I really couldn’t believe it when I heard that Haringey Labour Council had announced late last year – plans to increase Council charges to residents for street parties from £60 to £3000. Charging local residents £3000 just to have a street party was an outrageous proposal.
Well done to my LibDem councillor colleagues who took action to force Labour to reverse this truly draconian proposal. The planned increase has now been abandoned and at the Council’s cabinet meeting last week the Labour councillor responsible announced that charges would increase, but only to £80 for small street parties. Liberal Democrats welcomed the climb-down following LibDem councillors having raised the issue in December 2010.
Given the number of streets likely to hold street parties for the Royal Wedding – and we are a pretty sociable and street party borough anyway – even without the Royal Wedding – as my LibDem Councillor Colleague Gail Engert said ‘ thank goodness Labour have seen sense’.
My view – pity they didn’t have any sense in the first place!
Lynne Featherstone 
Perhaps the council’s suddenly found itself seriously short of money? I wonder why this could possibly be?
Lynne – when your Lib Dem colleagues in Government are cutting funds to local councils then this is the result. Don’t you get it???
My son is autistic and benefits from the excellent service offered by the Markfield centre in Tottenham – guess what? It’s about to lose funding for all it’s after school clubs and playschemes, and they will end in march. This is what’s important – not your pathetic attempts to deflect your constituents attention from what is happening. How do you sleep at night (I guess you don’t have the same worries as us ordinary folk, so probably just fine)
Very similar to sarah teather’s comments. Perhaps if the coalition hadn’t given one of the largest reductions to Haringey then this option could have been ruled out far earlier. So afraid this is a problem of your own making
Let them eat cake
Lynne
£3000 does indeed sound a bit steep. What are your plans for reducing Haringey Council’s costs so as to live within the reduced budget that the government now provide?
Tom
When do you ever see a street party in the more under privileged areas of the borough? It’s a upper and upper middle class thing to have a street party.
Granted £3000 is steep and unreasonable but they can afford it, and it would have provided a bit more funding for the local council which desperately needs it. But I guess more regressive fund-raising measures will be implemented instead.
So hooray the posher twats can continue to have there parties well done Liberal Democrats!
Are you being serious, Lynne? The only good reason I can think for a street party would be to celebrate the demise of this despised coalition government! Maybe Nick Clegg and David Cameron will soon be neighbours of Hosni Mubarak in Switzerland!!
Lynne used to be a hardworking constituency mp, getting elected in a Labour area due to her fighting for local people and issues. Now she is a spokesman for a Tory government. Old Lynne would have been shouting from the rooftops about how unfairly the central government’s cuts are hitting places like Haringey hardest. New Lynne can’t do that, so instead we get this kind of pathetic point scoring.
Lynne, if you don’t stick up publicly for Haringey regardless of what colour the council or government is, then the reason we elected you will have not been fulfilled and it will be difficult to find a reason to vote for you again.
Street parties for the Royal Wedding? Haven’t we suffered enough!
Yeah – far better that Haringey make their savings on front line services to vulnerable people than stop the middle classes from having a street party. Hypocrite.
Lynne,
Posts like this seem to suggest that you are more comfortable as an opposition person, someone who likes to be seen attacking things that you don’t agree with, such as higher fees for street parties! But you must realise how ridiculous it is when you complain more vociferously about a rise in street party fees than you do about the raising of tuition fees which, if you still need to be reminded, is something you pledged not to be part of!
Now, if it’s time for “catch up” how about letting your constituents know what you think about proposed changes to the NHS, the leasing of our forests etc.
You really don’t see the link between your opposition to this and your next post where you oppose the cuts in services to the old and vulnerable?
What cuts / increases in revenue have you not opposed? Do you honestly think the cuts imposed on local government are going to be met by Chief Execs taking a pay cut? Get real – and take some responsibility for the actiona of the Government you have so eagerly joined.
Spicy, well said.
As for the royal wedding, good luck to the young couple and all that however if the government thinks there will be a wave of spontaneous joy sweeping the nation thus distracting them from the removal of workers rights (supported by St Vince), privatisation of the NHS, huge cuts in local government budgets (accompanied by insults from Mr Pickles) etc etc…. then they have another think coming. Even tories & the lib dem Tim Farron supported a rally against their own governments plans to sell off our forests this weekend.
Probably no surprise, but I deeply regret voting lib dem in the general election and won’t make that mistake again.
I’d much rather they kept the higher fees for street parties to be honest. There are many things I care far more about than a street party for the royal wedding and it seems like a perfectly acceptable income stream for the council in the face of the cuts facing from central govt.
I think this is a trivial cut to be honest. I think a lot of people would rather pay a fee for a street party and keep their jobs.