Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Street Cleaning
Has anyone else noticed a steep decline in the cleanliness of the Harringay Passage? The section between Hewitt and Falklands has not been cleaned for many days and the Fairfax Rd. park is awful. There are broken bottles, cans,litter, discarded clothes etc. - not to mention the red bins which are overflowing and smelling.
The Passage is used by many young children on their way to and from school and the park is equally used by several different groups.
I spoke to a street cleaner who told me that several street cleaners had been "let go due to cut backs" and that the cleaner who covered this area was one of them.
I fear that this is becoming an Environmental Health issue, particularly as the weather improves.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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It's very odd, the British distaste for talking or even thinking about natural functions.
My ex is very reluctant to take the smears for bowel cancer testing but with three children, she must have dealt with a thousand dirty nappies.
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Permalink Reply by JJ B on
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Viva regeneration then...it is having it effects....!
We were told several Area Forums ago that the way in which regular street cleaning would take place was changing due to cut backs.
It doesn't explain why the strecth of T High road redone for T gyratory - between 7 Sisters and T Green - is deteriorating rapidly!
Viva regeneration in Tottenham. It is 'working'.
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Permalink Reply by dbh1954 on
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Yes yes yes, get on Twitter and complain. There's been a small group of us doing this for years. Get your phone out take pics tweet tweet tweet. Add @haringeycouncil and @veolia.
It's got much worse really. I have reported a full dog mess bin three times and yet it's still overflowing.
I do think part of the problem is the lack of bins. You'll notice that there's very few on the Passage.
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I think the problem is the absolute cretins who let their dogs do this.
Vile people.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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There are possible disadvantages of reporting on Twitter:
- Other residents don't know you've reported the mess.
- Other residents won't necessarily see emerging or established patterns - like dumping hotspots, or a trader who abuses the system. Maps can be helpful in revealing the "Where" and "When". Which can sometimes lead to the "Who" and "Why". People on HoL may assume Veolia or Council staff collect data to build knowledge about any such patterns. I wouldn't rely on that.
- Hundreds of individual tweets won't show how efficiently (or inefficiently) the Council is responding. If the former, then as well as criticising Veolia or Haringey when necessary, it's also important to give credit and praise when deserved. (The same applies if you happen to see your local street cleaner who does a good job.)
- I may be wrong, but I doubt that tweets - and photos sent with tweets - are automatically linked into the other reporting systems. If I'm right then the people who respond on the Council's twitter account are having to duplicate work. Of course, local councils ought to integrate "external" reports into their systems. FixMyStreet offers to do this.
- It's possible that thousands of individual tweets might slow the whole system if this generates extra work. If you look at the early adopters of smartphone apps - I think Boston Massachusetts was one - you see that a main selling point was cutting out stages in the system so a report went from the phone to the frontline service.
Some people may think I'm over-theorising. That the task is to get someone out there on the street as quickly as possible clearing the mess. And that a tweet is one more quick simple way to start the process. I can sympathise with that. But I'd also suggest that endless clearing of rubbish and rapid response to other "streetscene" problems doesn't solve them. There have to be
- Better systems
- Better understanding of what's going on
- Learning from experiments which try to achieve behaviour change.
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the stretch on the passage between Sydney Rd and Turnpike Lane is looking like a slum - lose electric wires, slimey water, pigeon droppings, bottles, etc etc. I reported it nobody ever got back or more importantly did anything about it except someone cut the ivy being used as a mens urinal.
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There always seems to be lots of litter in the harringay gardens roads. I used to see lots of street cleaners around but they never seemed to do much cleaning. They used to congregate around the coral betting shop on st anns road or hide out in the car park across the road.
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I keep sending e mails to Veiola about Stanley Road and Hallam Road, they're never cleaned any more either, rubbish has been sitting there for weeks, sometimes I go out with bin bags but and then get annoyed thinking "Why on earth am I doing this ?"
On the rare occasions you do see a street cleaner down there he'll be sauntering along, picking up the odd bit of rubbish, but leaving the vast majority of it there, clearly he just can't be bothered to do the job properly
I did get a call from John Forde at Haringey Council the other day saying he was aware of the problem and trying to improve things but as everyone else on here has noticed it appears the whole borough (apart from the posh parts obviously) is turning in to a rubbish dump
Any more suggestions on how we get this problem sorted most welcome!
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It's a small thing, but - the Golden Rule - I'd like us all to treat street cleaners the way we'd like to be treated if we had their job. Cleaners are out at all hours in all weathers. And it can't good for morale to know that you or some of your colleagues could be "let go" anytime soon.
So I'd suggest at least acknowledging them. Or even having a brief chat. Once I also saw someone pushing his cart and missing a pile of litter. When I asked politely, he picked up the litter; but explained politely that he was actually on his way to his own "beat".
And though I'd never claim that every street cleaner is doing a great job. Some really do. And anyway don't we all like to get a thank-you?
Writing about "Perfomance Management", the Systems Theory consultant John Seddon thinks that poor performance by individuals accounts for maybe 5% of an organisation's success or failure. So he recommends that managers pay more attention to the other 95%.
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Our street cleaner and postman are regulars who know us who live in their streets and who we say hello to and they say hello. Sometimes stop for a chat.
They do a good job.
They aren't reponsible for the lack of resources or ineptitude if those in charge!
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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If there's a more general issue, like rubbish building up over time in a certain part of the passage, rather than a single incident that needs attention, I'd add reiterate one of the suggestions on Liz's very useful list. Contact your councillor. They are voted in to represent us on neighbourhoods issues and have a line to the Council that is not accessible to the rest of us. They receive an allowance of £10,500 to help them fulfil their role and some of them are very keen to prove their efficacy.
Contact info for councillors for Harringay's three wards in Section 3 on this page.
For everyday incidents, I've found the Cleans Streets app effective.
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Alan, I agree with most of your points. Although if you tweet Veoila they will allocate a job number and it will get cleaned up eventually.
I'm sure most of the fly tipping comes from the landlords of the many hmos.
Maybe there needs to be more community action. What happened to The Friends of Harringay Passage??
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