Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Does anyone know who is standing in the upcoming By Election?

The only incumbent Councillor in the ward who actually does anything is standing down due to disgust with Haringey Labour and the Starmer regime.

Turnout is typically low 20%. I imagine it will be even lower again. If the Greens, LibDems or even Reform put up a credible local candidate they stand a very decent chance of winning. 

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The money spent on the street re-naming was probably many tens of thousands of pounds rather than hundreds of thousands.

In any event, it was a relatively small example of public money wasted under the previous Administration. The previous leader and his Momentum cronies were a menace to public funds.

Losses on the 36 months of irregular property wheeling and dealing ran into many millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

Last year Haringey Council were placed 307th out of 317 local councils in England. This puts us in the bottom 3% in the country. The govt. dept. which undertook the analysis of each borough - judging them on a range of performance criteria - was called Oflog. Pretty much as soon as Labour took hold of govt. this dept. was closed down. (Possibly because if showed so many Labour councils underperforming. (?) )

The MP responsible for closing Oflog is Jim McMahon. I wrote to him: - 

"I would be grateful if you could advise how, following your disbanding of Oflog, we are to judge Haringey's performance against other local authorities? What department is replacing Oflog? Have plans been finalised? Are you currently assessing local authorities? If so where does Haringey lie? Is it a case that any form of assessment is innately invidious? If we do not know who is failing how can we bring pressure to bear for much-needed improvements? 

Please advise on the current state of play in terms of how individual Councils' performance is assessed. I hope that what replaces Oflog will offer a meaningful appraisal of local authorities on which members of the public can rely."

I received no reply to my initial email. I wrote again and cc'd in my local MP Catherine West. I have received no reply / acknowledgement from either of them.

Vote Labour and get more of the same. 

The main problem with Oflog is that it was pointless.  It existed for a year, its chair resigned and all it did was collate data that other government departments already collected and published.  It had no purpose and was so useless that a lot of the data it used to do rankings was three or more years out of date.  For instance the data on recycling was from 2020 (lockdown year) for some local authorities and from 2022 (not lockdown down) for others so they weren’t even comparing apples with apples.  It never gave context either so it showed that some authorities had poor performance in deciding major planning applications in the 13 week target but these were for massive infrastructure programmes like HS2 where no one would want them to be decided in 13 weeks, but for meaningful consultation to be carried out.  It was something Sunak came up with one rainy afternoon and a waste of money.

And nothing instituted by the current government enabling residents to know how their boroughs are faring.


Haringey tops table of damp and mould complaints in England


https://haringeycommunitypress.co.uk/2025/03/07/haringey-tops-table...


Haringey has completely different problems to say Westminster or even Camden. Not sure what benefit there is in a league table comparing apples and pears. Being in a Council area full of rich people who don't need masses of social care or children's services does wonders for your stats. And that's where most of the money goes. 

The West of the borough is such an area: ie "full of rich people who don't need masses of social care or children's services." This sector of the borough is often sidelined when it comes to physical and social infrastructure: facilities in local parks, crumbling, weed-filled flower beds, walls disintegrating (Priory Road in front of the Moravian Church.) This is, in effect, a failed and failing borough. (Haringey Council had to go cap in hand to the govt. for a £37m baiIout - interest @ 5% - no prizes for guessing who is going to be paying that.) I have watched the decline over decades - what I do not see is the Council taking any responsibility for this decline. 

Sadly nothing was put in place by any government after the abolition of the IDeA. It was a body that would carry out inspections of local authorities, publish their findings and do real work with them to improve.  It was got rid of by Cameron in 2010.

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