Richard Wilson

Like many councillors I’ve spent the last few weeks reporting all the potholes I can spot on our local roads.  Its a pretty thankless task – sometimes you think it would be easier to send in a list of all the places that don’t have potholes.  So far I’ve reported them on Granville, Inderwick, Nelson, Stapleton Hall and Mount View Roads (this photo is from Mount View).

Of course, the current rash of potholes has been caused by the snow and ice, and the Lib Dems have pressed the Council to do a special survey to identify these new holes.  However, the Council have refused to go out and find the holes themselves and instead say they will only fill them if they are reported by residents or councillors.

I think this neglectful policy is absolute madness, as it gaurantees some potholes are missed and not repaired.  The Council has a duty to keep our streets safe and potholes are incredibly dangerous for cyclists and motorcyclists.  Its not acceptable for Labour to just decide potholes are not a priority.

The long term solution is for the roads with the most potholes to be completely resurfaced.  It’s such a waste of money to keep patching-up roads where the surface is completely worn out and crumbling away.  I’ve called time and time for these roads to be resurfaced – but too often the Council refuse to act, even though it would mean saving money in the long run.

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.

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.

A few weeks ago I wrote to the Haringey Council Director in charge of parking, demanding that the Council do not renege on their promise to deal quickly with parking problems caused by the new Crouch End CPZ.  As I said in my previous post the Council had emailed me to say they were dropping plans to allow roads where there was strong support amongst residents to be fast-tracked into a CPZ.

Last week I got my response.  Apparently, ‘the Council has not broken any promises’ – its just that our roads aren’t a priority yet:  The letter says a review of the Finsbury Park CPZ (including consultation with streets outside the CPZ such as Granville Road and Mountview Road) is on a ‘provisional list’ for 2010/11.

The Council have promised to review the Finsbury Park CPZ countless times over the last 4 years – but we never seem to rise to the top of the pile!  The Council’s refusal to listen on this issue has spurred Ed, Laura and I into action – and we are now testing out our own parking survey with local residents.  More on this soon…

You may remember from my previous post Displacement fears over new resident parking zone that the Council said it would hold consultations on extending the new Crouch End Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) to nearby roads if there was clear demand.  This pledge gave some hope to residents of roads like Mount View Road, Granville Road and Ferme Park Road, who are now finding it very difficult to park.

However, the Council have now said that they will not be funding any consultations to extend the CPZ during the 2009/10 financial year.  This means that roads that now have severe parking problems cannot even have a say on whether resident-only parking is needed until April 2010 at the very earliest.  And the earliest any road could get a CPZ introduced would be the very end of 2010 – about 20 months after the problem started.

This is a ridiculous way to go about dealing with residents, and making decisions that effect people’s daily lives!  I am very angry that promises about ‘fast-tracking’ consultations have turned out to be meaningless – only Haringey Council think that that taking 20 months is ‘fast-tracking’!  I have written to the director in charge of parking and highways at Haringey making my anger very clear, and asking him why they are ignoring the problems in these roads.

However, my view is that budget decisions aren’t written in stone and if residents make enough fuss, it could be possible to get the Council to change its mind.