LIB DEMS CHALLENGE COUNCIL'S DECISION TO CLOSE RESIDENTIAL CARE HOMES

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Haringey Lib Dem Councillors have ‘called in’ the decision by Haringey Council’s Labour Executive to close two care homes. This means that they will be considered at a special meeting of Haringey Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The call-in was initiated by Lib Dem Social Services Spokesperson Cllr Ron Aitken and supported by four other Lib Dem Councillors including Lynne Featherstone, a member of the GLA’s Health Committee.

Lib Dem councillors, as well as many local campaigners and residents’ families have a number of concerns that they feel Haringey Council needs to address. They also say that Haringey has broken a promise that it would not embark on the closures:

  • Only two of the five options for the future of the homes were considered and further work is to be done on only one option – closure of the two homes.
  • The decision was taken by the Executive without reference to the Social Services and Health Scrutiny Panel, who would expect to be able to scrutinise the policy and financial implications of the strategy.
  • Discussion of strategy for the care homes took place behind closed doors away from opposition members and the public at the council leader’s conference last month.
  • The Council failed to highlight plans to close the two homes in its ‘Forward Plan’ document that is supposed to outline ‘Key Decisions’, such as large expenditures or policies that effect more than one borough, to be made over the following six months.
  • Previous disposals of care homes by the Labour-run Council, most recently the Honeywood residential care home, were supposed to be ring-fenced to improve the remaining homes. However the Lib Dems say it is doubtful whether this money went back into the remaining homes.

Lib Dem Social Services spokesperson Cllr Ron Aitken has been working closely with care home residents and their families who feel that the Council has addressed none of their concerns. He says that it is essential that this important decision is properly scrutinised and discussed, with families concerns fully addressed.

Cllr Ron Aitken comments:

“I am pleased that our call-in has been accepted on a decision which the Council appears to have made against the wishes of residents and their families and with minimal consultation.

“The call-in will allow us to decipher whether this is another asset stripping sell-off exercise, and whether it is a properly thought out policy that will improve community care for people over the next 5 -10 years. I sadly fear the former is the case.”

FEATHERSTONE SECURES NEW DRAINS FOR FLOODING BLACKSPOT

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Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Lynne Featherstone has secured assurances that urgent action will be taken to resolve the poor drainage problem by Chiltern Court at the foot of Pages Hill, Muswell Hill.

The request for action by Cllr Featherstone was made after she received complaints from local residents that their properties were being regularly flooded because the current drains are insufficient to handle the volume of water that flows down the hill.

Following an investigation of the site, Haringey Council noted the area was susceptible to flooding and has put in a request to its contractors to install linear drainage across the full width of the opening to property in the area, to be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Cllr Featherstone has welcomed the Council’s plans but says that the Council must address the issue of poor drainage across the borough.

Cllr Featherstone comments:

“I am pleased that Haringey Council is taking action to resolve the flooding problem in Pages Hill.I deal with many residents’ complaints, particularly at this time of year regarding blocked drains and flooding. It is important that the Council quickly and effectively resolves this problem. It can can often lead to hazardous roads and pavements, and damage to people’s homes.”

Local planning application

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Off to Wood Vale tennis club to look at the court for which the club wishes to apply for flood lighting. It is very remote from the houses and as the club has written to all the likely affected residents and received only one and a half objections – I should think it will be OK. But don’t know and will consult planning department for their view. They did originally send someone, but he seems to have looked at the wrong court – i.e. the ones near houses as opposed to the single one furthest away.

Rush round leaflet deliveries to our deliverers in middle of lightning and thunderstorm. Have a stinking cold and matters not helped by opening car door and said leaflets falling out into major mud puddle. Elections – don’t you love ’em?

A typical day at the GLA

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Committee Chairs meeting at the GLA. This is the first of this term of office and is an opportunity for the chairs of the various Assembly committees to meet to discuss budget items for scrutiny work and other matters. There is pretty consensual agreement that money spent on occasional consultants, polling on issues as they affect Londoners, London-wide expert seminars etc is money generally well spent, Actually, the Assembly spends a very small amount on anything. However, if you look at the Mayor’s expenditure…!

I raise the issue of a looming constitutional crisis if the Parking Enforcement investigation falls as a consequence of pressure from the boroughs. I believe we will be able to come to agreement at the meeting later this afternoon – but want to raise the issue in the generic rather than the specific. ie If the boroughs don’t like what the Assembly is doing and effectively veto it thus making the scrutiny work untenable – what is the legal position and more importantly, what is the constitutional position. I leave that hanging in the air as we all rush off for Assembly Plenary Session.

This session of the London Assembly is on the Olympics. Seb Coe is the star turn – but we get a message just before commencement that his father has been taken ill and he cannot therefore attend. We plough on with the Mayor and reps from the Olympic Bid committee. No news really. We all support the bid. The Tories then undermine their support by being over negative about the bid. Not the most scintillating of sessions.

Informal meeting of the Transport Committee to look at the first draft of our response to the consultation on the West London tram. My mission here is to try and get the five political parties to agree that this response should reflect the evidence we received rather than be just an opportunity for us all to restate our party positions on the tram. A consensual report raising the concerns we genuinely have will be far more useful and effective than a political rant. We can all do that in our separate party responses to the consultation.

Anyway – so far so good. The draft is well written – and when chapter 5 is concluded (at this point unwritten and about traffic displacement) we will meet again to see if we have enough common ground for a unified response. Otherwise it will have to be the majority think x and the minority think y – which is OK – but I think loses its punch.

High noon at the London Assembly. The three political party leaders (or their reps) came with officers to meet myself, and the Labour and Tory transport leads from the Transport Committee to see if there was a way forward on the parking scrutiny – with ALG/borough cooperation.

The main issues seemed to be that the ALG (the Association of London Government) felt that the Assembly should not examine areas where the boroughs had been democratically elected to operate in an area. Whilst I understand the sensitivities, the remit of the London Assembly is to raise issues of importance to Londoners as well as scrutinise the Mayor and TfL. This scrutiny had passed through all the appropriate and public stages to reach this stage and had been unanimously approved. And parking is unquestioningly of importance as an issue for London.

The second area where they were unhappy was because of remarks I had made in the media which to them seemed to indicate I might have made up my mind in advance of the scrutiny. All I can say about that is that the boroughs didn’t like the bits about my suggesting if they didn’t want to comply with the scrutiny they may have something to hide – but as I pointed out – equally, motorists who thought they had a hard deal might interpret the fact that I am on record as saying I support restriction, penalty and fine as biased against them. Both are wrong.

I believe I assuaged their concerns and both my Labour and Tory colleagues backed me up as being a fair and scrupulous chair.

We then moved onto business – and we were quite happy with the ALG’s suggestions for amended terms of reference. All parties will now go back to their groups for agreement and hopefully that will go through the next Transport Committee and finally get the show on the road.

Day ends off with stuffing envelopes for our council by-election in Haringey. The fun never ends…

Archway Road

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I leave the GLA at about 7pm to rush back to the inaugural meeting of the Archway Road Residents’ Association which is being set up tonight.

A good thing to come out of the controversies over the Highgate Tube station fence is that residents and businesses have decided to form a local group to ensure they have a voice on similar matters in future.

Their three main campaigns are to be on the fence, the local CPZ and hanging baskets on the Archway Road. It was a good meeting and I am sure it will make a difference in their representation in future over matters of local import.

New school for Crouch End?

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Breakfast meeting at a Crouch End resident’s house to discuss the TUC building. The community, the LibDems and even the Exec Member for Education on the Council are all campaigning for the TUC building to be bought by Haringey Council as a site for a new school. Crouch End is desperately short of places and we have been calling for a new school in the area for quite a few years.

The fear is though that the TUC – despite its supposed left-wing position and social conscience – will just want to make oodles of money from the site and sell it to a residential developer rather than for the common good of the community in the form of a new school.

Haringey Council as the planning authority would have to grant it permission to sell to such a developer by changing the covenant which currently prohibits it. At first sight you would think, phew it’s protected – but in reality Haringey can only refuse to do so ‘within reason’. So it’s really no protection at all.

I have gone to meet some of the key campaigners to see where I can add some value or do anything more to help. Apart from continuing to campaign and finding information – the only other avenue is to try and embarrass the TUC into doing the right thing rather than trying to cash in. I will write to them this week to remind them of their social duty…

Muswell Hill Area Assembly

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Lots of familiar faces as I walk into Lauderdale House at the bottom of Highgate Village and in Waterlow Park. I am there to address the North London branch of the University of the Third Age on “Transport Challenges in London”. Funny really, as I grew up in Highgate and used to go to the park every Saturday when I was little to feed the squirrels and the ducks. Home beat.

These are the sort of occasions I love – firstly because I love my subject and also I find groups of the not so young often make a fascinating audience. They are interested, intelligent – and have reached a stage in life where more often than not they say exactly what they think.

I enjoyed it. They enjoyed it. It was a really pleasant morning.

In the evening, it was the Muswell Hill Area Assembly. The main item of the day is the bids for how to spend the £50,000 allocated to the Area Assembly to spend on local projects in the current financial year.

Haringey Council has ‘given’ this amount to each Area Assembly. Although the Muswell Hill Area Assembly covers a larger area than others, it has the same amount of money. Anyway, local residents have sent in suggestions for small projects to be funded.

They were listed and pinned up on the wall with space for people to stick their little green sticker dots – so they can indicate which ones they support the most.

The first thing that happened was some bloke jumping to his feet and saying it was disgusting that Wayne Hoban (the chair of the Assembly and a Lib Dem councillor for Alexandra ward) had put information about the Assembly on a LibDem website. ‘This was political and disgraceful’ the chap said.

Wayne handled this really well – and explained calmly and rationally that he had put the information out to a wide email base of local people so that lots of people could know that the vote on the bids was taking place and not just the usual suspects who come to area assemblies. And in fact attendance was higher. The full details of the bids were put up on the web so people could see them – if they wished – before the meeting.

Given that people normally complain that there isn’t enough information about what Haringey Council is up to, it was a pretty strange sight to see someone complaining about someone making an effort to distribute more information! But all became clear…

The bloke continued and continued to harangue Wayne when another chap from the audience (who were getting fed up with this interruption to the business of the day) demanded that the bloke making the accusation state who he was. He said his name and that he was chair of the local Conservative Party – at which point the whole audience turned on him.

The meeting then continued with a presentation on a review into the condition of pavements. I have often taken council officers to view pavements that are dangerous that residents have phoned in about but about which no action has been taken – and then it is done within 24 hours.

This is not just because of my nagging (!) but also because pavements which are too uneven can leave the council open to being sued if someone trips and hurts themselves.

The greater problem is that Haringey Council has had no program for replacing ordinary cracked pavements that are not legally dangerous. Now, seemingly, there is a planned program of replacement. I asked what they were going to do about replacing paving stones where they had done a repair in an emergency and whacked down tarmac / asphalt – and left it like that for years. The response was somewhat half-hearted I thought – i.e. yes we will get round to it sometime.

In the break the audience took their green stickers and voted on the bids for projects. The results will be published in due course after the councillors look at all the bids to fund as many as possible of the most popular ones.

CELEBRATIONS OVER VICTORY IN LAURADALE ROAD PLANNING APPEAL

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Lib Dem councillors in Fortis Green have wholeheartedly welcomed the decision of planing inspectors to reject the developers’ appeal against controversial plans to build houses on the land at the rear of 2-16 Lauradale Road.

Many residents had turned up to oppose the developer’s appeal in September, along with the Headmistress of Tetherdown School and local Lib Dem ward councillor for Fortis Green, Matt Davies. The Council formally opposed the appeal and a number of residents spoke against the proposals.

Fortis Green councillor Matt Davies comments:

“I am absolutely delighted that this development will not now go ahead. There was an enormous response from residents against these plans, and it goes to show that such united opposition really can make a difference.

“The Planning Inspector was left in no doubt about the strength of local feeling and has made the right decision. A local path that has been used for years by residents and children on their way to school would have been lost if this had gone ahead. It is very good news for the area.”

FORTIS GREEN – LIB DEMS CHOOSE MARTIN NEWTON FOR COUNCIL BY-ELECTION

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Liberal Democrats in Fortis Green have chosen Martin Newton as their candidate for the council by-election on 11 November.Martin Newton lives in the ward with his family. He is married to Gail Engert, who was elected a councillor for Muswell Hill ward in an election landslide earlier in the year.

Martin Newton is hoping to succeed Lib Dem Barbara Fabian, who has stood down due to ill health. He is a partner in a graphic design group and has campaigned for the local community for many years. He has been working with residents and the local Lib Dem team on a wide range of issues. These include transport safety improvements near Coldfall school and safeguarding the area’s pocket parks.

Commenting on his selection, Martin Newton said:

“I am very pleased to have been selected and I am looking forward to meeting people on the doorstep over the coming weeks. It is a great area, and the Lib Dems have got a lot of things done, such as the reopening of the police station and the new 603 bus service. However, there is a lot more work to do, and I would love to be part of the Lib Dem council team.”

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone has congratulated Martin Newton on his selection and adds:

“I am delighted that Martin is standing as Haringey needs another councillor who will stand up to Labour on the council. We will be working hard to hold Fortis Green for the Lib Dems on 11th November.”

ALLY PALLY OUTRAGE AS LABOUR SLIP £1MILLION BID FOR CONSULTANTS FEES THROUGH THE COUNCIL

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Liberal Democrats in the London Borough of Haringey have expressed their anger about a decision to support recommendations submitted to the ruling Labour Executive last week (5th October) that would see Haringey Council fork out an additional £1 million of Haringey tax payers’ money to manage the process of selling off Alexandra Palace.

The request from the Alexandra Park and Palace Board for an additional £1 million had not been submitted as a formal agenda item, but as Urgent Business. The Executive was informed that this sum is required to manage the ‘risk’ of the project and to cover legal, financial, construction, property management and project management expenses during 2004/05 and 2005/06. These services would be supplied by Arup, the company the Alexandra Palace and Park Board propose to appoint to manage the procurement process for the redevelopment of the Palace.

The Lib Dems are concerned that this huge additional cost has not been properly explained or justified by the Board to the Labour-run Council. In addition, the process of selection of the company Arup is not clarified.

However, the Lib Dems’ greatest concern is about accountability. The Executive member for Finance confirmed at the meeting that the Alexandra Palace Board would scrutinise Arup’s use of taxpayer’s money and not the elected and accountable council, although Haringey Council is ‘corporately’ the trustee.

Lib Dem Deputy Leader Wayne Hoban, who attended the meeting, said:

“It is somewhat ironic that a few short months after the Mayor’s election campaign statement that he would ‘save Ally Pally’, we have a Labour run council prepared to pay over £1 million in fees to advisers on a sell-off.

“This was brought to the Executive without notice, without any clarity into the rationale of the selection process, and without ensuring that the councillors as elected members of the trustee body have an opportunity to scrutinise the process. It is clear that Labour remain desperate to sell-off the Palace whatever the cost to taxpayers.”