Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey roundabout arrows point the wrong way
Personally I find mini roundabouts confusing enough as it is. Nice one Haringey!
http://www.lbc.co.uk/council-paints-arrows-wrong-way-on-roundabout-...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Yesterday three British people arrived at a mini-roundabout simultaneously. They're still there.
Not a bad one Helen.
However, I believe a private trove of roundabout jokes is now deliberately being withheld from the public by none other than frequent HOL contributor Councillor Alan Stanton.
I have already suffered criticism from the good Councillor about the quality of mine; yet I know that when on form, Alan has a great sense of humour.
I think we should be told. I believe Alan has week's worth up his sleeve.
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Permalink Reply by 1rk254kmc0kqw on
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Helen thank you for posting this
- as it raises awareness for us local residents. John, clearly from Helen's counter response she is not a Lib Dem so what you said was unfair and uncalled for.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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John's initial response The fuss that the libdems are making of this is embarrassing *them* (my emphasis) in no way implies that Helen is a Lib Dem supporter but refers to the numerous twitter posts, blogs posts and general social media fuss that they they are making.
Grant's point is quite key to asking why this is of such importance but the LD plans re traffic control and management are still a mystery to us all especially their policy on parking on the high streets.
John's point is that while they're busy creating a storm in a teacup about this and some unpaid council tax, they are weirdly silent on other, much more important issues relating to the conduct of current councillors.
So Jerry let's not start the " the unfair and uncalled for" remarks. John's remarks were neither.
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Hi Liz,
I tend to support the Greens in the generals but in response to John saying that the Lib Dems are making a "fuss" about traffic control, I have to strongly disagree with John as I feel that traffic control is certainly a vital issue! The road in which Helen has posted about is less than half a mile away from Harringay (so it is very local) and by the roundabout being drawn incorrectly we need to take extra care when driving around the area unless Haringey Council rectify this ASAP. So we need to make a "fuss" about this!
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Well Jerry, if you are a Green you will be aware of their strong opposition to the LD policy of 30 mins free parking on Haringey High Streets. I have no idea what LD policies on traffic on Green Lanes is. I'm not clear what they would do to promote cycling. Shouldn't they be making more of the council record on potholes?
In truth, this is an easily rectified mistake. LDs will say it is a symptom of the wider malaise that Grant's post highlights well but surely the point is that having found this symptom when are they going to diagnose the illness and offer us a cure (or at least a second opinion)?
BTW my comments in no way reflects on Helen's original reporting of it. As Alan says the more *residents* point out the problems, the more that is likely to get fixed. And with less 'red gang, yellow gang' commentary in the background
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I'm not for the 30 mins free parking but I am very strongly opposed to Haringey Labour's approach to parking fines where they have targets - which is disgraceful!
http://www.hamhighbroadway.co.uk/news/emails_reveal_parking_ticket_...
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Jerry, it was to me, initially, that those emails were leaked. The council don't have targets (any more), no longer even "expectations".
No, now they are called "forecasts".
In the last 12 month parking account (now, nearly a year old), the profit was six million pounds. You and I might call it a profit, but the council calls it a 'surplus'.
Here is my retrospective forecast. During that past accounting period, over the Borough, the surplus was £16,000 a day (average, every day).
In due course, there'll be a new Parking Account report published.
Disclosure:
am a prospective councillor candidate
Highgate Ward | Liberal Democrat Party
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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It's not a target, Jerry. It can't be a target. it would be illegal if it was a target.
If there is any-current-or even reasonably up-to-date evidence that Haringey is operating parking fine targets please contact the Council's auditors, Grant Thornton - immediately.
We've gone over this several times. The emails which were used to "evidence" this story in 2013 were from 2008 and 2010 and were rebutted. Clive Carter knows this, but refuses to accept it.
If we learn nothing at all, then can we at least have some respect for evidence and facts? If we can't, then - presumably for short-term electoral gain - people are helping to destroy any possibility of informed public debate about these issues by residents. Our fellow Haringey citizens who, in most cases, don't give a toss about the (mostly) childish election antics of the blue/red/yellow/any other colour gangs and their unread and unreadable leaflets. With a substantial majority - quite understandably, not bothering to vote.
I'm not writing this as a Labour councillor defending my party. As a councillor I've campaigned for many years about the lack of clarity, accuracy and sometimes total hypocrisy and greed operating in parking fines, lines and signs.
One reason I first started falling out with my Labour colleagues was when former councillor Ray Dodds and I publicly challenged the legality of the Council raking in £168,000 in fines for unlawful box junctions outside Tottenham bus garage. We were right and the Council stopped giving motorists PCNs (fines) there. But refused to repay them. I went on TV calling the Council's actions "highway robbery". (This was the first time there were mutterings about kicking me out of the Labour Group.)
Over the years since I've challenged the Parking Service, my fellow councillors and a former "cabinet" councillor Brian Haley who refused to repay the unlawfully levied fines. (And also ignored my emails.)
So in 2013, if I'd seen substantial evidence of currently operated targets, I'd have gone down to Euston myself to see the council's auditors, Grant Thornton
By the way, using parking charges as a de factor tax is is probably common practice in many London Boroughs and in other cities. Although Government ministers make encouraging noises from time to time with platitudes about "not treating motorists as a cash cow" etc, etc, they are hypocrites as they do nothing about it. Not least because it suits the rich central London boroughs who make a mint from the charges. And because many boroughs rely on surpluses on their parking account to back-fill budget holes from the Coalition cuts.
By the way, Jerry, if you are actually a party activist on HoL as part of the election campaign, please be honest about it. Nobody will think any the less of you. Well, probably they will. But it's hardly like people who sign up for a party membership by pretending to live in Haringey, to take part in the candidate selection process.
And nobody with a moral compass would possibly condone something like that, would they?
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor 1998-2014. Time off for bad behaviour.)
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The emails which were used to "evidence" this story in 2013 were from 2008 and 2010 and were rebutted. Clive Carter knows this, but refuses to accept it.
"Rebutted" is misleading if it is taken to mean false or untrue. I faithfully reproduced the evidence here more than 12 months ago. I invite anyone to compare the leaked emails with the answer supplied by the Council to my Freedom of Information request on the same link.
That the emails were genuine was never disputed by the Council. However, the Council claimed that the emails were out of date and that the authors of the emails were no longer in their employ – this implied the emails are irrelevant to today's modern parking policies.
The Council has of course, never had an explicit, formal policy of Targets. They wouldn't, would they?
It was the Ham & High paper who suggested in their article that, given the dates of the emails, for a short period, the Council continued to operate a policy of targets after it became unlawful. Their front page headline of 2 May last year was:
"CCTV cars told to hit 'illegal' targets. Enforcement officers ordered to deliver at least 260 parking fines a day"
Since then, the internal "targets" changed name to "expectations".
I do admire the inventiveness of (presumably) the Council's Press Office in coming up with "forecasts". To what extent the substance has changed, is the matter of debate – and probably it can only be conjecture.
Disclosure:
am a prospective councillor candidate
Highgate Ward | Liberal Democrat Party
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I believe the difference is -
Rebut - to claim something is wrong
Refute - to prove that something is wrong
No doubt someone will be along to refute my statement
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As I wrote, Clive knows the different aspects of this discussion. He simply refuses to accept the possibility he may actually be wrong.
Sometimes such obstinacy is very valuable and we end up praising someone as determined, steadfast and true to their principles. In Clive's case his relentless belief in the wrongdoing of Charles Adje over the Firoka and Alexandra Palace scandal led to the truth about this being tested in public. And Cllr Adje being temporarily suspended from the Council and Haringey Labour Group. (In my view it should have been permanent. But that's another story.)
In that case, the extensive documentation was published. It was possible to compare - triangulate if you like - different things written at different times and to hear Cllr Adje's and other people's versions of the events.
In this case - the parking fine "target" emails - Clive Carter chooses to focus almost entirely on his own interpretation of the leaked documents - as relayed to the Ham & High newspaper.
He now gives us a link to the reply from Haringey on WhatDoTheyKnow website. On which he added his own annotation setting out the leaked documents; plus the link to the Ham & High newspaper article, broadly reproducing his own view.
The Ham & High also quoted Haringey LibDem opposition Leader Richard Wilson, saying (in May 2013) that it was: “disgraceful” traffic wardens were expected to meet targets". In other words, repeating the same allegation made in 2008/10. (Incidentally, Jerry who dropped this story into a discussion thread about something completely different, also thought it was "disgraceful".)
Like most people I realise truth is many-sided. That its interpretation depends on where people stand; how much of the whole picture they see; and the way they choose to put things together.
But I think that we have a responsibility at least to try to establish what is accurate and factual among different partially supported assertions, dubious claims and spurious PR.
For years Clive Carter poked fun at Haringey People magazine, calling it Haringey Pravda. I said this was unfair. Not because I was a Labour councillor parroting the Party line, but because I thought it was unfair. More recently I've felt a lot more sympathy with Clive's critique. Not so much about Haringey People, but the uncritical way Haringey's publicity machine now seems to echo the political slant of the Labour leadership.
But, frankly, having alternative LibDem Pravda propaganda is really no better. As Leo Tolstoy once famously said on a different issue: "There is as much difference between cat-shit and dog-shit. But I don’t like the smell of either one or the other.”
I put more trust in the Which? organisation to tell me the facts about a product, than all the glossy brochures written by advertising agencies. And I have the same feelings about Party politics. I distrust the hucksters and the snake oil salespeople.
I do trust some people from my own party and in Haringey LibDems who are still interested in trying to find out the truth of what happens. Rather than "selling" their own "narrative".
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor 1998-2014)
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poked fun at Haringey People magazine, calling it Haringey Pravda.
I heard that the crack investigative reporters on this famous journal of record were to do a cover story on the roundabout traffic re-engineering. However, the story is well covered in today's Ham & High, including a passing mention in the column of our MP.
Alan, you've been critical of the quality of the humour that I've managed to find in the arrowheads' direction. I admit that some of the Twitter-wits were better and I believe that your own jokes would be better yet if, as you do normally, you were prepared to share them.
However, aren't you a teeny bit jealous that it was Stroud Green that was selected for the Council innovation, rather than say, Hale Road & Monument Way in Tottenham?
Please be honest.
Disclosure:
am a prospective councillor candidate
Highgate Ward | Liberal Democrat Party -
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