News, comment and features

In response to a flood of tweets from angry and frustrated rail passengers, Enfield Southgate MP Bambos Charalambous has written to the managing director of Govia Thameslink Railway to complain about the continuing high incidence of cancellations due to driver unavailability on routes serving stations in his constituency.

Winchmore Hill police have tweeted a warning about two-person teams robbing people on buses.

In the last few days both the Mayor of London and Enfield Council have published new strategy documents relating to tackling problems with the availability and affordability of housing within their respective geographical areas of responsibility. The Mayor has published a 'blueprint report' which sets out his vision for reforming London's private rented sector. Enfield Council is bundling together two draft strategies for consultation under the overall titleThe right home for everyone - a draft Strategy for Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping and a draft Strategy for Housing and Growth.

Last week Broomfield Park announced that it had been nominated for the UK's Best Park competition and encouraged Palmers Green residents to vote for it. However, there is another green space in the vicinity of Palmers Green that you should also continue supporting in this competition: Woodcroft Wildspace, the lovely nature reserve which lies between Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill.

The crowdfunding project aimed at bringing back 'wild swimming' to a lake in Broomfield Park this week hit the headlines both regionally (Metro and Time Out) and nationally - it had the dubious honour of a headline in the Sun.

Southgate District Civic Trust have reported that a pub in the Southgate Circus conservation area has been demolished without planning permission having been obtained.

Nominations are in for Fields in Trust's annual UK's Best Park competition, and Broomfield Park is among those that have been nominated.

The text of the presentation given by Liz Robinson of the Palmers Green Action Team at last Saturday's town centre meeting in the former Starbucks building.

A low-traffic neighbourhood scheme would remove through traffic from the neighbourhood's streets, which raises the question: Will the traffic that now drives through the neighbourhood just be displaced onto main roads, causing more congestion? In this article, originally published on the London Living Streets website, the campaign group's vice-chair, Emma Griffin, sets out the evidence, collected over several years, which suggests that these fears are overblown..

Readers will be aware that Enfield Council no longer allows plastic bags in its recycling wheelie bins (with blue lids), but may not know that many kinds of plastic bags, including carrier bags, can be recycled at Morrisons in Palmers Green and Sainsburys in Green Lanes, Winchmore Hill.

Parents are petitioning Enfield Council and the Department for Education in a bid to persuade the council to reverse its decision to instruct Bowes Primary School to cease taking any further reception pupils at its Wilmer Way site (Bowes School Southgate Green) following the September 2019 cohort.

Enfield Council is to join a growing list of local authorities across the UK which have made formal declarations of a Climate Emergency. The declaration, set to be endorsed by the full council on 10th July, commits the council to becoming carbon-neutral by 2030, to stop investing in fossil fuel companies, and to maximise use of environmentally friendly products.