Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Dear fellow residents of Harringay,

Local elections are around the corner. Harringay is a marginal ward extremely important to Labour, as are others such as Bounds Green. The fight is literally going to be within the 'heart' of our borough.

What does this mean for us all? Basically a very strange thing is going to start to happen; money is going to be prioritised for our ward and our concerns will start to be taken more seriously.

It has started with this announcement of a large chunk of monies being invested in the re-development of one of our local parks. See here.

It will end with a festival for Green Lanes Harringay in September. These things are happening.

It is no accident that Lammy has just held a public meeting within our ward this week. See here for feedback on this meeting from residents here. Your MP wants to know what you want/need and will be in regular contact with via HOL and other groups/forums such as LCSP & GRA over the coming months.

This is our opportunity to make things happen with the powers that be. It was clear from the meeting with Lammy that residents want action, real progress on;

1. HMOs & affordable housing
2. Traffic: area survey and calming measures for Wightman Rd
3. Gambling establishments: a halt to any new openings & strict control of current operations
4. Supporting the local businesses, schools and leisure facilities to enhance the place with which we live.

So, Fairland Park at long last is getting the investment it needs. We will have 'our' festival in September too. But we need to decide the other priorities.

I for one would like to see serious investment go into traffic calming Wightman Rd. Lammy says he needs to see a significant campaign from local residents for this so he can start knocking on the doors of those who can make this happen (ie. dosh). Someone needs to kick off this campaign and it needs a Working Group to back it. A working group was instrumental in getting investment into our local park. That group has been going for 2 years, quietly plodding away.

It's up to the residents of Harringay to take advantage of this re-newed focus on our ward. We may not see this again for some time!

Shall we start by setting up a 'Harringay Resident's Working Group'? With say, members from HOL, LCSP, GRA and the Traders Association? Maybe that's too complex or unnecessary. But we do need to be working together and being efficient with time (save on meetings). Any other ideas?

I'm just kicking ideas around here!

Lets get organised. Over to you!

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The 'power members' bit comes from the HOL Sustainability Group minutes of this week's meeting. Not my term.
The Power Members term as used in those minutes was referring to the issue of members who may be too dominant in discussons and so put other members off contributing.

So we as a group are concerned to think about if this is an issue we should address.
Yes, which is why moderator status was dropped, apart from the legal aspect. Encouraging new members to be active on this site (or any site) should always be top of the agenda and so should the encouragement of members to get 'working groups' together as they see fit, without interference from those that set up the site or those that have the time to become committee members.

To say that this site is impartial politically is somewhat misleading. The fact that Lammy or his team have indicated to you Hugh that they would like to meet with you monthly, or thereabouts from now on says it all really.

How about a bit of openess regards Lammy and this site. Then I might take your comments about site impartiality a little more seriously. There is after all an election around the corner as we all know.

Anyway, this thread is about organising for investment in our area. If we could stick to this please I'm sure others members would appreciate it.
I'm sorry Matt, but you can't accuse me of running a party affiliated policy for the site and then chop back on a different topic. It doesn't work like that.

As to your specific points:

1. I have no right nor intention to comment on your setting up working groups. But I reserve the right to have an opinion on is how this site is used.

2. Re your comment on my meeting with David Lammy. Are you suggesting some party political bias or affiliation on my part? It sounds like it. Do you know why Lammy's office asked to meet?

And please reread what I wrote earlier. I propose that the HoL Sust Group makes policy on party politics on the site, not me. What else can I say.
Sorry to hijack your thread Matt.
So just to round that off Matt, answer my own question and to repeat what I said to you in reply to your private message to you.

I think it's fantastic he asked to see us.

Why did he ask to see us?

Because he's aware that Harringay Online is one of the leading community websites nationwide and it's on his doorstep. He wanted to learn more about it.

His interest is to be treasured and lauded.
Thanks Hugh.

Back as I said before to the topic of improving Harringay, which we want to be treasured and lauded.... by our politicians.
David Lammy is our MP, many people across the political spectrum meet with him, that's how it works.

For me I want HoL to be independent of any political party or residents groups. We are not a redisents group we have them and work together well.

We need to stop being so cynical and suspicious of each other and get on with making Harring a better place.
Well said Frances.

HOL, as Harringay's largest group of residents is in a good position to run an effective online petition that calls for investment in traffic calming Wightman Rd. Off-line petitons will also be important and can be organised by any resident, residents group, NHW, LCSP etc.

My daughter (of primary school age) has just said herself that that road is so dangerous to cross as a pedestrian. And as Birdy says, we're all in this together. Lets get on with it.

Once this is done it goes to Lammy's office.
Btw ...

Here's what's being proposed for the petition question;

'Do you support significant investment going into the traffic calming of the full length of Wightman Rd to make the road safer for all users?'
I still say we need to be specific about what kind of traffic calming we want.
What do we mean by traffic calming ? Speed ? traffic density ? Chicanes? Speed bumps ?
Speed.

How that's done? Leave that to the enginners. Let's not complicate things, otherwise we'll see nothing done John.

After all, the first tranch of money will be used to assess what is needed and then some sort of consultation/feedback with residents. These things take years!

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