Members Newsletter June 2007

Election of Officers. We need to elect Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Committee Members (up to seven places). If you would like to make a nomination this should received by the Secretary no later than the day before the meeting.

Our Guest speaker spot should commence at around 8.30pm, followed by an open discussion on any issues that members wish to raise.

Review of the Year 2006-2007

We can review the past year with an element of satisfaction; some battles have been won - getting the former Registry Office listed, the reduction in long-term parking charges, helping to keep the Bull theatre in existence, limiting the extension of the CPZ down Bells Hill in view of the inconclusive public consultation, and having our concerns largely taken on board in major developments at Park Rd and Barnet College. Some battles have been lost, notably the campaign to keep open Barnet Hill School, the continuation of absurdly high short-term parking charges, and our attempts to improve consultation on proposed CPZs produced only minor improvements. Other battles continue with no result as yet.

Most importantly though, in only the second year of our revived existence, we do feel that we have made sufficient impact to justify the re-establishing of BRA, and to continue to campaign on issues that affect the lives of people living in the area.

Making Them Listen

One issue above all that has struck us in our short existence is the sheer difficulty of dealing with supposedly accountable public bodies who are able to use their monopoly power to ignore legitimate public concerns. Barnet Hospital has continued to ignore our attempts to establish a dialogue over parking problems. TFL has similarly declined to engage with us in addressing the issues that we and other groups have raised over access to High Barnet Station. By contrast to the Hospital Trust and TFL, dealing with the police has improved immeasurably following the establishing of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams and the Community Action Panels, along with the presence of the police at Area Forums. We have the Area Forums to primarily raise Council issues, and with Council officials generally accessible and helpful we do find that matters we raise are properly addressed, even if we do not always like the outcome.

There is however a darker side when it comes to dealing with the Council, namely the centralised governing mindset that often appears utterly insensitive to local concerns. The absence of a defining primary town centre for the Borough should logically suggest policies tailored to local circumstances. But the trend is in the opposite direction, with increasing uniformity and centralisation clumsily imposed across the whole Borough. Hence we have standard parking charges, leaving High Barnet with charges way out of kilter with the surrounding area. What does that do for our local economy? The Register Office was closed because Barnet discovered that most other Local authorities had only one office - never mind that other towns might have a central hub with easy access and so need only one office. It took an exhaustive campaign to get a change of mind and a replacement service established in the east of the Borough. Another example of questionable centralisation is the arrangement whereby almost all our Borough arts funding go to the Artsdepot, supposedly a centre for the arts in North London - in reality this might be fine for the folks in Finchley, but what do the people of Edgware think about that?

To top it all, the whole focus of the Borough is likely to shift to the south-west corner as the massive Cricklewood re-development takes shape including the possibility of moving to there all of the Council's administrative functions. What then for distant High Barnet? For all practical purposes we could fall completely off the radar.

Perhaps the answer to all this is to hope for a return to the days when we had far more powers at local level. This has been extensively debated in recent years in the context of the relationship between national and local government. Less attention has been given to the impact of large and unwieldy LAs such as Barnet and how policy and practice impacts at a local level. We suspect the time is still a long way off before serious consideration is given to even recognising the problem - let alone finding a solution. Splitting the Borough might be a good start, perhaps increasingly attractive as the population heads for a massive 400,000. In the meantime the existence of local organisations such as our own is all the more important whilst our system of governance remains so unresponsive to local circumstances.

The 384 Bus

Residents in Alston Rd and Strafford Rd have been campaigning to have the bus re-routed because of alleged damage to cars by the wide buses, and the dangers arising from the buses regularly mounting the pavement in order to pass other vehicles in these narrow roads. We agreed that the residents had a point, especially as some bus drivers have a very cavalier style of driving. But were also made aware that residents living to the north side of Alston Rd were very unhappy at the prospect of having to walk to Stapylton Rd in order to catch a bus. This is the kind of situation where it is very difficult for a residents’ association to clearly support one faction or the other.

And so, in an ambivalent frame of mind, we attended a somewhat fractious public meeting chaired by MP Theresa Villiers. At the end TFL insisted that the route would stay as it is, but we felt that attempts should be made at a compromise and we wrote to TFL accordingly - we accepted that they should keep the route as it is but ideally try and introduce smaller buses, although TFL previously told us that smaller buses are no longer practicable because of disability access requirements. We have pressed for a fall-back whereby management control is improved, including better training for drivers and a strict 20mph limit for buses between The Avenue and Stapylton Rd.

Schools - battles lost and won

After a long and hard-fought campaign the parents of Barnet Hill school have finally lost the battle to retain a school on the redeveloped Dollis Valley site. The school will close at the end of the 2008/9 school year. With only two community junior schools in Underhill ward - Underhill and the expanded Whitings Hill, we have to hope that the choice on offer will be acceptable to parents in the area, and that there will be sufficient places following the expansion of Dollis Valley.

The LA originally indicated that an expanded Foulds school would be able to take up any additional demand in the area, but this proposal has disappeared from the initial school rebuilding programme. At first it appeared that the campaign by local residents opposing the relocating of Foulds to the Enviromnental Centre site at the end of Byng Rd. has been won. Now the Council has sent a consultation document to residents of Byng and Wentworth roads outlining options and asking them which they prefer. We wait and see.

Traffic Calming

One issue guaranteed to set the sparks flying is the persistent behaviour of a minority of drivers perceived by the rest of us as travelling far too fast for what is reasonably safe in an urban environment. International thinking is now moving to a recognition that the car should not have a natural right of superiority and the scales need to be balanced more evenly between car and pedestrian. This new thinking includes the notion of abolishing the distinction between road and pavement, allowing pedestrians free movement and putting the onus on drivers to travel at speeds that ensure they do not collide with pedestrians. Portsmouth has recently decided to impose a 20mph limit on all side-roads, which is one step in the right direction. But for now Barnet remains in the stone age, locked into the rigidities of speed limits that vary from one road to the next, with variations from the 30mph norm according to arcane criteria involving how frequently the speed limit is exceeded and how many accidents have been recorded.

In this area we have a hotch-potch of speed limits - 20mph on Mays Lane but - illogical to many - 30mph on the side-roads off, and we have an isolated 20mph zone around Byng/Wentworth. We have a few traffic calming measures or large vehicle restrictions in place e.g. the width restrictors on Mays Lane and Alston Rd, and flashing signs on Wood St and Mays Lane. But putting in traffic calming obstacles such as chicanes or raised crossing (so effective in the centre of Borehamwood) is expensive, and our Council has abandoned the cheapest though understandably rather controversial option - road humps.

On some roads casual observation clearly indicates that prevailing speeds force pedestrians to be ultra-wary, especially the steep hills of Hadley Rd, Manor Rd and Hillside Gardens which carry a large volume of through traffic. We fully support the recent initiative by residents in Hillside Gardens to try and persuade the Council to introduce measures to curb the speed of downhill traffic. The Council is now engrossed in the usual range of tests using their assessment criteria and we await the results. If only we could achieve a shift in attitude to a presumption in favour of the pedestrian on residential roads it should all be far less difficult.

Barnet College Redevelopment

The College has been very open in sharing the emerging plans and has been very co-operative in taking on the views of local organisations and residents. We have continued to take as a starting point the importance of the College to the local economy and the need to ensure that it can accommodate the target student population. It is pleasing that the height of the proposed main building has been reduced from four to three storeys whilst maintaining the target capacity. We understand that the College has secured more funding than originally expected so the amount of land to be sold off for housing has been substantially reduced and the main building spread over a larger footprint.

We have concentrated our latest observations on the Wood St. frontage and the area in front of the main building. It is important for the success of the College that the main entrance creates a confident and welcoming impression, whilst blending in with and complementing the important surrounding conservation area. At a recent meeting our observations that the latest design for the frontage would clash with surrounding buildings and included too much hard landscaping were taken on board. A revised outline design has been shown to us which looks much more acceptable. We look forward to seeing this worked up in detail. A planning application is expected very shortly.

Barnet Market

The move of the market to its temporary location in the Stapylton Rd. car park and the start of the redevelopment has continued to be 'imminent' for some months now. We profess not to really understand the problems but it seems to be a succession of minor technical hitches.

Hospital Parking

This has been one of our major activities in recent months and we have stimulated discussion in the local press. The Hospital has 893 parking spaces of which 586 are reserved for staff. They have the advantage of very cheap parking and no restrictions on eligibility, only 25p a day for those on the lowest wages and a maximum of £1. So it is perhaps not so astonishing that even more staff require parking spaces (do they ALL drive to work?), such that they routinely invade the 307 public spaces taking up to 50% of those nominally available.

No wonder, with so few public spaces available on weekdays, the Hospital has been able to ratchet up the public parking charge to £4 for any length of stay. This would not be so bad if visitors could be sure of getting a space, but what we often have is a fractious free-for-all and the problem spilling onto the streets around. Rather than discussing the problem with the Hospital the Council has responded to residents’ concerns in the time-honoured way by extending the local CPZ and painting more yellow lines. This has solved the problem for some residents, but in turn has just exacerbated the problem for others by pushing congested street parking further away. The Council’s latest idea is to propose painting even more yellow lines in the roads off Bells Hill…….and so we go on.

We would like to see a proper debate on the matter but it is difficult when the Hospital does not even acknowledge letters and the Council ploughs its own narrow furrow. Does anybody care about the 'customers' or the wider interests of local residents? There must be a better solution than rationing public space by price or by draconian parking restrictions. We have stimulated attention in the local press but the Hospital and the Council remain silent.

The Spires

We were disappointed to learn that The Spires has increased parking charges from 20p an hour to 50p. A hefty rise to say the least, though still a bargain when compared to the Council who demand £1.50 just for one hour. We hope that trade will not be adversely affected. We remain conscious that plentiful and free parking in Potters Bar and London Colney leaves High Barnet at a serious disadvantage.

The Bull

Following on from the report in our January Newsletter we can report that the Council has offered Susi Earnshaw an improved length of lease, which we consider to be just about o.k. but still far short of the long-term lease that we and other supporters have been pressing for. Unfortunately there was some adverse publicity recently in the local press regarding the workshops at the back and the difficulty in reconciling their access needs and the requirement for the theatre school to ensure proper security for its children. We are keen to see the workshops remain in existence and have urged that these difficulties are resolved without any further unnecessary public spats.

Crime and anti-social behaviour

The High Barnet Community Action Panel turned its attention to youth problems, following the lead taken by the Underhill Panel. The west of Underhill around Chesterfield Circle remains the major problem area, with some evidence that troublemakers are regularly travelling into the area by bus. We have heard this area as being dubbed the 'anti-social behaviour capital of Barnet'.

To the east, problems remain around Tudor Park, but an invitation to local youths from that area to meet with police and members of the Community Action Panel was taken up. The meeting was surprisingly cordial and it was not surprising that the young people blamed a lot of the problems on the absence of anything to do, and what they wanted most was somewhere that they could just meet safely (and without overbearing adult supervision). This was followed up with a representative of the Council Youth service attending the most recent CAP meeting to explore whether anything could be provided. Unsurprisingly, in a Borough where youth spending makes us a real Cinderella, nothing concrete could be offered. Meantime the police have come up with a new initiative whereby a sizeable extra team of officers will be dedicated to supervising youths on buses. We hope this will at least have some impact on the problems in Underhill. A further initiative in Underhill is the decision by the Council to let the derelict Quinta Club site to a football club. Some residents have been unhappy about the consultation on this and the access restrictions that are likely to be imposed on the site. But in all this should be good for the area if more of our youngsters can be engaged in a positive activity.

Crime across the Borough fell 15% last year, and over the two years since the High Barnet Safer Neighbourhood Team started work crimes on their patch have fallen from around 120 a month to just 80. This is very reassuring, though we have been told not to anticipate any further signification reduction. By UK standards, both current and historical, our local crime rate really is very low.

CPZ Consultation

In our October Newsletter we reported on our input to the Council’s consultation on the way that CPZs are introduced. A report of 3rd May in the Barnet Press got very excited over the report of the working party, though expectations were subsequently dashed when the Council Cabinet rejected a number of the recommendations. On the positive side there will now be a widening of the consultation area and a review system put in place to determine how any new arrangements are working.

Our proposals to give residents options on the type of restrictions that might be put in place (e.g. all day or just one hour), and that local associations should be consulted as well as households, were both rejected (The last one was not too surprising as we were the only association in the entire Borough to respond to the invitation to a meeting on the subject). Also rejected was a proposal that the decision should be more transparent and taken at a Council meeting rather than by executive action. Our verdict - some improvement but still not enough consultation on an issue which has such a major impact on those living within a proposed CPZ.

Navigation

Members Newsletter June 2007