To check out the latest edition of ‘The Zoom’, a comic created by ten-year-old Zoom Rockman from Crouch End, Lynne Featherstone MP on Friday attended the launch party at the Big Green Bookshop.
The comic, now in its third edition, was founded in 2009 by the then 9-year- old Rokesly Junior student, Zoom, who writes, designs, draws and prints the publication himself.
Lynne Featherstone MP first met Zoom when he drew the winning design, for her 2010 Christmas card, of Santa flying over Wood Green Shopping City.
Lynne Featherstone MP comments:
“I knew Zoom had something extra when I saw his entry for my Christmas Card Competition. Apart from being a really talented artist, he also has a real fun sense of humour that immediately grabbed my attention.
“But I didn’t realize quite how innovative and entrepreneurial he is – writing, designing, drawing and printing his own, very funny comic! I’m very impressed, and sure the future will hold great things, both for Zoom Rockman, and for ‘The Zoom’!”
Liberal Democrats have today demanded that the Council rethinks its proposed cuts to older people’s drop-in centres, luncheon clubs and day centres. The Labour Council announced in December 2010 that the Haven and Grange Day Centres, Abyssina Court, Willoughby Road, Woodside House and Irish Centre Drop-in centres and Jackson’s Lane Luncheon club would be cut to save £425,000.
Liberal Democrats have said that services for older people should not be the first target for the Council to cut and have highlighted that the Council should prioritise back-office savings before cuts to vital services. The cuts to drop-in centres, luncheon clubs and day centres represent just 0.2% of the £182 million in central government funding the Council will receive next year.
The £425,000 cut proposed to drop-in centres, day centres and luncheon clubs is less than the annual cost to residents for the write off of the residents money that the Labour Council lost in the Icelandic bank collapse.
Lynne Featherstone, MP for Hornsey and Wood Green comments:
“Local government has to make savings, but it is up to the local authority where those savings rest. Haringey Labour are going for soft targets, but I believe this drastic cut to services for older people is a very poor decision. We should protect our most vulnerable not close services they cherish.
“Labour’s financial mismanagement nationally got the country into this mess and locally Labour has made it worse.”
Cllr David Winskill, Liberal Democrat Health and Adult Social Services spokesperson adds:
“It is often said that the mark of a civilised society is how we look after our older residents. The Labour Council is not prioritising its use of the £182 million of government funding towards the services that many older people rely on. These services should not be the first target of Labour’s cuts.
“The cuts at day centres, luncheon clubs and drop-in centres represent 0.2% of the Council’s central government funding yet the Council are suggesting that, in the remaining 99.8% of the funding, there is nothing else they could cut instead of these services.”
To continue the battle for better treatment of blind and partially sighted residents attending hospitals and doctors surgeries locally, Lynne Featherstone MP has visited a special blind awareness class at the Winkfield Centre in Wood Green.
The class was teaching 4th year medical students from UCL about the special challenges faced by blind and partially sighted people, and follows a visit a few months ago, when the Liberal Democrat MP and members of the Haringey Phoenix Group met with the Whittington Hospital. That visit formed part of a campaign by the RNIB to get hospitals to make its patient information available in accessible formats such as audio, Braille and large print.
To help increase awareness, the Hornsey and Wood Green MP and the medical students got to wear special sight impairing glasses whilst walking around in the centre’s garden.
Lynne Featherstone MP comments:
“This is such a brilliant way to catch the doctors at an early stage and ensure they have special awareness of the challenges faced by blind and partially sighted people.
“Using the glasses was a great way of giving the young doctors an idea of what having impaired vision is like, and is a small step to help make life easier for blind and partially sighted people here in Hornsey and Wood Green.”
The police are planning to expand their presence in Wood Green – keeping the existing police station in use but also moving the front counter to the Fishmongers Arms (right next to the Civic Centre, closer to the centre of Wood Green, closer to where people congregate and closer to the crime hotspots).
I was impressed with the new front counter – not yet in use – when I went with Cllr Robert Gorrie (Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Haringey Council) to see it and meet the local Commander, Dave Grant.
Having staffed and open police stations in the heart of our community is central to the fight against crime and the fear of crime. It gives us a police service that knows its community and whose community knows it. That’s why I fought for so longer to get the Muswell Hill front counter reopened.
The new front counter in Wood Green is much better equipped and located than the current one. It’s all ready to go – brand, spanking new – and has the advantage that local people would be able to use the front counter to report their problems in a much more peaceful and calm atmosphere – no longer needing to mix with the less salubrious side of station life with those who have to report to the police station, and so on.
If the existing building is also kept in use for police services, such as cells and a base for patrol cars etc, then this means overall a bigger and better police presence in Wood Green. Hurrah!
If!
We need to be sure that moving the front counter doesn’t become an excuse to cut back, sell off property – and leave us with fewer services. That has to be the concern in these times of economic uncertainty.
And then there’s still the question of exactly what policing will be done from the existing police station building. The police have promised a public consultation on that – including the possibility of moving the front counter back from the Fishmongers Arms, if it isn’t a success in its new location and local people want it moved back.
We also need to make sure that any building work on the old police station preserves its historic front, which is a real architectural gem that adds to our community. Last time the police made proposals for the station the local community was rightly up in arms at the insensitive architectural designs. That planning application was withdrawn and we await a new one, due to be submitted in the autumn.
So we should be due two chances to have our say – the public consultation on police services in the area and also the planning application for the Victorian police station building.
But ahead of that the police want to try out starting to use the new facilities at the Fishmongers Arms – moving their front counter service from the existing police station to the new location.
I know some people have been skeptical about this, worried that it’s a way for the police to preempt those two chances for us to have our say later in the year.
But if it is a genuine trial, making use of new expanded premises and with a commitment written in blood that the final decisions will only come after we’ve been consulted – then it means we get to try out the new services sooner and it makes for a better decision in the end if there’s some practical experience to draw on.
So this is a debate which will run for some time – and do let me know your own views.
Here’s the latest about Wood Green police station. Cllr Robert Gorrie and I met Dave Grant (local Commander) at the brand, spanking newly kitted out police front counter in the ‘Fishmongers Arms’ next to the Civic Centre in Wood Green.
Went to the launch of GFest – London’s premier LGBT cross-arts festival. As Equalities spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats – this is the second year I have been asked to come and speak at the launch – and it is a great honour.
GFest is a platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) organisations and venues to promote LGBT arts. Organised by arts charity “Wise Thoughts” which is based in my constituency.
This is the third year of the festival – which each year is growing like Topsy and this year has over 100 artists from all over the world – a testament to the organisers – Wise Thoughts.
David Lammy MP (Labour) hosted the meeting, and the other speakers were Ben Summerskill from Stonewall, Richard Barnes (Tory Deputy Mayor of London) and me.
Last year I remember saying that ‘artists are streetfighters’ and so I said the same again – for it is true. All the speakers touched on the issues around the Daily Mail’s column on Stephen Gately, Nick Griffin’s open homophobia and the appalling killing of a gay men in Trafalgar Square.
Legislatively speaking – gay rights are pretty advanced these days (with exceptions like the blanket ban on gay blood donations and unequal protection in schools against homophobic bullying). The point I was making was that whilst legislation might be in place – clearly from those horrific examples above – at street level there is still a very very long way to go.
Also we forget, in London, how cosmopolitan we really are and how different it is elsewhere.
It was a good launch and I hope that many Londoners will flock to the various exhibitions, shows and so on that form the festival.
Lynne Featherstone 