Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Very confused by council patching up tarmac on unadopted land while refusing to deal with fly tipping in same area!
Our very hard-up council has just had contractors tarmac some unclaimed/unadopted land at the end of our street.
I just don't get it? They didn't have any money to remove a load of fly-tipped rubbish that lay festering for over a year, 25 feet away, but have had 2k work done patching up a the dead-end of a cul-de-sac?
* gave this thread a better title*
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Details please, Neil.
Where? When? The nearest house number would help too.
Thanks.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Thanks Neil.
If your ward councillors are on the case, good for you and good for them! I've never been unwilling to acknowledge and sometimes praise the work of other councillors - from whichever party.
But as you've put this into the public domain, what's the problem in everyone knowing about the particular site and Council's "profligacy", as you put it. Surely it's in all our interests to give the details? Especially since you've now suggested some hidden plan.
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As you seem unwilling to give the location, Neil, I'm unclear how people are supposed to judge whether this is Council "profligacy" or perhaps a common sense approach to solving a problem.
Some HoL readers may not have come across the term "unadopted land". In my neighbourhood this can be odd plots from before Land Registration legislation. Or perhaps an alleyway or small corner which the original developer didn't include in the "parcels" of land they sold. Someone does own it, but finding out may be expensive and possibly fruitless. Which may not matter until, for example, it gets used for fly-tipping - or worse.
Sometimes it's prudent to spend some money as a medium term 'fix', rather than go down the legal or enforcement route. An example several years ago was the "alleygators" project which gated problem alleyways. (Incidentally, using Home Office crime prevention money and then the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.)
A different example. Profligate? I'd say common sense. (It's not in my ward. But so what?)
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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That's helpful Neil. It gives me - and other people - a clearer view of the problems.
You've contacted the three Harringay Ward councillors, so I hope they've consulted one another and decided which one is taking the lead on this.
You probably gathered from my comment above that the situation you describe is not unusual with a number of back land / alleyway sites. With some variations the remedies and sequence of steps the Council - or local residents themselves - can follow is pretty well known. But that doesn't make it quick and simple. The alley gating project I mentioned benefited from external funding - no longer available. It also needed dedicated officer time e.g. to do Land Registry searches and establish ownership - sometimes with dozens of different titles each with a few square metres of alley, and mutual rights-of-way.
Even on the apparently straightforward issue of fly-tipped rubbish, before enforcement notices are served, the Council needs to know who to serve them on. And ideally, who to recover the cost of clearance from!
In many instances land ownership may be disputed. I know that other councillors have similar sites in their wards where there's e.g. shack-like accommodation built without planning permission; and/or traders running small "grey economy" businesses. A freeholder's managing agents may be more interested in collecting their client's rents - and their own fees - than responding to neighbours' complaints.
However, unless there is some criminal investigation underway I cannot see any reason why you and your neighbours should not be told - clearly and in detail - what steps have been taken so far to look into and solve the problems in this alley. And why these have not worked - or only partly worked.
I know and like all three of your ward councillors and I'm confident that whoever is dealing with this will be making efforts find this information. But I also have to say that while it's usually possible to improve things, or find temporary solutions with a particular site, long term solutions may be harder.
It doesn't help that Eric Pickles has loosened up the planning law. And that local authorities across the country have had to reduce their staff - which at some point is going to mean those enforcing against fly-tippers etc. But neither does it help when landlords, builders, agents, and residents themselves are willing to "foul their own nest" by dumping in alleys and on corner sites.
Here's an example in my own ward. It can still be an eyesore - though not as bad it it once was. This is in spite of consultation with residents, experimenting with a range of different initiatives; enforcement with CCTV cameras etc.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Good luck with this! There may well be fixes which do work with your alley. Or at least reduce the frequency and scale of the problems.
There are some good people working in the Environment Department. And I'm sympathetic about their task, working within greatly reduced budgets. (It really isn't just a question of efficiency savings.)
Probably the three worst things about Haringey's attempts to solve these multi-layered problems are: (1) Smug complacency at the failing political level. ("Yes, we know that. We're already doing it".) (2) A very weak learning culture. (To often the past is not recorded and knowledge is lost when people leave.) (3) Failure to establish effective public engagement. (Even those who've learned the word "co-production" can't sing the tune.)
On the brighter side, we have in the past had a "Problem Sites Group" and a "Heavy Enforcement Team" - both of which had significant successes. The cross-department and multi-agency approach now used stands the best chance of success.
Though I'm sceptical about a "Week of Action". I worry that it may mean 51 weeks of relative inaction. In some ways it seems to be a local council version of the round tuit.
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