The winter of our discontent, or: another load of old rubbish, from Barnet Tories

Tory councillors on New Year's Day

Let us return to happier days, to last September, at the end of a seemingly never ending summer made all the more glorious, for our Tory councillors, by the absence of meetings and council business: a welcome respite from the intensity of focus on their fiscal incompetence - the whopping budget deficit, the failure of the Capita contracts: the massive fraud by a Capita manager, oh - and the incomprehensibly generous loan to Saracens rugby club of £22 million of tax payers' money ... 

How glad they were, in July, when it was time to pack their buckets and spades, or flee to the genteel solitude of their second homes in the Dordogne. 

But there is always an end to summer, and a return to school: a return to grim reality.

Grim reality, for Tory Leader Richard Cornelius, meant kicking off the new term with a tedious duty: a nonsultation event, a one man show, for one night only, doing stand up at the Old Bull theatre, in High Barnet. 

Not many laughs, in the subject of setting a budget: but obligatory. And what was the Dear Leader's main concern, as a priority of council spending, you may ask? 

Was it perhaps to support the most needy and vulnerable residents of Broken Barnet? No. Was it to improve the provision of housing for those in need of a home? Nope. Safeguard social care for disabled residents? No. 

Tory members see none of these problems, in our borough. As reported then:


Inside the theatre, another Richard stood waiting on the tiny stage, about to give a soliloquy not on our glorious summer, or the looming winter of discontent, but to expand upon a vision of life as it never is and never can be, in Broken Barnet, where everything, as he put it, is Nice, or at least, parts of it are Nice, and in defence of which he intends to make sure the Nice parts remain Nice.

Yes: to Barnet Tories, the only bits of Barnet which matter are the areas where, you know, their sort of people live: Totteridge, Hampstead Garden Suburb: Nice places, safe within the embrace of the Green Belt, or guarded by conservation law: the sort of restrictions which are irritating obstruction to development and profit, anywhere else but the areas where they choose to reside. 

Areas which are staunchly loyal Tory wards, and prioritised, as generally Tory wards are, as we have seen from FOI disclosures, and an independent investigation, for largesse from the Highways funds, in order to ... make sure they remain ... Nice.

Oh dear. 

Oh dear, because Mrs Angry, as you will have read, and with her usual clairvoyant powers, predicted this winter would be, as it has become, a winter of discontent: and here it is:

All over the borough, there is now an accumulation of uncollected rubbish: wheelie bins left unemptied, bin bags left in the streets, an epidemic of fly tipping ignored, residents struggling to cope with what is, without any doubt, a total failure in management of a vital public service. 

The council's own twitter account can barely cope with the number of complaints from those whose bins have yet again been left uncollected: the timeline is ahem - littered - with furious comments from residents across the borough. Here is one from an estate in Colney Hatch:

As Labour councillor Sara Conway reported: 

The story has now been featured on BBC news:

             
 
You will note that Tory Leader Councillor Richard Cornelius, as usual, when being filmed against a backdrop of social housing, sports a casually tied silk cravat, as a sort of 'up yours' gesture - or perhaps or like a 17th century dandy clutching a nosegay to ward off the Plague, here a talisman against the risk of infectious poverty, from one of those places that are - sharp of intake of breath - not quite as Nice as Totteridge, or Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Richard doesn't think the rubbish crisis is a 'disaster'. In fact he implies the most recent unpleasantness is only due to problems over Christmas, and New Year, due to workers insisting on having time off, to be with their families, or from sickness, that sort of nuisance.

The truth, of course, is that the fault is entirely his, and that of his fellow Tory councillors, and let us not forget the lead member for Environment, Cllr Dean Cohen, who seems curiously quiet, at the moment. Is he in hiding?

The service has been in meltdown for weeks, way before Christmas, for one reason only.

That reason is their decision to cut the service.

Due to their financial blundering, and despite trying to plug the gap in the budget by robbing council reserves, it has become necessary - or so they claim - to make even more drastic savings. 

They convinced themselves they could make £750,000 by cutting down on the number of days spent on collecting waste, and cutting out the collection of food waste - despite the environmental impact of such a retrograde step. To get round objections from the Mayor of London (the man all Barnet Tory members voted to label, in a motion that was excruciatingly shabby, even by Barnet Tory standards, an 'Enemy of the People') - they are now pretending that the measure is 'only temporary'. 

In the meanwhile, Barnet Tory Easynomics dictates that it is possible to collect the same amount of rubbish in a shorter amount of time, with fewer staff, so that is what they proposed.

Oh, except of course - it seems that doesn't work, after all.

Hence the total collapse of any pretence of efficiency in the delivery of this service.

And no - it isn't the workers' fault. They are not being lazy, or messing about: they simply cannot do the work in the shorter time allowed. It is physically impossible. 

At first it didn't seem to matter. Tory members tried shrugging it off. Christmas came and went: they carried on as usual, prancing about, doing what they do best, as seen on New Year's Day:

Alice in Tory Blunderland: new boy councillor Felix, in a lovely crown, and David "Mad Hatter' Longstaff

As you will observe, most of the worst areas, purely by chance, are in Labour wards: the poorer areas, where there are more flats, more estate buildings, more accommodation close to shops. 

So what if these areas are left as dumping grounds, literally, rather than, more typically, in a metaphorical sense?

So what, if the complete collapse of the clinical waste collection left Barnet residents with disabled or ill family members unable to see the back of weeks of bagged up incontinence pads, told, against all H&S guidelines, to dump them in the wheelie bins that were not being collected, offering all sorts of risk to householders and workers? 

Before Christmas, Labour members who complained about this were told by senior officers and the Leader that the service had resumed. This was not true. Only a couple of days ago was the collection of weeks of this resident's clinical waste taken away.

Oh. But then. The worst happened. 

People in Tory wards began to be upset. Oh no! 

Their bins were not collected on the allotted day: outrageous! 

Their bins were not collected the next week, either: simply unbelievable! 

Tory MPs were written to. 

Tory MPs had to juggle the impossible demand now: seem to be sympathetic, without criticising their chums on the council, whose ideology is their ideology: nice homes for nice people, and to hell with the rest. 

In three marginal constituencies, poised as we are at any moment on the brink of a snap election - what could be a more untimely reminder of reasons not to vote for any Tory political representative?

Because: oh dear me, yes: do you remember the last council election? Last May? What was it that our Tory friends decided to run as their main manifesto policy? Try and think ...

Ah.

Yep. Couldn't mention the impending exposure of the budget deficit, or the Capita contract failure, or the fraud, so: look, look over there! Let's have a game of #angryaboutbins (© Mrs Angry); the favourite dodge of any Tory candidate with nothing else on offer. 

Easy to scare Tory voters with the awful thought that rubbish won't be collected. The very idea! So here in Broken Barnet, our scheming Tory members, desperate for distraction from their own ineptitude, decided to smear Labour by inventing a threat that was simply untrue: that if elected, they would mess with the regular collection arrangments. Ha.

That went well, didn't it, Tory councillors? Hoist by your own f*cking petard ... 

As soon as the election was over, the true state of the council's fiscal peril was revealed. 

Figures were 'readjusted' - but no explanation was ever given as to why a mistake had so badly underestimated the deficit, pre-election, and no one lost their job, or resigned, of course, even when the disclosure of the Capita manager's fraud exposed an entire network of council processes left with virtually no effective financial controls in place.

The next step we should have expected. Having centred their manifesto on the grim warning of rubbish mountains created by wicked Labour, wicked Tories created one of their own. 

But the cost of this folly is in line with the rest of their nonsensical financial policies, as seen in the mythical Capita 'savings'. 

In order to begin to address the accumulation of rubbish around the borough, the council has been forced to SPEND barrow loads of cash: estimated at £15-20,000 a week on overtime, extra staff etc. 

You can work out for yourselves how quickly the 'savings' promised from the cuts in service will be outdone by expenditure on fixing the damage. Easynomics, once more.

In the meanwhile, the landscape of Broken Barnet lurches into eternal winter: yes, a winter of discontent, erupting in a plague of festering rubbish, attended by rats, scavenging foxes, and a burgeoning sense of doom.

Happy New Year

Once upon a time in West Hendon: or - Mrs Angry's guide to social cleansing, Barnet Tory style

Labour councillors canvassing in Tyrrel Way, with the new Barratt Homes development in the background.

At the last general election, many Tory candidates used a carefully crafted template of phrases to create their electoral literature. One favourite phrase of 2010, you might recall, was a boast that your Conservative candidate had strong feelings of sympathy for 'the great ignored'. 

Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer was rather keen on this line of approach, and so was our now deputy leader here in Barnet, Daniel Thomas, standing, rather forlornly, in Neil Kinnock's old seat of Islwyn.  Thomas was also concerned, incidentally, about setting a limit on immigration, which he said had got 'out of control' (in South Wales?), and promised that a Tory government would make sure that 7 out of 10 people would be better off. That went well, Councillor Thomas, didn't it?

The 'great ignored', though, in Broken Barnet: who are they? I think you know, don't you, if you have been reading this blog? By Tory definition, they are the silent but disproportionately influential minority, the comfortably off residents, whom Richard Cornelius and his friends imagine will be thrilled at the pre-election 'gesture' of a 23 pence a week cut in council tax. They are the people he really cares about, who must be protected from the terrifying prospect of a fair level of council tax, according to their means, regardless of their ability to pay, even if they live in the deserted mansions of Bishops Avenue, or, he, feared, their lives would be 'ruined'.

Well, then. Come with Mrs Angry now, and see the people who really are the 'great ignored', in our borough: the less privileged residents, who live in some of the worst areas of social deprivation, abandoned, forgotten, and about to be unceremonioulsy moved on, to who knows where, representing, as they do, an obstruction to the gentrification and gerrymandering development of West Hendon.

Yes: this is Broken Barnet, remember? We don't want poor people here, as Tom Davey, the Tory member responsible for housing, reminded us at the full council meeting last week: we want only 'well off' people. 

In West Hendon, he hopes for a resettlement of Russian oligarchs, in the new Barratt homes development, overlooking the Welsh Harp. This is because the young Councillor Davey has firm views on the undeserving poor. We do not want people here who are too dependent on council services. And in Broken Barnet, everything has a material value, and only wealthy people should be allowed access to a view of such rare beauty, in the midst of an otherwise urban landscape, access paid for by virtue of the price of a penthouse flat, and not seen through the rotting window frame of a home in a forgotten estate that is part of a social housing scheme.

Mrs Angry has been out canvassing a couple of times in the last week in this area of West Hendon, right on the edge of the Welsh Harp reservoir, in Tyrrell Way and Marsh Drive, an area of social housing run by 'Barnet Homes', the council's ALMO, with a mixture of tenants and private leaseholders, a scandalously neglected estate, due for demolition at some point in the very near future, while the residents' lives are left on hold.

Councillor Julie Johnson, standing down at the election, and new candidate Dr Devra Kay

At the last election this Labour stronghold returned three councillors: Julie Johnson, Agnes Slocombe, and Ansuya Sodha. Ah, Ansuya Sodha.

Mrs Sodha was not selected to stand this time, competing as she was with a particularly strong panel of new candidates, and now she has rather peculiarly decided that in order to try to retain a position as councillor, she must defect to the Tories, who promised to nominate her if she switched sides (being rather embarrassingly short of real Tory candidates in the Hendon constituency ....) 

After fifteen years as a Labour councillor, castigating the Tory government, describing them as a bunch of spoilt Etonians, (yes, Cllr Sodha, you really should have removed those embarrassing tweets rather sooner than you did) and castigating local Conservatives in Barnet for the iniquitous effects of the bedroom tax on the residents of West Hendon , she has now thrown in her lot with her former opponents, the same crowing councillors who used to laugh at her every time she spoke in the chamber.

Good luck to her - and good riddance, says Mrs Angry.

The new candidates, Devra Kay and Adam Langleben will make  outstandingly good representives for West Hendon, and are extremely bright, hardworking, compassionate. and deeply committed to the principles of social justice, following in the example of Agnes Slocombe, the formidable, long serving councillor, and her colleague Julie Johnson, who is standing down. 

Watching Julie in action on the doorstepping trail is something of a humbling experience, in truth. She really does know every one, and who lives where, and every one we passed seemed to know her, greeting her warmly. Her detailed knowledge of her constituents, and their particular circumstances, was quite extraordinary. 

Most residents, it must be said, were out at work, thus proving the lie to Tory prejudices about tenants in social housing being lazy scroungers who make no contribution to society: most in receipt of benefit being in work, and struggling on low wages is of no interest to someone like Tom Davey who likes to consider his own employment for a tobacco company as somehow morally superior to those who eke out a living on the margins of Broken Barnet, and who dare to rely on the support of council services.

Our Tory councillors' views on the undeserving poor and this is no simplification of the way in which they view such residents - means that  Barnet's housing policy is deliberately directed in order to punish those who they feel are not worthy of their approval. Like the English plantation of Ireland, with Protestant settlers being granted lands and rights over the native Irish people, in order to correct their moral failings, their tendency to rebellion and heretic faith, Conservative social engineering in this borough is transforming the landscape, both literally and symbolically.


People in Tyrrel Way and Marsh Drive are living, through no fault of their own, in often pretty squalid conditions, in buildings where the very fabric of the structure is breaking down, or subject to damp, or flooding, or infestation  by rats - and in some cases still harbouring asbestos. It is as a result of years of uncertainty and neglect and lack of investment by Barnet's housing service.

One of the many rat traps lying about the estate, in areas where children play

The whole estate is clearly in urgent need of maintenance: peeling paint, rotting woodwork, including firedoors, evidence of persistent damp: this is prevalent throughout the blocks of flats: 

The effect of living in such an environment is hard to escape: dehumanising, a constant challenge. 

Many of the tenants have small children, and it is worrying to think of the impact on their health and well being. 

One tenant we spoke to has an eight year old child, has lived on the estate for many years, and is still without a secure tenancy. In the meanwhile, her flat was blighted by damp from constant leaks, and when asbestos was moved from a neighbouring flat, she says she was left unprotected and at risk of exposure. 

She had tried to interest her local Tory MP, Matthew Offord, in her plight, and he said he would help, but ... nothing happened. She wanted to know if we knew why the little garden she had made at the back of her flat had just been ripped up by council workmen. We guessed it was to do with the new development: she was very upset. Her daughter will now have to cross over to the other side of the Welsh Harp to find a green space in which to play: this side is earmarked for those who can afford to pay fro the privilege.

Many tenants here are in the same dilemma: the council does not want too many secure tenants, and to be weighed down with the responsibilities that might bring. So children are growing up in these flats, with no security, no assurance that they will be able to continue their education at the same schools, or even remain in their own homes. That will be decided on the suitable timing for redevelopment. 

It's called regeneration, but in Barnet, that is no promise of new life for a community, only a promise of social cleansing, and making way for a better class of resident. Gerrymandering, in effect, moving the poor Labour voters out of the borough,  and welcoming in the middle classes, who may just still be stupid enough to vote Tory.

The new Welsh Harp development, so warmly supported by our Tory council, along with its 29 floor storey blocks, is now underway, despite protests from campaigners objecting to the impact on a site of such ecological sensitivity. 

There will be limited provision for a few lucky secure tenants - but from further afield, and decanted into the rather less well placed, Edgware Road side of the development. None of the tenants in Tyrrel Way or Marsh Drive will be able to move there. They have no idea if they will even be allowed to stay in the borough.

In the meanwhile, therefore, those living on the estate remain in uncertainty, and rapidly deteriorating conditions, while a Berlin Wall separates them from the luxurious new homes being built on the other side. 'Hendon Waterside', it is called: look and admire , and try not to laugh at the sales pitch, encouraging would be buyers to think they will be socialising in Hampstead and Belsize Park, rather than walking home past possibly one of the most depressed areas in the borough, marked by the terminal decline of this part of the Edgware Road.

On the other side of the divide: an exciting new Barratt Homes development: exciting, if you can afford to live there, and backed, as it says, by Mayor for (carefully chosen parts of) London

Several tenants we saw spoke of the difficulty in getting Barnet Homes to deal with problems, and for those residents who are not tenants, but leaseholders, there is an even more pressing concern.

Despite the fact that Tyrrel Way and Marsh Drive are due for demolition, as reported

here in the local Times, Barnet Homes have sent residents each a bill for a staggering £10,000 for 'renovations', even though their homes are under a compulsory purchase order, and they could be continuing to pay off these demands long after the buildings have been bulldozed. 

Much of the work for which this money is being demanded is for dealing with matters such as asbestos removal, and electrical improvements, which should have been carried out by the landlords years ago: it really is nothing short of outrageous to try to extort this money from residents now, and at a point where they have such a short time remaining in their homes.

Just before leaving the estate, Councillor Julie Johnson took us into the Hanuman centre, to meet members of the Tamil community who worship there. Slipping off our shoes, we went inside the unprepossessing building to find the most amazing, surprising sight: a tiny Hindu temple, dedicated to the monkey faced god Hanuman. 

Around the room were several small shrines, lovingly decorated with offerings of fruit and flowers, and accompanied by the flickering light of tiny votive oil lamps - to a sometime Catholic like Mrs Angry, a curiously familiar practice. A woman wandered from shrine to shrine, hands clasped in prayer, and then a bare chested priest, with painted markings on his body chanted in front of Hanuman, the god who is the embodiment of courage, and selfless service.  

It was perhaps after all a fitting place to end the day, and a reminder that those qualities,courage, and selflessness,  in the best of people, who really do care about their community, just might make a difference to the lives who most need their support. 

Will the temple, a spiritual centre, in an awkward spot, right next to the development, survive the 'regeneration' of this area? 

Sadly, Mrs Angry rather doubts that it will. Spiritual regeneration is of no significance in Broken Barnet, when in the way of the pursuit of profit, as we know. But while it remains, and while there are still local residents still in occupation in Tyrrel Way, and Marsh Drive, there is still hope that West Hendon can retain some claim to a diverse community, and not an artifically planted development for wealthy outsiders.

Twenty two minutes and thirty seconds: democracy in action, in Broken Barnet

Shortly before attending last night's Cabinet Resources meeting, Mrs Angry was obliged to make a quick trip to her local branch of Tesco, in order to purchase a crust of bread for her starving offspring to feed on while she left them home alone again (note to safeguarding team, if there is one at the moment, they are 16 and 18, and don't play with matches anymore). By the way, as you can tell, I'm having to pad this post out, due to reasons alluded to in the title, so bear with me.

Imagine the scene, as you may, as Mrs Angry wandered idly through past the bread section, and the air was pierced with a sudden scream of 'RAT! THERE'S AN ENORMOUS RAT!' A woman was pointing at the floor as the monster rodent walked calmly through the dairy section and sauntered into the bakery department. Mrs Angry froze in hysterical girly horror, tempted to drop her basket and run. Eventually a security guard strolled up looking cross and told people to stop screaming. I'll sort it out, yeah, he said.

What are you going to do? asked Mrs Angry, who has no reason to like security guards with attitude, Arrest it?

You don't even know if it lives here, he said, ridiculously, it might have just walked in the front door.

Oh yes, she replied, thinking of the dead flies in the fish section of another supermarket on Tuesday: that's alright then. I expect it got the bus down from Waitrose. (And yes, all reported to Environmental Health, citizens, don't worry).

They say things come in threes, don't they? Flies, rats, and then more rats - cowardly Tory councillors: what a week. Because an hour or so later and Mrs Angry was sat in front of yet another distasteful scene, a council meeting where the members of the Cabinet Resources committee took a mere twenty two and a half minutes to deal with an agenda of 13 items, including the agreement to sell Hendon Football Club - and of course Church Farmhouse Museum.

Lets name and shame our long tailed friends:

Daniel Thomas, the wet behind the ears Chair and deputy leader
Richard Cornelius, Leader
Andrew Harper, demi idol and Cabinet member
Robert Rams, sulky Cabinet member
Sachin Rajput, po faced Cabinet member
Brian Coleman, clown, irritant, and general nusiance: sent his apologies. I'm not sure how sorry he was though, to be honest.

A member of the public, local campaigner Mr Gordon Kerr, had wanted to address the committee in regard to the football club sale. He had been refused permission, and seemed not to understand that by submitting a written question and supplementary question, he could have addressed the members that way, and given them a piece of his mind at the same time. As we know, there is no desire amongst the councillors or senior council officers of Broken Barnet to inform members of the public of their rights to engage in the processes of council meetings. This might lead to dangerous debate, or even opposition of political policy, and we do not allow alternative ways of thinking in Broken Barnet.

Mr Reasonable had submitted questions, and had supplementary ones to follow. With his usual eye for detail, he had spotted an anomalous entry in one of the reports and asked for an explanation. Maryellen Salter, the head of internal audit was asked to respond. She stared unenthusiastically at Mr R and demanded that he repeat the question. One or two councillors hid their faces at this point. He repeated the question, patiently, but was told that he would not be given an answer, because, well, some details should not be in the public domain.

Mr R carried on valiantly. Daniel Thomas, the fresh faced Chair blathered on at one point, citing solmenly as an excuse 'because of what happened at the last Audit meeting' ... which amused Mrs Angry, as he has gone to such great lengths to ignore the magnitude of the MetPro audit findings, dismissing it all as merely confirming his expert opinion that one or two things in relation to contracts needed 'tightening up'. This of course was like saying the Titanic only had a rivet missing as it plunged to the icy depths of the Atlantic, but it seems he is happy now to use this as cover for other One Barnet mischief.

Some discussion (well, a brief exchange) took place on the subject of whether or not Barnet could share its audit service to save costs. Maryellen Salter and Daniel Thomas thought that sharing this service was indeed a good idea, but for some reason, 'the desire to work with us isn't there'.
Mrs Angry laughed: I wonder why, she mused, loudly, to the glaring disapproval of councillors, and mirth of the watching public.

A very concerned resident had submitted questions raising his concerns about the shameless development of the Church Farmhouse, which is a Grade 2* listed building. He was worried about the protection of the interior: how would this be ensured? At this point, leader Cornelius had the gall to sit there nodding sympathetically, as if he gave a shit. Mr Malcolm asked, no pleaded, that local groups such as HADAS, the district archaeological society, might be involved as trustees, so as to safeguard the future of the building.

The response from the icy Daniel Thomas was that this was not necessary. Here in Broken Barnet we take great care of our heritage. Look how we look after our Town Hall. What? Hendon Town Hall was listed, citizens, in the teeth of opposition by certain parties, by a friend of Mrs Angry's whose post was deleted, coincidentally, a few years ago, after doing his job too well and trying to protect our built heritage from the grasp of developers. If it hadn't been for the listing, the Town Hall would already be flats, or one of those private schools Councillor Coleman tells us are queuing up for venues like Avenue House, when they dare to ask for council funding.

When Mr Malcolm asked another awkward follow up question, Thomas told him immediately that he had exceeded his time, but then went on to suggest that the amount of involvement by any local trustees or bodies would depend on 'how much people are willing to pay' for the Farmhouse. It is just extraordinary, the naked commercialism of the Tory attitude to our heritage, and our history. But entirely predictable.

The Farmhouse sale, when put to councillors, provoked no expression of protest - not even a whimper. Hello, though, something is stirring: Andrew Harper rises to the challenge. Obviously, his portfolio does not really hold any direct interest in the matter in hand, but he managed to show willing, and raise some enthusiasm. Did Middlesex University want to buy the Farmhouse? Maybe. Ok, thanks. Nope: that's it. All done. Already asleep. You carry on.

Ah. Time for the guilty party, Robert Rams, to speak. Robert is of course in charge of libraries and museums: oh. He was. Mrs Angry imagines his allowance will now be cut, proportionate to the loss of his responsibilities, now that three libraries and two museums are being dispensed with, no? No. Oh. I see.

Robert Rams has twigged that some of us might just be wondering how we had arrived at the point of flogging our seventeenth century listed museum and grounds to any old punter who wants to make a quick buck. So he is going to give us the background information to explain. Yes, do tell us, invited Mrs Angry, sitting with pen poised. Councillor Rams gave Mrs Angry a Bad Look.

Rams then, outrageously, made a comment which implied that HADAS was entirely to blame for the failure in negotiations to retain the Museum, in a Big Society style venture. He was so disappointed. Oh, how they had let him down. This is utterly unfair: the society could simply not meet and deliver the terms demanded by a council who are totally committed to a property sale, as part of an asset stripping jamboree to fund their disastrous One Barnet nonsense. Neither HADAS, nor any other local group, ever stood a chance of saving the museum.

Earlier on the agenda was Item 5: Month 2 Monitoring, which included the proposal that the authority help itself to £900,000 from our 'contingency fund' so as 'to cover the establishment of critical business posts following the transformation of the commercial directorate' ... in other words, yet another load of taxpayers' money is to be taken out of the piggy bank for the One Barnet idiocy: nearly a million pounds worth. Incredibly, there are still NO savings from One Barnet, and still we are throwing money at the bloody thing.

Other items such as a half a million pounds from the same source to go to Environment & Operations 'to fund the leisure budget pressure' (oh yeah? What's that all about then, Councillor Coleman: oh, not here, is he ... )and hello - another 0.436 million is being pinched for E&O for the PFI street lighting costs. Why is that, I wonder? Was the pointless replacement of my lampost too expensive after all?

We then came to the Hendon FC sale. The committee was told that in contradiction to objections raised by local campaigners (who were not able to speak to defend themselves) advice given to the authority was that it did have the legal right to sell the property. Oh good: always nice to know, isn't it? RUBBISH, shouted some residents, and again, louder: RUBBISH! Andrew Harper looked cross.

The campaigners maintain that restrictive covenants prevent the sale, but of course the authority does not wish to know about that. Interestingly, Mrs Angry hears that the long and contentious fight to prevent the development of this site, has been marked by an equally, and unusually, long lasting award planning permission. This, apparently, is because the stages which are supposed to mark the closure of such periods, originally three years and now five, were never formalised, so the original agreement still stands. Make of that what you will.

No councillor took the opportunity to ask any question of this substantial and controversial development. Mrs Angry tutted loudly. Again, Robert Rams fixed her with a glowering look.

There was an item about some new play equipment, being funded not of course by the kindly uncles on Barnet Council, but by Boris, all due to be installed nicely in the period of the run up to the GLA election, which is a coincidence, of course. Brian Coleman wasn't there to boast about this, or answer a question about consultation, sadly, but yet another interim senior officer, Pam Wharfe, who is always very helpful to Mr Coleman stepped in and said she thought someone might have spoken to some 'old people' and children, about the designs, which is nice.

And that was it: all over in twenty two minutes and thirty seconds. Even Andrew Harper looked embarrassed.

Almost no questions, no address by any member of the public, no debate, no dissent.

Some of the residents who had come for the Hendon FC item left the room in disgust. As they walked past the open doors where the councillors were still sitting, one shouted: 'How do they get away with it?'

Indeed. How do they?

Sacks and Drugs and, er, a cut price housing scheme

Barnet is a thought of as an affluent borough, and this is the image that the local authority naturally prefers to present.

The recently departed leader of the council, Mike Freer, (departed, sadly, not to a better place, but to an even worse one, ie the House of Commons, or so he imagines) has tried to convince the world that he is a man of enormous political wisdom, on the basis of a ludicrous plan for local government - the infamous easyCouncil idea - which no one quite understands, but appears, in essence, to offer a two tier system for council services. You want something quicker or better than anyone else: you pay for it. You can't pay for it? F off then.

Of course this would fit perfectly in Tory run Barnet, where there is already effectively a two tier system for residents: those with means live in areas with the best schools and the nearest access to healthcare resources, those without tend to live in sink estates, miles from our only hospital, and they cannot afford to live in the catchment areas of the better state schools, or pay to have their children tutored for years in the chance of getting into the selective school system.


In our borough, no one really wants to think about the urgent social issues which concern so many of the less affluent members of our society: the elderly, the poor, the homeless. Most of our councillors, and certainly almost all of the Conservative councillors, are very nicely off, thank you, and imagine that everyone else lives like them, or if not, that's just their hard luck. Their priority is to cut spending, and if that means cutting back on the services that most affect the neediest and most vulnerable members of our society: who cares? Actually, Mr Freer, and Ms Hillan, quite a lot of us do.


According to the housing charity Shelter, here in Barnet, shamefully, we have the longest council housing waiting list in the country. Investment in social housing is of little interest to this administration, so what to do? Well, why not dump as many people as possible in private accommodation, as quickly as possible, any old landlord, any old property, and then wash your hands of the tenants. Believe it or not, this is how Barnet's Homechoice scheme actually operates, and that is our problem neighbours came to live in the uninspected, rat infested property where they remain to this day.

Mrs Angry submitted Freedom of Information questions to Barnet in regard to the Homechoice scheme, and, after appealing to the Information Commissioner to investigate delays in response and a breach of the Freedom of Information Act, was eventually given the information which confirms that hundreds of vulnerable homeless families have been moved off the housing list into private properties which have not been physically inspected and are required to meet no standards of quality or safety other than a gas certificate and an energy certificate. Yes, that's right, having identified familes as vulnerable, the council then proceeds to abandon them in accommodation in which the electrical safety has not been tested, nor the fire safety, nor the suitability of facilities, or even the standard of cleanliness or decoration. Shocking, isn't it? This state of affairs, you won't be suprised to hear, is not regarded as good practice in well run authorities, where qualified housing officers make the necessary health and safety risk assessments of all potential properties.

In the case of our neighbours, the owners of the property approved, sight unseen, by Barnet council, had consequently to be forced by Barnet's own Environmental Health Officers to clear the garden, and two outhouses, of a mountain of squalid rubbish which was attracting rats. This pile of filth had been created there over several months by the owners prior to the tenancy, and a huge amount dumped on top the night before the tenants moved in. Numerous rubbish sacks stuffed full of old junk, discarded bedding, bits of old wood, broken household items, rusting metal pieces, paper, tins, a toilet cistern, stuffed bin liners spilling out everywhere, shards of jagged glass, even the proverbial kitchen sink, all thrown into the garden, covering the entire area, like a landfill site. The tenants thoughtfully added a couple of mattresses, a sprinkling of fast food wrappers, bottles, tins, and some other crap of their own, just to make it seem like home.

After a while, the tenants: let's call them the Smiths - thought it might be nice to clear a space in the middle, so they could start a fire and sit around it late at night smoking a variety of illegal substances and boozing. They managed this, we observed, on more than one occasion, by paying a dirty looking man who had the shakes and appeared in urgent need of some drugs, to dump a few of the bags in the bins of a nearby school, and then in our wheelie bin. Mrs Smith passed the man a small package into his hand as a reward. When Mrs Smith was reported for this dumping on her neighbours' doorstep activity, the family and the number of male youths who also stayed there decided to take an alternative approach and start burning stuff in the back.


One night, we smelt choking, acrid smoke coming from the back of the house. Looking out from the bathroom, we saw what looked like a scene from a hoody version of 'Lord of the Rings': a number of wild eyed drunken/stoned youths larking about around a huge blazing fire, gleefully throwing onto the fire pieces of the broken rubbish that was strewn around them. They looked up when they saw the light go on in our bathroom. One of the Smith boys, Travis, a youth with alleged 'behavioural problems' who, like all his brothers, looks curiously underdeveloped for his age, and with equally immature emotional development, yelled out excitedly - 'They're looking!'

An older yob with a beer gut, who was one of their lodgers, looked up at us and said 'Fuck'em. So what, ' and carried on drinking.

Yeah, so what.

By now, even with all the windows shut, the fumes from the fire were making it impossible to breathe in the rooms at the back of the house. We decided we would ring the council's out of emergency service to report the situation. The man who was on duty laughed. 'You're joking, intcha? We don't have an out of hours service in the week anymore,' he told us - 'nah, that was knocked on the head ages ago ... cuts and all that.' They only have 'em at weekends'.

So, in Barnet now, if your neighbours are keeping you awake at night with unbearably loud music, or setting light to toxic rubbish in the back garden, or creating any statutory nuisance, and it happens during the week, you can forget about getting any council officer to come out, as they won't be on duty. Then, in a Barnet Catch 22 style trick, you will find that if the problem continues, and you try to take action against the perpetrators, you will be told that there is no evidence, as nothing has been witnessed by an environmental health office. Neat, eh?

The next night, the Smiths and their friends had another bonfire.

On the following day, an Environmental Health Officer came to visit. She photographed the garden squalor and quickly agreed that an order to clear the rubbish had to be made. She said she had previously had to visit the property due to rat infestation. She also told me that now because of the neighbours, our property was effectively worthless, as we would not be able to sell it without declaring the problem we were having. I broke down in tears.

Since the Smiths and their friends had moved in we had been kept awake almost every night by the noise that only a household like that can make: constant noise, night and day, yelling, swearing, fighting, Tracey Smith screaming obscenities at her sons until past midnight, walloping them, the older son and his pals up all night partying, hanging around the house during the day. Our lives had been turned upside down. We had become so desperate that we considered taking the drastic step of moving - but now we realised that we couldn't escape. We were trapped.

The next night, another bonfire.

Late in the night I peered out of the bathroom window and saw Troy Smith, the eldest son, sitting by the fence, smoking a joint, and sucking on some sort of pipe attached to a glass bowl. Mrs Angry thought that the equipment appeared to be 'a bong'. We noticed that there were also glass bottles and pieces of tin foil near the bonfire. This brought back vivid memories of a recent unfortunate holiday to Amble, the only village in Northumberland which has a major crack problem, as we discovered walking through the dunes one night and tripping up over a group of enthusiasts gathered together around a little fire ... in fact, as Mrs Angry's son observed gloomily, 'Last year, Mum, we went to Amble. This year, Amble came to us ...'

Ha, we thought, now we can call the police for assistance, so we did, and then waited. And waited. No one showed up. The next morning the bong, tin foil etc were still on display, so we took photographs and rang the police to ask again if they would care to come and arrest the Smiths for drug abuse.

When eventually the local police questioned the family, Tracey Smith assured the officers that of course her son and his friends were merely indulging in their fondness for 'sweet tobacco'.

And that was the end of that.


More to follow.