Richard Wilson

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.

At Monday night’s Area Committee meeting in the Hornsey Library, I and the other local Lib Dem councillors agreed which community groups would benefit from small ‘Making the Difference’ grants to improve the local area.  This year we had some great bids in from Stroud Green residents – all of which got funded.

Projects that got the go-ahead in Stroud Green were:

• £3,500 for Mind to recruit and train volunteers to help out at their centre on Stappleton Hall Road (see cafe in picture).
• £500 for the Friends of the Parkland Walk to help clean up embankments and cuttings on the Walk.
• £2,500 for Farnefields Court Residents’ Association to create a community garden (with another £2,500 of match funding levered out of Homes for Haringey).
• £3,000 for Stroud Green Residents Association for new seats for people waiting for the W5, tree planting and other improvements.
• £3,000 for Friends of Stationers Park for new community picnic benches.
• £750 for the Friends of Stroud Green Library for a new noticeboard and signs.

Well done to all these organisations for putting in bids and working so hard to improve our area.

This weekend Katherine Reece and I were out surveying local residents about access to health services.   A lack of GPs willing to take on residents who live near the Stroud Green Road has been a big issue for many years. The problem is that most of the local GPs are on the Islington side of the Borough boundary (which runs along the Stroud Green Road) and don’t allow Haringey residents on their lists. In fact, one Islington surgery has recently purged all its Haringey residents, sending out a letter asking them to find another GP.

Katherine and I have met with Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT) and written to Islington PCT to try to find a solution – but Islington are denying there is a problem. So Katherine hit on the idea of surveying local residents to demonstrate there is a problem, and got our local MP Lynne Featherstone to help launch the survey, along with concerned local residents (see picture).

I joined Katherine in a second batch of surveying this weekend, where we spoke to residents in Florence Road, Victoria Road and Osbourne Road.  A number of people said how difficult it had been to get a GP – and how they had been told they weren’t in the ‘catchment’ for local GPs that were just down the road.

Once we’ve got a good sample of surveys, we will use these as evidence to try to get all the different sides to work together to sort out the problem.  It is really frustrating to see health services being arranged around the needs of bureaucrats, rather than the needs of residents, who just want a choice of good local GPs.  The good news is that the Government plans to change the system over the next few years to stop GPs from blocking residents from registering based on where they live.  But I think local GPs and health bosses should take action now – rather than wait until they are forced to sort the problem out a few years down the line.

I keep hearing excellent reports of the new community café that is open every Friday lunchtime in the Old Station House (the MIND building) on the corner of Stapleton Hall Road and Ferme Park Road.  Local MP Lynne Featherstone and councillors Katherine Reece and Dave Winskill visited on Friday and said the food and atmosphere was fantastic. They’ve sent me this picture of them enjoying a meal with local residents.

As I posted back in October the café has opened by innovative charity ‘FoodCycle’ who aim to bring together volunteers, surplus food from local supermarkets and idle kitchen space to create cheap and nutritious food (More details on the FoodCycle website).  The launch was supported by local councillors through a small start-up grant from the ‘Making the difference’ programme.

I’ve had lots of reports from many different people that the café is a big hit with local residents and has been attracting a good number of customers.  I hope this success means it will be able to eventually extend its opening hours so that more people can access it.

The café has now closed for Christmas and will re-open on Friday 7th January.

Back in March I reported a strange hole in Weston Park to the Council (see previous posting) and I was assured that the contractors who had resurfaced the road in 2008 would fix the problem at their own cost.  The hole appeared to be caused by poor workmanship with metal peices left under the tarmac.

I assumed this would be the end of it, but last week I got a call from my colleague Cllr David Winskill, who lives nearby, to say the hole was still there – and growing (see photo taken at the weekend).  I’ve now fired off an annoyed email to the Council’s highways officers demanding to know why – almost 4 months on – this hole still hasn’t been fixed.  It worries me that they seem not to check up on repairs that contractors are asked to make.

I was delighted when after years of nagging the Council, they eventually got round to resurfacing Weston Park last year.  The surface was breaking up, with cracks and potholes everywhere. 

So it is very depressing to discover new potholes are appearing in the road surface again so soon.  It makes you question whether the re-surfacing job was done properly.

Cllr David Winskill (Crouch End Ward) alerted me to this  new hole in Weston Park – on the section between Nelson Road and Ferme Park Road.  As you may be able to see underneath is metal – and our first thought was they had tarmaced over a manhole!  I’m not sure what it actually is, but I’m told the hole is growing by the day so perhaps it will become clearer.

I’ve reported it to the Council so hopefully it will be patched soon.  But what a shame that the new road surface hasn’t lasted.