Richard Wilson

A new green community café is opening today in the old Station House on the corner of Stapleton Hall Road and Ferme Park Road (the MIND building), and will be open every Friday lunchtime from now on.  The Station House Community Café is an initiative by award-winning charity FoodCycle whose aim is to reduce ‘food poverty’ in the community by bringing together volunteers, surplus food and an idle kitchen space to create nutritious meals for local people.

The initiative has been supported by local councillors through a small grant from the Making the Difference programme.  The aim is to stop food being wasted and to provide cheap and healthy food to whoever wants it.  I visited the manager last week to find out about the preparations and how it works.  They work with local food retailers including Budgens, M&S and Sainsbury’s. They collect their surplus produce and use it to provide hearty meals that are prepared and served by local volunteers who themselves gain valuable training and practical experience.  They also plan to hold healthy eating initiatives at the café, such as nutrition workshops and cooking lessons, providing local people with better knowledge about eating well.  I suggested they also promote the history of the building they are in and the parkland walk nearby – which were central to the development of Stroud Green.

The café will be open 12 noon till 2.30pm every Friday.  Please try it out.

Earlier this month I attended a meeting with the parking officers in charge of the review of the Finsbury Park Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ), and the new cabinet member in charge of parking Cllr Nilgun Canver.  The officers came armed with maps of the proposed consultation areas, which they’d drawn up following a previous meeting (see picture).

The full consultation with residents will happen in the Autumn, with residents inside the CPZ being asked if they still support the CPZ and whether they want the rules changed (different hours and different sub-zones within the CPZ). Residents outside will be asked if they want the CPZ extended, and what the hours of the extension should be.

It is proposed that the consultation will extend up to and including Ridge Road.  Roads to the north of Ridge Road would be notified about the consultation, but as there is no strong campaign for a CPZ in those roads the Council do not plan to include them in the formal consultation area.  There will be a simultaneous consultation on extending the Crouch End CPZ which will cover Ferme Park Road and and roads to the west.

Over the next few months the Council will be drawing up the consultation questions and finalising the consultation zones, and will be running focus groups of local residents from different roads to help them with this.  If you want to take part in the focus groups then please get in contact.

The process is very ponderous, and any changes or extensions to the CPZ will not be implemented till 2011.  However, these focus groups should hopefully mean that the consultation works better and that there is less criticism of the consultation process than last time.

I’ve been contacted by a number of residents concerned about plans for a 2.2m wall to go most of the way round the large house at the Ferme Park Road end of Lancaster Road.  I am told that this imposing house was built by the man who developed the whole of Lancaster Road, to be his own family home – which is why it is grander and larger than the rest of the houses on the street.

This is one of the most distinctive houses in the Stroud Green Conservation Area, and I agree that hiding it behind a high wall would not be right.  So I put in an objection to the Council’s Planning Department – supporting the concerns that have been raised about the wall.

UPDATE:  I’ve now been told that the application has been completely withdrawn and the wall will not be built.   The owners have told me they understand and sympathise with the concerns about the wall and it won’t be included in any new application which they submit.

I’d like to thank all the local residents who completed our W3 Bus survey, which has enabled us to tell Transport for London (TfL) what passengers think about the route.  TfL are holding a review of the route, and we have sent the results into their consultation so Stroud Green residents views are considered.

We had over 50 responses, and the results were:

• 66% think that a lack of bus countdown displays at some stops is a problem.
• 54% say that buses are too full at rush hour
• 54% want better information about big delays on the route
• 36% think that the wait between buses is too long
• 36% are concerned about anti-social behaviour on the bus
• 36% say that elderly residents are not given enough time to board and sit down.
• 22% believe that bus drivers speeding is a problem
• And 20% are fed up with all the road works on the route

As your local councillors, its incredibly useful to know what passengers’ top concerns are – so we can raise these with TfL and the bus companies at every opportunity.   The W3 is a fantastic route and we will fight to improve it further.

Over the last few months I’ve had lots of residents and shopkeepers complain to me about refuse sacks piling up by the shops on the Ferme Park Road.   This photo was emailed to me this weekend by someone annoyed that the bin bags put out by residents on Saturday morning were not collected all day.  Apparently this photo was taken at 11am and the pile grew all day.

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.

Today I did a walkabout with Stroud Green’s new ’street enforcement officer’, which was originally planned for earlier in the month, but delayed due to the snow.  It was a great opportunity to find out what progress he has already made and to point out some of the many problem issues that residents have raised with me over the last few years.

The officer had already sorted out one issue I’d raised with him, which was the builders at a house on Mount View Road who had spread all over the pavement, forcing pedestrians out into the road.  Enforcement action was taken a few days ago, and when we visited today the site was immaculate.

One favourite issue of mine which I also raised was the very many phone cabinets with missing doors in the ward.  I showed him a cabinet in Denton Road that I’d alerted the Council to in August (see summery picture) - but which still isn’t fixed.  The enforcement officer agreed to take action with Virgin Media – who appear to be the villain in not maintaining their street furniture very well.

One area we spent alot of time talking about was the Ferme Park Road shops, where residents and shopkeepers are unhappy about rubbish bags sitting around in big piles waiting to be collected by the Council’s binmen Enterprise.  This will be a tricky issue to solve due to the contract with Enterprise which apparently allows them to collect the rubbish whenever they like rather than at set times.

Haringey Lib Dems have long campaigned for officers to be based out in the wards, so they really get to understand and take responsibility for their patch.  From what I saw and heard on this walkabout, this strategy should work with this new local officer.

I feel very sorry for anyone trying to drive or get a bus home in Haringey this evening as there appears to be complete gridlock.  All the main roads near me appear not to have been gritted and are now at a standstill.  This picture shows Ferme Park Road which is stationary and  full of broken down W3 buses.  At the junction of Weston Park a people carrier has bashed into the back of of a W3 adding to the gridlock.

Having spoken to colleagues in other areas this picture appears to be repeated across the borough.  I’ve emailed the Council’s Chief Executive to demand to know why the main roads weren’t gritted and what the Council is planning to do to clear the roads now.  Obviously the snow was bound to cause problems – but its been forecast for days and is less than 1 inch outside my flat.   So I think this travel chaos could have been reduced with better preparation!