Richard Wilson

Our new Safer Neighbourhood Team sergeant Steve Whiting has hit the ground running with a series a consultation events planned across the ward this weekend. The team want to find out what local people think their policing priorities should be. They are encouraging residents to meet them at the following times and locations:

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.

Stroud Green councillor Katherine Reece has joined local MP Lynne Featherstone on a last minute push to get local parents to back the campaign for fair funding for our schools.   The Government are holding a consultation on school funding formulas which ends on Tuesday 11th October – and this is an opportunity to end the long-standing unfairness of Stroud Green schools receiving less funding than those in nearby boroughs.

Schools in Haringey receive as much as £1,500 less per pupil than schools over the border in Hackney and Islington, because Haringey is counted as Outer London by the Department for Education – even though Haringey teachers get paid inner London salaries.   This anomaly has existed for decades – but thanks to Lynne’s campaigning it may be coming to an end as the Government consultation proposes a better ‘combined approach’ formula that would remedy the situation.

You can respond to the consultation and demand fair funding for Stroud Green’s schools on the Department for Education’s website.  It’s outrageous that children who live on the north side of Stroud Green Road receive thousands of pounds less school funding than those who live on the south side.  Lets hope Katherine and Lynne’s hard work pays off.

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.

My colleague Ed Butcher has been lobbying the Council to do a clean up blitz on Stroud Green Road and the surrounding area for a good while.  The pavements have got very grubby and there has been lots of complaints of fly-tipping on the side roads.  Thanks to this lobbying, and the work of our local Neighbourhood Manager, there will be a programme of activity to clean up the area – and to get volunteers helping out on the nearby Parkland Walk nature area.

This Saturday (13th) residents are being urged to help out with conservation work tidying up the Parkland Walk (the green walk along the disused railway line).  The meeting point is the Upper Tollington Park entrance to the Walk at 10am , and the work to trim back vegetation and create a ‘loggery’ for ‘mini beasts’ will be supervised by conservation officers.  The work runs to 1pm and volunteers may be rewarded with a spot of lunch!

On Saturday morning (10am – 12 noon) there will also be a skip on Albert Road to help encourage residents to properly dispose of any bulky refuse (though unfortunately they can’t accept white goods or electrical items – call 020 8885 7700 to get these items collected).   I particularly pressed for Albert Road to be targeted as flt-tipping at the bottom of the road near Stroud Green Road is a persistent problem that I have raised numerous times.

There will be further cleaning activities during the week, including a dog fouling patrol, and a deep clean of the grubby pavements on Stroud Green Road.  Ed, Katherine and I will be taking part in activities so please join us and help out.

I’m really pleased that, for once, Haringey and Islington Councils are working together to tackle the problems in teh Stroud Green Road area – with help from other local organisations like FinFuture and the Haringey Peace Alliance.  This attention is long overdue – and the challenge will be to keep up the cleaning once all the focus of the ‘Clean Sweep’ is over.

As well as being the deadline for views on the W3 Bus (see previous post), this Friday is also the deadline for submitting ideas to our local neighbourhood improvement fund for 2010/11.  The way it usually works is that all the feasible ideas go to an Area Assembly meeting for residents to comment on and then local councillors make the final decision based on these views.

In previous years we’ve managed to get a few good little projects approved, such as the children’ s mural on Quernmore Road by Harringay Station and improvements opposite Tesco on Stroud Green Road (see picture of me planting a tree outside Charter Court a few years ago with local residents and representatives of the Council).

But despite the Council’s whopping £3 million ‘communications’ budget there is not enough promotion of the fund, and we don’t get enough bids in from Stroud Green residents.  So I’m trying to drum up interest by contacting individuals and by posting here.  The leaflet and application form for the “making the difference” programme 2010/11 is here.  And if you’re interested in finding out more then please attend the next local Area Assembly meeting which is tonight at 7.30pm in St Mary’s Junior School in Rectoiry Gardens – details here.

And this really could be the last chance for Making the Difference, because if the Liberal Democrats take control of Haringey in May we’re determined to replace it with a bigger and better system of devolving spending down to local neighbourhoods.  We want to give people real power over their local area and to encourage greater participation in local decisions.

At the end of December I was alerted to the fact that there had just been a public exhibition about a huge proposed new development on the Stroud Green Road.  As the image on the left shows the John Jones arts centre plan to put a large 6 storey development on their site.  They are at an informal consultation stage – the formal planning application has not yet been submitted.

The development is on the Islington side of the road, and Haringey don’t seem to have made much effort to get involved in the process.  Councillors such as myself weren’t alerted to the event - which meant I couldn’t advertise it on this website.  So I immeadiately put an email into Haringey Council asking how they were going to ensure that residents on the north side of Stroud Green Road were able to have a say.  This week (5 weeks later) I got a response just directing me to Islington Council’s website and saying no Haringey panning officers had even attended the December consultation event.

Clearly this development would have a major impact on Stroud Green.  Its great to see people wanting to invest in Stroud Green Road, but this proposed building does seem quite tall, given the height of the Victorian terraces surrounding it.  I think everyone should have their say on this development – regardless of which side of the borough boundary they live, and  I will press for wide-scale consultation when the planning application is submitted.

I’ve been contacted by a concerned resident about the murder that took place a few days ago on the Stroud Green Road.  It has been covered a bit by the BBC and apparently there was a police cordon and a very high officer presence at the weekend.  This is obviously all quite alarming for local residents, so I asked for some information from the Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety and have got this statement:

At 6.20am on Thursday, December 31st, police were called to an address in Stroud Green Road, Haringey, where a woman aged 40, was found unconscious.  She was taken to the Whittington Hospital where she was later pronounced dead.  Police officers from the Serious Crime Command are investigating.
 
Ms McKinley’s partner has been located and arrested; it is believed that he has admitted to the murder.
 
The victim’s four children are being cared for and supported by Haringey; all appropriate measures to ensure their future safety are being taken.

Obviously this is a terrible incident, but I think its a little reassuring for residents to have the basic facts about what’s going on.