I’ve been demanding action from the Council for 3 months, ever since a local resident complained to local campaigner Katherine Reece about the state of the house back in November 2009 (see post from January).  I was told that the house would be back in use by 26 March at the latest – but Haringey have failed to even start work on renovating the building, so this promise was clearly not going to be kept.

I’ve emailed the Labour cabinet member in charge of housing to express our anger at the Council’s incompatence and to demand action to sort out the squatter situation so the house can be used by a local family.  There is such a long waiting list for larger council homes, and so many families trapped in overcrowded temporary accomodation, that this situation is a real scandal.

In previous years we’ve managed to get a few good little projects approved, such as the children’ s mural on Quernmore Road by Harringay Station and improvements opposite Tesco on Stroud Green Road (see picture of me planting a tree outside Charter Court a few years ago with local residents and representatives of the Council).

But despite the Council’s whopping £3 million ‘communications’ budget there is not enough promotion of the fund, and we don’t get enough bids in from Stroud Green residents.  So I’m trying to drum up interest by contacting individuals and by posting here.  The leaflet and application form for the “making the difference” programme 2010/11 is here.  And if you’re interested in finding out more then please attend the next local Area Assembly meeting which is tonight at 7.30pm in St Mary’s Junior School in Rectoiry Gardens – details here.

And this really could be the last chance for Making the Difference, because if the Liberal Democrats take control of Haringey in May we’re determined to replace it with a bigger and better system of devolving spending down to local neighbourhoods.  We want to give people real power over their local area and to encourage greater participation in local decisions.

The thing that really annoys me sometimes is the lack of information at Finsbury Park, particularly when there is a problem with the bus route – What’s the point of having a Tannoy in the bus station if its only ever used to tell people not to skateboard?!

Anyway, now people have a chance to have their say, because Transport for London (TfL) have announced a review of the route.  To find out people’s view Ed Butcher and I have produced a W3 Bus survey which we’ve been delivering across the ward over the last few weeks.  But if you haven’t had a copy yet then please email me, or just post your comments on the W3 on this page.

TfL’s deadline for responses is this Friday (12th) March.  Ed and I will be summarising the responses and sending them on to TfL in a few days time.

Lynne also organised a public meeting which took place last night to give residents the chance to put questions directly to the health bosses responsible.  This is a great move by our MP to try to make these people accountable, but it is outragous that unelected quango appointees are having to answer these questions rather than their political masters in the Department of Health.  Given that Labour Health Ministers have refused to lift a finger to save the A&E (and it is Labour’s policy to cut A&Es by reducing the number of ‘general’ hospitals), I think the hypocrisy of senior Labour politicians going on the march is astounding.

This made me suspicious and I suddenly realised there was a device attached to the card slot.  A little look around and I also spotted a concealed camera positioned to video the key pad.  With my card and a recording of me typing in my PIN, they would have had everything they needed to empty my bank account.

The hidden camera was only attached to the cashpoint with a magnet so I took it off and stuck it in my pocket and scarpered – slightly worried whether the people who were trying to steal my money were nearby watching me.  Fortunately, I knew Hornsey Police Station was up the road and has a 24 hour front counter so I went in and gave the criminals’ camera to the police.

The officers at Hornsey Station who helped me were great, and it was very reassuring to speak to the police face to face.   Sadly though, I’ve just had a call from CID to say they think its unlikely they will be able to identify the culprits – as there is no CCTV camera facing the cashpoint.

So I’m posting this story to remind people of the need to be vigilant when using cash machines in the area and to look out for devices attached to the card slot.  They are very cleverly concealed and I only noticed at the very last minute just as I was about to walk off thinking it was just a faulty machine.

And I’m also posting this to highlight the importance of police stations remaining open 24 hours.  This has been a big issue in Haringey recently with Lynne Featherstone battling to keep the front counter at Wood Green Police Station open 24 hours (story here).  I think I slept sounder last night because I’d been able to speak to the police and hand over the criminals’ hidden camera.  I’m not sure what I would have done if the police station had been closed.

Labour rejected our budget amendment, and bizarrely attacked our plans to boost late night policing.  However, Ed won the argument on improving battery recycling and at the very last minute Labour changed their budget to partly adopt our plans.

Currently the Council provides just a handful of places for residents to take batteries, so Ed argued for 100 more recycling points in convenient locations like libraries and schools.  Its great news that he has successfully pushed the Council into action to protect the environment from dangerous pollution from batteries.

Sadly, Laura Edge decided not to re-stand, and is moving on to pastures new after more than 6 years of leading the Lib Dem revolution in Stroud Green.  Laura has worked very hard to improve our area in her time as councillor and its been fatastic to work with her.  Laura’s stunning by-election success in 2004 (a 29% swing from Labour) and huge re-election vote in 2006 shows just how many residents she has helped and won over to the Lib Dems.

However, Katherine is a very worthy sucessor and has already been battling the Council on issues ranging from empty homes to gritting.  Please get in contact if you want to help our election campaign in any way.

These piles of rubbish are not a great advert for shopping in Ferme Park Road and I can understand why people get annoyed.  The root of the problem is Haringey’s contract with the refuse collection company Enterprise, which does not require them to collect refuse at any particular time of the day.  This means that the residents who live above the shops have no fixed time to leave their rubbish out and Enterprise have fixed time to collect it.

The refuse collection contract is being re-tendered this year, so Ihave formally written to Cllr Bevan, the Labour Cabinet Member in charge of rubbish and recycling, asking that the contract be changed so that there are fixed collection times for shopping areas like Ferme Park Road (as there already are now in some areas such as Crouch End Broadway).  This should help solve the problem in the long term.

One even simpler thing that could be done to improve the area is to install some litter bins – as strangely there aren’t any bins by the shops.  I’m pleased to say that last week I got an email from the Council confirming they would urgently put in a litter bin outside Londis.

As I reported in a previous post, in January I passed on to the Council a pile of requests from local residents for more grit bins on Stroud Green’s hilly streets.  The Council’s website says “suggestions for new sites are welcome”.

However, I have now got a reply back saying they will decide whether to get the bins in March and then, if they are approved, install them in October.   I don’t see why such a simple task needs to take so long.

This week the freezing weather has really returned and it has snowed a couple of times.  Yet the Council are acting as if there is no urgency to providing grit bins to residents and seem to think winter is over!   Someone needs to lend our Labour Council leaders a calendar.

The development is on the Islington side of the road, and Haringey don’t seem to have made much effort to get involved in the process.  Councillors such as myself weren’t alerted to the event - which meant I couldn’t advertise it on this website.  So I immeadiately put an email into Haringey Council asking how they were going to ensure that residents on the north side of Stroud Green Road were able to have a say.  This week (5 weeks later) I got a response just directing me to Islington Council’s website and saying no Haringey panning officers had even attended the December consultation event.

Clearly this development would have a major impact on Stroud Green.  Its great to see people wanting to invest in Stroud Green Road, but this proposed building does seem quite tall, given the height of the Victorian terraces surrounding it.  I think everyone should have their say on this development – regardless of which side of the borough boundary they live, and  I will press for wide-scale consultation when the planning application is submitted.