Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Neighbourhood teams to tackle street issues
From October last year every ward in Haringey has a Neighbourhood Action Officer to tackle street based issues.
Here's how the teams are organised:
I put a call in today to Tony Chapman, Harringay's officer and also the team leader for Haringey West. I spoke to him at a meeting a few weeks back about estate agents' boards on Green Lanes and haven't followed up. This call was to do so. He's away on leave at the moment, but a colleague, Kelly Peck, offered to see if the team could make a start on an audit of EA boards and the satellite dishes opposite the Arena Shopping Park. I live in hope that this will one day be achieved.
The officer for Harringay and St Ann's wards is John Foorde - john.forde@haringey.gov.uk 077 9403 3346 / 020 8489 5587
Strangely, I can't find this service listed on the Council website anywhere. Is it just me?
I was prompted to follow up on this by a press release issued by the Council today:
Royal blue uniformed Neighbourhood Action Team (NATs) from Single Frontline are allocated to each ward to help tackle local environmental problems. These are new teams set up to cover pavement and road defects, monitor Veolia's street cleaning, refuse and recycling collection and carry out street enforcement.
Haringey is thought to be the first council in the country to combine these street based services in a single team.
Following consultation with Area Committees, Area Plans will be published helping to identify the different ward priorities, which will shape some of the work of the teams.
Cabinet Member for the Environment, Cllr Nilgun Canver, said:
"I hope this helps put the community in the driving seat and leads to fast and sustainable solutions to local problems.The NATs will get to know their areas and the problem hot spots and can work with residents to tackle major issues."
The NATs will work to report and address problems or to enforce against a range of issues and persistent offences, including:
- fly-tipping
- rubbish in front gardens
- graffiti and fly-posting
- dog fouling
- abandoned cars
- nuisance bonfires
- problems with commercial waste
- unauthorised street trading
- unlicensed skips
- highways issues such as potholes and paving problems
The NATs can issue warnings or penalties and can press for prosecution for more serious offences.
Within the NAT there is also a Tactical Enforcement Team that will operate borough-wide to deal with problems of a more serious or complex nature requiring high-level enforcement intervention, if necessary with the help of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams.
Tags for Forum Posts: estate agents signs, neighbourhood action teams, satellite dishes
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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This is depressing. But not because of the named staff. They are people who, over the years, I've been in contact with about a wide range of environmental problems. I've great respect for them and their 'street-level' colleagues.
But I seriously worry about this Press Release raising unrealistic expectations. One consequence of the cuts was significant staff reductions. And reduced budgets for spending on, for example, "pavement and road defects".
As a councillor I always try not to make promises I can't keep.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Mr Wodjacallim on
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This department may not be short of resource as it suggests to local councillors. Its quite conceivable it is short of resource because it is not using it to best effect.
As an example, when an unsafely overloaded skip had to be dealt with in this area, it should have sent out someone authorised under the Highways Act. Instead, it chose to send out someone else who could not take the requisite action.
Skips at this location have consumed a lot of Haringey resource quite pointlessly due to a poor process to deal with the issue.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Interesting priority list.
As rubbish dumped in front gardens is on there, I'll make it my business to do an audit of the streets around me and pass them on, though I am rather dissapointed that the team have not been proactive enough to pick these up themselves as many have been used as dumps for months and the team have been around since October. Or could it be as Alan says, raising unreasonable expectations?
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Hugh
I believe satellite dishes come under Planning and not Enforcement.
The GRA have started to carry out regular survey audits of Estate Agents Boards in the Gardens area to start to build up a picture of the main offenders, this is then forwarded to the Enforcement team.
The GRA would encourage all residents associations to start doing this so that we can all reduce street clutter, all that RA's need to do is set up a spread sheet and start completing it every two to tree months, this soon gives you a good idea of the main offending companies in the area ( and addresses of the boards) and creates the data base evidence of offending companies.
Fortunately there are only several local agents whom one is amazingly an award winning agent and another who is not so award winning that abuse these rules by blitzing an area regularly.
The rules are that temporary advertising sign board (Estate agent boards) are allowed to be in place for up to 14 days after the signing of a contract or a sale, this means the boards that are still up saying "Let By" or "Managed by" or "Sold by" should be removed after the 14 days, if they are not they are breaking the rules on temporary advertising.
After building up this picture of a street or area and forwarding it to the Enforcement Team, I’m sure Tony Chapman will be very happy to write to the offending agents reminding them of the rules and instruct them to remove them.
Further to this, the data base also gives you a good indication of who the management companies are managing these houses or flats which means, if there is an issue with drains - beds and rubbish in front gardens - noise issues etc you will now know which company to approach if there are issues in the future with the accommodation.
Hope this helps in your quest?
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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and where, oh where, do the community volunteers (whose scheme has never officially been abandoned) fit into all this? Way back in the distant mists of 2010 I went on a walkabout with Brian, Geraldo and the SNT to input as a community volunteer on priorities. I asked for people to input hotspots via HOL (can't link to that post as it seems to have been 'archived') and shared them with the team. We were given to understand at our meetings that this would not be a one off but nowhere in this planning does it suggest that our band of stalwarts are to be included.
I suppose I must with heavy heart remove my picture of the Cabinet Member for environment from off the mantlepiece, take off my sensible shoes and hand in my notebook and pencil made from recycled polystyrene cups. It seems that we are no longer wanted but no one has got round to sending us the Dear John letter. Hell, they don't even answer the phone any more (do they Andy?). Here's some memories of the good old dayz and some photos of the days when Mrs E (my alter ego was born)...and I still have my free tea towel.
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Liz, if you want to join me in a street audit of crap I'd welcome you on board. Any other takers?
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I've only ever heard a handful of views about the Community Volunteer Scheme. And these were sometimes mixed. In any case, having been involved in the past with various volunteer schemes, I know they can often "flower" and then die away "organically", depending very much on the enthusiasm and personal situation of key individuals.
But if the Haringey staff responsible for supporting the volunteers thought it was not working properly or needed changes, that could and should have been discussed with volunteers. With new approaches suggested and tried and new people with fresh energy encouraged to join in.
Letting the Community Volunteers Scheme fade away without trying to refresh and renew it, seems very short-sighted. Letting it go without even a thank-you is also very bad manners.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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I think the 'rot' probably set in when we were moved from Green Team's nurturing embrace and thrust onto the front line next to enforcement. It may have been our own fault. We asked for more joined up thinking between waste management and enforcement teams and the next thing we knew we were sent up the line.
Under the Green Team, the emphasis was on recycling, sustainability and green policies e.g. energy usage with a small portion of the meeting devoted to frontline matters like dumping. We had well attended meetings, sometimes on Saturdays at the Reuse and Recycle centre (woo hoo mrs E) with fellow amateur devotees of waste manangement policies.
It may have been that removing our Green Champion badges and giving us Dumping Vigilante hats meant that interest dropped in the scheme. Certainly, some regulars stopped coming and we were a little put out to get presentations on helping the police in reporting criminal matters (it wasn't what we signed up for at all and we refused as a group to get involved). Robin Payne did see us as part of the enforcement process and promoted use of social media to help us report things, but I think maybe we started to lose our way, after all we weren't originally meant to be volunteer enforcement officers, and certainly after he left the council, we gradually discovered that our volunteer services were clearly no longer wanted but no one could be bothered to get around to writing the thank you notes.
I have asked Veolia about renewing the scheme under the old terms as volunteer green champions, especially with the big change over going on. Interest was politely expressed but no more was done about it. I guess we need to find other outlets for our enthusiasm for a more sustainable future, like the Transition Groups, Sustainable Haringey etc because it looks suspiciously like the council don't have the ability to channel it in productive ways.
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Permalink Reply by Margaret Fowler on
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I used to be a member of the Community Volunteer Scheme and thought it was a great idea. But it seemed to die as most things in Haringey seem to and so I dropped out being interested. Happens to me a lot in Haringey I'm afraid and I used to be a very good volunteer once upon a time.
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I am both sad and angry reading this, Margaret. How long were you a Community Volunteer? Did anyone even write thanking you for the time and effort you put in?
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Hello, this might not be the right place to put this but I'm interested in meeting local groups in Haringey to discuss the 'plan for tottenham' redevelopment and get some action research work on a proposal I have for a community art project. would love to be forwarded to anyone you think might want to see community art project.
I have a meeting with the ward corner coalition on monday.
I had a meeting today with Superintendant Wolski, and he is really interested in being involved. I also spoke with Bruce Castle museum councillors and they are lending my ear, and have advised connecting to local community groups.
This project goes beyond just the notion of community art, it involves communication, cohesion and skill building activities for various members of Tottenham specifically but Haringey as a whole.
look forward to hearing from you.
sharon virtue
virtue.vision@yahoo.com
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