Earlier this week I was part of a group of councillors who turned up to thank volunteers who had spent the morning clearing rubbish and dead vegetation from a section of the Parkland Walk. The session was organised by the Council’s waste contractor Veolia, who encouraged their own staff to volunteer. In the space of two hours four lorry loads of debris was removed.
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.
This Friday evening I’ll be helping out at a Christmas Carol Concert outside the Hornsey Town Hall off Crouch End Broadway (stewarding and bucket-shaking rather than singing thankfully).
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.
Ed, Katherine and I have today submitted our response to the Boundary Commission’s consultation, on behalf of the hundreds of residents who have contacted us or filled in our survey. An amazing 98.5% of those who have responded to us (401 out of 407 responses) are opposed to the Commission’s proposal to move Stroud Green ward from the Hornsey Parliamentary Constituency to the Tottenham Constituency.
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.
Earlier this week I met with the Council’s nature conservation officers and with the Friends of the Parkland Walk to discuss how to better protect the much-loved nature area. The problem is that thousands of private properties border the disused railway line and over the years a good number of of people have taken advantage and stolen bits of lands – pushing their garden into the publicly-owned nature reserve.
Despite having an official policy of zero tolerance to land grabs on the Parkland Walk, in actual fact the Council struggles to protect the Walk from encroachment, due to lack of resources and enforcement. No up-to-date plans exist of what the Council owns – and legally the Council seems to have no powers to recover any land that has been occupied for over 12 years. In a recent case I was involved with, comparing the original Victorian maps with current situation on the ground appeared to show lots of historic encroachment by the previous owners of a number of properties.
As a result of my experiences I’m asking the Council to do two things to better protect the Walk:
Whenever there is a planning application for a property that borders the Walk, the Council should work with the owner to agree the boundary on the ground before any building work starts. Currently there is no proper system for doing this, which can result in long-running costly disputes after building has started.
The Council should conduct a proper survey of the Walk to properly map the current location of fences and structures along the boundary to help them better identify recent and future land-grabs. I’m amazed the Council has never done this before. With limit resources at the Council at present, I’ve suggested that they try to partner with college or university that trains surveyors to see if we can get some students involved.
The Parkland Walk is precious and deserves to be properly protected. But how can the Council hope to properly protect the Walk if it doesn’t know what land it actually owns?
Local residents are trying to spread the word about the Boundary Commission consultation on whether Stroud Green should move out of Hornsey Constituency and into Tottenham. The deadline for people to have their say in the consultation is just 13 days away.
The Stroud Green Residents Association is holding a public meeting tomorrow (Thursday) night to discuss the proposal. The meeting is at 7pm upstairs in Stroud Green Library.
And even better, local community group GreenN8 has made a film about the issue, speaking to lots of local residents, as well as Lynne Featherstone, Katherine Reece and myself. I’ve just watched it myself for the first time and I think its a fantastic way of communicating the issue. Please make sure you have your say.
Residents living in roads around Stationers Park are jubilant after the Council’s waste contractor agreed to remove an ugly street-sweeping depot from the park at a public meeting this week. This victory followed a 6 month campaign by local residents, supported by councillors, to get the Veolia depot’s 9ft metal fence removed or disguised.
As I posted back in May, the Council allowed Veolia to build the depot for its street-sweeping trolleys without consulting with local residents, councillors or the very active Friends of Stationers Park group. Unsurprisingly, there was then an outcry when, without warning Veolia took over the park keeper’s shed and constructed a 9ft metal fence. To try to meet resident’s concerns Veolia had arranged for a mural to be painted on the shed by local school children. However, no solution to shortening or disguising the fence could be found that was acceptable to both the Friends and Veolia, and the contractor have now said they will completely remove the fence and depot and use alternative sites.
I’m absolutely delighted that local residents have stuck to their guns and said this large and ugly imposition on their park is unacceptable. The Council should have realised that this was not an appropriate site, given how small the park is and how intrusive a 9ft metal fence would look, and should never have given permission. I’m pleased that unlike Haringey Council, Veolia have decided to listen to residents and act on their concerns – great news!
The Friends of Stationers Park have organised a public meeting with the Council’s new bin contractor Veolia, to discuss the ugly fenced depot they have been allowed to build in the middle of Stationers Park. The meeting will be this Tuesday evening (15th) at 7.30pm in the Hornsey Vale Community Centre on Mayfield Road and is open to all members of the public.
The Friends have listed four concerns they want to present to Veolia:
erecting an imposing and aggressive fence in our green space to protect their litter trolleys.
the fact that they don’t pick up the plethora of litter in our park, adding insult to injury.
the fact that they haven’t paid a penny in rent to support the parks dept in all the months they have been there.
their staff are very noisy entering the park in the early hours of morning, disturbing residents of Mayfield and Denton roads.
I share resident’s concern about this ugly imposition on the Park. I first posted about this issue back in May and have written about it in our local Focus leaflet. Since then there has been work to improve the shed with a mural – but I hope that on Tuesday we can make progress on sorting out the rest of the mess. My preference would be to get rid of the depot completely, but failing that it needs substantial work to make it fit in with our beautiful park.
Earlier this week I was part of a group of councillors who turned up to thank volunteers who had spent the morning clearing rubbish and dead vegetation from a section of the Parkland Walk. The session was organised by the Council’s waste contractor Veolia, who encouraged their own staff to volunteer. In the space of two hours four lorry loads of debris was removed.
This Friday evening I’ll be helping out at a Christmas Carol Concert outside the Hornsey Town Hall off Crouch End Broadway (stewarding and bucket-shaking rather than singing thankfully).
Ed, Katherine and I have today submitted our response to the Boundary Commission’s consultation, on behalf of the hundreds of residents who have contacted us or filled in our survey. An amazing 98.5% of those who have responded to us (401 out of 407 responses) are opposed to the Commission’s proposal to move Stroud Green ward from the Hornsey Parliamentary Constituency to the Tottenham Constituency.
Earlier this week I met with the Council’s nature conservation officers and with the Friends of the Parkland Walk to discuss how to better protect the much-loved nature area. The problem is that thousands of private properties border the disused railway line and over the years a good number of of people have taken advantage and stolen bits of lands – pushing their garden into the publicly-owned nature reserve.
Residents living in roads around Stationers Park are jubilant after the Council’s waste contractor agreed to remove an ugly street-sweeping depot from the park at a public meeting this week. This victory followed a 6 month campaign by local residents, supported by councillors, to get the Veolia depot’s 9ft metal fence removed or disguised.
The Friends of Stationers Park have organised a public meeting with the Council’s new bin contractor Veolia, to discuss the ugly fenced depot they have been allowed to build in the middle of Stationers Park. The meeting will be this Tuesday evening (15th) at 7.30pm in the Hornsey Vale Community Centre on Mayfield Road and is open to all members of the public.