Breaking News - ASDA withdraw their planning application in new Barnet

News has just reached me that ASDA have withdrawn their planning application for New Barnet. More soon.

Residents' surveys

Over the last few months I have been spending quite a lot of time on the doorstep. My colleagues and I have been distributing resident’s surveys in order to find out what the priorities are for the people in our wards. In High Barnet we have now distributed around 1000 survey forms.

On Saturday we were out again. I like doing surveys as they help ground what we do in the reality of what people are really concerned about. People generally like to be asked their opinions and are happy to complete the survey. The results of the surveys are compiled and used to target specific issues such as speeding in certain roads. Everyone who completes a survey (and gives us their address) is written to with a detailed breakdown of the results so that they know what their neighbourhood is concerned about.

Sheltered housing warden cuts scrape through

Last night was the first meeting of the new Business Management Overview and Scrutiny sub Committee. Cllr Jack Cohen is the Lib Dem representative on the committee and I went along to watch as he had called in the decision to scrap the site based Sheltered housing warden service. The first meeting was not an auspicious occasion. Jack has a very calm analytical method of questioning both officers and cabinet members and it soon became clear that there were big holes in the proposals to cut the wardens.

First up was the admission that no cabinet member had been to visit a sheltered housing scheme as part of the consultation process. The reason? – too upsetting. Basically it was clear that if Cllr Cornelius (the cabinet member responsible) had gone then the emotions evoked by some very upset and angry residents might have swayed his decision. Never mind the poor staff from Barnet who were sent to defend the indefensible. I know for a fact that many of them found the experience traumatic. I’m reminded of Cllr Brian Salinger the previous leader of the Council before the coup. I disagreed with him on many things but I am sure that he would have gone and presented his case to the residents.

Then we moved onto the future provision. Jack asked how many people in there own homes would be helped by the new arrangements. After all this is one of the justifications for doing it. Answer – We don’t know. Well if they don’t know then how are they going to manage it? There will have to be a budget. Will they start turning people away when the budget is spent? The inability of the cabinet member to produce a clear business case for his proposals was frankly shocking. We are putting all these vulnerable people through hell and we are not even sure of the benefits of doing so!

And then came the vote. The Tory councillors all voted against apart from Cllr Scannell who abstained. The Chairman Cllr Prentice used her casting vote to push the measure through.

It was clearly wrong to start this whole affair as part of the budget setting process. If we were going to look at Sheltered housing provision then it should have been a piece of work done ahead of the decision (not after it). There needs to be a robust needs analysis and a real consultation so that any conclusions are based on evidence and not simply the desire to find budget cuts.

New Facebook links

Facebook have introduced the ability to have a much simpler link rather that the usual long chain of numbers in a link. You can now get to my profile like this.

http://www.facebook.com/duncan.macdonald

You can register to change your facebook url at www.facebook.com/username/

Polly Toynbee interviews Nick Clegg

It's well worth watching this interview with Nick Clegg.

A night of two halves

Last night was certainly a night of two halves for me. Up first was the rally against the cuts to the on site sheltered housing wardens. When I arrived at Barnet House a noisy demonstration was in progress. I had been asked to speak on behalf of the Lib Dem group at the rally. I spoke about our opposition to these cuts. They are mean spirited and just plain wrong. The proposal before the cabinet meeting was a kludge designed to show that the consultation process had had some effect. The problem is that the kludge didn’t restore the site based wardens just the alarm systems.

After speaking I was standing in the crowd when I spotted a couple from a sheltered housing scheme in my ward. I went over to speak to them. It turned out that they were life long Tory voters until they moved to Barnet. Their disgust at the way the Conservatives run Barnet had made them vow never again.

At 7pm we all trooped up to listen to the cabinet meeting. There were so many people there that the meeting room was full as was two similar sized overflow rooms. It was clear from the start that the decision had already been made well before the meeting. The tabled questions were brushed aside with a level of rudeness and arrogance that shocked the audience. I can see why Barnet don’t record their meetings. If the tapes of this one got out the Tories would be staring into the abyss.

I had to leave before the decision was made as I needed to make it to part 2 of my evening. Part 2 was the Hadley Residents Association. A more polite and genial group of people it would be hard to find. The association has been active for 49 years and does a sterling job of keeping an eye on their beautiful surroundings. Even they have their problems with the Council. They produced a letter of issues that that had been raised over the last two years that the Council had not responded on until it was escalated to the leader of the Council!

The two Tory Councillors in High Barnet were also present. As I chatted to them just before the meeting started I told them where I had been earlier. They both intimated that they were not keen on the decision but that it was all the fault of the cabinet and nothing to do with them. Strangely enough when the issue was voted on I don’t remember them voting against the cuts.

Victorian pasttimes in Ravenscroft Park

One of the things I really enjoy about being a local Councillor is the opportunity to make things happen that enhance the community. One of these things is to get people involved in caring for and having a say in their local parks and green spaces. One way of doing this is to form friends of parks groups.

I have started two in High Barnet ward. The first was the Friends of Highlands Gardens which help care for a very special little park hidden away in New Barnet with an amazing water feature. The other friends group I have set up looks after Ravenscroft Gardens. This park is far more prominent but probably equally unknown beyond the few surrounding streets.

The first event that the friends have held in the park was a Victorian past times day. This was held lask Sunday and we were blessed with glorious weather. We had arranged a number of events including a dog show and a tug of war competition as well as various traditional stalls and entertainment courtesy of the Barnet Band and a great Saxophone group.

The number of people who came along exceeded all expectations. The police estimated that we had 1000 people in the park. There were a couple of hundred watching the dog show alone. The really satisfying part was the number of people who came up to me and said that they could not recall anything similar happening before and how they really hoped we would do it again next year and also how wonderful the atmosphere was in the park. There were people of all ages enjoying themselves and a complete lack of commercialisation enhanced the feeling of a real community event.

It was a lot of fun to organise and there were lots of people involved to who did alot of work, but I think it is safe to say that we all had a really great time and the other benefit is that we made around £1000 which will be re-invested in the park and future events.

And yes the photo is me sweltering in the heat in Victorian costume.