Haringey Council have agreed to a call from Lib Dem councillor Lynne Featherstone for schools to review their charging policies for hiring out school halls and to look favourably on local community groups.

Lynne Featherstone took up the issue following complaints from a local group who are facing large increases in hire charges and concerns that other groups may be suffering similarly. In this case, the price for hiring the hall had gone from £20 to £65 for two hours in the space of two years.

Commenting Lynne Featherstone said:

“This Community group came to me because they were being priced out of school halls. These groups are a vital part of our local community and I am delighted that the council now agrees with me and will be calling for a review.”

Note:

The agreement for a review followed a verbal council question from Cllr Featherstone and a subsequent exchange of letters between Ms Featherstone and Mr Meehan.

Proposals to scrap the Finsbury Park Bus Interchange have been branded “bitterly disappointing” by Liberal Democrat councillors in Haringey.

The interchange was due to be expanded to improve bus services to and from the station. But it looks like it will not get the go-ahead following the Strategic Rail Authority’s (SRA) announcement on Thursday that they were facing a cash crisis. The SRA has stated that Government’s 10-year plan for modernising Britain’s railways would have to be completely revised.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“It is disgraceful that the Government and the SRA are unable to successfully manage a long-term plan that was meant to bring our infrastructure into line, and the Finsbury Park Scheme may be lost as a result of their short-sightedness.

“One of the vital parts of regeneration in any area is good road and rail links. It is a major set back for the residents that the scheme looks doomed. However I will be pressing the SRA and the Government to keep its promise and upgrade the interchange.”

Local Lib Dem councillor Dave Winskill (Crouch End) has been inundated with letters and calls from residents worried about an application for a public entertainment licence recently applied for by Crouch Hill Community Centre.

The Lib Dem councillor says that the application, which seeks to allow the centre to operate up to midnight during the week and until 1 am at weekends, could bring excessive noise, traffic and parking problems and increased night time activity in what is a predominately residential area.

David Winskill comments:

“I am concerned about this application. Although it is just on the Islington side of the boundary, many Crouch End residents will be affected. I have agreed to represent the local residents at the Islington licensing hearing, which is due to take place on 4th February.”

Highgate’s Liberal Democrat councillors have voiced their fierce objections to renewed plans by a developer to build houses on a controversial former park on the Archway Road. The Lib Dems instead want the Labour run authority to make up for its past blunders with the site, and pursue a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the land, to create a valued and well maintained park for local people in the Archway area.

The ‘pocket park,’ at the junction with Southwood Avenue has been a long standing source of grievance between local residents and the council. Its run down state has a sorry history of Haringey Council mismanagement, say Lib Dem councillors. Since their election last May, the Lib Dems have supported local people in getting the council to serve an order for the site to be cleaned up by the owner, and have pushed at a full council meeting for the Tree Replacement Order agreed early in 2002 to be served on the owner requiring that the trees he felled on the land are replaced.

Highgate Lib Dem councillor Neil Williams comments:

“If the pocket park were restored, we would have a highly visible green area along this very busy urban road. It would be a vital green lung for the Archway Road. Our preferred option is a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the site, and this must be pursued with vigour. Whatever happens, the present application must not be allowed to succeed, and other avenues must be pursued.”

Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesperson Lynne Featherstone, who has lent her support to the objection, adds:

“We will fight this application, as this space must be returned to the public – who should never have been deprived of it in the first place. Giving in because of past planning blunders is all too common in Haringey – and it is totally wrong.”

Background:

This site will be well known to all familiar with the Archway Road and is one of at least two former pocket parks in the Archway Road that, incredibly, the council failed to respond to the Department of Transport when the DoT offered them back to the council following its abandoning of Archway Rd widening scheme. The parks therefore ended up in a public auction, and were bought very cheaply by a developer. There was a previous application for a house on this site which was refused. The site is a mess. Seven mature trees have been felled, the stumps of several of which are still there and sprouting in summer. The council has failed in its duty to prosecute on this, not doing so over the four years permitted for action, despite requests from the Tree Trust and many other organisations, and despite pictures run in one of local papers.

• Report highly critical of council’s handling of inquiry.
• ‘Cynical’ Labour council issues critical report on day of Climbie Inquiry publication.

The Lib Dems have criticised Haringey Council’s handling of the report from the Plank Inquiry into how the Labour-run council conducted itself during the Climbie Inquiry. During the inquiry, Haringey’s repeated failure to hand over vital documents was widely condemned.

The Lib Dems says the council issued the highly critical Plank Report on the same day as the Laming Inquiry was published, when attention was instead rightly focused on the outcome of the Laming Inquiry itself.

The Lib Dems have also revealed that Haringey acquired the services of a public relations company to ‘assist’ its press office in handling the reaction to the Laming Inquiry and the issue of the Plank Report.

The Plank Report into Haringey conduct during the Climbie Inquiry was completed in December, but publication was held back. The Lib Dems believe that senior Labour Councillors were allowed to see advance copies of the Plank Report, but this courtesy was not extended to any opposition councillors.

Ironically, the Lib Dems note that the report has heavily criticised the council’s handling of briefing for the opposition, whose main source of information on Haringey’s much criticised behaviour during the inquiry was the media. The report also identifies conflicts of interest between council officers and members, a lack of coordination and poor team-working.

It damningly concludes that the council failed to take the issue seriously enough or give it proper priority.

The Lib Dems now want the council to implement the recommendation that a project board is set up, including members of the opposition, to ensure that these mistakes do not occur again.

Lib Dem social services spokesperson, Ron Aitken, comments:

“We have written to the council to complain about their handling of the release of information to councillors, particularly yesterday.

“It seems the council has not yet learned the lesson of recent events. We will now be pushing to ensure that proper systems are established to avoid this situation in future.

“This report is not a small matter that the council members and senior managers can bury to save face. It has been published so that lessons are learned that will ensure that no other child suffers the way the Victoria Cimbie did.”

• All the main planks in Haringey’s defence of its conduct were rejected.
• Senior managers and councillors should be held accountable, says Lamming.
• Lib Dems say senior councillors must now take responsibly and resign from their posts.

Cllr Lynne Featherstone, who submitted evidence to the Laming Inquiry, comments:

“This is a damning report into the conduct of the council, not just for the terrible tragedy of this event, but also because no one has accepted responsibility for it. The feeble attempts of Haringey’s managers and ruling councillors to escape this responsibility has been completely exposed and condemned by Lord Lamming. It is time they finally took responsibility and resigned. The lessons of Victoria’s death will not be learned if the very same politicians who have been so heavily criticised continue in charge of child protection in the borough.”

Notes:

The Liberal Democrats are calling for the resignation of George Meehan (leader), Josie Irwin (former lead member social services), Takki Sulaiman (executive member social services), Gina Adamou (former executive member social services), all of whom where members of Social Services committee when Victoria died.

REJECTED: Haringey’s contention that the overall failures of the council didn’t contribute to Victoria’s death (Para 6.3)

REJECTED: Haringey’s contention that the level of funding for Social Services (cut by the council) didn’t matter (6.94)

REJECTED: The degree of restructuring the council’s social services department did not cause problems (6.129)

On managements and councillors:

“It is my view that senior managers and lead members could and should have known about the serious deficiencies in Haringey’s Children’s services in early 1999.” (6.171)

“The manner in which a number of senior managers and elected councillors within Haringey discharged their statutory responsibilities to safeguard and protect the welfare of children living in the borough was an important contributory factor in the mishandling of Victoria’s case.” (6.560)

“I was left unimpressed by the manner in which a number of senior managers and councillors from Haringey sought to distance themselves from the poor practice apparent in Victoria’s case” (6.561)

[The report’s criticisms] “are directed not just at the front line staff…but at senior mangers and councillors.” (6.564)

The Liberal Democrats have commended the efforts of the teachers and pupils of Haringey’s local secondary schools following the publication of the national secondary school league tables, but have warned that no great improvement in results will come until the council and government get behind the schools.

The league tables measure various indicators, including the percentage of 15 year olds achieving A * – C grades in GCSEs as well as the government’s new value added score that compares achievements with those of pupils nationally who had the same or similar prior attainments.

Cllr Ross Laird, Leader of the Official Opposition on Haringey Council, commented:

“The teachers and pupils of Haringey have worked very hard in difficult conditions and the improvements that we have seen this year are borne from their hard work and dedication.”

However Cllr Laird added that the lack of even more progress was also down to inadequate help from the Government:

“Purely and simply, the Government expects teachers to work miracles with the resources they are given.

“I’d like to see the local council putting in the same amount of effort as our teachers and pupils are every day. That means putting an end to attempts at short term solutions such as PFI and putting pressure on the Government to secure the extra finances and resources that the schools of Haringey deserve.”

Liberal Democrat councillor for Muswell Hill, Cllr Ross Laird, has urged Haringey Council to intervene to save desperate residents in Connaught House, Connaught Gardens, N10.

The tenants face an uncertain future as their Housing Association, Housing 21, seeks to discontinue its contract with the Metropolitan Police who own the building.

Cllr Laird and Cllr Lynne Featherstone have been in constant contact with the two organisations to get a clearer understanding of the outcome for tenants, but it appears that there will be a lengthy hand over period from April at the latest, leaving most tenants in limbo and facing an uncertain future.

Cllr Laird commented:

“I have written to Haringey Council today to ask that they prepare themselves for the worst – local tenants in Connaught House face an uncertain future and have received no reassurance that their tenure will be secured.

“Haringey Council needs to be in a position whereby it can help these people, many of which are less well off families with young children. The tenants of the house have been there for several years, some as long as ten. They deserve to be recognised as a central part of the Muswell Hill community.

“They have had to endure years of underfunding from the Housing Association and the Metropolitan Police. I will continue to work with tenants to find a solution to their predicament.”

As the prospect of war with Iraq grows nearer, Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone is writing to Haringey’s two Labour MPs calling on them to withhold their support for military action, unless it is backed by a United Nations resolution.

The Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesperson says that the borough’s two Labour MPs have been conspicuous in their silence on the war issue, despite the outspoken reservations of much more senior members of the government, such as Cabinet Minister Claire Short.

Lynne Featherstone comments:

“There is a strong feeling in Haringey that our two Labour MPs have done nothing to address the concerns of local residents over the prospect of war with Iraq, and that they have a duty to speak out.

“Both Barbara Roche and David Lammy should be counselling caution. The public in Haringey do not support a war where there is no mandate from the United Nations, and expect a lead from their local MPs.”

Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesperson for Hornsey and Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone, has handed in a petition signed by Haringey residents in a bid to save local post offices. Ms Featherstone presented the petition to Lib Dem Trade & Industry spokesman, Vincent Cable at the Houses of Parliament last week.

The signatures collected locally by the Lib Dems join over 100,000 others who have signed nationwide. Present plans by the Government and Royal Mail could see the closure of five post offices in the Hornsey and Wood Green area, and a further five in Tottenham. Last year, plans announced by Post Office Chief Executive David Mills envisaged that a third of urban post offices would close. In Hornsey and Wood Green, this would mean the loss of five out of the 16 post offices in the area.

Already this year, over 30,000 job losses nationwide have been announced. The Liberal Democrats blame the Labour government for the planned closures.

Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone, comments:

“If such a huge closure programme goes ahead, we will lose several post offices in Haringey. We must put as much pressure as possible on Labour and the Post Office to make them change their minds.”