Meeting George Meehan

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In the afternoon I have my first meeting with George Meehan since his reincarnation as Leader of the Council. We have an agreed agenda – and quite quickly get into a real abuse of power that is going on in Haringey. There are three areas where Haringey Council is moving ahead on absolutely vital local issues – and not even consulting with the local councillors at all. I know Labour are angry and scared about their losses at the local elections – but the Lib Dems are democratically elected and it is not only not appropriate to leave them out of things happening in their wards – but it is also unethical.

I put the CPZ travesty directly to George. There are four CPZ areas in the borough up for review to add streets (Wood Green, Bounds Green, Seven Sisters and Highgate) which George has suspended and delayed because the local councillors had not been consulted with.

But there is another bunch of CPZ proposals in the west of the borough, (Fortis Green, Muswell Hill, Hornsey etc) where there are new proposals for great huge new CPZs where the local councillors (Lib Dem) have not been consulted – but hey ho – they have gone out and are going ahead anyway! I asked him to suspend ALL the schemes pending both consultation with the relevant local councillors and also in the light of the imminent new guidance coming down from government about CPZs and the processes around them.

George said that this was not right, that it shouldn’t have happened and that from now on it wouldn’t. I pointed out that ‘from now on’ was meaningless as such great swathes of the west would be progressed anyway under these proposals. George has agreed to discuss suspending the schemes with Brian Haley – Labour Executive member for Environmental issues. We’ll see what happens!

We discussed a number of other issues, including the planning enquiry on the Lordship Lane twin towers proposals. It banished the tower block but has allowed the eight-storey block to go ahead. Not a victory in my view. Also on planning – there’s the concrete factory. George says the council committed to the enforcing of the forty-three conditions that the Planning Inspector put on his granting of the appeal by London Concrete.

I also ask him about the council permits for parking that were issued to residents in a new block that had got planning permission on the basis of being ‘car free’. This is a great worry for local residents as parking stress is severe in their area.

George says that “only2 seven permits were granted – and when they run out they will not be re-issued. I point out that it is told to me that the developers advertised the flats as being with permits. George says if that is so it is illegal. So if anyone has hard evidence, please let me know.

We then discuss Fortismere School. Haringey Council is sending out a letter to all parents to lay out some of the facts. I am glad as I have been calling for the facts to be given straight so that the parents can make an informed choice and then, hopefully if they answer my call, vote in a parental ballot!

On to Hornsey Town Hall – an exhibition goes up today in the Town Hall and in September the development plan from the Community Partnership Board will go to the Labour executive.

The London bombings

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Memories of the bombings flood in from every news station and newspaper. I am taken back to a year ago where I remember so clearly my journey into Westminster. It was the first time I took the car up to Parliament – because I had to take a load of stuff in. The radio began to give news of ‘power surges’ at stations. But I knew after a few minutes that there was a likely terrorist attack in process. And as I drove past Kentish Town station people were being evacuated – and as the news of the bus bomb came over the airwaves I saw buses begin to be emptied of their passengers as the drivers obviously received messages to evacuate the buses. In Parliament there were huddles of MPs and staff around TV screens – and towards lunchtime Charles Clarke came to the chamber to make a statement on the attacks. There was a very, very sombre air that day. And I remember coming out in the late afternoon to go home – giving a lift to two others. Emerging into bright sunshine from the cold and grey of the Commons atmosphere – with thousands and thousands of people walking to get home.

A year on London has proved how strong she is and how our communities – all of us – have held hands to make sure that terrorism didn’t triumph. Truly it is together we stand and divided we fall. And the evil that the extremist Islamic terrorists visited upon us will be vanquished if we stay strong.

I go to surgery in Wood Green and then to pay tribute to those who died, their families and the injured and to the work of the emergency services at a short ceremony in Wood Green opposite the Civic Centre. It is a hard day emotionally – lord knows what it must be like for those more closely involved.

LYNNE FEATHERSTONE MP MARKS 7/7 ANNIVERSARY

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Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, marked the first anniversary of the 7/7 bombing with the mayor, local police chiefs and the Council Leader in the memorial gardens in front of the Civic Centre.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“Today across London all communities stand together.Our hearts go out to the families and friends that have lost loved ones and to those who continue to suffer from the injuries they sustained on that dark day a year ago.

“Haringey and London have proved that we’re at our strongest when we stand together.No act of terror can break our spirit.”

CPZs

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Straight on after the postal services meeting to the anti-CPZ (Controlled Parking Zone) meeting organised in Muswell Hill against the ‘Stop and Shop’ proposals and the proposed CPZs in Muswell Hill – but also in a number of other areas in the West of the borough.

The local Liberal Democrat councillors were not even consulted about these proposals in their wards prior to the consultation being sent out. Labour are behaving incredibly anti-democratically, trying to get around the fact that these wards have actually elected Lib Dems and not Labour.

It’s quite a large meeting and conducted pretty constructively. I am given an opportunity to speak and whilst I am a supporter of traffic restrictions and regulations on parking when they are there to solve a problem – you have to think that such indecently rushed proposals which are so extensive, include great swathes of streets without any parking problem, and are not based on proper feasibility or parking stress studies, may be about revenue raising and not simply problem solving.

There are real problems, however, in some streets – and if Labour are going to put forward proposals they should be working with local people to identify first where those people are with problems, what times of day, etc, etc and then through public meetings and residents associations talk to the people and form the proposals together – not just dump them on them.

Ironically, the four CPZ review areas of Woodside, Bounds Green Highgate and Green Lanes have been delayed by Labour leader George Meehan. But six or so CPZ proposals have gone straight out to statutory consultation with no such lead up – and as I say, without even consulting the local councillors.

I am meeting George Meehan tomorrow and I tell the meeting that I will be asking him to suspend all consultations pending the new guidance about to come out from government, because proper procedures haven’t been followed and because there should first be a full program of local meetings AND a proper study of each area to identify accurately times and locations of severe parking stress.

Postal services in Haringey

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Lynne Featherstone campaigning for better postal servicesFirst of two evening meetings. It is a meeting to begin to put together a group of volunteers to start a postal pressure group. Following the postal services survey I carried out earlier this year – and to which I had a mammoth response – I want to put together a practical and constructive group to keep a watching and testing brief on how we recipients are being treated.

The survey identified a number of issues, the main ones being around theft and loss of mail, damaged mail, delays, miss-deliveries, complaints not being acted on, getting a card through your door saying no-one was in to receive a parcel when someone had be in; and so on. For some people it’s a minor irritation, for some it’s a significant problem and for a some – whose business and livelihood depend on the postage service – it’s an absolute nightmare. (And as ever in public life when you take up an issue – there are one or two people who think it doesn’t matter at all and can’t possibly imagine that it might matter to anyone else either!).

We had a senior person from Royal Mail and we went through all of the issues and how we might work together to actually make a difference. We agreed to put a group together with a relatively tight agenda which would focus on the do-able and the local! I have some volunteers willing to take this on – but anyone who is interested and reads this is welcome to contact me if they would like to be involved. I will be reporting more fully on the meeting and the way forward in due course.

Developing nicely

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I protest! In fact I protest often. Because planning applications can ruin peoples’ lives yet planning law is often on the side of the developer. More often than not, ordinary local people find they are David fighting Goliath when it comes to fighting an application near them.

Just recently, despite my MP protests, councillors’ protests, residents’ protests and a campaign group’s protests, Goliath won again – and a concrete factory on will be built on Cranford Way, in the middle of a residential area with narrow streets and lots of schools. Just the place for HGVs to thunder through daily – not!

One thing the case highlights is the way the rules favour developers. The presumption is in favour of development and the rules reflect this. Just one example – if the developer is ruled against by a council – they can appeal. But if the council rules in favour of the developer – no-one opposed to the development can appeal. Where’s the fairness in that? And developers have fancy lawyers and seemingly endless money; if they fail on one application they come back with another.

In the case of the concrete factory, the council rejected the application but then on appeal Her Majesty’s Inspector decided that the noise, pollution and traffic wouldn’t be too bad after all – and overturned the local council’s decision.

Now, I have no doubt that many, many planning inspectors to an excellent job. But there is fundamentally something worrying about a process where the final decision is made by someone who doesn’t have to live with the results – and indeed whose future career and prospects only very slightly hinge on how good or bad their decisions turn out to be down the road. That isn’t a system that is likely to bring the best results. For all the flaws of councils and councillors on occasions, they know that if they make a decision and get it wrong, the angry public can – and often do – kick them out. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in democratic accountability – because that is what gives people the most say and power over their own lives and communities.

And outside of a consultation every decade or so on the local council’s Unitary Development Plan (which zones areas) there is no local say on what gets built if a site is available. It’s all left to the developers who, let us face it, are not necessarily working for the good of the community.

And it isn’t just about concrete factories! We are in desperate need of more housing. Mayor Livingstone has set targets for each borough. But his name is being used in vain in two ways. Firstly – luxury housing crammed into impossible sites which damage the surrounding settings and are nothing to do with the Mayor’s London plan and the need for affordable social housing. Secondly – we get high rise, poorly designed, lowest common denominator developer housing foisted on areas of deprivation. Cheap, shoddy housing is then defended on the grounds, "but it is needed". But that is no excuse for such poor quality.

Next week I will be giving evidence to a local planning enquiry to support local people against such a case – another thoughtless, ugly, anonymous block. It will be the third planning enquiry I have appeared at since becoming MP only just over a year ago. If these developments were well-designed and attractive they would not run into the sort of hail of protest that regularly greets them and they would not blight the built environment nor the aspirations of the people living there for decades to come. We do need housing – but we don’t need built-in future deprivation.

Developers won’t like me for this – but I think they get away with murder. Perhaps we need to introduce a developers’ report card and publish it. Let’s interview the tenants of their buildings, one, two and five and ten years after they move in. Let’s score just how pleasant and well-designed their buildings actually are to live in – and publish it, and let the scores be considered when future permission is given or refused. And let’s have a review of Planning Enquiry decisions that examines whether developments that get the go ahead with conditions attached have those conditions enforced – and if they do not – then lets make the Government liable for the costs of enforcement – not the Council who rejected the original decision. And let’s have a right of appeal for ordinary people against the granting of permission!

The US and extradition

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Ming played a blinder today at Prime Minister’s Questions. He went on the unequal arrangements we have with the US about extradition. They can extradite who they like from us with just evidence that the person they want is the person they want. No evidence required about the quality of the case or charges against them. On the other hand, if we want to extradite someone from the US to here – different rules apply. We have to provide evidence that there is a good case for them to answer.

So the simple question is – if that’s what we have to do to extradite someone from the US, why don’t the same rules (and protection) apply to someone the US wants to get from here? To add insult to injury the US hasn’t even ratified the extradition agreement with the UK under which they can extradite people from the UK.

Tony B is on the back foot and it is Ming’s best performance to date!

One of our local councillors contacts me to say that the organisers of the biggest Muslim event in Europe, which will be held at Ally Pally tomorrow, have asked if I would like to be on the platform. I would love to – but with such late notice sadly I cannot go as I have been put down for a debate in Parliament at exactly the opening time. So I have sent a message that I hope will be read saying: ‘I am so sorry that Parliamentary business prevents me being here in person. I welcome everyone to Alexandra Palace for this momentous event. In these difficult times, I wish all communities peace and good will. We share this world – and we all have a right to respect and peace.’ It will be quite an occasion!

FEATHERSTONE CALLS FOR ACTION ON NOEL PARK PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT

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Local parents have contacted Lynne Featherstone MP for Hornsey and Wood Green in desperation as their children face a second summer without play equipment at Noel Park Recreation Ground.

In autumn 2004 the play equipment was removed to make way for buildings of a new children’s centre, which was welcomed by local parents. Building work has been finished for some time, but the promised new playground equipment for the under 5’s has still not been installed.

Lynne Featherstone met with a representative of the Parents Forum and has now written to Haringey Council urging them for a speedy installation.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone MP said:

“Haringey Council’s failure to replace the children’s play equipment is simply not acceptable.

“I have written to Haringey Council urging them to resolve this as soon as possible.”

MUSWELL HILL ODEON EXTENSION PLANS REJECTED

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Planned extensions to flats adjacent to the Odeon cinema in Muswell Hill have been shelved, following the objections of residents in the area backed up by Muswell Hill councillor Gail Engert, who attended the day-long appeal hearing.

The battle between residents and developers has been ongoing, and Councillor Engert has campaigned against earlier schemes on the same site.

Councillor Engert had led objections to the proposals on the basis that the plans did not fit in with the surrounding buildings and were out of character with the area as a whole. The Planning Inspectorate’s appeal decision, published on the 27th June, dismissed the developer’s appeal, concluding that the plans “would result in significant harm…to the character and appearance of the conservation area”.

Councillor Engert comments: “The addition of another level to the Odeon cinema building, complete with a bridge over the car park entrance, would have spoiled the appearance of a much-loved local landmark and detracted from the area as a whole. I am very pleased to hear that these proposals have been turned down.”

I'm given a set of teachers

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Cut out teachers! No – not cut them out but paper cut-outs! I go to Bounds Green School to receive the cut-outs that the children have done so that I can give them to Tony Blair and remind him of his promise to ensure that every child in the world has the opportunity of going to school by the year 2015. It is a mammoth challenge. For example – Bangladesh alone needs 167,000 teachers and Africa three million.

The children come into assembly in the hall and I talk to them for a bit about the challenge and about the poverty around the world that means that what our kids take for granted, many millions of children around the world don’t even have a chance of – especially girls. One girl asks a really good question at the end. She asked how we would make sure that the money was used properly. That’s something we all want to know and I will put the question to T Blair!

Straight on to North London Schools Exhibition on their work on International Networking. This is a project in Haringey which links schools with those in other countries through their teachers, teaching and pupil contact – and there were some fantastic projects on display. I was really thrilled by the kids there whose horizons will have been forever widened by the experiences of this project. I believe it is really important to give children a vision of a much wider world than their own daily lives. If I think back to my school days, I don’t particularly remember my lessons – but what I do remember is the trips we took, my foreign pen pals, the direct contact with others from other countries. Those memories and experiences shape your thinking.