti-abortion group, Americans United for Life, and was presented in a misleading way, using questionable "dual-axis" charting. Experts in data presentation said this was an egregious example of using a chart to mislead; Alberto Cairo of the University of Miami, an expert in visual communication, said it was a "damn lie," and Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science, and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University, described the graph as a "truly immoral bit of graphical manipulation."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In January 2010, Chaffetz was called upon to question Barack Obama when the president spoke to the House Republican Conference retreat in Baltimore. Chaffetz applauded Obama for some of the promises made during the campaign, but asked why promises to broadcast healthcare debates on C-SPAN, keep lobbyists out of senior positions, go line-by-line through the health care bill and end earmarks had not been kept. Video of the Q&A session received extensive media coverage.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Upon hearing that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, Chaffetz said he had "lost all respect for the award" and that "it used to be one of distinction, but [now] it is hard to give it any credibility."


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Following the Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" controversy, on October 7, 2016, Chaffetz was the first Republican member of Congress to rescind his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. "I can't endorse somebody who acts and thinks like this." "The Washington Post" quoted Chaffetz as saying that he couldn't look his 15-year-old daughter in the eye and talk about what the GOP presidential nominee said, "It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine." However, less than three weeks later, on October 26, 2016, he posted on Twitter that he was voting for Trump, while claiming that vote was not an endorsement: "I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump, but I am voting for him." Chaffetz was also the first member of Congress to leak that FBI Director Comey was reopening its investigation of Clinton's e-mails 11 days before the 2016 election.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (which is tasked with investigating "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the executive branch), Chaffetz has been criticized for showing a disinterest in investigating President Trump's conflicts of interest and for failing to criticize him for not resolving ethical questions. Chaffetz has said that Trump's global financial ties don't merit a congressional investigation: "It's interesting, because under Section 208 of the criminal code, the president is exempt from almost every conflict-of-interest [law] ... I think the president has a duty and an obligation to live up to the Constitution and the law. And what he's required to do by law, it appears he's done." However, ethics experts have said that Trump's business conflicts and his failure to resolve them are "nakedly unconstitutional." Chaffetz also declined to investigate the circumstances surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who stepped down amid controversy over his communications with the Russian government before Trump took office. Chaffetz said that "it's taking care of itself" and that any investigation into Flynn was for the House Intelligence Committee to conduct; Chaffetz also asked the Justice Department inspector general to investigate the leaks that brought Flynn's contacts with Russian officials to public light.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Some commentators criticized Chaffetz's perceived lack of interest in Trump administration oversight, especially in light of Chaffetz's zealous investigation of items such as the CDC's use of the Sid the Science Kid cartoon character as part of an anti-Zika virus campaign and a December 2016 tweet from Bryce Canyon National Park welcoming the designation of a new national monument.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has also attacked those who have brought attention to Trump's conflicts of interest. In January 2017, Chaffetz threatened to investigate the independent Office of Government Ethics (OGE) after the Office had questioned Trump's commitment to resolve conflicts of interest. According to the "New York Times", "Chaffetz, in his letter, noted his committee's authority to reauthorize the office, a hint that it could perhaps be shut down." Richard W. Painter, a former ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said that Chaffetz was trying to punish the OGE for criticizing Trump. A January 2017 poll by "The Salt Lake Tribune" and Hinckley Institute of Politics found that 65% of registered Utah voters supported a probe into Trump's conflicts of interest, compared to just 31% opposed.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz said in January 2017 that he would continue his investigations into Hillary Clinton. In October 2016, when Clinton seemed likely to become the next President, Chaffetz said that he was already preparing for "years" of investigations of Clinton.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz drew criticism again in January–February 2017 for his refusal to investigate White House National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn's ties to Russia after it was revealed that U.S. counterintelligence agents were investigating him for his communications with Russian officials. The day after Flynn's resignation, a reporter asked Chaffetz whether he would investigate Flynn, and Chaffetz answered, "It's taking care of itself".


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: In November 2011, Chaffetz announced a seven-point Social Security proposal. The seven provisions include using a chained CPI-W for calculating annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), increasing normal retirement age, adding progressive price indexing to primary insurance amount calculations, means-testing benefits for high-income beneficiaries, increasing the number of years for calculating average indexed monthly earnings, indexing special minimum benefits to wages instead of CPI, and increasing benefits by 5% for retirees when they reach age 85.


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: Chaffetz has expressed concerns about mandatory vaccinations: "there are some documentaries out there, there is a lot of evidence out there, it happens in mass numbers ... if you look at what's happening with immunizations, I got to tell you, it really does concern me." He has called for investigations into the "adverse effects of immunizations".


title: Jason Chaffetz

text: When asked at a town-hall meeting in February 2017 what he would do if President Trump would enact policy on the basis of his belief that vaccines cause autism, Chaffetz said, "On the vaccines issue ... there have been a lot of people in my offices and other meetings that have really expressed concerns about the rise of autism but also whether there is a cause-and-effect with vaccines ... I don't want to say that vaccines are not safe, but at the same time, a lot of people have expressed concerns." Chaffetz then said that it was important to remove the backlog of cases in the "vaccine court" (the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims), which administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims, so as to be better able to answer questions that have been raised about the safety of vaccines.


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: Tell Me You Love Me is an American cable television drama series that premiered on HBO and The Movie Network on September 9, 2007.


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: The series was created by Cynthia Mort and originally conceived as "Sexlife". The pilot episode was produced and directed by Patricia Rozema and shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The series was picked up by HBO for a second season in October 2007, but was ultimately canceled in July 2008 when Mort said she and the network "were unable to find the direction of the show for the second season".


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: "Tell Me You Love Me" revolves around three couples, Jamie and Hugo (Borth and Kirby), Katie and David (Walker and DeKay), and Carolyn and Palek (Walger and Scott), each with their own problems concerning intimacy in their relationships. They seek the help of therapist May Foster (Alexander), who herself has relationship problems with her partner Arthur (Selby).


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: Each episode screens without any introduction, no title cards, and no opening credits. The episodes are also shot with handheld cameras, giving the show a somewhat documentary-like feel. No episode has a music score or soundtrack, except for one song which generally starts in the last two to three scenes and carries over the closing credits. The title card for the show is not shown until immediately before the closing credits.


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: The series gained early publicity because of its extremely realistic depictions of sexual intercourse, oral sex and masturbation. Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, and a notable lack of comment on the matter from either HBO or the production team, the sex scenes were simulated. Director Patricia Rozema was among those to have addressed this issue directly:


title: Tell Me You Love Me (TV series)

text: The first episode of the show only attracted a total of about 910,000 viewers—far fewer than what the network had been pulling in for previous series such as "Rome", "Deadwood", and even the ill-fated "John from Cincinnati". A month after its debut, HBO claimed the show had drawn a total of 3.1 million viewers across seven broadcasts.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines-upon-Thames is a market town in northwest Surrey, England, around west of central London. It is in the Borough of Spelthorne, at the confluence of the River Thames and Colne. Historically part of Middlesex, the town was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Staines is close to Heathrow Airport and is linked to the national motorway network by the M25 and M3.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The earliest evidence of human activity in the area is from the Paleolithic and, during the Neolithic, there was a causewayed enclosure on Staines Moor. The first bridge across the Thames at Staines is thought to have been built by the Romans and there was a settlement in the area around the modern High Street by the end of the 1st century CE. Throughout the middle ages, Staines was primarily an agricultural settlement and was held by Westminster Abbey. The first surviving record of a market is from 1218, but one may have taken place near St Mary's Church in the Anglo-Saxon period.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The industrialisation of Staines began in the mid-17th century when Thomas Ashby established a brewery in the town. Improvements to the local transport network in the mid-19th century also stimulated an expansion of the local population. The current Staines Bridge, designed by George Rennie, was opened in 1832 by William IV and the first railway line through Staines opened in 1848. The town became a centre for linoleum manufacture in 1864, when Frederick Walton established a factory on the site of the 13th-century Hale Mill.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: At the end of the 20th century, Staines became infamous as the home town of the fictional film and television character, Ali G. Although many local residents felt that the town's reputation was suffering through its association with the character, Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Ali G, praised Staines for being a "lovely, leafy, middle-class suburb... where swans swim under the beautiful bridge". Partly in response to the reaction to the character, Spelthorne Borough Council voted in 2011 to add the suffix "upon-Thames" to the name.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The earliest document to refer to Staines is the Antonine Itinerary, thought to have been written in the early 3rd century AD, in which the location appears as "Pontibus", meaning "at the bridges". The first surviving records of Staines from the post-Roman period are from 1066, when the settlement appears in two separate charters as "Stana" and "Stane". In Domesday Book of 1086, the settlement is referred to as "Stanes". It later appears as "Stanis" (1167), "Stanys" (1428), "Steynys" and "Staynys" (1535), before the modern spelling "Staines" is first used in 1578. The name derives from the Old English "", meaning "stone", and may refer to a Roman milestone on the London to Silchester road that survived into the early Anglo-Saxon period.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: In order to promote the town's "riverside image" and to distance it from its association with the fictional character, Ali G, Spelthorne Borough Council voted in December 2011 to change its name from "Staines" to "Staines-upon-Thames". The formal renaming ceremony, conducted by the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Dame Sarah Goad, took place on 20 May 2012. The Royal Mail adopted the new name in mid-2013.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines-upon-Thames is in northeast Surrey, around from central London. It is close to the borders of Berkshire and Greater London. The town is linked to junction 13 of the M25 by the A30 and to the M3 by the A308. The area surrounding the borough council offices and the magistrates' courts, to the southeast of the town centre, is known as Knowle Green. Egham Hythe, also in Surrey, is on the south side of the Thames and is linked to Staines by Staines Bridge.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines town centre is close to the confluence of the rivers Colne and Thames. A former millstream, known as Sweeps Ditch, ran to the east of the High Street, but much of its course was diverted underground in the 20th century. Severe flooding events have taken place in Staines in 1894, 1947, and 2014.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Much of the town is built on gravel "islands" that rise above the low-lying floodplains of the Thames and Colne. These gravel deposits have a typical maximum elevation of above ordnance datum (AOD) and are as little as above the surrounding floodplain. Staines High Street, oriented northeast to southwest, runs across one of these islands to the site of the medieval bridge and was the nucleus of the Roman town. St Mary's Church, on "Binbury island" to the northwest of the centre, is thought to have been the focus of settlement activity in the late-Saxon period. Elevations below AOD were liable to flooding until the early 19th century and many areas of gravel are covered by muddy silts and sands. There are brickearth deposits to the east of the town, along the A30, and outcrops of alluvium to the north and south.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The earliest evidence of human activity in Staines is from the Paleolithic. Flint blades, along with reindeer and horse bone fragments, have been found during excavations at Church Lammas, to the west of the town centre. During the Mesolithic, the area around Staines is thought to have been covered with a dense pine and birch forest. A Neolithic causewayed enclosure, about west of St Mary's Church, was identified by aerial photography in 1959. The site, on a gravel island in the Colne river delta, AOD, consisted of two concentric, subcircular ditches, with a probable main entrance at the southeastern side. Pottery sherds and worked flints were found on the site, as well as fragments of human bone. Other Neolithic artefacts from the local area include fragments of a jadeite axe, discovered on Staines Moor in the early 1980s, tentatively dated to BCE.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Deverel–Rimbury pottery from the Church Lammas lands indicates that the Staines area was settled in the Bronze Age and a roundhouse from the same period has been identified at Laleham. Two round barrow ring ditches, one of which had a cremation burial at the centre, were found at Knowle Green in 2021. A further ring ditch, around in diameter, was found during excavations of the Majestic House site, close to the eastern end of the High Street. A Bronze Age field system at Hengrove Farm was also cultivated during the Iron Age, but fell out of use around the start of the Roman period. There is also evidence of an early Iron Age enclosure on Staines Moor and finds from the site include pottery sherds, flints and animal bones, with evidence of burning having taken place there. Since Staines is located on the low-lying floodplain of the Thames, it is likely that historical flooding events have destroyed much of the archaeological evidence of pre-Roman human activity in the town centre.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The Roman road from London to Silchester crossed the Thames in the Staines area. Both the Thames and Colne are thought to have had multiple channels during this period, which may have necessitated the building of more than one bridge. There was a settlement in the area surrounding the modern High Street and, although the date of its foundation is uncertain, the earliest archaeological evidence is from 5496 AD, corresponding to the reign of Nero and the period of the Flavian Dynasty.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: By the mid-2nd century, Staines had increased in size and prosperity and the early Romano-British roundhouses had been replaced by stone buildings with flint and rag-stone foundations. Fragments of painted, plastered wall and floors of "opus signinum" have been uncovered, and the presence of "tesserae" indicates that at least one building had a mosaic floor. A collyrium stamp, found during an excavation of 7375 High Street, suggests that there was a healer living in the town, who could have administered to the wider local population. Staines declined towards the end of the 2nd century, possibly as a result of an increased incidence of winter flooding. Nevertheless, Romano-British settlement activity continued until the early 4th century, although the town appears to have been smaller and less important than it had been in the first half of the Roman period.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Following the end of Roman rule in Britain, the main settlement at Staines appears to have shifted from the High Street area to the Binbury area surrounding St Mary's Church. Archaeological evidence, including pits, ditches and pottery sherds suggests that there was a permanent settlement in this area by the mid-Saxon period and there may have been a marketplace at the northern end of Church Street. Staines may have been a fortified "burh" and the location of a minster church. A late-Saxon execution cemetery on London Road, containing the incomplete remains of up to thirty skeletons, suggests that the town was also an important local centre for the administration of justice.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: For much of the early Saxon period, the Thames through Staines marked the border between Middlesex (to the north) and Surrey (to the south). In the 9th century, the river was used by Danish Viking raiders to travel into the heart of England. In 993, the Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvason, sailed up the Thames to Staines with a fleet of 93 ships. In 1009, a large army of Vikings attacked Oxford and retreated back along the banks of the Thames, crossing the river at Staines.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Between 1042 and 1052, Edward the Confessor rebuilt Westminster Abbey as a royal burial church and endowed it with around 60 estates in the south east of England. Staines was one of the properties granted to the Abbey and remained in its possession until the Reformation. In 1086, the manor appears in the Middlesex section of Domesday Book as "Stanes". In 1086, the manor had land for 24 ploughs, six mills and woodland for 30 pigs. It provided an annual income of £35 for the Abbey. Since it was relatively close to Westminster, Staines acted as a home farm, providing for the abbot's personal household. 13th-century abbey records indicate that a market was taking place by 1218 and, in 1225, there were 46 burgesses living in the settlement, suggesting that Staines had become an important local centre.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Westminster Abbey was dissolved in 1540 and Staines then became a possession of the Crown, allowing Henry VIII to extend his Windsor hunting grounds further to the east. In 1613, James I granted the manor to Thomas Knyvet, who had arrested Guy Fawkes at the Palace of Westminster eight years earlier. Following Knyvet's death, Staines passed to Sir Francis Leigh and, following the Restoration of the Monarchy, it was held briefly by Sir William Drake. The manor was then purchased by Richard Taylor, whose descendants lived at Knowle Green until the 19th century.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Reforms during the Tudor period reduced the importance of manorial courts and the day-to-day administration of towns such as Staines became the responsibility of the vestry of the parish church. The vestry appointed a constable, distributed funds to the poor and took charge of the repair of local roads. From the 17th century, the roles of Justices of the Peace were expanded to take greater responsibility for law and order in Staines.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The modern system of local government began to emerge during the 19th century. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 transferred responsibility for poor relief to the Poor Law Commission, whose local powers were delegated to the newly formed poor law union in 1836. In 1885 a local school board was established and three years later, the Local Government Act 1888 created the Middlesex County Council. An Urban District Council (UDC) and a Rural District Council (RDC) for the area were established in 1895 under the Local Government Act 1894, but the RDC was merged into the UDC in 1930.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Further reorganisation of the local authorities took place in the second half of the 20th century. Under the London Government Act 1963, Middlesex County Council was disbanded and the Staines UDC area was moved into Surrey. The Local Government Act 1972, which came into force on 1 April 1974, merged the Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames UDCs to form the Borough of Spelthorne.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The first surviving mention of a bridge from the medieval period is a document from 1222, that authorises repairs using wood cut from Windsor Forest. In around 1250, a causeway was constructed at Egham Hythe to improve the southern approach to the crossing. Also during the 13th century, there were renewals of the grant of pontage and, in 1376, tolls were levied on boat traffic to provide additional funds for maintenance. Local people left bequests for not only the repair of the bridge, but also the upkeep of the roads leading to it on each side of the river.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The bridge was destroyed in the Civil War and was not rebuilt until the 1680s. In 1734, an Act of Parliament noted that the structure was "in a ruinous and dangerous condition" and that the money raised from tolls and local taxes was insufficient to fund adequate maintenance. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were four attempts to construct a new bridge. The first, designed by Thomas Sandby, was opened in 1796, but was closed two years later after cracks started to form in the stonework. A cast-iron replacement, designed by James Wilson in consultation with George Rennie was opened in 1803, but cracked within two months. A third bridge was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1804. It was designed by Rennie and was constructed of timber, strengthened with cast iron plates. Although it did not suffer from the problems of the previous two bridges, it was costly to maintain (£11,000 in 1827) and restricted the width of boats passing beneath it.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: A further Act of Parliament in 1828, authorised the borrowing of up to £60,000 for the construction of a fourth bridge. The granite structure was designed by George Rennie and was based on Waterloo Bridge. Rennie insisted that the site of the crossing be moved upstream, where deeper foundations could be constructed. The repositioning required new approach roads to be constructed and the necessary land was subject to compulsory purchase. The foundation stones were laid on each side of the river in September 1829 and William IV opened the bridge in April 1832. Tolls for crossing the bridge were abolished in 1871.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The earliest locks on the upper Thames were built in the 17th century, following the establishment of the Oxford-Burcot Commission. However, efforts to improve the stretch of the river through Staines did not start until the 19th century. The pound lock at Penton Hook, a tight meander downstream of Staines, was constructed in 1815, but the weirs were not added until 1846. Bell Weir Lock, upstream of the town, opened in 1818, but was rebuilt in 1867-8 after the chamber walls had collapsed the previous year. The construction of the locks regulated the flow of the river and increased its depth to facilitate navigation, whilst maintaining an adequate head of water to power mills.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: With the exception of the construction of the causeway at Egham Hythe in the mid-13th century, there were few improvements in the local road network in the millennium following the end of the Roman period. In 1727, the turnpike road from Hounslow to Bagshot, which crossed the river via Staines Bridge, was opened. A second turnpike, from Staines to Kingston opened in 1773. The re-siting of the bridge by George Rennie in the early 1830s necessitated changes in the road network at the western end of the High Street: The Market Square became a no through road and Clarence Street was constructed to direct traffic to the new crossing.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The railway line through Staines between Richmond and was opened by the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway on 22 August 1848. In 1856, became a junction when the line across the Thames to Ascot was opened. A curve linking the Ascot and Datchet lines was opened in April 1877 and remained in use until March 1965. A second station in the town, Staines High Street station, to the northwest of the junction of this curve and the Datchet line, was open between 1884 and 1916. The railway line through Staines to Windsor was electrified in June 1930 and to in 1937. Staines signal box closed in September 1974.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: A third station in the town was opened on 2 November 1885. was the terminus of a single-track branch from the Great Western Main Line, constructed by the Staines and West Drayton Railway Company. Originally the intention had been to create a junction with the line from Datchet and for trains to serve the main Staines station, but inter-company rivalry meant that a separate facility was built instead. The freight yard closed under the Beeching Axe in the 1950s and passenger services ceased in March 1965. Trains continued to run to the Staines fuel yard, at Staines West, until the early 1990s.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: During the second half of the 20th century, there were large-scale improvements to the road network around Staines. The A30 bypass was constructed in the early 1960s and included the building of Runnymede Bridge over the Thames. A second bridge, alongside the first, was required for the construction of the M25. The route of the motorway north of Staines was constrained by the Wraysbury Reservoir to the west and Staines Moor to the west. The Chertsey to Staines stretch of the M25 was opened in November 1981 with three lanes in each direction, but with a wide central reservation, allowing the road to be widened easily later. Four lanes in each direction were provided from outset between the A30 and the M4.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The Staines air disaster occurred on 18 June 1972, when a Hawker Siddeley Trident, operated by British European Airways, crashed shortly after takeoff from Heathrow Airport. All 118 people aboard the aircraft, including the six crew members, were killed. Two memorials to all the victims were dedicated on 18 June 2004 in Staines. The first is a stained-glass window in St Mary's Church where an annual memorial service is held on 18 June. The second is a garden near the end of Waters Drive in the Moormede Estate, close to the accident site.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The first record of a market at Staines is from 1218, when the Sherriff of Middlesex was ordered to change the day on which it was held from Sunday to Friday. It had been discontinued by 1862, but re-established ten years later when the Town Hall was built. In 2022, the market is held in the High Street on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. An annual fair to be held in the settlement was granted to Westminster Abbey by Henry III in 1228. Initially it took place over four days at Ascensiontide, but the dates were changed to 7-10 September in 1241. By 1792, there were two one-day fairs each year, the first on 11 May for horses and cattle and the second on 19 September, known as the Onion Fair, for produce and trinkets. The fairs were abolished in 1896 by the Home Secretary at the request of the Staines UDC.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Domesday Book records six mills in Staines in 1086, one of which is thought to have been at Yeoveney on Staines Moor. The site, close to the Wraysbury River, an anabranch of the River Colne, is thought to have been the location of a late-medieval dye works and part of the mill was used for fulling in the 14th century. First recorded in 1682, Pound Mill was also on the Wraysbury River. It was bought by John Finch in 1747 and was a flour mill until the early 19th century, when it was used to grind mustard. The mill is immortalised in the road name, "Mustard Mill Road".


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Hale Mill, on the main channel of the Colne, is thought to have its origins in the 13th century, but it was rebuilt in 1388 and became a fulling mill in the 15th century. Many of the mills in the local area were purchased in the second half of the 18th century by Thomas Ashby, a miller originally from Maidenhead. Ashby founded a brewery, subsequently taken over by his sons, which became a major employer in the town. Brewing ceased in Staines in the 1950s, but bottling continued at the plant until the 1970s.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines became a centre for linoleum manufacture in 1864, when Frederick Walton, the inventor, opened the first factory to produce the floor covering on the Hale Mill site, to the north of the town centre. At its height in the 1920s, the Staines plant covered and was one of twenty producers in Great Britain. Following the end of the Second World War, there was a decline in lino sales as vinyl floor coverings became more popular. The Staines lino factory closed in 1973.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The Elmsleigh Shopping Centre was opened by Elizabeth II on 22 February 1980, providing of retail space. Much of the High Street was pedestrianised in 2002 and the Two Rivers Shopping Centre, on the site of the old linoleum works, was opened in 2002.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: In the 21st century, proximity to London, Heathrow Airport and the M25 motorway has attracted large company branch offices, including: Bupa (healthcare) and Wood plc (oil & gas). Siemens Building Automation Division and British Gas (part of Centrica) have their national headquarters here. Samsung R&D Institute UK (SRUK), Samsung's UK R&D division, is based in the town.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The modern settlement of Staines appears to have originated in the late 12th century, when the area around the High Street was developed as a planned town, possibly in response to rebuilding the bridge over the Thames. The medieval street plan was not altered until the re-siting of the bridge in the 1830s, at which point the urban area began to spread beyond the confines of the gravel islands.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The population of Staines grew from 1,750 in 1801 to 2,487 in 1841 and 4,638 in 1881. The increase in the second half of the 19th century was stimulated in part by the arrival of the railway in 1848. Cottages for artisans and semi-skilled workers began to spread along the London and Kingston Roads from the mid-19th century onwards. The residential roads to the south and southeast of the town centre were created in the early 1930s. Following the Second World War, there were new housing developments on Commercial Road and between Kingston Road and Elizabeth Avenue, primarily to provide accommodation for workers at the rapidly expanding Heathrow Airport.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Despite its proximity to London and the fact that Staines Bridge and the local factories presented obvious enemy targets, the town sustained relatively little bomb damage during the Second World War. There was a severe bombing raid on Staines on the night of 24-25 August 1940 and a V-1 flying bomb landed at the junction of Stanish Crescent and Kingston Road on 19 June 1944, killing four people and injuring a further 17. The Lagonda works at Egham Hythe were converted to the manufacture of munitions and the linoleum factory was dedicated to making military supplies.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Much of the civil defence effort was focused on the defence of Staines Bridge and tank traps were installed at each end. At the start of the war, a Bailey bridge was constructed across the Thames, in case the main bridge was damaged by bombing. The Bailey bridge remained in use for pedestrians until 1959, when it was dismantled.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The town is in the parliamentary constituency of Spelthorne. As of July 2022, it is represented at Westminster by Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng, who was first elected in May 2010.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Councillors are elected to Surrey County Council every four years. The majority of the town is in the Staines electoral division, but areas to the southeast of the centre are in the Staines South and Ashford West electoral division.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines is divided between three wards, each of which elects three councillors to Spelthorne Borough Council. The wards are Staines, Staines South, and Riverside and Laleham. The Borough of Spelthorne has been twinned with Melun, France since 1990 and with Grand Port, Mauritius since 2009.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The first drinking water supply to Staines was provided by the West Surrey Water Company, whose works at Egham were built in 1889. Between 1960 and 1973, the company merged with its neighbours serving Woking and south west London, to form the North Surrey Water Company. Today, Affinity Water is responsible for supplying the town with drinking water.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Until the start of the 20th century, wastewater from Staines was discharged directly into the River Thames. Construction of the sewerage system began in 1899. The works closed in 1936, when the town sewers were connected to Mogden Sewage Works in Isleworth.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The Staines and Egham Gas Light and Coke Company was formed in 1834. It began to supply gas from its works in Bedfont Lane in Egham Hythe to the streetlamps on Staines Bridge in February of that year and the gas main to Staines was laid in 1835. At the start of the First World War, the Staines and Egham company was acquired by the Brentford Gas Company, which in 1949, following further mergers and acquisitions, became the North Thames Gas Company. A gasometer was constructed in Staines in 1927 and was demolished in 1986.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The first electricity generating station serving Staines opened in Egham High Street in 1905. It operated until 1912, when it was replaced by at new facility on The Causeway in Egham Hythe. The new works opened with an installed capacity of 188 kW and, by the time of its closure in 1924, it was capable of generating 688 kW.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The earliest record of a permanent fire-fighting force in Staines is from 1738, when a hand-operated fire pump was purchased for the brigade. Reforms in 1774 transferred responsibility for fire services to the local authority and, in 1800, a new manual fire engine was purchased by the Staines force. The Staines UDC purchased the first diesel engine for the brigade in 1926, which was replaced by a Leyland terrier pump escape engine in 1935. Middlesex County Council took over responsibility for local fire services on 1 April 1948, building a new fire station at Stanwell and closing the Staines station in 1962. Surrey County Council became the fire authority for the local area in 1965.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The first surviving record of a town gaol in Staines is from 1274 and the erection of a new pillory and ducking stool is described in 1335. There were stocks in the Market Square through the 16th century until at least 1790. The vestry appointed the town Constable from the early 15th century until 1840, when responsibility for law enforcement was passed to the Metropolitan Police. In 1865, the police station moved to Kingston Road, later the site of the candle factory. The force relocated to a second station on Kingston Road in 1876 and moved again to new premises on the same street in 1998. In 2022, the local police force is Surrey Police.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The magistrates' courts at Knowle Green, opposite the Spelthorne Borough Council offices, were opened in 1976.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines Cottage Hospital was opened on 19 May 1914 on the corner of Kingston Road and Worple Road. It was renamed Staines Hospital in 1933, but its importance decreased following the opening of Ashford Hospital in 1939. During the 1960s, the men's wards were shut and it became a hospital for female patients only. It closed in the early 1980s and the buildings were demolished in 1986. The Kingscroft respite service for adults with learning difficulties opened on the site in 1987.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The nearest hospital with an A&E is Ashford Hospital, from Staines-upon-Thames. As of 2022, the town has GP practices at Burgess Way, Knowle Green and on Rochester Road.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines is linked by a number of bus routes to surrounding towns and villages in north Surrey, south west London (including Heathrow Airport) and east Berkshire. Operators serving the town include Metroline, London United, First in Berkshire and White Buses. The bus station is to the south of the Elmsleigh Centre.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines railway station is to the east of the town centre. It is managed by South Western Railway, which operates all services. Trains run to via , to via Ascot and to via .


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The non-tidal section of the River Thames is navigable between Lechlade in Gloucestershire and Teddington Lock. The navigation authority is the Environment Agency.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: National Cycle Route 4, which links London to Fishguard, passes through Staines. The Thames Path crosses Staines Bridge.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The surviving first record of a schoolmaster in Staines is from 1353 and there are mentions of later postholders in documents dating from 1580 to 1673. However, by the 18th century, it appears that there was no dedicated teacher living in the town and, in 1795, the parish clerk was in receipt of a modest salary to teach four children. The British Boys' School in Staines was founded in 1808 and the girls' school was in existence by 1832. By 1852, the boys' school was in Hale Street and was educating around 35 pupils. An infants' school was founded in 1833, which moved with the girls school to Thames Street in 1867. The two schools moved again to larger premises in the same road, but the 1867 schoolhouse still survives behind the shop fronts. National Schools for boys and girls were established in 1818 and in the mid-1820s respectively, but both closed for around a decade before reopening in the mid-1840s. The girls' school moved to new premises in Bridge Street in 1850 and the boys' school relocated to London Road in 1863.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Riverbridge Primary School was formed from the merger of three predecessor schools in September 2011. The oldest was Shortwood Infant School, which opened in 1905 as the Stanwell Road School. Knowle Park School opened in 1974, but had its origins in the Wyatt Road School which was formed in 1896. Kingscroft Junior School opened in 1992 and replaced Kingston Road School, which had opened in 1903. Riverbridge Primary School operated across three sites, until September 2014, when the former Shortwood Infant School premises were closed. The school became part of the Lumen Learning Trust in Autumn 2016.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: The construction of the Matthew Arnold School started in 1939, but work was suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War. However, parts of the building were sufficiently close to completion to allow pupils aged 11 to 14 from Kingston Road School to transfer to the site, after their classrooms were damaged by bombing. The school formally opened in 1954.


title: Staines-upon-Thames

text: Staines Preparatory School was founded by Cyril Travers Burges and opened on 8 May 1935. The original premises were at 1 Gresham Road, but the school moved to number 3 in 1938 and expanded to number 5 in 1951. The Burges Wing was constructed in 1991; the Jubilee Wing was built in 2002, and was extended in 2008. Today, Staines Prep School educates boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 11.