Repairs to roads across the London Borough of Haringey are taking place following a meeting of the Full Council on 23 February at which Cllr Martin Newton, Liberal Democrat Transport and Highways spokesperson, highlighted in a slide show the vast array of borough-wide problems on Haringey’s streets – from potholes and faded road markings to uneven pavements, worn out pedestrian crossings and dumping.

Cllr Newton, who came up with the idea of showing to the Labour-run council the real state of the borough, comments:

“Many of the issues raised, such as potholes and poor pavements, impact daily on the lives of residents but others, such as faded pedestrian crossings and worn-out anti-skid surfacing, can have more serious safety consequences. Everyone can see the state of the roads and pavements and highlighting these problems visually has produced some individual results borough-wide but Haringey Council must accept responsibility for our environment and its upkeep.

“I was shocked that Labour councillors were totally unaware of the many problems highlighted in the wards they represent and it proved a real wake-up call.”

Lynne Featherstone MP, added:

“I am glad that Haringey Council has finally sat up and listened. For too long Haringey Council has sat back waiting for roads, pavements and zebra crossings to degrade beyond repair. I hope now they will start to take proactive action – but I will not hold my breath.”

Local shops forced to close in Haringey due to the recession are being plagued by a rash of fly-posting. Local Liberal Democrats are urging action by Haringey Council to tackle the problem, which has become more widespread as more shops close, adding to the blight of the economic downturn in local shopping areas.

Last week Liberal Democrat councillors in Crouch End met with officers from the local Safer Neighbourhood Team and Haringey Council enforcement officials to launch an initiative to help co-ordinate efforts to eradicate new graffiti.

Residents can report new fly-posting to 020 8489 1000 with details of what has been seen, where, when and with details of the poster.

Cllr David Winskill, Crouch End, comments:

“Crouch End traders and residents are really feeling the pinch from the economic downturn. We want to avoid the situation that, when shops do close, fly-posters immediately start to graffiti local shops – this only adds to the effect of the recession.

“If we let fly-posters continue then this could lead to a rise in fly-tipping and general graffiti. Crouch End can weather this financial storm if we all work together.”

Lynne Featherstone MP added:

“As the recession bites more shops may be forced to close. The least Haringey Council can do is to ensure that our local shopping centres do not degrade further by clearing graffiti promptly.”

The initiative was welcomed by Graham Powell owner of Graham Fine Art, Crouch End, who added:

“I worked very hard with Enforcement to get fly-posting removed from the old Hogshead opposite my gallery. Persistence paid off and the building has been poster free for months. If all residents and shopkeepers pull together to report what they see, we can get on top of this problem.”

Labour’s attempt to support struggling home owners through the ‘Mortgage Rescue Scheme’ will only help two percent of Haringey home owners threatened by repossession, according to research by Haringey Liberal Democrats.

The Mortgage Rescue Scheme, administered by Haringey Council, has been launched as the government’s means of helping struggling homeowners survive the recession. Through the scheme, Haringey Council buys part of the home threatened with repossession and lets it back to the former homeowner in order to make monthly payments more manageable.

However, the scheme has been capped nationally, so that only 6,000 rescues can be possible over the next two years in England. Broken down by local authority, that means only 15 Haringey homes will be rescued over that period, about 2% of the estimated 512 homes in Haringey issued with repossession orders in 2007-2008.

Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, is now calling on the government to extend the scheme to help more struggling Haringey residents.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“The idea to go in and directly help home owners on the brink of repossession is a good one, but looking at the hard numbers, this seems like another Labour PR stunt with little real substance.

“With our high local house prices, many Haringey residents are already struggling with large mortgage payments. As the recession deepens, there is a real risk that more and more people might be faced with the terrifying threat of repossession.

“The housing situation in Haringey is already so difficult – and this scheme seems to do little to stop the record-high numbers of people already in temporary housing from escalating further.”

After the release of a damning independent investigation into failings in the care of a paranoid schizophrenic who killed one and seriously injured five others in 2004, local MP Lynne Featherstone has set up an urgent meeting with mental health trust bosses to discuss how failings will be addressed.

The report by NHS London into the care provided to Ismail Dogan, who on the 23rd December 2004 stabbed five people, one of them fatally, shows gross failings – both in community mental health care and an inability on the part of the Trust to make sure lessons were learnt.

The report shows that an initial internal investigation was not circulated to staff and middle managers across the Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust, or Haringey PCT, in order to learn from the incident and avoid it happening again. The report also shows that Mr Dogan’s Psychiatric Nurse amended his notes after the incident to make out his care to be more comprehensive than it actually was. The community mental health team, who managed Mr Dogan’s care in the community, was also shown to have failed in providing ongoing care, which was a direct contributor to the 2004 incident.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“This report has shown very serious failings in our local mental health services. It has shown both a failure to communicate effectively, to spot deterioration in a patient’s health and a failure to act decisively when the patient could have been helped. This culminated in a horrific event with the death of a local resident.

“One of the most worrying issues is the fact that the internal review was not circulated as widely as it should have been. The Trust now needs to demonstrate that it’s prepared to learn the hard lessons, to avoid tragedies like this happening in the future.

“Another equally worrying issue uncovered by the report is that the Trust’s community team was not up to scratch in 2004. With the ongoing consultation to close an acute mental health ward at St Ann’s Hospital and hand over more responsibility to the community teams- we need assurances that today’s community mental health services have improved drastically since 2004.”

After demanding drastic improvement on how quickly the Met answer non-emergency calls, following a damning survey in 2002 that showed 40% of London’s police stations not picking up the phone within 6 minutes, Lynne Featherstone MP has this week been to see how the Met have stepped up to the challenge at its new centralised command centre in Bow.

The Bow centre, along with two others in London, now takes all emergency and non-emergency calls from the public. Last year they recorded a new response rate of 30 seconds for 90% of all non-emergency calls. The Met have also recently launched a pan-London non-emergency number (0300 123 1212), and can now also connect you to interpreters in 150 different languages within 30 seconds.

The police pledge, launched this week, will further allow the public for the first time to check-up on police progress against pre-defined targets.Amongst other things, this means that all non-emergency calls should be taken within 30 seconds, and emergency calls within 10 seconds.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“When I carried out my response survey in 2002 I was shocked to see the poor response rate, and pushed hard for the Met to deliver a system that worked for 21st Century London.

“I’m really chuffed to see that the Met have stepped up to the challenge here at Bow and delivered.With response rates down from 6 minutes to 30 seconds, the proof certainly is in the pudding!

“The new police pledge for the first time allows us to check how well Haringey Police are doing in relation to their own targets. I would therefore be really keen to hear from any local residents who might have had a bad or good experience with a police response. Only through continual challenge can we ensure the service local residents deserve.”

Commenting on Haringey Council’s fall to a one star council, Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, says:

“We can only regret that the Audit Commission did not reach these conclusions sooner.Early indications of the failings in Children’s Services might have helped prevent the well-publicised tragedy that followed.

“Questions still remain unanswered how three stars were previously awarded to a service that has so publicly proved not to have deserved it.

“Up to now the Audit Commission has been complicit in the tick box culture that lulled all into a sense of security. I hope this marks a new chapter shedding a welcome eye on key services.”

Councillor Robert Gorrie, Liberal Democrat opposition leader on Haringey Council, adds:

“We have continually challenged the Labour Council’s leadership on sleep-like affliction to tick the right boxes and their neglect of their key responsibility – to deliver for the people of Haringey.

“Local residents and scrutineers rely on the supposedly expert assessment of service performance.Recent experience has shown how badly we have been let down.

“I very much hope this new assessment marks a watershed in this failed regime.”

After meeting with local traders who are worried that a proposed development may turn a pub into a superstore on Lordship Lane yesterday, Lynne Featherstone MP has now successfully got the developers to agree a meeting with the traders.

The Liberal Democrat MP is now in the process of setting up the meeting between local traders and developers London Newcastle, to which all neighbours will be invited.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“London Newcastle readily agreed to start a dialogue with local traders and residents. They say they genuinely want to work with the community.

“I’m glad that they are being accommodating and really making an effort to listen to local concerns. Hopefully this meeting will be the beginning of a good relationship between local residents, traders and the developers.”

Haringey Labour councillors unanimously voted against a Liberal Democrat proposal at last night’s Full Council to establish a separate watchdog committee focusing solely on Children’s Services.

The committee would have been chaired by an opposition councillor and supported by a completely independent and impartial vice-chair. These changes would have allowed a fundamental change in the way councillors oversee the borough’s Children’s Service.

The measure would have directly responded to the severe criticism in the new Joint Area Review (JAR) report that specifically cited the failure in scrutiny as a contributing factor in not having systems in place that would have prevented the tragic death of Baby P.

Councillor Gail Engert, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Children’s Services said:

“These are constructive proposals that would make an immediate and lasting difference in the way we keep our eye on how Children’s Services are run.

“It is deeply worrying that in spite of a promise of change, Labour has rejected out of hand this simple and immediate overhaul that would have imposed real and robust checks and balances.”

Councillor Karen Alexander, Liberal Democrat Scrutiny spokesperson, commented:

“I am worried that setting up an ad-hoc panel as suggested by Labour will not have the powers of a scrutiny committee.If there are concerns about Children’s Services this panel will not be able to do anything about it.”

Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey & Wood Green adds:

“There is a serious conflict of interest at the heart of Labour’s scrutiny system because it is chaired by a Labour member.

“It is impossible to see how a member of the Labour group can thoroughly and independently review, and when necessary criticise, decisions taken by colleagues from his or her own party.

“I am concerned that in spite of promises of change Haringey Labour wants business as usual. Given the scale of the tragedy and the legitimate concerns raised by local residents over the quality of services, Haringey Council needs to address these failings now.”

Last night Haringey Council finally admitted that they failed to inform local people over the future of St. Ann’s Hospital.

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Nigel Scott welcomed the statement made by Labour councillor Kaushika Amin when she admitted that residents were kept in the dark when St Ann’s Hospital was transferred to Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust in 2001.

Councillor Amin was responding to a deputation led by Mario Petrou at last night’s (23rd Feb 2009) meeting of the Full Council.Mr Petrou also raised new concerns over the future of the St Ann’s site.

Cllr Nigel Scott, Haringey Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson, comments:

“Finally Haringey Labour have admitted that they are bad at listening and consulting with local residents. Cllr Amin apologised after years of Labour failing to recognise local concerns.”

Cllr Rachel Allison, Haringey Liberal Democrat Regeneration Spokesperson, adds:

“We must now press for the future of St Ann’s Hospital site to be decided by all stakeholders. The future of mental health services must be an important part of any consultation but the size of the site means that other uses are on the cards.

“Local people must have real input in decision making. Opportunities like this only come along once in a generation and we owe it to the people of Haringey to make sure this chance is not squandered.”

Lynne Featherstone MP adds:

“St. Ann’s could be a real asset for the whole of Haringey but nearly a decade of Labour incompetence has taken its toll. A clear plan is needed to ensure the future of St. Ann’s hospital and to move on from years of neglect and doubt.”