Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Update on Charter for Harringay
I've been pushing the idea of a Harringay Charter for a few months now. I last wrote on it in June (but click the tag link below to get a broader picture).
A couple of days ago I hear from Dasos, our neighbourhood manager, with some promising news:
From: Maliotis Dasos Subject: RE: Green Lanes Strategy Group - Citizen's Charter - Tuesday 23 September 2008
To: "Hugh Flouch"
Cc: "Cllr Canver Nilgun" , "McGovern Caroline"
Date: Monday, 28 July, 2008, 2:43 PM
Dear Hugh,
Hope you are keeping well. Following the meeting of the GLSG held on 21 May at which you were invited to attend to discuss the possibility of introducing a Citizen’s Charter in the area. Officers have now began to develop proposals for the GLSG to consider at its next meeting and the Chair of the Green Lanes Strategy Group has asked me to invite you to attend to that meeting which will be held on Tuesday 23 September 2008 at 7.30 pm at Woodlands Park Nursery, Woodlands Park Road, N15.
The arrangement for your attendance is on the same basis as last time and once the discussion on this item has been completed, you will be requested to leave the remainder of the meeting.
Any documents on this item will be sent to you in advance as soon as they are available.
regards
Dasos Maliotis
Neighbourhood Manager
Harringay and St Ann 's Neighbourhood Partnerships
Neighbourhood Management Service
2nd Floor Alexandra House
10 Station Road
Wood Green
London N22 7TR
www.haringey.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8489 4936
Mob: 079 6733 6231
Fax: 020 8489 4544
So that sounds promising...............
A couple of days ago I hear from Dasos, our neighbourhood manager, with some promising news:
From: Maliotis Dasos Subject: RE: Green Lanes Strategy Group - Citizen's Charter - Tuesday 23 September 2008
To: "Hugh Flouch"
Cc: "Cllr Canver Nilgun" , "McGovern Caroline"
Date: Monday, 28 July, 2008, 2:43 PM
Dear Hugh,
Hope you are keeping well. Following the meeting of the GLSG held on 21 May at which you were invited to attend to discuss the possibility of introducing a Citizen’s Charter in the area. Officers have now began to develop proposals for the GLSG to consider at its next meeting and the Chair of the Green Lanes Strategy Group has asked me to invite you to attend to that meeting which will be held on Tuesday 23 September 2008 at 7.30 pm at Woodlands Park Nursery, Woodlands Park Road, N15.
The arrangement for your attendance is on the same basis as last time and once the discussion on this item has been completed, you will be requested to leave the remainder of the meeting.
Any documents on this item will be sent to you in advance as soon as they are available.
regards
Dasos Maliotis
Neighbourhood Manager
Harringay and St Ann 's Neighbourhood Partnerships
Neighbourhood Management Service
2nd Floor Alexandra House
10 Station Road
Wood Green
London N22 7TR
www.haringey.gov.uk
Tel: 020 8489 4936
Mob: 079 6733 6231
Fax: 020 8489 4544
So that sounds promising...............
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay charter
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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It sounds fascist. Why on earth are you requested to leave the meeting after you've presented your piece? Grateful for small mercies Hugh?
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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He'd probably have to listen to them reading out endless emails from me about the timed waste collection on Green Lanes, so I reckon it would be a blessed relief!
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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The Green Lanes Strategy Group is the REAL decision-making body for Harringay. It reports directly to the Leader of the Council. Anything that happens here gets decided there. So the real-politik of the situation is that to affect change you need to work with it.
We are supposed to be represented on it, John. In your case and mine by Ian Sygrave. In the case of the Gardens residents by the GRA. I think Ian does a great job in his sphere but he has never sought nor has been been given my mandate to represent me nor that of 99.99% of the rest of the residents of Harringay ward. For my money that's plain wrong. I consider that effectively I am not represented on the key tool of local democracy in Harringay. Furthermore, no minutes are produced. So there's no accounting to the residents either. That's plain wrong too.
In fairness, I should point out that the GLSG was set up in different times, five years ago, following the shootings etc on Green Lanes. Its membership was kept tight and its meeting rather secretive for reasons of safety apparently. And I'm not after disputing that. I do however think that it's time the whole thing was opened up. Ian Sygrave gives an accounting of proceedings at the LCSP meetings. I've yet to figure out why they need to continue to keep so guarded.
Fascist - a tad melodramatic. Deficient in democratic flavour and very counter to the current emphasis on pushing information and power down to local people - absolutely.
Grateful for small mercies? Nah, just realistic.
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Permalink Reply by alistairj on
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Thanks for this update, Hugh.
'deficient in democratic flavour' - lol.
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OK, melodramatic... but deficient in democratic flavour is a bit too far the other way.
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Permalink Reply by Adam on
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you discuss some interetsing issues surrounding 'mandates', perhaps a topic for discussion at future HOL meetings?!
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Permalink Reply by Margaret Fowler on
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As a resident who accidently find myself living in Harringay because I liked the ambience of Green Lanes 20 years ago when I spent holidays in Greece and Turkey, I would like to know what a Harringay Charter would contain. I regard myself as belonging to the whole borough not just this side of it. I do attend pensioner meetings in Muswell Hill and shop in Green Lanes (not Sainsburys)but I also regularly visit friends and attend drop in meetings in the environs of Tottenham High Road, belong to Tottenham Civic Society and shop in West Green Road where I buy goat and all sorts of other dodgy delicacies and use Marcus Garvey Library and Tottenham Leisure Centre. I'm not keen on any more splits in this diverse borough.
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Maragret, I hope the charter will be about improving Harringay. Sometimes you have to focus in on areas smaller than a whole borough to get things done.
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We are not talking about the People's republic of Harringay here Margaret, you won't need to get your passport stamped at Turnpike lane :D.
It is slowly being acknowledged that different wards have different priorities and that there is no one size fits all solution for many problems. The charter is about empowering local councillors to get the things done that residents have identified are needed and ensuring that money is spent wisely. Its about bottom up solutions to localised problems. If anything it should not split boroughs but offer a way for wards to share and cooperate over things that matter to everyone, but allow more local solutions to be formulated by the very people who should care about their area, the residents, not council officers or politicians. Many of us are accidental residents in that we were not born here nor spent our formative years here, but those of us who have chosen put down roots here, bring up families here , spend our later years or even just buy our first flat here here using the local amenities should have a say in how they are managed and how problems are solved. This would bring people together in 'natural' neighbourhoods, not split them. Indeed since I have begun working towards more localised solutions I have made more friends across the borough!
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IT's beginning to feel like the People's Republic of The Harringay Ladder to me and I certainly don't want my passport stamped to enable me to enter there. I'm opting out for Tottenham and all its diversity. The only place I want preserved and upgraded around here is Green Lanes. I don't have any problems with litter in my street or the same problems as the ladder and I have found that from being a concerned resident for 20 years and reporting problems I have been listened to and have had problems solved in the long run. I have even got a tree planted outside my gate! I don't spend a lot of time in Haringey, I use my freedom pass and the excellent local bus services and explore London. My children may have put their roots down here as they went to school in Haringey, but I don't have the same foundations here. I just look for what I want where I can find it in London and it is Turkish and Greek food in Green Lanes, although one has to go further for the Greek these days.
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Oh Margaret, that is terribly unfair. What on earth makes you make that leap from what I said above?
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Liz, I am not criticising anyone in expressing my feelings about where I live, it is just that I don't have the same problems as people just arriving into the area, having lived in my neighbourhood for 20 years. I lived in N17 for 10 years and worked away at trying to support the schools in that area to give kids a better deal. Things did work out although my kids had a fairly rough time on occasions, which may account for 2 of them now living in Turkey and DRCongo, having married partners from those countries. I work around what I find outside my gate every day, I have just come back from living for 13 years on and off in isolated communities in Africa, Vietnam and Laos and I am now quite used to dealing with the HMOs which now encompass my road. I have had some useful feedback from the Council when reporting potential hazards like the misuse of gas and electricity meters and occasional antisocial behaviour and have got information from landlords about tenants when I have asked. I have also had a rock thrown through my door from someone I antagonised. But that's just life and people are people. I stand on the campaign line every Tuesday down at St Ann's and the PCT are changing their tactics, so I agree that local residents can get things that matter done. £650,000 was spent on Chestnuts Park to make it a Green Flag park. I don't agree with that sort of spending, we could have fed half of the children dying from the famine in Ethiopia with that money. I also campaign for better pensions because that is an issue that directly effects me very severely. I do want Green Lanes to be a better place again as it used to be, but I came from New Zealand to live in London and that's what I do when I'm not visiting Turkey or Africa. I'm afraid that I just don't need to anchor myself in Harringay, it's just where I leave my belongings when I'm not using them.
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