Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Front Gardens as rubbish tips
Despite what some of the local builders and landlords may believe, it is not permitted to store building rubbish in your front garden. Wandering about the Ladder, I've noticed a couple of gardens that are now full and overflowing with waste that should be in a skip.
You can report it. The best way may be the direct approach. I received this information below after trying and failing to report a particularly bad front garden, a repeat offender, through the new app.
I was contacted by the Single Frontline Technical Support Team Leader who suggested that I report these gardens by calling 020 8489 1335 or emailing frontline@haringey.gov.uk. So I think I will because one garden in particular if really taking the biscuit for skip avoidance.
Tags for Forum Posts: front gardens
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nick G-T on
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I think I recognise that photo as being by the passage, mid Ladder.
That's good to know that this is not permitted - we have a building site on Falkland that had rubbish out the front that reached half way up the ground floor windows. They've cleared it now but I was waiting for it to topple onto the pavement. Thanks Liz.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Not only is it not allowed but Haringey do prosecute for it
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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And there's a strong rumour that five more redundancies are planned from the "Frontline" teams which handle enforcement.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on
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They probably deserve it Alan, they can't have been doing much all these years can they ? I've had a tip front garden on my road for two years and it's right next to the council offices in a 'conservation area'. Making an app and charging private contractors to remove the stuff when necessary is probably WAY cheaper than five jobs worths suckling at the council tax teet with no one knowing how to contact them.
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Way too harsh FPR (and I'm surprised at you saying this)
As a community volunteer, I frequently came into contact with enforcement officers who were very hard-working and utterly determined. They were certainly not 'jobsworths'. I recall one who helped me with constant skip violations on this street phoned me daily to update me on what he was doing and the problem was gone in 3 days.
Truth was there just wasn't enough of them to deal with the horrendous amount of flouting of the laws that goes on. Approximately four years ago when the 'cuts' began a massive programme of expansion for frontline officers was frozen and those who did have jobs soon began to realise that they probably weren't long term. It was clear that money for this kind of work wasn't there. The frustration of officers was clear from the meetings we had. Shortly after that the Community Volunteer programme was quietly shelved.
I am dismayed to hear of any redundancies but this is a disaster. Taking the stuff away doesn't solve the problem, if anything it reinforces it. If you can flout the law and all the council does is clean up after you, what possible incentive do you have for staying within the law? None whatsoever. Private contractors have no remit to enforce the laws or solve the problems of repeat offending although there was a lot of fluff at the beginning of the contract about improvement of our local environment. Without enforcement, its a free for all and all the council can do is spend our euros on cleaning up after lawbreakers...money I'd prefer spent on schools, children centres, old people's lunch clubs, adult social care and housing.
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It's pretty simple, you fine people enough to pay for the effort of enforcing the fines, no ? Either the politico's are at fault or the people doing the job.
Why can the council manage to enforce parking controls so taxingly well but not this ?
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Chicken and egg FPR. With very few people working on frontline and dealing with everything from littering to major fly tips, you don't catch enough people to fine them and you will need to take them to court in the majority of cases, which Haringey do, and get them found guilty. Brian Ellick moved heaven and earth to get the scum dumping chemical waste in Harringay to court but it took a helluva lot of manpower and other agencies were involved. Time, money and people.
There are a lot of traffic wardens on the other hand doing one job only and issuing on the spot penalty notice that is payable to the council. Naturally this works. If we had an army of people whose only job was to walk around the streets fining everyone who dropped so much as a cig butt on the floor then I'm sure the streets of Haringey would be as litter free as they are free of people who park illegally...oh wait.
Perhaps behaviour change isn't just about how much people get fined.
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Or the team responsible for behaviour change and policing are not doing a good enough job with their resources.
Possibly they're In the pub with the team responsible for pot holes on the high streets.
I'm sorry, I don't buy it. The council charges soon much money a month, they could do better.
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What team responsible for behaviour change? There's no resources for that. And as Alan will tell you very little interest in it.
Redundancy doesn't mean that the people are incompetent. It means those 5 jobs have gone. Five less people, drunk or sober, to enforce rules from littering to major fly tipping and everything in between. How is that going to help?
If, as you insist, the teams are all in the pub which presumably you are basing on the same personal experience of them that I am basing my estimation of their value on, then what is your solution?
Let's take your first option. The politicians.
They, in their wisdom, have made cuts to local government money. Our council tax may be high but it certainly doesn't pay for everything. Some services are statutory and money must go to those services first. Which then leaves very little left over for the other stuff. Like enforcement and street cleanliness.
The private contractors have shown that they are barely capable of enforcing the rules they have around recycling despite being a very wealthy multi-national. They are certainly not the way forward in preventing more serious violations if they can't even get Mr XYZ to sort his rubbish correctly.
So to get those rules enforced we need competent people, resources and enough time for each of those people to pursue cases to the courts. Which takes money. Which the council hasn't got.
I repeat these redundancies are disastrous for the service. There will come a tipping point when too few people are trying to do much and as it becomes clear that enforcement is failing, more people will feel able to flout the law with impunity.
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Why Isn't there a team for behaviour change when you think it's the key to the problem ? Either you're wrong or the council are mis-managing their resources by not allocating funds from policing to set one up.
Central government together with local councils are practically mugging the average worker through taxation already, surely pot holes on the major cycling routes can be filled and garden dumps cleaned and landlords charged.
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Why Isn't there a team for behaviour change when you think it's the key to the problem ?
Well I could be wrong, although central government has set up such a unit. I have yet to convince anyone who has the power to get these things done to (have we Alan?) do so but that might be because I'm a nobody. I live in hopes. But I accept that while people are being made redundant from frontline services (remember that the government said we wouldn't lose anyone from the frontline, that it would be all those "backroom staff" that would have to go), they will be running to stand still and without political backing won't be able to move forward.
Perhaps the environmental champions programme that is planned to replace the community volunteers might be more than just window dressing before an election. I'll certainly join them to find out. Part of our role was to address issues around behaviour change through observation and simple 'street ethnography'
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I know some who works in this team and she doesn't spend her day in the pub. Most days she tries to find out who the owner is and the rest of the time puts up with threats and abuse. Don't down play what a horrible job this is (unless of course you would like to do it)
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