Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Finsbury Park - Easter Saturday
I'm aware that the number of staff for our parks has been (or is about to be cut). Judging by the state of Finsbury Park over the last couple of warm weekends the staff have already gone. The litter problem seems to be worse nearer the Seven Sisters/ Blackstock Rd gate, perhaps because of the traffic to and from the funfair.
So here are a couple of radical ideas for the council to cope after the staff have gone:
1/ Tax. I had a discussion with a couple of HoL members on Twitter this week about taxing fast food outlets for the cost of clearing up. If it's a problem with funding for litter clearing them surely the cause of the problem should contribute to the clear up.
2 Parking Charges. It costs 50p to park for 2 hours in Finsbury Park. This seems too cheap - how about increasing this to £2 an hour with the money invested in clearing the park.
3. Encourage the people organising the funfair to run a litter sweep. It's part of the licensing agreement for music events in the park that the event clear litter so why not the funfair ?
4. Close the park. Seriously, it's a lovely park ruined by people. Close it and you remove the need for staff and reduce the litter. Problem Sorted.
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park litter, litter
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nigel Lupton (luptonn) on
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And a couple more snaps...
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Permalink Reply by Leonie on
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I know the litter is bad, but at least people are trying to throw it in the bins (as the photos demonstrate!). Isn't it just looking particularly bad because it's a bank holiday weekend and staff are likely to have time off?
I feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of upping car parking charges just because I don't think we should make Finsbury Park an expensive place to go, especially for families with kids.
Taxing fast food outlets only partially tackles the problem, especially as many people will bring picnics from home or buy their food from supermarkets. Not to mention it would be a serious uphill struggle against some heavy vested interests to implement any form of taxation on fast food outlets. A tax on excessive packaging might be a fairer tax but again difficult to implement.
I'm not sure what the conditions are for music events in the park, but do they include a litter sweep outside the perimeter of the event? That's what's needed with the fun fair and it might be difficult to get them to agree to that.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I was in Regent's Park today - could this be a solution:
Not rocket science really, is it. And look who operates them:
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Thanks Anne - I think two people to cover the entire park is too few at this time of year and I'm sure you would agree.
Hugh - I think a few of the very large bins would certainly help with the overfilling of the smaller bins.
Leonie - I agree, most people try to use the bins and then pile up the rubbish next to it. The problem is that this can easily be strewn across the park and the path. On the Blackstock side of the park there was a lot more litter strewn across the park and the bins were not as full. Unfortunately this isn't as easy to capture in a photo.
Today I passed Clissold Park on the bus and it looked to be very clean and Hugh's photos show that Regent's Park looks clean, so it can be done.
As an aside, our end of Green Lanes and Endymion Rd had a road sweeper on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. All very good but maybe not the best prioritisation. If we could get the parks covered on the same contract maybe we could be proud of them again.
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Permalink Reply by alex on
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I'd prefer regular collection of litter and emptying of bins to having huge mega bins. Lets remember that up til now Haringey has had the most green flag parks in London. That's done with Council staff, not private contractors, and I seem to remember reading last year that Haringey already had very low spend on parks compared to a lot of other boroughs.
Parks are going rapidly downhill since the cuts started, and as Nigel says, there's more on the way. Talking to parks staff, this time last year there were 8 full time hygeine staff across the borough, with about the same number of agency staff during the summer on top of this. Now, as I understand it, there's 4 or 5 with no agency.
A press release put out by the Friends of Parks Forum today says that parks staff are now about to be cut by a third unless the Council are persuaded to change their plans. Having seen the improvements to parks over the last 5 or so years (until this year) we need to persuade Councillors not to let them get back to the awful state they used to be in.
Private contractors are not the solution, they generally cut costs by paying minimum wages (not even the London Living Wage!) cutting staff to the bone (doing blitzes on maintenance work rather than steady ongoing maintenance and having huge bins which they empty less often!). All this means less staff in the park, which means there's no-one there to help in an emergency or keep an eye on problems and make the place feel safer.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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With the sheer number of people in Finsbury Park in the weekend I think bigger bins, at least temporarily, would have been a big help.
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I share your concerns and angst Nigel. The park is a bloody tip..but then so are large parts of neighbouring Green lanes and other parts of the borough. I agree with your aspirations but unfortunately I know that the additional financial charges your proposing would raise nowhere near the funds required to keep the park tidy or safe. Some of the rubbish does come from purchases inside the park but by far the greater share I'm afraid is brought in from outside, and dumped, by Haringey & Islington residents who don't care to take it back with them !!
So what do we do..Privatise the Park for events and let security screen people in ? Charge people for all items carried in ? In truth i think we need to do a bit of all of that plus your stuff but again you will not wipe your feet against the costs properly needed to be found to run the park as it deserves to be run.
I have many concerns re. all the parks and the nos of dogs, drunks, aggressive and uncontrollable individuals as well as the obscene amounts of litter we have around the place. There needs to be 10 times as many park staff and many more police on duty around Finsbury and the other parks but our Big Society seems to have lost the will or the spirit to establish order and for us all to take our even share of cost and responsibility.
The tories would have us privatise the lot. Labour and the Libs don't seem to know what else to do other than mess around and make cuts 'relunctantly' . Me I'm not into privatisation of these key local services and facilities - I reckon every single private landlord in the borough should be charged an extra local fee on rent and every single property sold over £500k should pay a higher rate stamp duty based on the % increase over original sale or value. Then you reinvest it in properly funded key local facilities such as Finsbury Park with us as users having a properly nominated 'Friends of the Park group' which has the full right to determine priorities on site etc, staffing nos, litter bins, recycling sheds etc . We can raise small proportions of money by the means you have suggested but this can only be realistic if built on the platform of an already properly staffed park management structure - not the invisible line of remnant staff we now have.
Until we get our head round that I'm afraid i don't see Finsbury Park being anything other than an increasing big repository for rubbish at Easter times like this. Enjoy the Royal Weekend ! GK
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These pictures are actually not that bad compared to what the rest of the park looked like. When you walked through the park it was just awful and still is this morning. I do not understand why people do not clear up after them selves, I mean would you just throw it on the floor at home! There should be on the spot fines for anyone who litters the park, in fact anywhere.
I walk my dog there nearly every day and the state of the park is disgusting! At least the people who managed to take there rubbish to the bin made and effort and a lack of clearing it up by staff made the park look very bad. I cannot believe that the council or park cannot afford to pay for someone to empty the bins, they were like this for days!
Finsbury park is such a nice park and a lot of people just have no respect, they should be ashamed.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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The question is, how come people think it is OK to behave like this? What has gone wrong with their basic socialisation? It just shouldn't be possible to crap all over your neighbourhood, so why do they do it?
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Permalink Reply by Ruth on
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Here we go again on the litter front..... We had the Ducketts Park discussion a few weeks back. Same issues and similar suggestions.
For sure the bins are not big enough for purpose- I noticed this in the parks the last week. And all those recycling opportunities missed cus there are no recycling bins in there at all. So many cans and plastic bottles just lieing around!
I also noticed this when jogging around Chestnuts Park the other morning. Same problem- a real mess.
People could take their litter home- like we used to years ago. Few bother to do so anymore. There is very little care or respect for public spaces - people abuse them. And some people cant read- so many rubbish bags were squeezed into the dog poo bins. Ridiculous! Dont people even know the difference between a litter bin and poo bin? I expect to see people trying to post their letters in them soon - they are red arent they?
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Permalink Reply by Omotn on
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I share the concerns over litter. My parkrun on a Saturday morning is less pleasurable as a result.
I am also concerned over the possible closure of the running track, which surely should be one of the beneficiaries of the renewed interest in athletics deriving from the Olympics. Does anyone know any more about it?
Haringey People p9 White Hart Lane Community Sports Centre and the Finsbury Park track and gym will be leased to local sport clubs or agencies, while funding will be redirected to the voluntary sector, allowing them to deliver some servicesLondon Heathside has this to say - We are currently considering making a bid to take over the management of the track from late October onwards, possibly in partnership with the London Blitz though a community based company. Unfortunately unless we do this the facility is faced with closure.
Note to Alan Stanton - of course I will email Cllr Dilek Dogus.
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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Agree with all these comments, it is looking terrible. And while it looks that way of course it just makes people think it is fine to leave their rubbish where it falls.
I think larger bins has to be part of it, and ones which are emptied before they are overflowing. It would also be a move forwards to have bins which don't allow foxes and birds to get in there and have a good old rummage around. It seems a bit mad that the park isn't covered by the existing waste collection contracts - maybe that is because it cuts across different council boundaries?
But agree that larger bins aren't going to solve the problem - the stuff that distresses me the most isn't the pile of bags by the bins - its the litter that is just strewn over all the grass by people who simply can't bother to do anything with it. No idea what the answer is, though I'd love to see Haringey put as much effort into fining people who drop litter as they do into parking permit violation. They could make a fortune!! Perhaps they should have a blitz one weekend ...
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