Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Town Twinning - Cllr Joe Ejiofor's secret "Leaders" plan revealed
Rumours have been circulating for some time that the "Leader" Cllr Joe Ejiofor was planning to waste money on another Vanity Project - resuscitating the old Town Twinning schemes. Mostly suspended when Haringey, like other Councils, faced millions in cuts. To the best of my knowledge, one of the twinning schemes - with Livry-Gargan - continued by raising funds as volunteers.
I've been sent what appears to be a genuine copy of a recent version of the draft plan. It includes cost estimates; although I suspect these may be a serious underestimate. (For example just having an additional Council meeting is not cheap.)
I've edited the version I received to remove the names of Council staff. It's not their fault they've been instructed to incur costs and waste their time on this foolishness.
The programme of visiting "dignitaries" flying in and out to enjoy free hotels breakfasts, lunches, dinners and "Freedom of the Borough" will happen this July. Unless there is a sufficiently loud protest.
Tags for Forum Posts: Arima, Barbados, Clarendon, Finland, Joe Ejiofor, Koblenz, Larnaca, Livry-Gargan, Sundbyberg, Town Twinning, More…
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by DTW on
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Plenty of places have twinning. With our current self imposed national isolation I think it would be a positive gesture to our E.U neighbours if we twinned ourself with a town in each of the 27 countries of the EU.
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Wouldn't Pothole Town, Barbados, be the ideal twin?
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Can they please allocate Twin Peaks ... happy to represent Haringey ... all expenses paid for of course
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Matt, it is actually a serious topic. And there are ways to advance it. But civic "dignitaries" flying to and fro for free grub and free booze and glad-handing Spurs, is hardly one of them. Though obviously it's the Ejiofoolish idea of how to make himself look important.
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Claims it’s a serious topic and then resorts to calling the council leader names. Jesus wept.
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Alan
For your information Haringey-Livry Friendship Association which has been in place since the town-twinning agreement was signed in 1977 is completely self-financing. I have been a member since the 80s. The support and recognition from Haringey Council over the years has been negligible, if not non-existent....
Sally
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Thanks, Sally. That was my impression from what Sheila Peacock has said a couple of years ago. In any case I'm doubtful about simply taking an old list.
As you'll have noticed there are several uncosted items in Joe Ejiofor's list which could take his proposed scheme well over budget.
This is against a general background of some highly unpleasant cuts decisions forced on local Councils across the country. However bad things will be in the coming financial year, it looks far worse for 2021-2022.
I wasn't on the Council in 1990, but you may have been and in any case probably know about the massive cuts then which which hit Haringey like many other Councils. As I recall there needed to be long rancorous meetings with line-by-line examination of every budget item. Leading to massive cuts simply to balance the books.
So, fast forward, and it's hardly the right time for the Council to take on inessential new financial obligations which, frankly, look like Joe's Vanity Projects.
A small point: I assume you and the Livry twinning people use trains. The others may not. With the collapse of cheap air travel we may be coming to an end of the cheap flights era.
It looks too as though we may see the end of UK access to subsidised EU programmes where professionals moved around Europe positively swapping experience and ideas.
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Alan
We always go on the train and have done since Eurostar started. ~Didn't get elected to the Council till 1994..............
Sally
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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The difficulty might be in finding some town that would actually want to be twinned with mattress dumping Haringey.
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Let me guess, John D, that Haringey may be able to find a few "Dignitaries" from elsewhere prepared to ignore dumped mattresses, rubbish bags, litter, fridges, etc. Some civic freeloaders prepared to overlook the food banks and homeless people, while they enjoy visiting Spurs and Ally Pally; free meals; free hotels; free coach trips; and free taxis to the airport.
Which still poses some obvious questions. Like: is it the best use of £20k? (And likely to be considerably more). Bearing in mind that the 2020-21 cuts are projected worse than 2019-20. And that even now we apparently don't have the money for front-line services.
Remembering too, that one group of people continuing a previous twinning scheme have fundraised to do that. Why not others?
But perhaps there's also a wider question. Joe Ejiofor's proposal seems a rather traditional model of twinning - mayors/Leaders & with reciprocal dinners and trips. Is that the best one to resuscitate?
Hasn't Haringey moved on? Don't we have what you might call "people-twinning"? And maybe "dignitary" twinning has ignored a rather more interesting strength of our borough and indeed a feature of London. Because of email, and Skype and cheaper rail and air fares we have strong transnational links which could be more fruitful.
Perhaps we - and that includes me as well - might have been looking in the wrong places?
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An update.
I hear that Ejiofor's Town-twinning nonsense may shortly be for the chop. Though I don't know whether this is due to an outbreak of common sense; or because the foreign "dignitaries" aren't keen. Either way, if this news is confirmed, it means there'll be £20k available - or maybe double that - for real things. Filling a few more potholes for instance, or fixing some children's play equipment in a park.
As you can see from the paper I posted, effort and time had already been wasted on this vanity project. If Joe Ejiofolly continues his antics it will start to make the other Joe's bozo logo look not so absurd!
None of this has any relationship to the realities of problems faced by local residents. They deserve better than a vain buffoon hosting "dignitaries" flying pointlessly around the planet to collect "freedom of the borough" at a special council meeting. (Which also has an unnecessary cost simply to hold.)
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