The organisers have already been granted a license by Haringey Council and will be able to serve alcohol and play amplified music until 10.30pm at night.  In December I attended the licensing committee meetings, and with other residents argued successfully for restrictions to the event try to protect residents from noise and anti-social behaviour.

Sadly, there has been very little consultation with local residents about Jamaica Village.  The only publicity the Council gave to the licensing application was a few posters put up in the park in the middle of winter, which meant few people realised what was happening or had their say.

However, after I criticised the lack of consultation, the Parks Department has agreed to listen to comments made during February about their plans to manage the event.  As your local councillors we want to know your concerns about issues such as noise, litter, parking, anti-social behaviour and lack of access to the park.  The Council plan to hand the southern part of the park over to the organisers for over 3 weeks during August, and I know some families have concerns about losing access to such a large portion of the park for half of the school summer holidays.  We’re also very worried about the impact such a long event will have on the state of the park.

Jamaica Village sounds like great fun for those attending, but it is essential that residents are protected as much as possible from noise and disruption. Please tell me your views so that I can respond to the Council before their deadline for comments ends on 29th February.

The Finsbury Park area is held back by the difficulties in getting Haringey, Hackney and Islington to work together and prioritise a place that often feels neglected.  For instance Ed and I have struggled to even get the Boroughs to co-operate on simple things like Christmas lights on Stroud Green Road.  And the Council’s don’t seem to talk to each other on issues like planning applications and events in the Park.

Lynne Featherstone used her speech at the conference to call for residents from all sides to work together to drive change.  She raised the prospect of people using the new Localism Act to create an official cross-borough Area Forum in Finsbury Park.  Residents in Highgate, which is similarly split down the middle, have recently started the process of setting up just such a Forum using the new legal powers.  The Localism Act is a key Lib Dem initiative in Government and Lynne revealed how she’d pushed for cross-boundary forums to be recognised.

The good news from the conference is that Islington, Hackney and Haringey Councils are going to sign some kind of agreement to work together better on Finsbury Park issues.  This is welcome and long overdue step, but there have been lots of fine words on Finsbury Park before, and residents will want to see real action to improve the area resulting from this initiative.

Well done to FinFuture for organising the conference and bringing people together.

Whilst lots of residents are really keen to get a recycling wheelie bin because they have the space and the boxes aren’t bin enough, many Stroud Green properties are not suitable for this change.  If the Council had bothered to consult with residents it would have found out that people have completely different requirements – but in typical Haringey style decisions were made in secret behind closed doors.

Haringey say that everyone’s front garden will be assessed, and that people may be able to request smaller bins.  However, its unclear what happens if your front garden just isn’t big enough to cope with two weeks worth of black-bag waste from all the flats in your house – or if your neighbours don’t recycle properly and put smelly food waste in the black bin (or what happens with nappies and cat litter which can’t be recycled).  Ed Butcher and I have been out knocking on doors in Upper Tollington Park and neighbouring roads and most residents are hugely supportive of attempts to increase recycling, but desperately want to keep their weekly bin collections.

The Area Committee agreed to put residents concerns to the Labour Councillor in charge of waste collections.

There are a host of controversial issues on the agenda, including an update on the boundary review and on the parking controls, as well as discussion of the Council’s plans to change our waste collections. Haringey controversially plan to cut weekly collections of non-recyclable waste later this year, with black bin waste only collected once a fortnight.

If you want to find out more about whats going on in your local area please come along on Tuesday.

Saturday 7th January 2012

• 3.30pm Stationers Park, Mayfield Road
• 4pm Sunshine Café, Stroud Green Road
• 7.30pm Lancaster Road

Sunday 8th January 2012

• 10am Stationers Park, Mayfield Road
• 1pm Angel Café, Stroud Green Road

Tuesday 10th January 2012

• 12pm Charter Court, Stroud Green Road

I’ve already responded to their consultation suggesting the top three priorities should be: safety on the Parkland Walk; preventing burglaries; and safety around the W3 bus stops.  Although Stroud Green is generally a safe place, there have been some worrying incidents in recent months.  So this initiative is a welcome opportunity for residents to speak to the police about their concerns.

According to the Government data, our three local primary schools are are due to receive significant sums:

• Weston Park Primary School on Denton Road will get £18,000
• St Aidan’s Primary School on Albany Road will get £23,400
• Stroud Green Primary School on Woodstock Road will get £107,400

Because of the way the Pupil Premium is targeted, Haringey is a massive beneficiary - with £8.8 million planned to go to our schools in 2012-13.   Nearby High Schools used by Stroud Green children will also get large sums – for instance Hornsey Girls School is getting £385,000, Highgate Wood £270,000 and the Grieg City Academy £378,600. Schools in the east of Haringey, where over two thirds of pupils can be on free school meals, will quite rightly receive very large amounts of Premium.

For five years I was a governor at Weston Park Primary School, and chair of the schools resources committee – so I know that this money will make a big difference and will be put to good use in our local schools.  It’s great to have some good news about school funding amongst all the gloom in these very difficult times.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Although the event sounds like a lot of fun, it is much longer than the usual 2 day events in the Park, and a number of residents who live nearby have concerns. They are worried about issues such as noise, alcohol, anti-social behaviour and the loss of access to a big part of the park for weeks during the summer. So I attended the meeting to argue for some sensible restrictions on the loudness of the music and to make sure the Park is properly cleaned up afterwards. I also urged the Police and organisers to ensure the rest of the Park is properly supervised and protected from any drinking or anti-social behaviour spilling out of the Park.

Concerns were also raised by the Police and by Islington Council, and as a result of all the issues raised the hearing had to be adjourned until tomorrow (Monday 19th). During summer Finsbury Park is a garden and playground to many local families and I hope that the Licensing Committee listen to residents’ concerns and make sure this event is properly controlled.

It’s great to see a large company like Veolia putting something back into the local community.  Many of the Veolia volunteers I spoke to lived locally and used the Parkland Walk, so were delighted to have been able to help improve the area.

However, even this big event only cleared a short section between Oxford Road, Upper Tollington Park and Stapleton Hall Road.  That’s why as local councillors we’ve also awarded a small £500 grant to the Friends of the Parkland Walk to help organise more volunteering sessions to try to clean up the Walk (see previous post about the small grants).  I hope this volunteering push can bring people together and really make a difference to the Walk.

The event is to raise money for two excellent causes – supporting local carers and the Tottenham Fund for people who were hit by the August riots.

The event starts at the Town Hall Square at 6pm.  I’m assured that Dunn’s will have a mulled wine stall, which should help keep out the winter cold.

Please do come along and join the festive celebrations!

Admission is free – but please give a charity donation.

The change would mean Stroud Green residents would vote for and be represented by the MP for Tottenham after the next election.  Instead of the boundary between the two constituencies being the railway line to Finsbury Park, the dividing line would wind round and split local residential roads in half.  A local campaign group have made a video to explain.

The Commission’s proposal for Stroud Green has been opposed by local residents associations, community groups and school governors and all the main political parties.  The clear message that everyone has put to the Boundary Commission is that Stroud Green has much stronger community ties with Crouch End and Hornsey than with Tottenham.  Our survey found that just 3% of respondents (11 out of 402) think that Stroud Green has strong community ties with Tottenham, whilst 96% (388 out of 404) say we have strong ties with Crouch End.

Our consultation response has pressed the Commission to listen to residents and keep Stroud Green in Hornsey.  With so much support, I’m sure we can win.