Parking charges review won't save Coleman's backside

If I read this report in the Barnet Press right, Barnet council is to review its hike in parking charges. This is the result of the 4,500 signatures the Labour group got on its petition on the council's website. They presented these at the business management scrutiny committee on 29 February, which agreed to the review.

Here's an extract from the report:

In January Labour councillors had a motion calling for a review into charges rejected at an extraordinary council meeting.

But speaking before the committee, highways manager Neil Richardson agreed that a review into the parking regime would begin in April.

He said it would look at a number of aspects of its parking regime, including fees and hours of control. He added that measures to attract shoppers to high streets, such as making car parking free for the first half hour, would not be ruled out.

“We need to make sure that the parking regime is suited for the needs of the trading environment,” he said.

This review is a coup for the Labour group, particularly as they now look like Barnet's most pro-business party!

And every time an issue such as this is re-politicised it reminds Tory voters how angry they are and costs the Conservative group support. With the GLA elections in the offing - 3 May - and their anxiety about whether Brian Coleman will win or not, Barnet's Tories might even start to wobble on their policies. (The Save Friern Barnet Library campaigners must certainly be hoping so - and I with them!)

However, the parking review results will not appear until September, which is an age away. That is not good for the traders who are losing business now! And it won't come in time to save Coleman's backside.

Fellow Barnet bloggers have reported the election by the Conservative group of Brian Schama (seen as some sort of dissident from the ruling clique!) as Barnet's next mayor and Kate Salinger (who is some sort of dissident!) as his deputy. So it looks as though Barnet's Tory councillors are starting to worry for their council seats in 2014 and to put some more voter-savvy people in charge. Will it be enough to save their backsides?

Save Friern Barnet library!

The thing I like best about my job (Barnet blogger and trade unionist and all-round hyperlocal activist - unpaid internship: they promise me it will lead to a wage one day) is getting out and seeing different parts of the borough.

I've been whisked through Friern Barnet a couple of times in a motor vehicle, but never 'been there'. Today I rectified that, by attending the Save Friern Barnet Library campaign's demo to mark National Libraries Day.

It was sodding freezing but I had a really nice time, both on the demo and just looking around at the area. You can sense the village that lies beneath today's Friern Barnet.

There are weird monstrosities nearby such as the former Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum (honest, that's what it was called) which has now been developed into flats by the Comer Group (who also own North London Business Park where Barnet council has its main offices). It is now named Princess Park Manor.

Friern Barnet old town hall is not a monstrosity, and it isn't a town hall anymore either. I think it is rather a handsome building. Shame it isn't in public use.

But underneath all of this lurks, still, the tiny village, one of the tens of thousands that made up the landscape of Britain before wholesale urbanisation. The population was much smaller, but it was far more evenly dispersed.

Now the local roads bear masses of traffic; close to the small library are streets and streets and streets of Victorian and later villas and houses. The library was built in 1934 to serve them.

With its neighbours, the library makes a lovely, natural cluster of buildings. Opposite is the parish church, St John the Evangelist. Next to the library is a small green which local residents have applied to have recognised as a village green. At the far end is the Royal British Legion, who served hot drinks throughout the march today, and who are supporting the library campaign.

I stepped inside my first Legion - not my natural territory - today and felt very at home.

After the march, and some speeches outside the library, including from councillors Barry Rawlings (Labour) and Kate Salinger (Conservative, but opposing her group's plan to close the library), and Andrew Dismore, Labour's candidate for the Barnet and Camden GLA seat, we went inside the library to look around. There were activities for children, and some special guests were due later. But I ran home to process my pictures, which you can see here.

It will be grotesque if this well-used library and true heart of the community is closed, bulldozed, and the land flogged off for a developer to build another anonymous block of flats or supermarket. Ask the locals!

Yet that is what is scheduled to happen on 31 March if we don't pull our fingers out.

Please support the campaign to save Friern Barnet Library. You can read more on their website. I'll try to keep you posted on specific actions you can take.

I hope you like meetings... and lobbies!

As Barnet council's Future Shape/easyCouncil agenda proceeds, there is a plethora of meetings this summer and autumn that the concerned public might like to attend. The trades council, council unions, and disgruntled residents of all stripes will be organising lobbies before each one.

We don't have much say in what goes on in Barnet, but by congregating on the grass (not on the flower beds, please) in front of Hendon Town Hall, as the councillors hotfoot it into the building for their meetings, we can show that we are watching, and care about the decisions they make.

Next Wednesday 11 August is the next meeting of the council's FUTURE SHAPE OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY PANEL. The meeting starts at 7pm, there will be a lobby from 6pm. The public can attend the meeting, but we are likely to be kicked out when the real meat and potatoes business is discussed. According to the relevant page on the council website, these are the items we mustn't be around to hear about:

X1 - Development and Public Health Services
X2 - Adult Social Services

The motion to exempt press and public will be on the grounds that these matters, in the case of X1, include

Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

and

Information relating to any consultations or negotiations, or contemplated consultations or negotiations, in connection with any labour relations matter arising between the authority or a Minster of the Crown and employees of, or office holders under, the authority.

And in the case of X2 just

Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

These categories for exemption strike me as pretty broad! Never mind that one of Future Shape's three overarching aims is "A new relationship with citizens". The novelty clearly doesn't extend to letting us in on the secrets of what they have planned for our council services. After all, as Barnet's Tory administration reminds us pretty often, we aren't interested in such things as who delivers council services.

Even when we patently are.

The papers for the meeting - those that we are allowed to see - are available here. See you on the barricades, sorry, on the lawn in front of Hendon Town Hall.

As an aside, it will be interesting to see whether Kate Salinger is allowed to attend as one of the Tories' members of the panel - she was appointed by them to this post when it was set up.

Eric Pickles or Barnet Conservative group? There's only one way to find out...

The Times series has caught up with Barnet councillors Kate and Brian Salinger after they were invited to tea by Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government. This happened a few days ago; the invitation was meant to signal the Tory government's displeasure with Barnet Tories.

Kate Salinger, you will remember, was stripped of her council responsibilities by the Barnet Tory group after she abstained in a vote that raised the allowances for the council leader and cabinet members.

Brian Salinger was absent the night the vote was taken, but has aid he would have abstained as well. Read the Times article here and admire the pic.

I wouldn't enjoy tea with Eric Pickles, in fact, I think I'd choke on my fishpaste and cucumber sandwiches, but it certainly is interesting to see the upset in the Tory party over Barnet's tendency to go its own way.

Until recently, Barnet was enjoying a reputation as a trailblazer in local government circles (undeserved, I think), but under Lynne Hillan and Brian Coleman it is now blazing trails to places the government doesn't want to be seen going.

Chipping Barnet residents' forum tonight - elect Kate Salinger!

It's Barnet council's Chipping Barnet residents' forum tonight. It's held at the library and starts at 6.30pm. Papers for it here.

I don't know what's on the agenda but there are plenty of issues that need addressing:

- New Barnet town centre plans

- the rush to academise Barnet's schools

- the council leader and cabinet voting themselves big fat allowances hikes

- the vote by the Conservative group to remove Kate Salinger from the post of chair of the Chipping Barnet residents' forum for refusing to vote for the big fat allowances hikes.

Will Kate Salinger go to the meeting? If I were her, I would go along to defend my actions and protest against my punishment.

And if she did turn up, it might be quite good fun to elect her as the residents' own choice of chair just to irritate whichever councillor has been appointed to replace her. Well, I can dream.

If any Chipping Barnet resident who attends would like to write a report of the meeting I'd be happy to post it up here, without comment or editorialising, tomorrow.

Vicki