Carrying out an “estates portfolio review” sounds a rather boring, technical thing – perhaps something done by accountants or estate agents. But don’t snooze off quite yet, for what it means for the Metropolitan Police is that the future of many police stations in Haringey, neighbouring Camden and other boroughs is uncertain.

Some of this is good news – there are police stations that are in old, inadequate buildings. But what will the response be? Will it be to refurbish them? Will it be to move to a new building in the same community? Or will it be to close stations and concentrate services in central “super-stations”?

The latter was in fashion for a long with the Met Police, shutting local services and centralising resources in distant, out of touch mega-buildings. In recent years, the Met started putting more emphasis on delivering local policing through local services – but that is up for grabs again.

Sir John Stevens, when he headed up the Met, had even started to turn the tide a bit with some stations reopening to the public – as we saw in Muswell Hill, where my long campaign with residents finally persuaded him and his colleagues to reopen the doors to the public.

And this was so great – and so popular with people in Muswell Hill – because local police stations are liked and needed by their communities. So, any desire to remove them had bettered be matched by an offer of something not only equal or better – but also agreed upon by local people after proper consultation. Because policing works best where it works with the community.

We are only just now rebuilding the relationship between community and the force that polices them. Only now are people even beginning to feel our voices, which for so many years called for street policing, are at last acknowledged as Safer Neighbourhood Teams roll out into every ward or neighbourhood. And the scheme is beginning to deliver reductions in crime – as we, the people, always knew it would.

I have already met with Sir Ian Blair, London’s top policeman, on this. I was heartened by his promise that no police station would close without a new one opening “as nearby as possible”. However we need to ensure that really means in our community – not a distant, far-off station. “As possible” could be open to a host of different interpretations!

There may well be an argument for a modern office block to house administrative functions. There may well be a valid argument for a cellblock – as we are desperately short of cell space and the police spend hours and hours just trying to find somewhere to hold criminal suspects.

But the real debate has to come about where police are stationed and where they patrol from and where the public can access our police when they need them – and I emphasize ‘our’ police. Of course, what most people most want is police out on the streets patrolling – but where those police are based matters. There is clearly a debate to be had about how to get police more integrated and where they can be accessed by the public: in supermarkets or with front counters in shops on high streets or in a police kiosk – although the one in Wood Green was hardly ever open – so people never really had any confidence in it and now it faces demolition. Much better would be to keep the Wood Green kiosk, base more services at it and have it open for longer.

Sir Ian is going to come and meet me and the local police chief for an early discussion so that he can work on his ‘vision’ for the future of police placement in the borough. He said at our meeting that he wants to know what people think. I want to make sure he hears as many opinions as possible – so please do write to me with your views at House of Commons, London, SW1A 1AA or via my website, www.lynnefeatherstone.org/contact.htm

Let’s act early, act local and be vocal.

I am writing this ahead of the vote in Parliament on Labour’s Education Bill, the outcome of which still seems in the balance – which makes picking words that will make sense when read after the result interesting! But regardless of the outcome of that vote, it will mark a missed opportunity – for so much of the debate has been around Labour party politics (“will the Bill pass?”, “will Tony need Tory support to get the Bill through?”, “have the Labour rebels got any more concessions?” and so on and on) rather than about what is needed to make schools as good as possible.

For there is no doubt, that some urgent improvements in our education systems are needed. Here in Haringey, there are two major challenges – raising standards, especially in the east of the borough, and providing more school places, especially in the west of the borough. The latest figures dug out from Haringey Council by my colleague Cllr Gail Engert (Lib Dem, Muswell Hill) show that 189 children have not been offered a place at any of the up to six secondary schools their parents have applied for. That is a massive crisis in the applications system – and makes a mockery of Labour’s mantra of providing parent choice. It is no choice when 189 children do not even get the bottom option asked for.

This is but one aspect of the bigger problems with the use of choice as Labour’s preferred tool for improving schools. First, for choice to be meaningful there have to be enough places available – and in Haringey, as in many other places, there clearly are not. Second, “enough places” actually means a surplus of places – because if there is to be real choice, there need to be enough spaces to accommodate different choices. This all would require a massive investment in building up a large surplus of extra school places – yet would this really be the best way of spending money?

Moreover, it is not just an issue as regards money. Top quality, talented staff for schools are often in short supply -as with maths teachers and head teachers. For many schools it is hard enough to get enough such people, let alone what would be required to build up an extra surplus of capacity to make real choice meaningful.

What of course happens instead is that without enough places to go around to really service choice, there are those lucky parents who manage to work the system best and get their children in the schools they want, leaving other parents out in the colds. Of course parents are going to try to do the best for their children but what sort of choice is it where the schools children end up depends in large part on how good their parents are at filling forms, working bureaucracy or able to pay for a home in the right catchment area or a place at a private school? I make no apologies for doing all I could to get the best education for my own two daughters, but I know the real answer is not just for me to be able to look after my own daughters, but for all parents to be able to get the best deal too.

After all, what is meant to happen to those who don’t get the choices they seek? You don’t get to rewind your kid’s body clock and try his or her school years again. So, whilst giving parents choice over schools is important, to me the key is raising the standards of all schools. We need to do that by giving teachers the resources they need, cutting back on bureaucracy and form filling and by giving real accountability to the local community, not standards-obsessed Whitehall people.

There’s rather a tendency in our culture to latch on to American phrases and fads at the drop of a hat, but I do particularly like the phrase given to one education act – “No child left behind.” As it was a measure pushed by George W Bush, I don’t agree with all its contents (!), but the phrase has just the right message to it – and one we should all aspire to here. As long as Labour sticks to choice as its main policy for improving schools, that aim won’t be achieved.