Public meeting re responsible road usage by cyclists and motorists

The next public meeting of the Camden Community Police Consultative Group will be on the subject of "responsible road usage", which was overwhelming chosen as the agenda for this meeting by regular attenders at this group. The meeting will be at 7pm on Tuesday January 12th at Camden Town Hall, Judd St.

The topic has really been triggered by concern about cyclists on pavements, but will also focus on the Highway Code generally and what can be done about inconsiderate and dangerous motorists. As we've been campaigning on this for some months, reflecting the concerns of our constituents, I'm delighted this is happening and hopefully it will help push the police and the council to prioritise this issue more fully. I'll be going along.

Landscaping on Swiss Cottage Open Space

Last summer access to the grass areas had to be limited due to problems with planting and volume of people etc.

We've just got an update from council parks officers with whom we've been liaising on this.

Landscaping works have now begun at Swiss Cottage Open Space, the majority of the planting works have been completed, but further works will take place in the New Year.

Turfing works to the main grass areas will begin on 4 January 2010. Temporary fencing has been put up to allow planting and turf to establish, depending on the weather, it is hoped that fencing will be removed towards the end of March 2010.

Let's hope this learns some lessons from last year - inevitably there are teething problems with a relatively new open space grass area, but hopefully this will ensure people can really enjoy this open space to the full this coming summer.

Bad weather update Christmas Eve

A final pre-Christmas update just issued by Camden to councillors and the public:

The weather forecast is for rain in most of the borough today so we don't expect to be gritting any roads unless the temperature drops significantly. The forecast also says it will remain overcast and become a little milder so we anticipate that remaining ice and snow will thaw further.

We will deal with requests for gritting on low priority roads and pavements where we can but will continue to ensure priority areas are dealt with, in line with our winter maintenance plan. Additional supplies of grit have been delivered and we have access to further supplies should they be needed.

On parking, we are enforcing in the south of the borough, CCTV and vehicle removals as normal.

The picture in the north of the borough is more mixed. Zones CA-B and CA-H (Hampstead and Belsize) are still quite bad, so we will enforce north of borough normally, except in these zones. We will continue to enforce the main roads in these zones.

Refuse collections have taken place on all housing estates and all other properties have had at least one collection this week.

Adult social care services are running smoothly, with appropriate festive activities taking place in the services we manage or commission for older and vulnerable people.

Christmas recycling - free Christmas tree collection 4-17 January

Details of the Council's special recycling services over the holidays from our colleague Chris Knight:

From tree and card recycling to advice on waste free presents Camden Council is spreading some festive cheer this month by helping residents have an eco friendly Christmas.

Over December and January approximately 250 tonnes of Christmas trees, 13,350 tonnes of glass, 4,500 tonnes of tin foil and enough wrapping paper to reach the moon are thrown away in the UK.

In a bid to tackle the increase in waste and help the environment Camden Council is offering its residents a range of free services and advice.

These include a free Christmas tree collection from 4 to 17 January to enable real trees to be recycled. For those with unwanted gifts a post-Christmas give and take day will be taking place at Highgate New Town Community Centre on 23 January.

Councillor Chris Knight, Executive Member for Environment, Camden Council said: "We have tried to make it as easy as possible for residents to protect the environment this Christmas.

"Christmas can be a wasteful time of year and we are keen that rubbish is either reduced or as much as possible is composted and recycled. We would especially encourage as many people as possible to recycle their trees - this ensures they are composted and put to good use. Last year we recycled 8,500 tree it would be great to beat this figure!"

The Council is also running Christmas road shows providing top eco tips for residents. The advice includes giving 'invisible presents' such as a special day out, taking reusable bags Christmas shopping, buying seasonal food with less packaging from the local market and saving all cans, bottles, paper and card for recycling.

Other tips and advice for an eco-friendly Christmas include:
- Avoid serving food and drink on disposable plates and cups - borrow extra crockery instead;
- Find recipes for left over Christmas food at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
- Reduce wrapping waste by using 'furoshiki' a Japanese-style of wrapping presents with material which can then be reused. Watch the video on www.recyclenow.com; and
- Buy rechargeable batteries this year for children's toys and electrical goods and help save on the millions of batteries that go to landfill each year.

For more information about recycling and waste prevention in Camden, including Christmas recycling collections, go to www.camden.gov.uk/recycling.

Detailed update on Council response to snow Tuesday evening

This email sent to all councillors by senior Council managers just now is worth passing on in its entirety, showing as it does the scale of operation being undertaken to deal with the snow and the effort being put in by all concerned.

Dear Councillor,

Further to the update this morning, we have received several emails from councillors pointing out problems with gritting on roads, pavements and on housing estates. We have responded to these problems individually.

The weather storm yesterday evening and early this morning was not forecasted. Its severity made it impossible to deal with the problems as quickly and effectively as any of us would have liked. We spent most of yesterday gritting priority roads and pavements but the evening rain washed much of this away, then the roads became gridlocked which made it impossible to put more grit down until much later in the evening. Police assisted staff who worked throughout the night to re-grit the roads.

We have used every single resource at our disposal to deal with this emergency and you will see from the media coverage that councils affected by the weather across the country are experiencing similar, and in many cases worse, problems. Over 200 staff have been working on this as a priority using five gritters, 12 cage vehicles and spreading over 400 tonnes of grit . All the decisions about which roads and pavements to grit have been made in line with our winter maintenance plan.

Today, Veolia has continued to use both morning and afternoon street cleansing shifts to clear snow and ice from footways across the borough. This has included all town centres, main roads, and high footfall areas such as outside hospitals, libraries and doctors’ surgeries. We have not been able to remove snow and ice from minor roads and pavements, and these areas remain a lower priority. All our gritting lorries have continued to grit main roads, bus routes and other high priority areas and they are now being prepared to go out again tonight.

Refuse and recycling crews have managed to complete the majority of collections, with additional resources being used to help deal with delays. Where crews have not been able to gain access, these collections will be prioritised for tomorrow.

The forecast for tonight is for sub zero temperatures, remaining dry with rain turning to sleet in the morning. We will continue with our strategy to grit priority routes and high footfall pavements.

Our priority for housing estates has been to grit pathways and walkways as most roads in estates are not priority routes. All requests for gritting pathways and walkways in estates should be made to district housing offices.

We understand residents will contact you complaining that roads and pavements have not been gritted and we appreciate this is difficult to deal with. However, it would be helpful if you could explain that we are doing everything possible to deal with the extreme weather conditions and this means making difficult decisions about priorities and use of resources.

We will continue to keep you updated.

New snow update as of Tuesday morning

Here's a further update on snow clearing and related streets/parking matters in Camden, with some personal comments from me at the end.

Our contractor Veolia's gritting crews and the Council's winter maintenance team worked throughout last night to grit the borough’s main roads. There was a specific problem that gritting from earlier on during Monday actually got washed away by rain and re-gritting last night was very challenging for them. All routes out of the borough were clear of traffic congestion by 10pm, following police support in providing traffic control in hotspot areas. This morning these routes are all open and traffic is moving.

On parking, the Council will enforce parking restrictions on all main roads and bus routes, and all roads south of Euston Road. We will not carry out any removals, but abandoned vehicles on main roads in obstructive positions will be relocated to side roads, with no charge. We will not be enforcing in side roads north of Euston Road. This will stand for the whole day.

All street cleansing teams are involved in removing snow and ice from high priority and high footfall pavement areas. Some side roads and many other lower footfall pavements will remain ungritted as we must prioritise the use of salt and grit.

We have received additional salt and grit supplies this morning as well as having access to further stocks of salt at Veolia’s depot in Brent.

We expect disruption to domestic and commercial waste and recycling services today, particularly where safe access for vehicles and crews is not possible.

All parks and open spaces are open.

There will be regular updates on www.camden.gov.uk

Just to add - the Council has responded to hundreds of specific requests for gritting/salting. Of course there have been some criticisms, and no system is ever perfect or incapable of improvement. But we must be a bit realistic I think about snow - we can't simply negate all its effects instantly. And if Camden was to maintain the snow-clearing fleet etc that Winnipeg has, we'd rightly be criticised for wasting money. In fact, the shift from Veolia's regular street cleansing role to gritting and salting has worked pretty smoothly overall, and we should certainly recognise the contribution of all those who have just been working through the night in the snow. But please do let us know what you think, especially urgent requests and constructive feedback.

Camden snow response update

Camden Council has just provided all councillors with a useful update on progress with action taken so far in response to the freezing weather conditions that have continued to affect the borough throughout the weekend, and that are likely to continue throughout Christmas and New Year period. Details below and link to council website.

Camden’s winter maintenance teams and our contractors, Veolia, have been working throughout the weekend to make sure that Camden's roads and high priority footways are open and free from snow and ice. All major roads are open and the bus network appears to be working as expected.

Freezing temperatures have meant that some of our minor roads and pavements still have ice on them, and we ask that everyone takes extra care when out and about. We have received in excess of 400 calls and requests for gritting of footways, and are working through these on a priority basis.

We have suspended routine street cleansing work to focus entirely on snow and ice clearance across the borough. We will continue to grit as many minor roads and pavements as possible on a priority basis. However, our first priority will be to ensure that Camden’s main roads and footways remain clear of snow and ice throughout the Christmas and New Year period.

If you have any queries, or would like to report a problem area, please call our customer call centre on 020 7974 6914, or out of office hours, 020 7974 4444.

Offensive graffiti sorted out on West End Lane

There was a wave of offensive racist graffiti on a number of bus stops on West End Lane and in Kilburn on Wednesday. Together with Chris Philp and the Conservative West Hampstead team, we highlighted the problem and got Camden's street grime team to cleanse the bus stops on Thursday morning. Here we are checking the bus stop opposite Kingswood Court on West End Lane, showing the 'before' and 'after' pictures.

The responsiveness of Camden's street team was really impressive in this case, it was sorted within a day. We originally picked up the problem via comments on twitter, and then saw the graffiti for ourselves later that day.

One issue for local councils like Camden remains how to build confidence in residents that reporting problems online will get them solved quickly. In this case, a resident mentioned the problem on twitter, which led to us taking immediate action and getting the grime team on site by the next morning. But actually if everyone resident was just using twitter comments as a first port of call for a problem, the system wouldn't work - councillors and council staff wouldn't be able to keep up with the volume. Camden in fact has an excellent online reporting service for street problems. If the resident has reported the graffiti online, I am confident it would have been acted on with three or four days (probably not within a day as it was when I reported it, but nevertheless quickly). But either the resident didn't think to do this, or didn't think that would produce a result. And that's the challenge for councils like Camden as we try to build confidence in residents in using our online services - which we need to deal with the volume of problems we face in the area each day. But anyway, a good and quick result in this case.

D'Den Legacy Club, Finchley Rd - ex the Establishment

We know that many are concerned at the possibility of this opening on the old Barclays Bank site, especially given the history of The Establishment.

To refresh your memory, when the Establishment closed the owner wished to convert the premises back to offices but could find no occupiers, which explains why this club has taken over the lease.

Residents have asked us what Planning and Licensing permissions will be required if this club was to open. This is a bit of a minefield but the short answer is that as of now our understanding is that they do not have the permits they need to operate.

We will of course continue to monitor this and feel free to contact Roger Freeman with any queries you may have.

Latest on Centre Heights Planning Application

Latest on Centre Heights Car Park Planning Application

Some months ago Camden consulted nearby residents on the latest proposal of the developers to convert the Car Park into a new residential block. Following the objections raised by many, Camden Officers turned down this proposal. The developers used their right to appeal this decision so it went to a Planning Inspector. We know that quite a few residents were involved in this process.

The Inspector has just issued her judgement supporting Camden's decision to reject this application. This means that the developers will need to submit another planning application.

Note that the reason the Inspector refused this was because of a lack of affordable housing, rather than the design of the scheme; this means that if the applicant were to make another application with a similar design but with more affordable housing and less for profit housing there will be less likelihood that it will be turned down by Camden.

Feel free to contact Roger Freeman as per his contact details above for any further clarification and it is just a question of waiting to see the next step of the developers.

Swiss Cottage Dispersal Zone to be extended following public meeting

A good, well informed public meeting took place tonight on the issue of the dispersal zone, with our Safer Neighbourhoods police team and council community safety officers present, as well as Roger and me. There was good representation from virtually all the residents associations, a good mix across the affected area.

The unanimous view was the dispersal zone should be extended as it has been effective in reducing disorder. Apparently around 150 people have been asked to move on in recent months as part of its operation. So council officers and the police officers will do the paperwork to get the extension in time for when the current authorisation runs out in early January.

The maximum period ahead that a dispersal zone can be established for is six months. This means that, once again, it will come up in July for renewal or not. Council officers accepted that this would not be a good time for the zone to end, given the street activity we get in the summer holidays, so agreed to be open to a further extension at that point, perhaps with a different time period so we can assess at a later "normal" time whether it continues to be needed.

I did put forward the point about better signage for the SC safer neighbourhood team base, to increase the deterrence effect. Officers pointed out that they don't own the building, so there are some issues, but agreed to look at what might be possible.

So overall a sensible result here.

Should Swiss Cottage Dispersal Zone continue?

Tomorrow we've got a public meeting to get residents views on whether the Swiss Cottage dispersal zone should be extended.

This will be held in Room 3 of the Swiss Cottage Community Centre at 6.30-7.30pm on Tuesday 15th December, with police safer neighbourhoods officers and ourselves as ward councillors present.

The dispersal zone covers Winchester Rd, the open space, and the part of the ward south of Fairfax Rd including the Harben and Hilgrove estates. The dispersal zone expires on 20th January unless extended.

Dispersal zones can be effective in dealing with specific problems, as we had with gangs in this case. The issue is working out what is the displacement effect, and inevitably although such dispersal zones are supposed to be temporary, there is never a good time to allow one to expire once established. Anyway we're keen to reflect local concerns and views tomorrow.

Woolies Finchley Rd

On 4th December the Administrators of Woolworths assigned the lease of the Finchley Rd Woolies to Sainsburys. We understand that Sainsburys will not be occupying the site itself; as soon as we know who is going to occupy the site we'll let people know. Within reason (!) any retailer would be better for the shopping area than an empty store.

Aspiring to a further two year Council Tax freeze in Camden

Conservative Shadow Chief Treasury Secretary Philip Hammond has reconfirmed that in the first two years of a Conservative government, any council that keeps its underlying council tax increase to 2.5% or less will get extra funding to bring its council tax rise down to zero - thus incentivising councils to keep rises down and find more efficient ways of doing things.

This is too good an offer not to take up, so Camden Conservatives believe the Council should aspire to a two year council tax freeze from 2011-13, following the freeze in the coming year we have successfully pushed for. We’ll be looking hard at how we can make this happen as we prepare our manifesto, given that Council tax bears down particularly harshly on many elderly people and those working on modest incomes.

Clearly there is at present a significant budget gap of £59m forecast for the three years from 2011. Over 16 years on the Council, I have seen the way budget assumptions can shift, and seen how the council has closed budget gaps of £20m in a year. We do not underestimate the challenge, but we believe over three years the Council has the capacity and ability in its senior management team to make these savings while prioritising front line services.

It will require significant savings - doing many things differently and more cheaply. This will include more outsourcing and sharing services and officers with nearby councils. We’ll look to learn from what Conservative councils such as Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham are doing well, while always remembering we need the right local priorities for Camden. We simply don’t believe in the current economic climate it will be acceptable to close this budget gap through above-inflation council tax increases.

We are keen to hear from residents or local businesses with ideas for savings; councillors and council managers do not have a monopoly of wisdom.

Cyclists, fines and “flying motorcycle” signs

Our plea for views on cyclists and drivers behaviour has produced a good deal of feedback. Many are cross at the behaviour of a small minority of cyclists, and motorists. This included:

Concerns about cyclists running red lights at speed – “try lower Camden High Street around 17:30pm”

“Great problem with bike riders going wrong way up Broadhurst Gardens - try walking on the pavement at 5 pm onwards.”

”The West End lane/Broadhurst Gardens traffic lights are continually not observed by cyclists making life dangerous for pedestrians trying to cross the road. There are never any traffic police about to observe this practice of cyclists riding gaily on through red lights.” ”Motorists are also guilty of ignoring pedestrian rights. Especially on Finchley Road.”

To be fair, there was also a comment that riding on pavements was not always unacceptable, providing consideration of pedestrians is paramount, with bell ringing for example.

Our local police officers are giving out fines for cyclists on pavements or jumping lights, but not really on a scale to make enough impact – they rightly have other priorities. That’s why I would be keen to get to a position where qualified Camden streets staff can give out such fines. Westminster Council today announced it is going ahead with this – we should learn from this and seek to equip our staff with this power as well (which of course needs careful training).

We’ve also been asked whether there any plans to allow cyclists to cycle the wrong way up one-way streets, as is being piloted in Kensington and Chelsea. The one-way system in the Swiss Cottage conservation area means, for example, that cyclists tend to flaunt the rules anyway.

I’ve investigated with streets policy officers and the position is as follows.

Council officers have been working with Camden Cycling Campaign and they have drawn up an initial list of sites where they would like to see Camden take this forward.

It won’t be appropriate or safe to do everywhere – some streets will just be too narrow to accommodate oncoming cyclists, and the Council would prefer to trial this at sites which aren’t too heavy in terms of traffic flow. It is in the early stages of considering designs and how it would highlight to motorists that cyclists are moving both ways.

Traditionally, the way this can be done is to put the “no entry” signs onto a special island and allow cyclists to go around this by providing a physically separate channel. This is quite an engineered way of doing this and would hardly be suitable in the gardens area for example. Alternatively the official sign that means that a site is no entry except for cyclists is the sign known as “flying motorcycles” (a circular sign, red surround with a black car and motorcycle logos one above the other within the circle). Unfortunately, despite being in the highway code this sign is not well recognised by drivers (including me!).

Kensington & Chelsea has trialled some sites by taking away the “no entry” sign and using the “flying motorcycle”. What they found was a rise in car drivers going through the wrong way. The Department for Transport has agreed to let K&C trial a small number of pilot sites using the “no entry” sign together with an additional “except for cyclists” sign. Both K&C and Camden officers think this will work much better. However, for some reason the DfT have refused to allow Camden at this stage to also trial some sites – they just want K&C to do this at this point.

So watch this space as we pursue this with Camden officers and the Department of Transport to try and move this forward next year. We would welcome views on this.

The Changing Face of West End Lane

Swiss Cottage ward, like many in Camden, looks in a variety of directions. Finchley Road is obviously at the heart of it. But in Elsworthy Road people look as well to Regents Park Rd for shopping, while in Avenue Road they look to St John's Wood High St. And of course in the western third of the ward they look to Kilburn High St and to West End Lane.

Conservative local campaigner Gio Spinella has written an excellent thought piece on the changing face of West End Lane on our sister blog West End Courier. He covers some of the challenges the West Hampstead area is facing. On the 02 Centre car park, which he mentions - it is a development site in the site allocations planning document the council is consulting on now. I can send the relevant documents to anyone interested. Inclusion of the site doesn't mean any redevelopment is at all imminent; it does mean that the landowners have some stated intention for the future, which is we why need to state how we, the council representing local people, would like the site to be redeveloped. The framework in the site allocations document would be for a mixed used scheme, including community facilities, possibly even a primary school. But probably this is all quite some way off, particularly in the current property market.

Quintin Kynaston redevelopment update

Roger Freeman attended Thursday's Drop in session with Westminster Education officers at Quintin Kynaston to get an update on current thoughts on their development plans. Our immediate interest is on the Boundary Road end. The plans shown at the drop in are to keep all the trees and to have 2 three story buildings with a smaller footprint than the current ones.

These buildings will house QK students and thus poses the question of yet more QK students in the immediate Swiss Cottage area at lunchtime.We are investigating this further; we would be most interested to hear the views of any of you who went to this drop in. Proposals for the Boundary Road end are currently scheduled to go to Westminster's Planning Committee in June, and Westminster Officers have assured us that Camden residents living near to Boundary Road will be consulted. We however want to represent local views strongly while there is still fluidity in the situation.

Local police feedback on firearms crime

At this week's Safer Neighbourhood Panel, which Roger Freeman attended, there was a briefing from Camden's Firearms Officers.

Firearms crime in Camden is low; we in Swiss Cottage ward have been lucky as we have had no serious incidents. Notwithstanding this, as you may know there have been two incidents in the adjacent Kilburn Ward - one in Rowley Way and the other at the Cricketers in Abbey Road - as well as one in Northways Parade on the opposite side of Finchley Road from us. We have here had one case of a firearm being found in the parking area of an estate.

The police are concerned that there could be an increase in firearms crime and are keen to nib this in the bud.
As such they look forward for our support as eyes and ears; if you become aware of anyone harbouring firearms or have suspicions in this regard, contact either Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or our local Safer Neighbourhood Team 020 8721 2755. Of course if it is urgent you should call 999.

The Centenary of Town Planning

At Thursday's Development Control Meeting, Roger Freeman as Chairman marked the fact that it was 100 years to the day that the first planning act - The Town Planning Act of 1909 - was passed. The spearhead for this was the Liberal MP John Burns, who had a more colourful background than today's MPs, having been a guest of Her Majesty following some affrays in Trafalgar Square. He was the first working man (to use the phrase of the time) to make it to the Cabinet.

His description of the role of planning to make "the home healthy, the house beautiful, the town pleasant , the City dignified and the suburb salubrious" remains as true today as it was 100 years ago.