To consider any requests received in accordance with Standing Orders.
Minutes:
Deputation 1
Quentin Given and Catherine Kenyon outlined their deputation on behalf of an alliance including Friends of the Earth, Haringey Living Streets, Haringey Cycling Campaign and Haringey Extinction Rebellion. This generation was the first to experience climate change, and the last generation who could do something about it. The Mayor of London had called for more action to be taken in regard to climate change across the capital. Half of London’s hospitals and one in five schools were at risk of flooding and collaborative working was required to avoid worse catastrophes in the future.
Surrounding boroughs have led the way in delivering healthy streets. Haringey had ranked near the bottom of the London Healthy Streets scorecard on the delivery of healthy streets. The Council had promised much over the last few years but delivered little. Protected cycles lanes had been described as ‘few and far between’, and only 17% of roads in the borough were within Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, compare with 55% in Hackney.
The alliance requested that Haringey speed up the delivery of the active travel strategy, and safe and accessible walking and cycle routes. The Council needed to clearly articulate to residents the problems which needed to be solved, and the actions required to solve them.
Councillor Hakata, Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport and the Climate Emergency, and Deputy Leader of the Council responded to the deputation. He agreed that it was the collective responsibility of the Cabinet to work towards a solution.
Three Low Traffic Neighbourhoods had completed formal consultations which, if deployed, would cover an additional 15% of the boroughs roads. The ambition was to equal the best in the capital over the next 2-3 years.
There were plans for 30 protected cycle lanes in the draft Walking and Cycling Action Plan, and these would be set out in a strategic road map so that it was clear which lanes would be implemented and when.
There were 17 School Streets in the borough with a further nine planned for the next few months. Discussions were taking place in relation to adding more streets to the programme.
Councillor Hakata thanked the deputation party for attending and added that support from residents was welcomed in implementing all of the schemes referred to.
Deputation 2
Jack Grant spoke in relation to item 9 on the agenda - Additional sites for consideration within the Housing Delivery Programme. He referred to the 12 sites identified in the report and stated that only one was located in the West of the borough. Of the remaining 11, five were existing public green spaces, one was private green space and three could be turned into green space. He questioned why public green spaces in the West of the borough were better maintained than in the East and the loss of green space in the West of the borough was considered to be a material concern but not a priority in areas with the lowest amount of green space.
He referred to the East-West inequality in the borough and referred to the equalities section of the report in which he felt that the correlation between BAME and disabled residents and lack of green space in the East was not acknowledged. He added that the Council’s draft Parks and Green Space policy focused on increasing green space and pocket parks, which would be impossible if the Council continued to focus on providing green space as part of large developments. It was accepted that new housing was necessary, but this was not the only priority for the Council.
Councillor Gordon, Cabinet Member for House-Building, Place-making and Development responded to the deputation. She informed all present that the Council had received £3.8m of funding for development of brownfield sites for housing. The sites identified in the report were mainly disused parking areas and concrete / hard standing land. These areas would be developed to transform areas which would have a positive impact on the surroundings. Housing was a crisis for the borough, with over 600 people in band A (people with severe medical emergencies) on the waiting list for housing. 57% of the people in band A were from a BAME background, so this housing programme would help to address the needs of these residents in Haringey.
The Leader thanked all parties for attending.