Haringey Council miss chance to improve Cycling infrastructure in-spite Mayor/HMG encouragement

When asked what roads are scheduled to have temp cycle lanes introduced to support the expected increase in cycle commuting and aid social distancing (measures supported by the Mayor and the Govt). The council gave this response:

‘Whilst we recognise the need to improve the safety of cyclists on Haringey’s roads, our roads have never been quieter which should allow the opportunity for safer cycling without the need for segregation’

A missed opportunity to make a difference - particularly now that traffic is growing with more and more people taking to their cars as they return to work and the Government has allocated £2bn to fund any initiative a Council may take.
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Comments

  • Strikes me as incredibly dumb on Haringey's part......
  • The reduction in traffic has - for me - highlighted how negative cars are to well-being when out walking, running or cycling. The council needs to strike now and encourage people to stay away from their cars.
  • I thought it is TfL that is putting in the pop up cycle lanes, could be wrong, is there any evidence of other councils spending government money to do this. TfL will know how to do this not so sure about councils. I suspect the pop ups will be on TfL mainatined roads such Euston Road. Camden Road would be a good candidate
  • Every thing is not what it seems the £2bilion above is part of an already announced in February £5 billion package

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/2-billion-package-to-create-new-era-for-cycling-and-walking

    There is only £250m initially never belive a headline especially one comming from this Goverment.

    One bit off good news is "Vouchers will be issued for cycle repairs, to encourage people to get their old bikes out of the shed, and plans are being developed for greater provision of bike fixing facilities"
  • It's £250m 'within weeks' specifically for these cycle lane improvements, so regardless of whether or not you like the gov, it's stupendously thick of Haringey not to at least take a tiny % of it, even if it's to fund cycle lanes that are already in the progress of being planned out.

    Our loss is someone else's gain, but as usual ideology trumps economic sense.
  • (also the AGM to choose the next Mayor of Haringey has been delayed unilaterally by the council, which has slipped by without much comment, but another great example of good governance in our fair borough)
  • What evidence is there that the "usual ideology trumps econmoice sense" has happend what ever that itself might mean?

    You can read the Harigey plan here

    https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/haringey_lip3_final.pdf

    In this you will see a lot what the Council does is within an overall London strategy led by TfL which then funds local implimentation through something called LIP funding.

    Seems sensible LOdon Strategy implimented locally.

    The document itself is far to wordy but does show that the coucil has very little money to make much difference which I guess might be down to the 40% cuts since 2010. POt holes everywhere.

    Cant say I have noticed the Crouch end llivable neighbourhood mentioned on page 90 or so


  • Certainly the Council should not put off its annual meeting - if Parliament finds a way of conducting its business they should too - so much has changed not least in their own party - I suspect those currently in charge are holding on to what they have
  • It can only be ideological if you refuse stimulus from the government for no hard reason whatsoever; I'm not arguing that they don't have plans to improve the roads and finance them through LIP funding. I'm saying refusing money is silly and their answer is moronic and doesn't explain anything.

    As for cuts, lol, Haringey is the borough with the highest proportion of £100,000-plus staff on its payroll. You'd have thought since the HDV the new administration, might clean that up, instead along with blocking the AGM and granting the second-lowest proportion of business support grants in the whole of London during this crisis; they've proved themselves useless when compared to our neighbours in Hackney and Islington, and yes, I feel a lot of that is ideological, as they sacked off a ton of great councillors to bring in their momentum goons instead.



  • My assumption is that the above info is from a newspaper. Thelocal one I looked at used the spreadsheet below as the source

    https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/taxpayersalliance/pages/16944/attachments/original/1585837525/Town_Hall_Rich_List_2020.xlsx?1585837525

    It is interesting to see who has put this together, hardly a neutral organisation.

    For people paid over £100k Haringey had 30, Westminster 25, Newham 24, Kent 32 Kensington 27. In Haringeys case quite a few were not that much above £100k There also seemed to similar amounts being paid in simlar jobs across the different councils. which would indicate there must be some sort of national grade or pay rate for the job ie the going rate.

    I fail to see what Momentum has got to do with this. I cant say I have seen much chaos about the place since they got elected last year but maybe it is early days or I may be blind to it.

    It was the people through an election that "sacked off a ton of great councillors"

    The only councillors that seemed to engaged much around was the LibDems in their day.

    THe AGM decision does seem a bit strange and in the same paper as above there is a quite excited article about it. I like the comment that Hqaringey is not Hungary.
  • AliAli
    edited May 2020
    This is helpful your trying to understand where cycle improvements are being targetted. Does seem to TfL that is leading on this https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/streetspace-for-london?cid=email_Coronavirus+update+16052020-here.
  • Councillors have to be selected by their respective party to stand for election - Momentum produced lists of candidates they approved of and got all their supporters to fill selection meetings to oust those councillors they did not control. The criteria seemed to be adherence to their views rather than any kind of track record of local service. They were not successful everywhere and of course the electorate rejected some but not all at the ballot box. Many people just vote for their preferred party without knowing (Or perhaps caring) how their candidates are selected.

    Not sure about chaos but big money spent on top officials and consultants and now that Momentum set up to promote Corbyn and his allies in power (now sidelined) you might say their councillors have been cut adrift - the momentum stalled? Most of them not particularly engaged locally anyway. Interesting to speculate what would have happened if that AGM had taken place.
  • I'm sorry, I'm fuming about this. The council is living in the 20th century. If you can find me a town planner that still believes in the centrality of cars in future cities then I'll eat my hat.

    If you do a quick Google of how councils both labour and conservative across the country are grabbing the bull by the horns and improving cycle infrastructure, you'll see that Haringey is lagging behind massively on this subject. So not taking up free money is just positively stupid.

    And yes momentum runs the council, so it is ideological.

    A note on the HDV, (which was the catalyst for momentum's arrival) the council's official policy is now to buy up housing stock using council money, instead of actually redeveloping deprived areas in partnership with companies - I'd argue that what Hackney is doing at Woodberry down is a much better approach, but this can be argued in a different thread.

  • Definitely agree with you about Woodberry Down and the people in Wood Green who would have on balance benefited from the HDV will continue to wait. Momentum had no real interest in the HDV issue (the protest wasn’t even their initiative - they just hijacked it).
  • https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/streetspace-for-london?cid=email_Coronavirus+update+16052020-here.

    About two thirds down is the but about additional cycle lanes based on taking away road space for cars and delivery vehicles less Amazon deliveries to the office. There is also a link to map of the additional cycle lanes mainly in the centre. Seems sensible to me as that's where people will converge on and need extra space.

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