Press called for comment on Haringey Council sending out a press release on a reduction in the number of parking tickets they have issued. Given the number of people who get ticketed wrongly by Haringey and come to me to sort it out (they still haven’t refunded the fines they levied on two of their illegal yellow junction boxes) the question really should be – how many do they write off out of the number issued due to wrongly issued tickets? And should Haringey not be fined every time they get it wrong?

No doubt Haringey are feeling a bit sore at the moment because of their poor record on confusing signage and illegal yellow junction boxes – let alone their own wardens not understanding their own signs. I suspect the timing of this ‘good news’ story is not coincidental!

You may have recently read about the horrific crash of a coach into two flats at the bottom of Muswell Hill. Here I am pictured with Andrew Smith and his wife – from one of the two flats which suffered catastrophic damage. There was also a young mother and baby in the other flat when the accident happened. A miracle that no one was killed.

Anyway, this morning I had requested a meeting between a top council officer and the residents of the flats to try and get proper action taken to protect them from further carnage. The accident itself was caused by a coach or lorry going uphill, running out of petrol and being advised by the police to reverse free wheeling back down. The vehicle went out of control and hit the flats as you can see – crossing the pavement and sweeping a bollard out of the way.

The bollards were installed a few years ago following an earlier campaign with residents and myself as this is an accident hotspot. Likewise – finally after about eight years of campaigning – a speed camera was installed on Muswell Hill about fourteen months ago. Seemingly – neither of these measures have quite been enough – although very welcome and undoubtedly better than before.

So – about six residents of the flats and two council officers (a head of traffic policy and an engineer) met this morning. First question was – what more could be done to prevent vehicles going out of control?

The anti-skid surface that was applied last year apparently hasn’t taken and is deemed to have ‘failed’ so the contractor will be obliged to come back and redo that job. But the officers will look at all sorts of records to establish causality – so that they can come back with proposals to improve the engineering to prevent it happening. No doubt the speed camera will have helped a bit – but clearly not enough.

The second thing they will consider is what measures can be taken to improve the safety should something go wrong and a vehicle go out of control? The hill and the camber make it virtually certain that under those conditions it is the bottom of the hill residences that are in line of fire.

So – we now wait for Haringey Council to assess the record and come back with proposals. It was a good meeting – and whilst passions are high – I felt that it was a positive meeting. We shall see.

It may be that the funding for any improvements will come from Transport for London – in which case I have offered to nag at the highest level. But it may be that it will come out of Haringey budget. We will have to wait and see.