Commenting on last week’s local government financial settlement, Lib Dem Leader Cllr Neil Williams (Highgate) says:

“I am pleased that the Government has effectively told councils like Haringey that they can longer have the sort of massive tax increases they have pushed through in recent years.

“However, any extra money is really a ‘sticking plaster’ to get Labour through the general election campaign.Even so, local residents are still very likely to face Council Tax bills at least 30% higher than at the last local elections.”

Lib Dem Finance spokesperson, Cllr Stephen Gilbert (Fortis Green), comments:

“Behind, the scenes, the Government is pressing ahead with a revaluation of Council Tax bands. Because of huge house price increases in recent years, we are very likely to see almost all Haringey properties rise massively up the grading scale.

“The whole system is a shambles, and only a complete rethink, with a local income tax, would give local residents an equitable and stable system with manageable levels of local taxation.”

Note:For more about the Lib Dem alternative to Council Tax – a local income tax – see www.axethetax.org.uk

Haringey Lib Dems have welcomed news from Haringey Council that they will be extending the range of items that will be collected under the door-to-door recycling scheme. Residents in the area covered by the expanded scheme will soon be able to put cardboard and plastic in their green boxes for collection.

The announcement follows three years of persistent pressure from the Lib Dems for recycling improvements. The party pledged in their 2002 local election manifesto to press for an extensive door-to-door recycling service in the borough.

The extension to the current door-to-door green box scheme will include, in addition to the cardboard and plastic, mixed paper and green garden waste and comes two years after Haringey Council bowed to pressure from the Lib Dems and extended door-to-door recycling. However, since that success the council’s official opposition has continued to lobby the Council to provide the recycling services that the residents have asked for.

In the last two years Lib Dem successes have included securing a review of recycling and waste minimisation in the borough by the Council’s scrutiny committee and launching a Lib Dem recycling factsheet with all the contact details and information on the subject that the Council has failed to provide. Additionally, individual councillors have worked hard to secure more recycling facilities where local residents want them.

Lib Dem environment spokesperson, Cllr Bob Hare and Muswell Hill councillor Lynne Featherstone are pleased with the Council’s long overdue decision to extend the scheme to include plastic and cardboard.

Cllr Bob Hare (Highgate) comments:

“I am pleased that the Council has woken up to its responsibility and persistent Lib Dem pressure. I hope that they have learned from the debacle of the green box roll out two years ago and residents will be properly informed of changes to the service.”

Cllr Featherstone (Muswell Hill) adds:

“I have received many letters complaining about the Council’s poor recycling services in recent years, and I am pleased that the Council is finally listening to these complaints and starting to take action.

“There is still much that the Council needs to do to reverse years of neglect on this issue, but it is a step in the right direction and we will continue to press for the comprehensive service that we have been lobbying for.”

Fortis Green Lib Dem councillor Steve Gilbert has expressed his opposition to a controversial planning application to build a huge new building off Creighton Avenue at the site formerly known as Strathlene House.

Haringey Council has received an application to build a 96-room care home on the site, formerly part of Fortismere School, and Lib Dems have expressed astonishment that the applicants appear to want to build on the ‘Metropolitan Open Land’ a the rear of the site.

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson Cllr Lynne Featherstone and Lib Dem Leader Cllr Neil Williams visited the site with local residents this week, not only to see for themselves the extent of the plans, but also to look at the appalling devastation to trees carried out in recent weeks. Both councillors are pursuing this issue with Haringey Council.

The party has however welcomed strong indications form the council’s planning department that the plans will not get the go-ahead – but has pledged to watch the developments closely and ensure that these responsible for the devastation to mature trees on the site are held to account for their actions.

Cllr Stephen Gilbert (Fortis Green) comments:

“This is a highly sensitive site, and it is extraordinary that any developer should think they might be granted planning permission to build on Metropolitan Open Land. The footprint and height of the new building would be far, far too large, and I will be working to ensure that it does not get the go-ahead.”

Cllr Lynne Featherstone (Muswell Hill) adds:

“I went to see the site myself yesterday, and was appalled at the devastation to trees, with many mature specimens apparently butchered. We will be asking the Council for an investigation and will be pressing for prosecutions if any of the works were carried out illegally.”

Liberal Democrats in Haringey have chosen local councillor and Deputy Leader Wayne Hoban as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Tottenham constituency.The choice of a successful local campaigner is a boost for the party with a General Election expected next year.

Wayne Hoban stood in the Enfield & Haringey GLA constituency in June of this year – and topped the poll in the Hornsey and Wood Green area. He stood at the last general election in neighbouring Southgate, and overturned a previously safe Labour ward when elected to Haringey Council in 2002.

Mr Hoban is a superintendent radiographer working in the National Health Service. In recent years, he has also been a co-ordinator of the radiography service to the United Nations mortuary in Bosnia, Croatiaand Kosovo established by the UN International Crime Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Wayne Hoban comments:

“With Lynne Featherstone in Hornsey and Wood Green, and myself in Tottenham, we now have a complete Parliamentary team for the borough. I am very much looking forward to campaign in Tottenham in the coming months. Labour, both nationally and locally, has promised much for the area, but has never delivered.”

Lynne Featherstone adds:

“Congratulations to Wayne on his selection. I have worked with Wayne for ten years now in Haringey, and he has always played a vital role in our success. We are looking forward to the challenge of repeating our success in the west of the borough in Tottenham, which has been just as badly let down by Labour.”

Notes:

Wayne Hoban is the deputy leader of the 16-strong Liberal Democrat group on Haringey Council

In May 2002 he was elected to Haringey Council, winning a previously safe Labour seat in Alexandra ward. He served as Lib Dem health spokesman before becoming deputy leader in November 2002.

He has helped to establish two local residents’ associations, the Friends of Palace Gates Triangle and the Friends of Albert Road Recreation Ground, and sits on their committees.

Wayne works at the Royal Free Hospital as a Superintendent Radiographer. He has developed considerable expertise in industrial relations, employment law and NHS reorganisation through his continuing involvement with public service bodies and organisations. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Homerton NHS Trust.

He is a founder member of the Trauma Imaging Group and also the recently launched Association of Forensic Radiographers. He has been appointed honorary lecturer to several UK universities.

Wayne has helped with the work to bring war criminals to justice with his role co-ordinating the radiography service to the United Nations mortuary in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Wayne has enjoyed a long association with The London Sailing Project, a charity which takes disabled people sailing around the south coast.He has sailed with the project almost every year since 1991.

Wayne was born in Edinburgh in 1952. Educated at Drumlanrig Primary School and Hawick High School, he studied at Ipswich Civic College in 1970-3. He then took a Diagnostic Radiography Diploma at the Ipswich School of Radiography.

He has been a police lay visitor and is a school governor (Bounds Green Infants). He is a long standing member of Friends of the Earth and in the 2001 general election he stood for the Lib Dems in Enfield Southgate.

Lib Dem councillor Laura Edge has welcomed news that Haringey Council have been looking into a solution to the current rent crisis playgroups are facing following the announcement of plans to increase rent by 300% to bring community group charges in line with commercial ones earlier this month.

However she says that the Labour-run council’s plan of offering means-tested grants to plug the gap created by the rent increase is insufficient.

The proposal outlined in an email yesterday states that the Council’s Early Years Department will be able to increase grant support to groups through the voluntary grant that is currently available. It goes on to say that it will “be able to increase grant up to the same level as the rent increase if it is felt appropriate.” The mechanism is yet to be worked out.

Cllr Edge and her colleague Cllr Lynne Featherstone, who have been lobbying Haringey Council to rethink its controversial rent increases, believe that the latest proposals do not go far enough to safeguard the future of playgroups in the borough.

The concern is that there is no explanation of on what basis funding will be deemed “appropriate”. There is also a fear that while in the past playgroups could plan their costs such as rent in advance, a means-tested grant could mean that playgroups will have to work on a year-to-year basis, unsure of what grant assistance they will receive for that year.

Lib Dems say there is also no explanation as to whether this grant is permanent or whether it is a political tool that is being used to soften the impact of a highly controversial rate increase and will be phased out over time.

Cllr Edge (Stroud Green) comments:

“Although the Council has been investigating possible solutions to this serious issue, the proposals, even at this early stage, seem unacceptable.”

Cllr Featherstone (Muswell Hill) adds:

“Playgroups and other essential community groups want assurances that they will not suffer as a result of these outrageous increases. Haringey Council has yet to convince them or me of this. We will continue to press until Haringey finds a solution that satisfies those groups affected.”