Richard Wilson

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.

I’ve received notice from the Council that Streetcar are planning to put 3 new cars into Stroud Green.   This is excellent news as I know lots of residents are making very active use of the car club and are keen for new sites.

The proposed locations are:

• The Oakfield Road Bridge (when the current engineering works have finished)
• Nelson Road, near the junction with Ridge Road (see photo)
• Osbourne Road, near the junction with Victoria Road

The formal consultation is planned for February, but if you have any views on these locations then please get in touch and I’ll pass them on ahead of then.  I’m pleased that they have responded to resident’s suggestions of putting car club bays in the roads inside the Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ), such as the Oakfield Road bridge, rather than on the clogged roads just outside the CPZ (see previous post).

The new cars should be in place by June.

Everything seemed to have gone a bit quiet on the Streetcar front – so I asked the Council for an update.  The consultation on the sites for cars ended at the beginning of February (see my previous post: Streetcar comes to Stroud Green – at last).

I got an update from officers a few days ago.  The good news is that the Council has listened to the many residents that suggested moving the proposed bay for 2 cars from Stapleton Hall Road to the Oakfield Road bridge.

The bad news for those keen to use the car club is that the Council won’t even start consulting on the alternative Oakfield Road site for months yet.   This means that only the Denton Road and Victoria Road bays will be installed this year – cutting by a third the number of cars that will be available in Stroud Green ward.   The Denton and Victoria cars should be in place from mid June.

As a result of the Council’s slowness it could be another year before we have Streetcar bay in the centre of the ward – if the Oakfield Road site is approved.   But the reason for this delay may be economic:  Across the Borough about half the proposed Streetcar sites have been dropped - allegedly because the recession has hit car club use.

I’m really pleased that after years’ of nagging by some of my council colleagues, Haringey has at last agreed to let a car club to operate in the Borough.  Car clubs are a great alternative to car ownership, especially in an area like Stroud Green where there are pretty good public transport links.  In the long term they might reduce our acute parking problems.

Boroughs like Islington and Camden have had them for years.  In fact. my colleague Ed Butcher is a user of Streetcar already, because he lives so close to the border with Islington.  You can find out more about how they work at the Streetcar website.

The council are proposing to allow 6 cars to be parked in pairs at 3 sites in the ward.  They are:

• Denton Road, by the junction with Weston Park
• Stapleton Hall Road, by the junction with Quernmore Road
• Victoria Road, by the junction with Stapleton Hall Road

A number of residents have suggested that the Stapleton Hall Road site is not good due to the heavy parking pressures – and that the Oakfield Road bridge would be a better site as it is just inside the CPZ.  I have relayed that suggestion to the Council.

If you have any views on any of these locations then please contact me, or email the Council directly at  consultation {at} haringey.gov(.)uk before the consultation ends on 5 February.