Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Great expectations of 'humble residents' groups' - BBC article
"In 2006 (in London) the number of councillors from other parties, including residents' associations and parties based around local issues, jumped from 33 to 75 (out of 1859), taking 17% of the votes cast. Much of their success has come from campaigns based strongly around local issues, experts said."
Tags for Forum Posts: 2010 local elections, independent_councillors
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Katey on
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Interesting - I feel that much of the problem with local councillors not being in touch with the issues in their ward lies with it not being a requirement for candidates to actually live or work in the ward in which they are seeking election. In Haringey the requirement is simply for candidates to live, own property in, or work in the BOROUGH - therefore in a borough as divided as Haringey, potentially you can have a local councillor who lives in one of the more affluent wards in the borough (if not in the country!) eg Highgate, being elected in one of the most deprived wards such as Seven Sisters. Obviously not all residents of Highgate are wealthy, and not all people who live in affluent areas are ignorant to the needs of those who live in more deprived wards ...however it does get peoples backs up when they feel that the person elected as their representitive has very little experience of what it is like to actually live in an area. No wonder some people are preferring to vote for those who they feel actually have an understanding of what's going on. I say change the rules! - make it a requirement for local election candidates to actually live in the ward in which they are seeking election ...or at the very least to have lived there for a certain period of time previously.
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Permalink Reply by Adam on
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According to Wikipedia the Leader of the Council, Claire Kober (Labour) who is a councillor for Seven Sisters ward, lives in Muswell Hill.
On average, men in Seven Sisters die 17 years earlier than men in Muswell Hill - a distance of 6 miles.
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...yes, those differences in life expectancy between the east and west of the borough are shocking, and highlight what a complex borough Haringey is - so many fantastic things about it, and yet so many people living such difficult and in many cases truly awful lives. You don't even need to compare the 2 sides of the borough or even wards to get extremes in quality of life - I lived for many years on a huge council estate in one of the more affluent parts of the borough. The lives and issues faced every day by residents in places like the one I lived were a million miles away from that of our wealthier neighbours in the surrounding privately owned houses. It kinda added insult to injury for people when the estate underwent mini-transformations from time to time prior to visits from local councillors, MP's and other 'important' (!) people ...plants hastily appearing in communal window boxes that had been empty for months due to people ripping the original ones out and lobbing them over the balconies, dog turds that adorned the corridors on a regular basis suddenly being swept away, etc. The life expectancy thing is obviously more to do with income than location, and it would be naive to say that making it a requirement for local councillors to be resident in the ward they represent would ensure they are totally in touch with and clued up about everything that goes on in their ward ...but it might at least help a little!
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