Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

This was on the BBC web site earlier and I thought it was interesting.

Take aways include:

  • Cost of Garden waste collections charged to residents nationally is around £74m
  • Something like half of local authorities are now charging residents for green waste collection
  • Average costs in any one area is £42.40 per annum (vs £75 for a large brown bin and £55 for a smaller brown bin in Haringey)
  • Lowest are £18/yr in Momouthshire and £22/yr in Richmond
  • Highest are £96/yr in Harlow and £86 in Arun (W.Sussex)

I think that puts Haringey at the upper end of the cost bracket.

I cannot remember how much Haringey were targeting to earn form this, was it £1-2m/pa? Anyone remember? I would be curious to know if they have met their target and if they have made this viable (ie, the income is sufficient to run this without the need for subsidy from Haringey or there being a net cost)

Tags for Forum Posts: garden waste collections

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The thing is we elect the council to ensure that the civil servants employed by the council do the work for us.

In the past Haringey council has employed duplictous means and language to tick boxes and get away with 'murder'. Just look at where Kober and her henchman have gone! She did so much damage along with others still present. They had no faith in the local people to come up with good self help solutions which they should have harnassed and help organise. Who could believe that it was a Labour council?

There is no reason for a borough so close to central London to be in the state that Haringey is in unless the 'people in charge' allowed it to happen through ineptitude, incompetence or collusion and or corruption, intellectual or otherwise.

Tottenham, I do not know about the rest of the borough, has so many active community groups working to improve their own areas, communities and so forth. The council had put out the message that the only way to improve things is to replace what exists (destroying livelihoods and communities in the process) and build the crap buildings that we are seeing going up around us daily. These things are totaly out of place...the Hotspurs stadium on a small already congested High rd, the 22 floor high rise going up above Seven Sisters, the VERY UGLY building planned to replace the market at Seven Sisters, the issues faced by the community at Marcus Garvey Library/Tottenham Green Leisure Centre...as if buildings really represent progress.

These will/have resulted in fact in depressing the souls of those who used to cherish the place. And if the present regime doesn't change the culture and do an about turn the place will see uprest again in the future! Regeneration and development is about PEOPLE not buildings!

The proverb goes teach a man to fish... n'est-ce-pas?

Do you realise just how much energy many, many, local active residents did put into trying to get something better that actually would bring real uplift to those already present and who would most benefit from improvements. And just how many continue to do so! But it is not easy to give that energy 24/7 when faced with people like Kober and her cabal, without losing it at times.

They possess a tremendous amount of resources to achieve their cynical aims, an endless pit of money, connections and power compared to us 'small people'. So you suggesting that people are not doing enough is very hurtful. People have their families, work and life to get on with.

A lot of damage has been done!

We have entrusted our councilors to look after our business not to sell out to the highest bidder!!!

Rant over!

Sincerely JJ B, I really didn't mean to appear critical of those fighting for good, I meant to say that unless more join in, it will be worse.

You write that we've entrusted Cllrs, who you blame for the problems. A lot more damage has been done to the Country than the Borough!

The poorest have always been punished hardest by the rest of us, the only difference is that now we have more ways of communicating with one another and getting directly involved in governing ourselves.  That's what I'm agitating for.

Although there are many good people who have broken their hearts trying to right wrongs, there are too many wrongs and not enough people fighting them. The majority do little if anything at all - they don't even bother to vote. We need real change and the only way forward I can see is if more get involved. What else can we do?

You are of course right that the democratic process doesn’t end at the ballot box but there is something else going on.  Voter apathy is endemic in this country but other boroughs provide a more responsive and listening service than Haringey under precisely the same circumstances.  Also some other boroughs are appalling.  If it’s not just about lack of democratic engagement and the financial strain that all local authorities are buckling under it has to be something else.  

Why can one borough (I’m thinking Hackney here) keep its streets relatively clean while under the same strains, yet Haringey struggle with such a basic service?    Very early last Tuesday morning I walked from here on The Ladder to Shoreditch, through Green Lanes, Church Street and Kingsland Road.  The difference in cleanliness was startling as you crossed the borough boundary.  I saw very little dumped rubbish and the pavements were largely clean and unstained with cooking fat, spit, split street sweeper bags, fast food cartons, empty beer cans and fag ends.  I think it’s about the will to decide that things are not good enough and to actually get up from your desk and sort it out.  

If you trawl through discussions here you’ll find plenty of evidence of people trying to get things done, over and over and over again.

>>If you trawl through discussions here you’ll find plenty of evidence of people trying to get things done, over and over and over again.

I see that all the time - I too have tried and tried to get things done and largely failed miserably. It's why I write here - wiser heads than mine. Depressing that you write elsewhere in this thread that all that effort has been largely to no avail. We're being constantly defeated.

The more we write and discuss what is wrong and why, the more the chances are that we can resolve. A big strategic change I'd like to see is access to facts. When we're 'arguing' with the Council, they have all the facts and often keep them secret until after they've decided. This is the public sector - decision support should not be held in secrecy.  If we had access to the same facts they do, especially on public procurement (particularly as regards housing)...

Our Borough has just gone through a big political shake-up  yet the problems the HDV hoped to solve have not been solved, they've got worse if anything.  The craziness of the HDV approach was never recognised let alone acknowledged by the Council. This is arguably the biggest and thus most dangerous decision the Council has to make in it's history. The creation of Wood Green Shopping City in the 1970's seems harmonious in comparison.

So you would have thought that the Council would re-address the HDV problems differently. They've rearranged the deckchairs but who among us called for that? Here is a watershed moment when big changes towards more participation could happen. We've never been so concerned about our own future. All I see is the same old condescension, the same old power hunger - doesn't bode well.

As a kind of addendum, the link I posted on page one of this thread about a dumped rubbish survey on The Ladder and surrounding road was copied into an email a year ago to the Cabinet Member for Environment asking for a meeting, a discussion, a friendly cup of tea;  the response, despite chasing, was silence.

I think it'd really help if we had a page on HoL to collect these - the person addressed, the email with date and the acknowledgement if any, the followup and a comment. A sort of 'what do they know' but without the expense of FOI. Then the Council Leader can be responsible for sweeping up the loose ends.

There is a standard methodology for citizen Q&A, we should use it.

I don't see why officers cannot participate on HoL - some councils have run their own discussion forums on their websites but usually they fade away. HoL is for ever :)

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