First appointment of the day fails to show up – so left twiddling thumbs until Hansard Society Interview. Extensive interview on how I find various aspects of being an MP after the grand total of around 9 weeks. Hansard are doing an in depth study of a number of MPs and will follow us through our first term. As I say – ask me in a year what I think – as right now I don’t even know what I don’t know or what I need to know. However, always a useful exercise talking to a stranger – helps consolidate own thoughts – even ones I didn’t know I had.

In the afternoon I visit Arbours Crisis Centre in Crouch End. This is an establishment working in the mental health sphere that doesn’t fit – doesn’t fit into categories that would encourage the Government or
Haringey Council or any specific body to fund it. And yet it does invaluable work and has a world-wide reputation.

It’s a small site – one house – where the clients and therapists live together. A novel approach to mental health issues. Of course – being outside the box – funding is a struggle. And perhaps of even more concern is the Government being unable to treat them as a one-off. No says the Government – they must be an institution that comes within the care homes standards. I can see the point, but surely there must be a way which allows different sorts of therapeutic environments to survive – and perhaps have standards that would apply more to a normal house than an institution.

In the evening went to a meeting with the Bowes Park Residents’ Association and officers. It’s about Myddleton Road. This is a road that’s as a microcosm of every problem in the borough. It has numerous small shops, many of which fail and are only open for a short time. Amongst the shops is a trading timber yard that started small, has grown (hurray) as a business, but now through loading and unloading, huge lorries and huge loads on a narrow residential street, no longer really fits being in that location. Add to this – lots of property owners converting every spare inch of space into properties for rental as temporary accommodation and tales of illegal immigrants, twenty to a dwelling creeping in and out. And even more – no apparent enforcement of planning laws, parking laws, health and safety laws and trading laws – and you have – voila – Myddleton Road.

Now the good news is that the residents’ association seems good and strong. They have got together an action plan of which some of the easy stuff has been done – e.g. a couple of raised levels on the road corners. But the tough stuff is untouched. To be fair to the council, some of this stuff – particularly the housing for immigrants – is a hard nut to crack. However, if the council would put someone in charge of pushing forward the Myddleton Road scheme, it could happen – or at least most of it could happen.

All the council officers in attendance at the meeting seemed really committed and full of good intentions – but you could see that without a driving force it would just drift along not happening. We agreed to meet every three months with a list of things to be sorted in the meantime and a report back on the action plan.