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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

With local elections in London round the corner, ward-level local political parties across the borough are choosing their who will represent them. Whilst it's not uncommon for sitting councillors to be endorsed to run again without challenge, there are also times when challengers are put forward. 

Both the Harringay and St Ann's ward councillors will face a challenge this time. Mike Hakata, is a St Ann's councillor with cabinet responsibility for traffic across the borough. Haringey Council has a poor record on traffic management and it is way behind neighbouring boroughs in introducing new approaches to reduce rat-running and encourage active travel.

The Ladder, in particular, has been a victim of poor traffic management decisions going back over half a century. Mike Hakata is now apparently promising to tackle the issue head-on. After getting approval for a St Ann's low traffic neighbourhood, he has now turned his attention to the Ladder. Whilst I still have some concerns and questions about the approach that will be taken, Mike Hakata seems to be the best chance we have. it would be a crying shame to see him de-seated by his local party. 

The vote in St Ann's is next week (Monday, I think). So if you are a Labour party member (which I am not) in St Ann's ward, please please do think about making sure that you vote and give full consideration to Mike's importance for the future wellbeing of the Ladder. 

Tags for Forum Posts: deselection, mike hakata, st ann's labour, traffic

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Will, to be fair, the broad approach was originally disseminated at a zoom meeting a couple of weeks ago that was open to all Harringay ward residents. The one issue I've added here is a clarification I sought following that meeting about traffic displacement from Green Lanes. That having been achieved, to avoid the very thing to which you've pointed, I declined earlier to attempt to go into any more detail and suggested it is left to a formal meeting, which will, I am sure, once more, be open to all. 

Green Lanes is of strategic importance to the whole borough, and city. 

I don't think membership of a local lobby group (be it the Traders Association or HLHS) ought to be a requirement for being informed of these kinds of plans.

As JulieB points out, how do those on the other side of the road participate? 

Will, from what I know of Mike, he seems pretty fair-minded. I can’t believe that he would cut out residents of a whole ward from an issue that will clearly affect them. There is a consultation meeting on the 17th, which unfortunately I won’t be able to attend, but I think that will be open to everyone. I think details of the meeting will be being sent out soon.

Do the Traders donate to Haringey Labour? 

Consultations for the three LTN areas that are due to be implemented were pretty extensive (part of the reason that they've ended up with being so overdue). None of them were limited by location, although to start with they did have issues with them not being well publicised outside of the relevant area (they did get better at this though).

I suspect the Green Lanes plan is aspirational, I'd be very surprised if it actually happened that way.

I think you’ll find that Matt White benefited from the necessary ground work by ward councillors engaging with community groups. There’s a reason why When the funding stream was identified St Anns was one of the wards in pole position to implemented. Lots of behind the scenes work by our 2 active councillors engaging with active community groups such as START and St Anns Healthy Streets. 

... nice to hear someone acknowledging Matt White's hard work... if the current council leadership had been less focused on their own ambitions and petty rivalries and had worked together for the benefit of Haringey residents then we might have seen some action... instead of just kicking the can down the road...

I’m not a massive Labour supporter but I am left-wing enough that the idea of joining the party in order to be able to vote in future ward meetings is not total anathema to me: as others have mentioned earlier in this thread, this seems to be the only way to actually have a vote that counts in this area. Is this a terrible idea?

Elizabeth — If you’re concerned about local issues, then this sounds like a good idea. In Labour, once you’ve established sufficient length of membership, you’re eligible to vote in the candidate selection process outlined here (don’t know about other parties). Haringey is a de facto Labour stronghold (whatever the rights or wrongs), so it’s probably more important to take part than it would be in a borough with more balance between the parties, where you’d have a wider choice of who to support in polls. This may sound cynical, but it’s unlikely that Haringey will go Green, Lib Dem or Tory anytime soon, so being involved in Labour candidate choice seems like the best way to go!

Do you have to go to the meeting to vote? My son is a LP member and I'll encourage him to vote.

In my ward (Hornsey) the shortlisting and selection meetings are on Zoom, and there are checks to ensure that only eligible members are voting.

Yes, exactly the same in St Ann’s; ward members get a Zoom link and eligibility (especially when there’s been a boundary change) is checked on entry to the meeting.

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