Notes from 7th Jan Bowes, Southgate & Southgate Green Forum

Attending were all the usual suspects, including our friend local councillor Terry Smith, with Edward Smith presiding as Chairman and what a smooth operator he is too.

First up was the North Circular road extension, which while not relevant to us directly is nevertheless revealing in highlighting the impotence of local councils in the face of central decision-making. The council wants to widen it. Ken says no money is available. Stalemate.

Broomfield house is another perfect example, where Enfield Council are reduced to praying that we would win a TV restoration competition to get the required funds. We didn’t and so Broomfield is left to continue its steady decay.

With regards to the Walker Cricket Ground planning application, apparently no plans have been submitted so the Council has not had the opportunity to say “no way in hell” as yet. Why the plans have not been submitted is another question entirely that was not addressed. This story still has legs.

A member of the audience raised the issue of cars using the bus lane around the tube station as a shortcut into Chase Side, which at best alarms pedestrians who aren’t expecting a 4x4 to come hurtling at them as they cross the lane to reach a bus and at worst has the potential for something a lot more serious.

A person from London Underground marketing department who acted like a startled rabbit caught in the gaze of a disbelieving crowd, assured everyone that this was of equal concern to the LU, which was why CCTV was in operation there and they would continue to liase with the Police. This is when the conversation got interesting as it was pointed out that no CCTV’s were actually there. The blame was then switched to the Police who quickly batted the issue back to the LU claiming they were in favour of CCTV’s but the LU refused to place them on nearby buildings. The issue finally was parked at the door of the Heritage association who apparently were upset about CCTV cameras being installed on the buildings. Having established who to blame everyone seemed quite satisfied until they realised that the original question had not been answered. Mr E.Smith therefore stepped in and assured everyone he would “look into it”.

A member of the Police stepped up to talk us through the recent campaign they had “secretly” been performing in our area. Over a three-month period they had drafted in a significant number of beat police with the remit to stop anyone that looked suspicious, particularly targeting Southgate College. In the first three days of the operation they stopped 500 people and made 15 arrests. This steadily petered out, which could either be a result of a sea change in attitude amongst the criminal fraternity or the realisation that it was probably better to lie low for a while, only time will tell. An equivalent operation was also successfully concluded around Arnos Grove.

The issue of course is that just as we are getting used to the surprising and welcoming site of bobbies on the beat the operation ends and we revert back to the distant wailing of police sirens as the nearest sign of a police presence in our area. In my opinion we need a greater presence on our streets, be they police, volunteers, traffic police or security guards, we need a zero tolerance attitude to crime and a more creative approach to punishment, such as the graffiti artist being forced to clean his work and guard it from other wannabe artists. I would be very interested to hear people’s views on this.

Next up was a speech from the prospective local Tory candidate Winchmore Hill councillor David Burrowes concerning the forthcoming new central library to be placed in the heart of Enfield Town and very spiffy it looked to. We even get a museum of local history, which I am trying really hard to get excited about.

The important point promised however was that the creation of this new library does not endanger local libraries in any way and in fact is regarded as complimenting local services. This point was raised and confirmed on a number of occasions so it looks like our local library is safe.

The one dark cloud is that the research section currently tucked away in the Palmers Green library (and apparently hidden from view) will be switched to the new library. And the cost of this shiny new library? A cool £5.8M, but don’t tell any Broomfield house lobbyists as its cruel to deliberately upset people.

This brings us to the next subject which was proposed Council budget for the next financial year. The Chief Financial Director presented this, once he had managed to get into the locked building by throwing stones at the window to grab our attention; a perfect demonstration of council organisational efficiency if ever I saw one.

Anyway the bottom line is that he hasn’t got enough money and what he has got he has sliced and diced as best he can to ensure we do not slide into 3rd world status but instead tread water comfortably in a sea of mediocrity for the next year.

He also launched a succinct tirade on the Council tax structure, warning us that houses are due to be re-valued in 2007 and in the absence of any structural change of the tax we will all be financially crippled at that time. He feels the tax is regressive, unfair, arbitrary and biased towards supporting the North at the expense of the South and who am I to disagree? Having Enfield re-defined as being part of East London has also not helped matters as this change also resulted in a loss of grants to the Borough.

What to replace the Council tax with though is an ongoing discussion and I note that since this meeting I have seen a number of press reports that indicates the political parties are waking up to this time bomb. A local income tax is one option gaining ground, switching the tax from the property to the person, who pays more or less dependent on his income. Is that a poll tax I see before me, dressed up all nice and shiny?

We shall see, the bottom line is that surely it is unfair for a family on modest income to be crippled with a whacking great council tax bill purely because the housing market has taken leave of its senses and decided to value their house at a squillion pounds.

They can’t enjoy this lottery windfall without losing the roof over their heads so the value is completely ephemeral to them, unlike the council tax bill that lands with a thud on their threadbare doormat. I think we shall see and hear a lot more of this subject as the months slips by.

Thats all for now folks.