New PG Ward Forum meets for the first time

At the first Ward Forum for the reconfigured Palmers Green ward, held on 31st January at the Ruth Winston Centre, local residents were introduced to their two new councillors and raised a large number of issues of concern. But the meeting also agreed to look to develop positive ideas for the ward.

Calm and friendly

The two councillors representing Palmers Green are Doug Taylor, a veteran councillor and former council leader and before that leader of the opposition, and Chris James, serving on the council for the first time. From the outset they established a calm and friendly atmosphere, which continued throughout the meeting and was something commented on in the PGC forums by Karl Brown, who asked Where has all the anger gone?

Nia Stevens, a new councillor in a new ward - Highfield, attended part of the meeting and reported that action had been taken against a drug dealer in Arnold Gardens.

A core agenda

As this was in effect an inaugural meeting of a new forum, a huge number of issues were raised either during the meeting or had been previously with the councillors via email or in person. As reported by Karl Brown in the forums, it was agreed that future meetings there will be a core agenda based around:

• Broomfield Park
• The shopping area
• Police and crime

Rather than focussing exclusively on problems, future meetings will also look for ideas which may contribute towards a better PG, so as to be "oven-ready" if and when future investment opportunities arise, as well as providing a window to highlight PG’s good news.

Many issues raised

Some very brief notes:

• Lack of parking enforcement, in particular parking on pavements near the Triangle and on double yellows at the junction of Park Avenue and Green Lanes. The advice is to phone 020 8379 6406. Sending photographs of illegally parked cars is no use, the legal situation is that offenders have to be caught on the spot by parking enforcement officers or the police.
• Aksular restaurant: The building ought to be properly boarded up, but the council can't force the owners to do so unless it is classified as a dangerous structure
• Motorcycle couriers outside McDonalds causing a hazard on the pavement: an app is used to allocate delivery jobs to individual riders - whoever's nearest to the restaurant gets the job
• Motorcycle couriers riding on the pavement over the Fox Lane bridge: Because motorbikes only have number plates at the back, couriers can ride in one direction on the road without being detected, but in the other direction they ride on the pavement to avoid detection
• The councillors agreed to investigate the possibility of widening the eligibility criteria to allow more carers to drive past filters in the Fox Lane LTN
• Shoplifting is a major problem
• Break-ins: criminals have been using power saws and grinders to break into shops
• There was an armed robbery (involving a knife) at the CEX shop
• Beggars at the Triangle and elsewhere appear to be organised and may be victims of a modern slavery gang
• Lack of police visibility: Doug revealed that police were around more than people appreciated, in unmarked cars
• Theft of vehicles increasing: Doug said that rather than being sold on, stolen cars were being cannibalised for spares and it was thus very difficult for the police to track stolen vehicles
• Blatant drug dealing in Riverway outside the children's centre and in Lodge Drive
• "Career criminals" stealing from the Philanthropy charity shop
• Hazelwood School Street had been delayed waiting for the cameras, which have now been installed.
• Broomfield Park
  
  • The council will be launching a consultation about how to "memorialise" Broomfield House (both the building and people's memories of it). This will be a five-year project involved Lottery funding
  • Boating pond: repairs to the water supply and to the base of the pond will be very expensive.
  • Wild swimming - the initiative seems to have fizzled out. Providing adequate water quality would be very challenging.
  • Crazy golf in operation only very infrequently, but it seems that the owner may have a licence for it in perpetuity
• Karl Brown will be chairing the new PG Ward Panel aka CAPE. Representatives of streets and businesses are required.
• Also mentioned:
• • cost of living
  • council tax
  • licensing issues in Green Lanes and Aldermans Hill
  • park bylaws
  • rubbish dumping in back alleys
  • compacted leaf sludge on pavements and blocking drains
  • the clock at the Triangle showing the wrong time
  • broken wands protecting the cycle lanes
  • insufficient enforcement of parking restrictions
  • e-scooters
  • people using cycle lanes travelling too fast
  • large empty shops not being let out because of lack of loading bays in Green Lanes
  • dropped cigarette butts.