Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Fairland Park gets a spring clean .... by local residents

Today a good number of local residents turned up to clean Fairland Park. Many thanks to Darrell Osbawn for organising this via HOL.

Steve Hall, our area parks manager has been emailed to let the Parks Hygiene team know that there are an extra 10 bags of litter picked rubbish that needs picking up. As well as emptying the overflowing bins. The volunteers, some of who are pictured below, also swept the whole area.

Friends of Fairland Park website

Tags for Forum Posts: fairland park, litter, parks

1 member likes this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Louise Nazeraj on April 21, 2011 at 8:55

@Liz Prissy and toothless. I think that describes me rather well! More on this later - I'm off to cavort around Chessington. Will report back on sin and litter later this evening x

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Liz on April 21, 2011 at 9:10

Watch the Uncle David film, there's nothing prissy or toothless about him, he's rock hard.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on KBT, I'm just thinking of the fact that, due to Kirstie Allsop being the face of KBT, they'll get nowhere with hard core litterers while appealing to the sort of people who don't drop litter anyway (and yes I am aware that OAE, not wearing his NHS specs again, confused the fragrant Kirstie with me, the broom wielding anarchist)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John D on April 21, 2011 at 8:45

Have you seen Ducketts this morning ??

Bloody Hell !!!!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on April 21, 2011 at 9:06

Photos, John?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on April 21, 2011 at 9:26

Same as this Alan; Councillor Dogus - why is Ducketts Common looking like a rubbish tip?

And whilst I was promised by the councillor an answer 3 weeks ago as to why this is happening, I've not heard a thing since. Scilence ... sometimes isn't golden.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on April 21, 2011 at 10:04

Point taken, Matt. Though I wasn't criticising John_D. It's just that my own preference is to take a series of photos over time. It can help illustrate an ongoing problem. Or even record steady and welcome progress!

My job as a councillor is to represent residents, not to excuse poor performance by the Council. But I also believe in fairness. The Council can't spend money it hasn't got. If budgets are cut; services too will be cut.

Sure, Council officers need to think intelligently and imaginatively about how to run services with far less money. (NASA spent a small fortune on developing a pen that would write in zero gravity. The Russians used a pencil.) But it's dishonest for either local councillors or the Government to will the ends without providing the means. You can't make soup from stones.

Although I recall at least two versions of the soup and stones story. In one, a rabbi expects his wife to make soup and tells her to substitute stones and water for other ingredients they can't afford.

But there's also a Russian folktale about tricksters who pretend to be making soup with magic stones. They persuade some gullible peasants to donate their hidden-away store of vegetables and meat.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John D on April 21, 2011 at 10:32

Didn't have time Alan, sorry ( I was chasing a > 7.5 T truck :-) ). But it looked like one of those huge New York landfill sites.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on April 21, 2011 at 11:43

I rarely visit Ducketts Common but walked through it on a Saturday and was appalled by what a disgusting state it was in.

I work near a tiny park (much smaller than Fairlands) in Islington and as it is the only green space in the area, now the weather is warm it is packed out with office workers at lunchtime. Although the vast majority try to put their litter in a bin, the bins were quickly overwhelmed and piles of rubbish piled up around them and blew around.

I emailed Islington council at the start of last week to let them know that they a)needed many more bins and b) they should collect them more often. They acknowledged my email and said other people had reported it too and they were working to fix it.

This Monday, I went to the park for lunch and Islington has installed some new massive bins (more like mini skips really), two huge new recycling bins and cleared up last week's backlog of rubbish. Ok, so the new bin-skips are not very attractive but are far better than all the rubbish piled up. And there was very very little litter left behind after any of the lunchtimes this week- people were very diligently recycling and putting their rubbish in the skip which was rather heartwarming.

So if Islington can find the cash for it, then I struggle to see why Haringey can not.

Both areas still share the same dog poo problem though!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by matt on April 21, 2011 at 20:30

Went past Ducketts at 4 o'clock. They had done the bins but not litter picked. Guess they saw a whole day job ahead of them and moved on to the next park. Having been in town today I saw a spotless Victoria Embankment park - guess Westminster are cutting other services!