Opened St Mary’s Estate Fun Day today. How lucky were they – the sun shone brightly unlike yesterday when it poured.

St Mary’s is a quiet estate with no through traffic and very nice little gardens – and two staunch resident women who try so hard to look after it and get things done.

A couple of years ago I remember dragging along the then Chief Executive of Haringey, David Warwick and numerous council staff, the Housing Association managers and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all and marching them around the estate. So much needed doing from new paving to new bin areas – and the resolution of the most stupid arrangement in the world between London Quadrant and Haringey Council where each was responsible for part of the estate for waste removal. You can imagine the shenanigans. And indeed, there are still issues around the council part of the estate which needs attention and some new lighting and so on and so on.

These two women, Nadia and Jeanette, really work to make the estate nice and are entirely frustrated (and probably worn out) by things just never really getting done or moving forward. So – I have said that I will ask all those involved in the maintenance of the estate to convene into a working action group to meet once every two or three months (like had happened in the past) to try and move this forward.

Having arrived to open the day at 1pm – things were clearly going to start later than planned – so for the early comers I launched the day and said hello – and wished everyone a good time.