Liberal Democrat councillors will today call on Haringey Council to support their motion calling for the Government to scrap its plans to introduce top-up fees for universities. The Lib Dems say that the Government’s bill is short-sighted and will have a detrimental long-term affect on Haringey’s economy.

Liberal Democrats want to stop top-up fees, scrap tuition fees and bring in fair grants (for poorer students). They say that this can be funded by asking the highest earners to pay a small amount extra in tax.

Lib Dem leader Neil Williams has acknowledged that 73 Labour MPs stood by their manifesto commitment and joined the Liberal Democrats in the voting lobby to oppose the Bill in the recent both in Parliament. He hopes that Labour Councillors on Monday night will be similarly courageous in supporting the Lib Dem motion.

Lib Dem Leader Cllr Neil Williams comments:

“I think it is very disappointing that many Labour MPs, who have enjoyed the benefits of grants and free higher education, have become so detached from the electorate that they can vote for this policy. I hope that the Labour Council support our motion on Monday.”

Liberal Democrats in Haringey have welcomed the Metropolitan Police’s decision to make officers in the borough wear protective vests. The decision, which also affects eleven other London boroughs, follows a review of health and safety issues following an incident in Newham where an officer was shot.

Lib Dem councillor and GLA member Lynne Featherstone believes the measures are fully justified, in view of the recent incident in Newham and the general problems with gun crime across the capital.

Cllr Featherstone comments:

“I think the Met Police have made a sensible decision. Many officers already wear the ‘metvest’ on a regular basis. This directive merely ensures that they are all protected by this essential, potential life saving piece of equipment.”

However she adds that while protective measures were important, the Government needs to do more to tackle the causes of crime:

“It is important that while police tackle crime, the Government addresses many of the social problems that lead people into crime. Without the Government doing its part, the crime problem will grow and the police will need consider other protective measures.”

The Lib Dem candidate in the Muswell Hill by-election has strongly criticised Haringey Council for refusing to back residents’ and local Lib Dem councillors’ demands for a new pedestrian crossing on Priory Road. Gail Engert has made the comments following the Labour-run council’s refusal to provide money for a new crossing, despite the pleas of local residents, who even brought the issue to a recent meeting of Haringey’s full council.

Gail Engert is backing local residents and says the road is dangerous, with fast moving cars making it impossible to cross the wide road safely to the shops at Park and Priory Village. However the Lib Dems have secured a commitment form the Council to keep the issue under review, and as a short-term measure Gail Engert and Lynne Featherstone will be pursuing the possibility of cheaper measures to make the road safer. These might include ‘slow’ markings on the road and some traffic islands.

Gail Engert comments:

“It is very disappointing to see the Labour-run Council refusing to listen to the huge safety concerns facing pedestrians crossing the road near the bottom of Muswell Hill. While I will be pursuing other safety issues, these are very much half measures, as a proper crossing is needed.”

Muswell Hill councillor Lynne Featherstone adds:

“A crossing would also help to boost the parade of shops at Park and Priory Village, which has lost both a bank and a post office in recent months. We will not let the matter rest, and both Gail Engert and I will be pursuing the issue further.”

Liberal Democrat GLA candidate for Enfield and Haringey, Wayne Hoban, has highlighted new figures that show the equivalent of 5,874 police officers were removed from front line policing in Haringey in 2003 to undertake other duties.

According to the figures there has been a 42% increase in ‘abstractions’ – the numbers of police taken away from front line policing – for 2002 to 2003. Haringey has one of the highest abstraction rates in London, which equates to an average of 15 policemen a day who were taken away from their duties last year. The figures were taken from Parliamentary answers to Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat Mayoral candidate, which shows that there were:

* 67,750 police taken away from normal duties in the boroughs to police state visits and counter terrorism
* 69,767 police taken away from normal duties in the boroughs to police public order (including football matches etc)
* 21,692 police taken away from normal duties in the boroughs to police ‘other’ events

Inner-London boroughs faced the biggest removal of officers from normal duties, but even in Kingston where ‘abstractions’ were smallest, almost 2,300 (or an average six a day) were taken away from duties last year.

Wayne Hoban comments:

“When local police are removed from their front line duties, crime will inevitably increase. We saw this in action during the recent visit of George Bush when there was a 20% increase in street robberies across London.”

Lib Dem crime spokesperson, Cllr Lynne Featherstone, adds:

“It is unfair, unreasonable and unnecessary for police officers to be taken away so regularly from their local community in order to police other events which should be the responsibility of other parts of the police service.”

Highgate councillor and Lib Dem Leader Neil Williams has called on Haringey Council to sharpen up its act over co-ordination of hugely disruptive street works in the Highgate area. The call follows a week of parking chaos and misery for residents round the Archway Road as gas works and bridge repair works clashed.

Council workers have set up camp in Langdon Park Road, just off the Archway Road, as part of the long-awaited refurbishment works on the nearby Archway Bridge. However at the same time, it emerged this week that Haringey has also given permission for gas mains company Transco to perform a major mains upgrade in the road. The gas works will be migrating along Langdon Park Road and Hornsey Lane Gardens for several weeks.

Local councillor Neil Williams says Haringey Council should have used some common sense in ensuring that the two major works did not clash. Though Haringey Council has so far not confirmed the state of play to Cllr Williams, it appears that they gave permission for the Transco works to take place, causing parking misery for residents in one of Highgate’s most densely developed areas.

Cllr Williams says that the Council should move their own contractors into a nearby council car park at Tudor Close which has been left largely unused since the Council stopped local residents from parking there two years ago. This would remove from the road the prefabs relating to the bridge works.

Cllr Neil Williams comments:

“Residents have been suffering from parking mayhem this week, and all of it due to lack of foresight and co-ordination from Haringey Council. To make matters worse, many will not have had notice of these works, as Transco is only obliged to contact those residents whose gas supply will be affected – something which ignores the impact on parking for everyone in the street.

“The Council should have anticipated this problem. I recognise the gas works are essential but they could have told Transco they would have to wait a couple of weeks or picked another location for their own works. They should now take steps to move these bridge works to where less disruption will be caused, as the gas works will be continuing along the road. I have asked the Council to act on this, as the present situation is inexcusable and intolerable.”

Local Haringey councillor and London Assembly member Lynne Featherstone has won a runner’s-up prize for the best political ‘blog’ of the year in a competition organised by the Guardian newspaper’s website.

Ms Featherstone’s blog, which features views and updates about her work on the Greater London Authority and Haringey Council, was piped at the post by only two other blogs. The winner was ‘The Gay Vote’.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I am pleased my blog is proving a hit with residents locally and also people more generally across London. It certainly is a discipline, keeping it up-to-date, but I’m delighted it is proving so worthwhile in giving people an insight into everyday politics in London and in Haringey.”

Note:
From the Guardian write up:
“The runners-up on the shortlist of 12 include Lynne Featherstone, a Liberal Democrat member of Haringey council and the London Assembly; the Leeds Labour councillor Stuart Bruce; and a student blogger, Peter Cuthbertson.

“Ms Featherstone, who began blogging four months ago, said her online diary had acquired a life of its own. She plays no part in the day-to-day running of the site and employs a webmaster to maintain it.

“Her recent posts record a “nervous” appearance at a question-and-answer session on transport policy and a visit to a collapsed building in Muswell Hill, north London.

“She occasionally tackles national policy, but usually sticks to London issues.”

In her battle to clear up the areas in and around Haringey’s train stations, local councillor Lynne Featherstone has secured agreement that there will be new litter bins surrounding one station – Harringay – where residents have regularly complained about the amount of rubbish. Ms Featherstone says it is another small but welcome step in securing action from station authorities over the state of local stations.

Lynne Featherstone met with the Streetscene Manager for the Finsbury Park Partnership at Harringay Station last week. The meeting followed an offer of help from the partnership over the installation of new litter bins at the station approaches. After possible locations of new bins were looked at, four new bins were agreed.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“I am delighted that it looks as if we can have four new litter bins near Harringay station. We need to insist that Haringey regularly empties the new bins, and I will not be letting up on the state of the stations. Although I am pleased that new fencing we have pressed for has now been built, a lot of rubbish has not been cleared.”

Stroud Green’s new local councillor Laura Edge adds:

“The state of our two local stations was certainly an issue in the recent by-election, and I am pleased that we are making progress. We will continue to work with residents and local groups to press the stations to clean up their act.”

An anomaly in Haringey Council’s contract for waste collection with Accord is leading to local residents being double charged for waste collection and despite repeated requests from local Liberal Democrats Haringey Council has failed to act to remedy the situation.

Residents living in managed blocks of flats, for example The Copse on Fortis Green, are charged by the flat owners for waste collection. However, these residents also pay the standard rates of council tax, including the element which pays for waste collection.

Cllr Matt Davies (Lib Dem, Fortis Green) and Cllr Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem, Muswell Hill) have both formally asked questions in Full Council meetings on this subject and also contacted the Environmental Services Department numerous times to chase them up. So far there has been no noticeable action.

“The current situation is totally unfair and cannot be allowed to continue,” said Cllr Davies. He went on:

“A small number of local residents are effectively paying twice for their waste collection. Additionally, these residents are also missing out on the door-to-door recycling which is now part of the service provided out of Haringey’s council tax pot.

“If the simple fact is shown to be that the Council failed to negotiate the waste contract with Accord properly, then unfortunately they will have to accept the blame and meet the extra costs being imposed on these residents.

“This is the only fair solution. And we must have a conclusion to this now – residents are rightly annoyed that months and months have already passed without the Council doing anything to help.”

Cllr Davies has tabled the following question for answer at the Full Council meeting on February 23rd:

To ask the Lead Member for the Environment if he expects to be refunding those residents in managed blocks of flats who are paying twice for their rubbish collection – through council tax and through direct charges from owners – due to the Council’s apparent inability to negotiate a waste collection contract which covers all council tax-paying Haringey residents?

This time Cllr Davies is hoping that the answer will be more conclusive than previous answers to questions on this subject – for example in July 2003:

“The issue is currently a matter of discussion between the Council and Haringey Accord. The Waste Management Service in conjunction with Cllr Dodds will keep Councillors informed on the outcome of the discussion.”

Local Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone is calling for an urgent inquiry into the fiasco surrounding the Queen’s Lodge site on Queens Avenue, N10. Cllr Featherstone has written to Haringey Council’s Chief Executive to demand a full investigation.

The former rest home at Queen’s Lodge has been subject to a number of different planning applications over the last 18 months, which Cllr Matt Davies (Lib Dem, Fortis Green) has been following closely and constantly raising residents’ concerns with Haringey Council’s Planning Department. The long-running saga took a turn for the worse last week with the collapse of a significant section of the wall of the original building.

As early as September 2003, Cllr Davies put residents’ fears over the deep excavation at this site to the Council and warning signs of the impending disaster were clear. Lib Dem ward colleague Cllr Stephen Gilbert has also been demanding answers from the Council since the collapse and Councillors Gilbert, Featherstone and Davies met with local residents last weekend to survey the damage at the site.

“Following the disastrous collapse of part of what was left of Queen’s Lodge, I am calling on the Council to launch a full enquiry into this disaster,” said Cllr Featherstone. “Local residents feel this was a disaster waiting to happen and Haringey had plenty of opportunities to act on the warnings made by Matt Davies.”

Liberal Democrats say pressure is building on the Whittington Hospital to make a full statement about the circumstances surrounding the death of Roger Sutherland who died on 7 February 2004 after setting fire to his flat when he should have been cared for by the hospital.

Haringey Labour Councillor Narendra Makanji was recently appointed as chair of the Whittington NHS Trust.

Roger’s family had turned for advice over the last four months to Liberal Democrat Councillor Ron Aitken and he had believed only last Wednesday that Roger was going to be admitted as a psychiatric patient.

“I am aware of at least 6 or 7 occasions in the last two weeks when Roger’s condition was made known to the Whittington, his GP and the Ambulance Service,” said Cllr Aitken. “In light of their catastrophic failure to properly diagnose his condition and offer a place of safety, only an independent inquiry can establish the facts surrounding this tragic case”.

It has emerged that Roger was not known to social services in Islington where he lived. However Islington Council’s Lead Member for Health is supporting the call for a full inquiry. This brings further pressure on the Whittington to explain why Roger Sutherland left the Whittington on the night of 5/6 February and set fire to his flat.