Richard Wilson

Since I started highlighting the lack of grit bins in Stroud Green, I’ve had a dozen requests from local residents to get a bin installed in their road.  In fact, residents of Woodstock Road and Denton Road pointed out that their roads used to have a grit bin but the Council took it away a few years ago.

As a result I’ve sent in a request to the new Cabinet Member for the Environment Cllr John Bevan, asking for grit bins to be installed in the following six roads:

• Albany Road
• Oakfield Road (between Stapleton Hall Road and Ridge Road)
• Denton Road
• Uplands Road
• Woodstock Road (near Stroud Green Primary School)
• Mount Pleasant Crescent

At this week’s Full Council meeting I had planned to raise the lack of grit bins and a number of other ways I thought Haringey could improve its preparedness for snow and ice.  Cllr Lyn Weber and I had put down a motion calling for the Council to hold a formal review to find out resident’s experiences and learn lessons.

However, in one of the most childish displays I have ever seen from a grown adult, Council Leader Claire Kober deliberately talked nonsense for half an hour to stop our motion being reached.   Its shocking that the Leader of a Council that is rated the worst in London thinks this is an acceptable way to behave, and presumably doesn’t think the Council has anything to learn from residents’ experiences of the recent snow and ice.

I was out and about in the ward at the weekend and was really pleased to see that the grit bins that I had complained about (see previous post) had been filled, and that some residents had made use of the grit on their pavements and front paths.  I’ve also sent people who live near the grit bins on Mayfield and Inderwick Road a letter with the number to call to get the Council to refill the bin next time its empty.

However, it struck me how few of the hill roads in Stroud Green have a grit bin at all.  I couldn’t see one at all on Uplands, Denton, Albany or Oakfield Roads, and these are all quite steep and difficult when its icy.   So please contact me if you think your road needs a grit bin, and you and your neighbours would make use of it.  The Council’s website says that “suggestions for new sites are welcome”, so in theory this shouldn’t be difficult to sort out.

I also think the Council should do more to make residents aware of grit bins.  I suspect many people don’t know what the yellow boxes are for or are not sure if the public are supposed to make use of them (which they are).  Recently a Stroud Green resident emailed me a link to this website that promotes the use of ‘disused’ grit bins for community recycling.  Most of the ‘disused’ bins are in Haringey – so it seems some enterprising residents are using the bins for other purposes (probably because the Council doesn’t actually put grit in them very often).

Yesterday, we presented Haringey Council will the final results of the Stroud Green Parking Survey.  We got a huge response with over 300 surveys completed either on the doorstep or online.

We started the survey because so many residents in the roads outside the existing Finsbury Park and Crouch End CPZs were contacting us to complain about parking (see post on launching the survey).  The key results were:

• 79% of residents believe that parking has got worse this year
• 61% of residents say they are now in favour of a CPZ , 32% are against a CPZ, and 7% stated no preference.
• 38% of residents say they used to be against having a CPZ but are now in favour.
• 58% of residents believe any CPZ should only operate for 2 hours .

These results demonstrate the urgent need for a proper Council consultation looking at the options for tackling parking problems.  We’ve written to the Haringey cabinet member in charge of parking demanding that he now holds this consultation - and a full review of the existing Finsbury Park CPZ.

As well as setting out residents’ views on CPZs, our letter also sets out other suggestions residents have made to reduce parking pressures, such as:

• Allowing residents who live just outside the CPZ boundary to buy permits to park inside.
• Allowing free parking on stretches of road where there are no houses, such as the Oakfield Road bridge or the covered reservoir.
• Providing dedicated van and truck parking (in appropriate places) for local residents who run vital ‘man and a van’ businesses.

The Council must listen to local residents on parking.

Over the summer Ed, Laura and I launched a survey of parking issues in the roads just outside the new Crouch End Controlled Parking Zone – as we were being inundated with complaints from residents.  We felt we had to do our own survey as the Council had broken their pledge to hold a consultation after the new CPZ was implemented.

We’ve now had several hundred responses from the roads bordering the Crouch End and Finsbury Park CPZs.  The results so far show:

• Three quarters of respondents say parking has got worse in the last 6 months
• 62% say they are now in favour of a CPZ – with many residents saying they have been forced to change their anti-CPZ views
• The vast majority of residents would want a CPZ to be operational for only 2 hours

These figures show that local people in roads such as Mount View, Ferme Park, Stapleton Hall, Granville and Quernmore, think the parking problem is getting even worse and want the Council to take action.  We are using the results to demand that the Council conduct a proper consultation with residents as soon as possible.  But we are also pledging to scrutinise any Council proposals for new parking restrictions, to ensure they are focused on solving the problem – not boosting Council coffers.

We will be closing the survey very soon to present the full results to the Council, so if you haven’t yet had your say please fill it out online as soon as possible (link here).  This parking mess is largely of the Council’s own making – and they need to listen to residents views on how to sort it out.

My post last month ‘what happens to all the missing doors?’, on the amount of phone cabinets on our streets with missing doors, generated lots of comments.   Councillors from as far away as Tottenham and Lewisham commented to say its also a problem in their area. According to the comments, the doors and cables inside are often stolen – and sometimes the doors are removed after they break and wont shut.

Today I reported these further missing phone cabinet doors on Albany Road near the junction with Mount View Road.  I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but the wires and gadgets inside are all shiny and brand new – so it seems strange that the phone or cable company would just leave it like this.

It all still seems a bit of mystery to me how these doors keep disappearing.  Nobody ever seems to see it happen.