How do you want the police to operate? Local police on the beat in thesame area week after week, or ever-shifting faces occasionally poppingup from a distant mega-police centre? And what about health services? Alocal site where you can see the same doctor time after time, or adistant one you have to travel to where you never see the same person?Or what about benefits? A local office where you can talk to someone whoremembers your case from visit to visit or an anonymous automatedtelephone system where it takes ages even to talk to a person – and it’snever the same person as last time?

The answer time and time again is that what people want – and whatdelivers the best services – is for public services to be deliveredlocally, by people who know the community and are rooted in thecommunity. People don’t want to get in their cars or on a bus to accesspostal services, their local GPs or have access to a police frontcounter – especially in an age where so many roads are clogged up andwhere curbing pollution is so necessary.

But our Labour government, so often want to centralise – stripping awaylocal services, closing local facilities and undermining localcommunities. The Labour steamroller seems to believe that ever moredistant services are desired – but they aren’t.

The latest travesty (and tragedy) will see (if they get their way) PostOffices after Post Office close in Haringey and all across London.Before that it was polyclinics – and the idea of moving GP practiseslike the Highgate Group Practice and Dukes Avenue Practice away fromtheir patients and on to the site of the old Hornsey Central Hospitalinstead. Thankfully, I think the Health Trust may by now have got theidea that local people don’t want to lose their local GP practice.

And I don’t think there is a person in Highgate who isn’t keen on theHighgate Safer Neighbourhood Team being stationed in Highgate ratherthan as currently at Muswell Hill. And having stomped the Archway Roadwith police officers looking at likely properties (shops mainly) it is aplain as the nose on your face that the best and most suitable place tostation our local team is on the ground floor of the old Highgate PoliceStation.

So – who is the Government doing this for? Not us – for sure. It’s time that the powers that be realised that they are not there to destroy our lives as we want to live them. Our communities are just that – our communities – andpolice, health and postal services are integral to our everyday livesand everyday needs. To take just one example: our local parades of shopsare supported by people using postal services. Older people, motherswith buggies and people with disabilities would have enormous extraburden to have to get to services further away – let alone all of uswaiting in ever-lengthening queues.

It doesn’t have to be like that though. It’s not a question of localservices not being financially viable – some of the Post Officesearmarked for closure are actually making a profit, and the long termfinancial (let alone any other) cost of seeing areas spiral down intodecay and neglect as services are stripped away is huge.

What we need is real energy and inventiveness being applied tosupporting local services – such as by making our local Post Offices thehub for the provision of a wider range of public services, bringing themto our doorsteps whilst also safeguarding the Post Offices. Essex CountyCouncil are leading the way on this – looking to take over some PostOffices that are threatened with closure, and to then combine them withlocal council services to end up with Post Offices that are local, openand pay their way: it’s a case of win, win, win. That’s just the sort ofimagination we need in Haringey too!

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2008