Finish off as much of my work as possible – emails and paperwork. Signing off now until September. Have a good August. Blogged off until September!
Highgate Tube Works
I chair a meeting at Jacksons Lane Community Centre, Highgate on the furore around the solid wooden fence that is proposed to run along the Tube cutting by Highgate Tube station.
Although I’d previously persuaded London Underground to take part in two consultative meetings with people in the area, more information has come to light – particularly about the possible acoustic impact of the fence they are planning to put in. The proposed fence would deliver 5 decibels of improvement to those living in the dip behind the cutting but up to 1 decibel of worsening noise to those on the Archway Road. This meeting in particular gave a chance for Archway Road residents who either didn’t attend or did not get invited to the first meeting to have their say.
The meeting put forward three alternative proposals to London Underground. The key issue is that we need a balance of the noise advantage from whatever fence is built – but one that ensures that the people in the dip end up no worse off than they were before the original fence was removed. Also, people on Archway Road want sight of the greenery – which would be lost with the proposed solid fence. A solid fence might also lock the pollution from the road into the road area. I hope London Underground will amend their plans to be as fair to everyone as possible.
MPA
Last meeting before the summer break of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Deputy Commissioner Blair comes up for a chat with me beforehand to thank me for understanding the ‘agonising’ decisions the police have to make to catch a rapist in South London by making black men between 25 and 40 ‘voluntarily’ give a DNA sample. That will go on as an issue way beyond Operation Minstead – the issues around DNA databases and discrimination are going to get more frequent and more difficult in my view. How much information should the government or its agencies be able to force people to hand over, and what should be permissible to do with that information and by who?
There is a long debate at the meeting about the use of police cells to hold illegal immigrants. This causes huge problems as there are too few cells and if they are full of immigrants rather than criminals – there is nowhere for criminals to go.
The MPA (or rather Labour) have avoided coming to a decision so far on who should be their “link member” for Haringey. To recap – for the first four years, I had been exiled from Haringey because Labour (who chair the MPA) wanted to keep me out of Haringey in case it was to their political disadvantage for me to be on my home patch. All the other members are enabled to link with their home patch – partly for their convenience but also because of local knowledge. For the first term of office there was a valid reason why Nicky Gavron (who was the Enfield Haringey London Assembly member and lives in Haringey herself) had as good a claim to Haringey as I. But she’s no longer the Enfield Haringey member, and her replacement doesn’t live in Haringey.
But of course just because Labour insists on its own members having their own local patch, doesn’t mean they won’t try to impose different standards on other people! It’s just this sort of silly pettiness that turns people off politics.
Alexandra Palace
A flurry of emails from Labour admirers indignant that I dared to voice concerns about Alexandra Palace (where Labour managed to run up bills of over £60 million in a series of bungled rebuilding escapades) in my blog last week.
Shame they don’t show the same enthusiasm for answering questions or providing information about Ally Pally! (Haringey Council even previously tried to claim it was “illegal” to include information about the bills run up at Alexandra Palace in the information sent out with Council Tax bills. Only when I confronted the Chief Executive and asked him to quote the bit of law which made it illegal did he admit that after all information could be included).
LIB DEMS SURVEY UNCOVER RESIDENTS' DISILLUSION WITH NHS SERVICES
Haringey Liberal Democrats have uncovered huge dissatisfaction with health services by residents living in the west of Haringey. The results show more than one in three residents saying they are ‘unhappy’ or ‘very unhappy’ with NHS services, with problems finding NHS doctors and dentists in the area one of their major concern.
The figures were obtained from responses to questions in the Lib Dems’ annual residents’ survey that was sent out earlier this year.
The statistics showed a worrying disillusionment with the NHS with only 16% happy with the service it provides. Additionally more than one in ten residents say they have encountered problems finding an NHS doctor. This backups up figures revealed by Lib Dem MP Paul Burstow earlier this year that one in three GPs in London is unable to take on any new patients.
Coupled with results produced in June showing nearly four in ten residents had trouble finding an NHS dentist, the Lib Dems say that the evidence suggests that the health service in Haringey continues to face severe problems.
Lib Dem Health spokesperson and group leader, Cllr Neil Williams (Highgate) says that the numbers support the concerns that have been raised by residents with their Liberal Democrat councillors.
Cllr Williams comments: “Far too many residents are not able to get an NHS doctor or dentist. My biggest worry is that this is resulting in people failing to get early medical help, which is often the key to good medical help.”
Hornsey Town Hall
Will Haringey Council flog off Hornsey Town Hall and use the proceeds for their projects in the east of the borough? Or will the residents of Crouch End and Hornsey rise up and win the Town Hall for their dream facilities for a better community? The battle is on and I observed the latest meeting of Hornsey Town Hall advisory panel (set up under pressure by Haringey Council to advise on the future of the site) and thought you might like to know what was discussed.
We had a presentation from the ex-founding director of the charitable trust for Shoreditch Town Hall. A trust has been suggested by many people (including both Crouch End for People and the Liberal Democrat councillors on Haringey Council) as the best way forward for the site, so it was interesting to hear how a trust has operated in a similar situation elsewhere. The Shoreditch trust was founded after Hackney Council commissioned a report (with extensive community consultation) which recommended the creation of an arms-length, stand-alone trust for the site. So the trust was born and the site was handed over in stages – first for a 3-year lease, with an option for a further 99-years if the trust got going successfully. Importantly the lease was “non-assignable” – which meant the site couldn’t be passed on to anyone else (i.e. the site couldn’t fall into commercial hands), and if the trust failed it reverted to the council.
The possible parallels with Haringey are quite striking (yes, the Shoreditch site even had a car park! It is a 39,000 square foot listed building with two large halls). To give the trust a chance to get going, Hackney Council gave it money for the first three years equal to what it would have otherwise spent on the site – though the trust had to become self-sustaining in the long run. To help do this, some of the site was sold off, which generated the money to restore the rest of it. The opening is due in December.
Interestingly, the opening is in stages. There will be lots of community facilities for arts, performance etc. They have been innovative with the commercial ventures of hiring the hall for weddings, tea dances, artists in residence and local events. A lot of effort has been spent ensuring engagement with the local community so that everyone feels they have a stake. Staging the development of the site and their aspirations has let them grow with the project. One key point made was that the skills needs of Board of Trustees was paramount – and they actually conducted a skills audit and hired a recruitment agency in order to ensure they had what they needed on the board.
The general idea of a trust for the Hornsey Town Hall site was strongly supported at the meeting. There was a report tabled by commercial consultants, which outlined possible options for the site – basically assigning ball-park costs to ideas which had been discussed at earlier meetings of the panel. The range included a theatre, mini-plex cinema, piazza, bar restaurant, citizens’ advice, office space, health centre, skate board park, car park, residential use – in all or any combinations thereof. Clearly one of the main issues to address will be whether to sell off (or otherwise use commercially) parts of the site to help generate money for developing the rest of it for the community.
Personally, in an ideal world I would rather see the site developed without having to do this – but realistically I am sceptical that the money will be available to make the best use of the site for the community unless some money is raised from commercial sources. One possibility might be to generate rental income from some of the old council office space, which my colleague Dave Winskill (Crouch End councillor) has been pressing to get properly examined. The figures on this will need to be examined closely! And any money raised must go back into the site rather than being siphoned off by Haringey Council for elsewhere.
Discussion around the car park centred on ensuring that some parking was available to support the site, for disabled parking and for servicing the projects. There was also a call to ensure that transport policies should begin to be focused upon ideas such as – if you bought a theatre ticket the ticket would also enable you to take the bus to the site. Transport capacity on local buses serving the site would need increasing.
LIB DEMS REQUEST URGENT EXPLANATION OVER SCHOOL PLACE FIGURES
Liberal Democrat councillors in Haringey are urgently requesting that Haringey Council explain the huge disparities between the school place figures given earlier this year and those given in answer to a written question at the council meeting on 19th July.
Cllr Engert, who has been working closely with parents in the Muswell Hill area over this issue, contacted Haringey Council in April requesting information on children not allocated places at any of the schools on their preference list in the Muswell Hill area. Haringey Council informed her that 35 pupils had not received their first choice places. Considering the maximum size of a class is 30, residents and Cllr Engert were extremely concerned at Haringey Council’s lack of forward planning which had produced such a large deficit in places.
However, the situation appears to be considerably worse than first thought. The figures quoted in response to Cllr Engert’s question suggest that as many as 85 children from the Muswell Hill area were not offered a place in one of their three preferred schools.
Although Cllr Engert accepts that many of the 85 children may have received places after being put on schools waiting lists, the original figure given of 35 did not show the scale of the problem in the area. She is concerned that due to either the Labour-run council’s incompetence or manipulation of figures the true scale of the problem is only just being realised.
Along with fellow Lib Dem Councillor Lynne Featherstone, Cllr Engert also wants an explanation from Haringey Council as to why there is such a huge disparity between Haringey Council’s two sets of overall figures for children without places in the borough.
Cllr Engert comments: “This is a crisis which could have been avoided. Through lack of planning, Haringey Council has left dozens of children without a local place to start school this year – and have no intention of doing anything about it. The numbers are changing and the Council is not being open about the extent of this problem.”
Cllr Featherstone adds: “With the number of new development in the area, any short term fix for next year will be just that – a short term solution. Haringey Council needs to start planning much further ahead, otherwise these crises will become a running sore over the next few years.”
OPENING OF MUSWELL HILL POLICE STATION TAKES ANOTHER STEP FORWARD
The reopening of Muswell Hill police station’s front counter has taken another step forward with the handing over to the police of the names of a fifteen further possible volunteers by Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem, Muswell Hill), who has been leading the campaign.
She met last week with Diane Dodd, the new Met Police volunteer recruitment officer, who is now stationed in Muswell Hill police station tasked with getting the front counter opened. Ms Dodd will be contacting the new people in the next few days.
Ms Dodd also showed Ms Featherstone around the new facilities, the new front counter and office.
The first wave of nineteen volunteers are already well on their way to being ready for opening day. Ms Dodd is just completing the vetting and if all is well, the front counter will open over August, giving the volunteers a chance to settle in during a traditionally quieter part of the year before the official opening in the autumn.
Lynne Featherstone said:
“Diane is clearly going to make a success of the reopening of the police front counter. Local people have called for the front counter to reopen for years. I am absolutely delighted that this is now a reality and look forward to opening it with Sir John Stevens, the Met Police Commissioner, in September.”
LOCAL SAFETY SCHEME FOR BOWES PARK
Residents in the Bowes Park area will have additional choice in how to make their area safer, following intervention from Lib Dem Cllr Lynne Featherstone. This will come as part of consultation for a 20mph scheme for the area designed to deal with the rat-running problem.
Two additional features will now be considered in the scheme – a pedestrian view mirror and a small railing at the end of a potentially dangerous ramp.
Cllr Featherstone asked Haringey Council to look at erecting a pedestrian view mirror at the end of Whittington Road, where a blindspot prevents pedestrians seeing drivers turning off Bounds Green Road into Whittington Road. This will now be considered in the development of safety measures for the area.
The ramp to the bridge over Bowes Park Station from Ireland Place, a small cul-de-sac including Bowes Park Nursery, was being used by older children as a skateboard ramp. This created potential danger for residents, especially parents with toddlers, going to and from the station and being met by skateboarders on the path.
Following requests for help from local residents, Cllr Featherstone secured the agreement of the police to send patrols to the area – and the problem has eased off considerably.
“Residents will now be able to decide if they want these two extra measures included in the scheme,” says Cllr Featherstone. “They could help prevent accidents and make crossing the road and walking to the station a much easier and safer task for residents. I am delighted that the 20mph scheme is on the table – this is a great opportunity to make seemingly small improvements which can have a big effect in making the area a safer and more child-friendly place to live.”
DNA testing
After a day at the races – where I lost every race – I am collected by the Beeb for a late night interview on the DNA issue I have been pursuing. Difficult issue – but when I get into the studio the presenter tells me and the audience that the Met have refused to put someone up for interview but have sent a statement to be read out.
In the statement they say that they are conducting this voluntary scheme asking black men between the ages of 25 and 40 to come forward to give a DNA sample to be eliminated from the police investigation into a series of rapes in South London. Towards the end of the statement they refer to only having to have arrested three people. That is my point – how voluntary is it if you refuse and are arrested because you refuse?
