Richard Wilson

Despite huge opposition and complaints from residents the Council plans to push ahead with plans to implement fortnightly collections of non-recyclable rubbish in Stroud Green in June.  They have written to residents in the last week telling them about the new arrangements, which also means new recycling wheelie bins will replace the current green recycling boxes and all properties will therefore have to have at least two wheelie bins.

Fortnightly collections have already been introduced into Highgate, Muswell Hill and parts of Wood Green, so this week I went out with Muswell Hill councillor Gail Engert to see the results for myself.  Even in leafy roads where the houses have large front gardens there were some overflowing bins, but where houses had been broken up into lots of flats the situation was terrible (see picture).  And in terraced streets where there are tiny gardens, residents are complaining their pavements have become a permanent sea of wheelie bins with nowhere else to go.  Clearly the Council’s experiment is not working.

This all bodes very badly for Stroud Green where there are lots of densely-populated terraced roads, and lots of houses that have been broken up into flats.  My colleagues and I have begged the council to halt the planned expansion and to review all the problems in the phase 1 areas like Muswell Hill.  However, the Labour Cabinet member  in charge is refusing to listen and anyone who complains about overflowing bins has been attacked for ’scaremongering‘.  We will continue to argue in favour of more recycling and against fortnightly collections, but if they insist on pressing ahead we will do everything we can to try and mitigate the impact and sort out the problems that arise.

Over the last few weeks a number of people have contacted me concerned that someone is living on the Parkland Walk in Stroud Green. Local residents were concerned the person has mental health problems and is damaging the nature area by pulling up bushes and plants.

Obviously, its completely unacceptable for someone to being living on the Walk – particularly if their behaviour is distressing residents and park users and causing damaging. Even more worrying is that someone in a vulnerable state could be living in this way on our doorstep.

Since being alerted to this I’ve been in contact with the local police, the Council’s Parks Department, the Council’s Adult Social Care Department and Haringey’s mental health team to try to get some co-ordinated action from them. I’ve now been assured that steps will be taken very soon by all these agencies to get this person off the Parkland Walk.

Fingers crossed that this intervention is a success and the person gets the help they need.

With the W3 being the most complained about bus service in the whole of London it was easy to persuade our London Assembly candidates to help out with a survey of W3 bus users last week. Lynne Featherstone and I have been pressing Transport for London to sort out the problems on the bus route – which all started when a new operator took over.

They’ve promised us that the long waits and irregular service have been sorted – but we wanted to check if this was really the case by surveying the unlucky users of teh service at Finsbury Park Station. I was joined by two excellent Lib Dem Assembly candidates Caroline Pigeon and Dawn Barnes.  Caroline has been a London-wide Assembly member for four years and has helped me with a number of  transport and bus issues.  Dawn is our new candidate for the Haringey constituency seat on the Assembly, and has run a really energetic campaign mucking in with local councillors like me.

In my 6 years as a councillor I’ve never met the current Labour Assembly member who represents Haringey and have never seen or heard of her doing anything to help residents in Stroud Green – so I’m glad Dawn is showing her up by working so hard.

Please remember to vote on Thursday and hopefully we can get more hard-working London Assembly members working on issues that matter in Stroud Green.

Last week, my colleague Cllr Ed Butcher showed me the new safety signs that he has persuaded the Council to install on a dangerous road bend, where there has been a number of accidents in recent years.  Hazard signs have been put up on the bend of Upper Tollington Park, by the junction with Oakfield Road after requests from Ed.

In my 6 years as a councillor there have been a good few accidents here with the walled flower bed often being smashed into by vehicles that presumably going too fast to turn. There is a post on my website highlighting one such incident in 2009 – but there have been others since. Hopefully these new signs will encourage drivers to slow down.

However, the root cause is that people are driving too fast along the whole length of Upper Tollington Park. So Ed, Katherine, Lynne and I will keep up our long-running campaign for more anti-speeding measures on this road.

The next Crouch End, Hornsey & Stroud Green Area Forum will be held at Hornsey Girls School, Inderwick Road on Tuesday (24th) starting  at 6.30pm. The Forums are an opportunity to find out what is happening in the area, have your say and meet local councillors.

The agenda includes issues such as parking, Hornsey Town Hall and the ‘Jamaica Village’ event.  One interesting item is that bosses from both First Capital Connect and London Overground are coming to talk about Finsbury Park, Harringay, Hornsey and Crouch Hill stations to alert us to any future plans and answer questions. So if you have any concerns about local rail services or railway stations then please come along.  The full agenda is here.

I hope to see you there.

Regular readers of my website know I’m always happy to help sort out a problem the Council hasn’t resolved for weeks (and engage in a bit of of pointing if necessary – see picture).   But this Easter I encountered one of the worst examples of Haringey incompetence yet – a blocked drain on Stroud Green Road that a resident has been complaining about for three and a half months.  He first contacted the Council on New Years Eve – but its still not properly cleared now.

Twice the Council has declared the drain fixed - but on each occasion seems to have gone to the wrong place or not done the job properly.  A month ago the resident got the Chief Executive of Haringey Council involved – but despite his intervention the drain remains full of mud and litter!

I’ve now asked for the Council to get its act together and sort this out once and for all.  One senior council officer has said the budget cuts make it harder to sort out issues like this.  But surely its cheaper to fix a drain the first time, rather than send officers on multiple visits, have to respond to further complaints, and use up the Chief Executive’s valuable time?  No wonder Haringey Council is in such a mess, if it can’t even sort out small things like this.

We’ve recently been told that Haringey Council’s plans for a 10 day music and sport festival in Finsbury Park have fallen through after the event organisers failed to raise the necessary finance.   The proposed ‘Jamaica Village‘ event during the Olympics was controversial with residents because of the unprecedented length – and concerns about noise, anti-social behaviour and litter.  Ordinary park users would have been kept out of the bottom half of the Park for 4 weeks of the school summer holidays. Previous posts detail how we raised these concerns with the Council.

Although the cancellation is bad news for all those planning to attend, I know many residents will be really relieved they won’t be subject to so much disruption.  It’s a shame the organisers didn’t go for a smaller event spread over less days, as this might have been cheaper to finance and might have had more support from residents.

However, Haringey Council did grant a 10 day license for the event so we need to make sure this doesn’t set a precedent for long events in the Park in future years. Katherine, Ed and I will keep pressing the Council to consult properly about future events in the Finsbury Park so everyone gets a proper chance to have their say.

PS – I’ve had lots of complaints this week about the mess left in Finsbury Park after the sunny weekend and have contacted senior Haringey Council officers to get the place cleaned up.