Saturday 7th January 2012

• 3.30pm Stationers Park, Mayfield Road
• 4pm Sunshine Café, Stroud Green Road
• 7.30pm Lancaster Road

Sunday 8th January 2012

• 10am Stationers Park, Mayfield Road
• 1pm Angel Café, Stroud Green Road

Tuesday 10th January 2012

• 12pm Charter Court, Stroud Green Road

I’ve already responded to their consultation suggesting the top three priorities should be: safety on the Parkland Walk; preventing burglaries; and safety around the W3 bus stops.  Although Stroud Green is generally a safe place, there have been some worrying incidents in recent months.  So this initiative is a welcome opportunity for residents to speak to the police about their concerns.

As I posted back in May, the Council allowed Veolia to build the depot for its street-sweeping trolleys without consulting with local residents, councillors or the very active Friends of Stationers Park group.  Unsurprisingly, there was then an outcry when, without warning Veolia took over the park keeper’s shed and constructed a 9ft metal fence.  To try to meet resident’s concerns Veolia had arranged for a mural to be painted on the shed by local school children.  However, no solution to shortening or disguising the fence could be found that was acceptable to both the Friends and Veolia, and the contractor have now said they will completely remove the fence and depot and use alternative sites.

I’m absolutely delighted that local residents have stuck to their guns and said this large and ugly imposition on their park is unacceptable.  The Council should have realised that this was not an appropriate site, given how small the park is and how intrusive a 9ft metal fence would look, and should never have given permission.  I’m pleased that unlike Haringey Council, Veolia have decided to listen to residents and act on their concerns – great news!

The Friends have listed four concerns they want to present to Veolia:

1. erecting an imposing and aggressive fence in our green space to protect their litter trolleys.
2. the fact that they don’t pick up the plethora of litter in our park, adding insult to injury.
3. the fact that they haven’t paid a penny in rent to support the parks dept in all the months they have been there.
4. their staff are very noisy entering the park in the early hours of morning, disturbing residents of Mayfield and Denton roads.

I share resident’s concern about this ugly imposition on the Park.  I first posted about this issue back in May and have written about it in our local Focus leaflet.  Since then there has been work to improve the shed with a mural – but I hope that on Tuesday we can make progress on sorting out the rest of the mess.  My preference would be to get rid of the depot completely, but failing that it needs substantial work to make it fit in with our beautiful park.

Before cutting the ribbon, I took the opportunity to say a big thank you to the Friends of the Park, and particularly Kle Savidge, for the amazing work they have done to get this new play castle built.  It has taken a huge amount of imagination and determination to get the funds raised and the designs agreed.  Without the Friends giving up their time and energy I’ve no doubt that there would be no play are at all – as the old fort was at the end of it’s life.

Everyone loved the old play fort – but I think the new castle is going to inspire another generation of Stroud Green children to have a lot of fun.

I’m looking forward to joining in – and seeing the new play fort at the heart of the local community.   Getting the new play area built has been a huge battle, with a massive amount of hard work by the Friends to get the finance together – so everyone definitely deserves a party.

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.

The fenced of area is being used to store Veolia’s street-cleaning handcarts. However, Veolia’s contract does not involve cleaning the park – so residents have to put up with all these street cleaners coming in and out of park, but not actually doing any cleaning in the park.

People are understandably furious, and I’ve got in contact with the Director in charge of the waste contract at Haringey Council, to demand to know who gave Veolia permission to do this.  I’ve asked that a different site be found as soon as possible. I’ve also contacted the Planning Department and asked them to investigate.  I’m sure that a fence of this size must need planning permission – particularly as the facility has nothing to do with the maintenance of the park.

With regards to the upkeep of the park, the council officers at the meeting promised that once their staff re-organisation is complete the park wont be in such a bad state as it has been recently.  The cuts to the park’s department’s budget are disproportionate and I’ve opposed them at Council meetings, but realistically the Council’s budget decision will not be reversed any time soon.  The role of the Friend’s group is going to become even more important in encouraging volunteering and keeping on the Council’s back about problems.  They will need lots of support from residents to keep the Park from declining.  Please get in touch if you want to help out.

Obviously, for many local families it will be sad to see the old fort go.  Lots of young people have happy memories of playing on this well-loved feature. However, small bits of the fort are being kept in the new structures as a happy reminder.

The new designs are really imaginative and have been strongly influenced by local kids.  I’m told that the work to make the new play area rise from the ruins of the old fort will start properly next month.

At the last consultation session in May (see previous post)  it was clear that there was strong support for the new play area to emulate the old fort design that is so well loved – but to improve on it and create something even more fun and adventurous.  Working with local children, Groundwork (the charity that is designing the new play area) has now come up with three different fort designs, and they now want the views of the local community on these options.

Please do bring your family along and have your say on this brilliant project, which should ensure another generation of local children can play on a fort at Stationers Park.

It is now over four years since the Council last tried to condemn the play fort in Stationers Park as unsafe. During the election of 2006 the Labour Council promised to replace it – but instead once the election was over the money was diverted elsewhere and the fort was just patched up.  But, as I mentioned in a post back in January, thanks to the work of the local residents on the Friends of Stationers Park, most of the funding to replace the fort has now been granted from various sources (though more fundraising is still ongoing).

The fort has been treasured by local families for years – and we need to make sure it is replaced with something even better.  The design of the new play area should be down to local residents – especially the children who will use it.  To achieve this, Groundwork (the environmental charity managing the new design) wants to engage with the community through Friends of Stationers Park – and has planned a public consultation to present design options to park users.

This consultation event will be held in the park from 11am to 3pm on Saturday 15th May.  Please bring your family along and have your say!

It is brilliant to see progress being made at last.  However, there have been too many years of broken promises on replacing this fort from our Labour Council.  The Lib Dem team of Lynne Featherstone, Ed Butcher, Katherine Reece and I have made it a key election pledge to make sure that this time the promise is not broken – and that the Stationers Park fort is replaced with an even better play area.

I attended a first brainstorming session a few months ago which the Friends group ran with the play area designer from Groundworks. People came up with some really imaginative ideas,  so I think this event in the park could be a really exciting opportunity to get local families’ reactions to these, and to add even more ideas into the mix.