Current Affairs Winter 2009 update
Our members will have seen our first "proper" Bulletin since 2006/2007. Many thanks to our Chairman Bob Cook who edited it.
Are you a member but haven’t had your copy? Tell us on the email address below.
HRA Committee news
James Bond is (as required by our constitution) stepping down as committee member and Vice-Chairman to contest the next Council elections as independent candidate for Headstone North. He has already shown himself to be popular in the community and remarkably good at fund-raising. We wish him every success in his campaign and at the elections.
A warm welcome to Prakash Raja as our acting Vice-Chairman.
We have heard no news yet about the refused planning application for the North Harrow Assembly Halls site (P/2376/08), which the HRA opposes. The applicant, Battlers Well Foundation, has until late January to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
We noticed that the recycling bins in the Cambridge Road car park (near North Harrow station) disappeared some weeks ago. Despite repeated enquiries, Harrow Council’s telephone helpline and One Stop Shop staff were unable to explain why. When the car park railings also vanished, we (eventually) discovered that the car park will be used for materials storage for the North Harrow rail embankment stabilisation works..
While we have found council staff generally helpful, they seem quite unable actively to investigate enquiries from the public. If the answer’s not on the computer, they can’t find it out!
In our experience, general email enquiries made via the council website don’t even receive an acknowledgement, let alone a reply. We recently tried to compile a list of publicly available planning documents but found the website itself to be unwieldy and disorganised; a mass of statements, core documents, options, plans, consultation documents, appraisals and so forth, from which it's hard to pick out (or even recognise) what you're after. Links too often lead to the wrong document, or to an empty page or round in a circle.
Harrow’s Community Street Champions (Neighbourhood Champions) scheme, agreed by the council cabinet on 12th November, has had a poor reception in the press. In our experience, residents don’t need to be “encouraged to take responsibility” (in the council’s words) for reporting litter and graffiti. What they want is a prompt and proper response from the existing service. This, we believe, is where the council should direct its energies and its budget.
What do you think of the Street Champions Scheme? What are your experiences of using the council helpline, the One Stop Shop or the website?
Let us know your views on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
