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.

The popular Station House Cafe in the Mind building on Stapleton Hall Road has been celebrating its first birthday.  Lynne Featherstone and I joined the Food Cycle team who run the cafe to help them mark the anniversary.

The Cafe has proved hugely popular with local Stroud Green residents both as customers and volunteers.  Local people have really bought into the FoodCycle concept of reducing waste, protecting the environment and providing nutritious food.   It’s also great to see the historic Station House being used by the local community.  

The Cafe is open every Friday lunch time and serves delicious and good value vegetarian food.  Details are on the FreeCycle website.

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.

Last week I held a meeting with parking officials to discuss the implementation of the new Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) extension in Stroud Green.  As I mentioned in my previous post, residents were concerned about how long they would have to wait for the controls to be introduced in roads like Mount View, Quernmore and Granville. The nearby Crouch End CPZ extension is taking effect in early April, but at a recent meeting with residents officers said it would take until November to implement the CPZ extension in Stroud Green ward – leaving over 6 months of extra parking pressure.

I raised these concerns at the meeting, and Council officers have now agreed to revise the timetable, and think they could have the new CPZ extension up and running in the new roads by September.  This would mean having the final statutory consultation in April/May, and if no big issues are raised during the consultation, the signs and road markings could be put in place during August.  Obviously this still leaves a long gap – but its great news that we’ve been able to reduce it by 2 months.

However, on the hours of the CPZ officers continue to believe that 12pm – 2pm is the best slot, as this fits in-between other CPZs (the Crouch End ones are 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm) and will make it easy to patrol.  They aren’t convinced that people moving their cars between CPZs will be a big problem as this hasn’t happened in noticeable numbers in other areas.

I also raised a whole range of other issues, such as the need for visitor parking and loading bays for our local shopping parades, the Stroud Green Library and the two churches on Stapleton Hall Road.  I’ll keep scrutinising their proposals as they are developed – so please contact me if you have any concerns.

The Finsbury Park Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) is very likely to be extended up to Ridge Road after 66% of those consulted by the Council asked for resident parking controls.  Earlier this week I attended a meeting with parking officers and residents to hear the results of the consultation, which finished at the start of 2011.  According to the briefing, 16% of residents in the consultation area outside the current CPZ responded, with 218 in favour of the expansion and 114 against.

If the expansion goes ahead as expected the following roads will now be added in to the Finsbury Park CPZ:

• The whole of Addington, Albany, Elyne, Quernmore and Ridge Roads
• The rest of Stapleton Hall Road, Mount View Road and Oakfield Roads (which are currently only half in the CPZ)
• The remaining part of Ferme Park Road (south of Ridge Road) – with the road north of Ridge Road going into the Crouch End CPZ.

Apparently 69% of respondents wanted parking controls for the minimum 2 hours a day.  The Council are suggesting 12 noon to 2pm – but at the meeting this week some residents wanted different hours, so the officers are going to look at this.  The Council will now draw up detailed proposals showing where all the parking bays will be – and there will have to be a short ’statutory consultation’ on the final plans.  With this further work, the Council have said it will take until November for the new extension to be implemented, which means residents will have to suffer several more months of parking difficulties.

The consultation inside the existing CPZ seems to have got more mixed results, with an almost 50/50 split on whether the hours should be reduced or not.  But the Council are proposing to create  a small inner zone near the tube station to try to deal with particular problems in Woodstock, Perth, Ennis and Oxford Roads.  I’ve asked officers for an urgent meeting to look at the detailed results – to make sure they are fairly representing the views expressed.

During 2009 Ed Butcher and I surveyed several hundred people about whether they wanted the CPZ (see picture) and got a very similar result.  Its a shame its taken the Council well over a year to catch up – but this is a big victory for those residents who have been pushing for a CPZ for all these years.

Local residents have only a few more days to have their say on new plans for a 5 bedroom house to be built on garden space behind Elyne, Quernmore and Stapleton Hall Roads in the Stroud Green Conservation Area.   Following an earlier botched consultation by the Council where letters went to the wrong addresses, I’ve got the deadline for resident responses extended until this Monday 21 February.

This new application follows a very similar previous application last summer, which was rejected by the Council following scores of objections from local residents and from me.   The planning officers agreed with us that local gardens should be protected, and that the development was too large and intrusive for such a tiny site, and would damage residents’ enjoyment of their gardens (see previous post).

However, these new plans try to get round these objections by sinking the house into a hole to reduce its relative height.   Today, I’ve sent in an objection to the Council, arguing that the proposal is still unacceptable, because of the loss of garden space and because the proposal is still to large, tall and close to the boundary of people’s gardens.  The Council’s reasons for refusing the first application still stand for this second one and I hope that officers will reject these plans again.

To have your say, please comment on the application on the Council’s website.

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.