Original Email

Dear Department 

I am getting quite a few residents concerned with the recent visit by one of the members of the council to the above park. Apparently they were assessing the area with a theodolite. 

Can we please have clarity that none of the park is for sale and our green space is safe 

Thanks 

Kind Regards,

Councillor Stephanos Ioannou

Southgate Ward, London Borough of Enfield.

Response

Classification: OFFICIAL

Dear Councillor Ioannou,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Our team are exploring the feasibility of improving part of the park by creating (and enhancing) wetland habitats.

This will help to reduce flood risk to properties, improve water quality, improve biodiversity and amenity spaces within the park. The project contributes towards climate change resilience, as highlighted in Enfield’s Climate Action Plan.

Currently we are gathering baseline data, such as topographical surveys and ecological surveys, so it is likely that park-goers may have seen some survey equipment.

We are hoping to do a public consultation on 23^rd September 2020 for this project. I hope the project contributes towards the park’s protection (rather than development).

I’m happy to discuss the proposals with you further if required.

Good afternoon,

I am writing to update you on our transport plans for the return of schools in September.

We are asking schools and parents to encourage children to travel to school by walking, cycling or scooting wherever possible. We are also planning to make important changes to the bus network for those who cannot do so.

From 1 September we’re planning to:

• Add over 230 extra buses to the network to bolster some of the busiest low-frequency routes for schoolchildren to travel on, including adding more vehicles to our existing school bus services
• In addition, designate some existing regular buses as School Services, which would be prioritised for school travel and would operate at full seated capacity, as is permitted by Government guidelines for school bus services. Signs would clearly indicate that these are School Services and they are planned to operate on:

​Around half of all buses during school travel times on certain high-frequency routes

All the extra buses we’re adding to lower-frequency routes

All buses on our existing school services

Our School Services ​would help free up non-school services for other customers. However, journeys for our other customers may take longer during school travel times (generally 07:30 to 09:30 and 14:30 to 16:30) due to these planned changes. We encourage our other customers using the bus network to plan your journey in advance, travel at quiet times and outside of school travel times if you can, and allow more time to complete your journey.

Schoolchildren travelling without adults should travel on the designated school services where these are provided, to help ​provide space for other customers on regular services. Customers who are not schoolchildren but who need to travel at school travel times are strongly encouraged to use the regular services. Regular services will continue to have lower capacity limits to support social distancing, in line with Government guidelines.

Customers aged 11 and over are required to wear a face covering when using public transport services (including our school services) or stations, or taxi and private hire services, unless they are exempt on health or equality grounds. We advise anyone exempt from wearing a face covering to carry an exemption card. For more details please see https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/face-coverings. We’re also asking people to carry hand sanitiser and wash their hands before and after they travel.

The planned service changes are proposed to remain in place until at least the end of October, although could be subject to change. ​

We continually review how our network is operating ​and every September, as children start at new schools or travel from their new homes back to their old schools, we adjust services as far as possible to ensure they reflect new and changing travel patterns.​ This September comes, of course, with unique challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. We ask everyone in London to bear with us while these significant planned changes bed down and as we do everything we can to ensure children get to school safely and on time.

You can help us by communicating these changes to your networks as widely as possible. Please regularly check tfl.gov.uk/reopeningeducation for the latest information on our services and safer travel guidance – including a list of routes affected by these proposals.

Please note that there will be no changes to fares and ticketing for children in September. You may be aware that the Government has asked us to temporarily suspend free travel for 11-17 year olds as part of our funding agreement with them. We are discussing the implementation of this with the Government and London’s boroughs and full details, including the effective date of changes, will be widely communicated once finalised.

I hope this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions.

Kind regards,

Dear Cllr Ioannou

Just to let you know that the above application for the installation of a 20m high telecommunications monopole with equipment cabinets at base and associated works was refused yesterday due to the reason below. 

The proposed monopole, by reason of its excessive height, design, scale and siting would result in a significantly prominent and incongruous feature that would result in demonstrable harm to the visual amenity and character and appearance of the area. The proposal would therefore be contrary to the advice contained within the National Planning Policy Framework, London Plan (2016) policies 7.1, 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6, policy CP30 of the Core Strategy (2010) and policy DMD37 of the Development Management Document (2014).

Kind regards,

This was in response to a resident who expressed an interest in opening a Cafe facility in Arnos Park:

The current position is that no suitable property within Arnos Park has been identified that may be suitable for use as a café.

Should the Parks Service identify the need for a café, supported by a business case, not only would a suitable property or site have to be identified but consultation with Planning on whether Planning Consent would likely be granted.

In the event that a property or site is identified Strategic Property Services would be instructed to place the property on the open market and seek bids from potential interested parties and agree lease terms. This would likely take some years if either a new facility had to be constructed or extensive refurbishment of an existing property.

I hope that this helps explain the position.

Kind regards

 

Keith

Original Email:

I want to bring to your attention a problem we have been experiencing for a few months now with regards to rubbish and fly tipping.

In the photos attached you can see the public bin by the bus stop is full and overflowing, not all of the rubbish is from bus stop users or passers by, a lot if it is household rubbish, taxi drivers drive up and dump whole bags of rubbish in there, a van has been seen on numerous occasions dumping bags of rubbish too.

This rubbish gets blown or carried by foxes into the residents gardens, onto the Grass verges, into the bushes.  We need to do something about this.  Some of the residents who live directly behind the bus stop have had large pieces of glass dumped in their bins and in the gardens as well as bags of rubbish.

I suggest replacing the bin with a bin like in Grovelands Park where it has an automatic opening so you can only throw in one or two Small items not bags of rubbish and possibly a cctv camera to catch the fly tipping too.

I look forward to hearing your views on this issue and what action can be made.

Thanking you in advance for your assistance

Response:

Dear Councillor

Thank you for your recent e-mails raising the concerns of your constituent XXXX about a litter bin at a bus stop near her property and must first apologise for the delay in replying.

We place litter bins at sites where people gather and litter is dropped.  Open top litter bins were used to make it easy for passing pedestrians to drop their litter in the bin rather than on the floor.  The problem is they also make it easy for people to dump entire sacks of rubbish in the bin.  This abuse then stops others using the bin for litter.

As you have said, we have to concentrate our resources on real problem areas and it is unlikely that CCTV would be used in this area.  However, I have placed an order for the open top litter bin to be exchanged for a domed-top bin which hopefully will deter people from trying to force their sacks of rubbish in to the smaller holes.  If this does not succeed and problems continue, we will consider removing the bin entirely.

I hope this is the outcome XXXXX was seeking.

Yours sincerely

Original Email:

Dear Department,

There are piles of dumped charity offerings outside the charity shops in Southgate.

I have enquired about this before and got no response.

It’s becoming an issue I am increasingly becoming more annoyed with.
Residents are saying that the area is becoming a dumping ground, and also that the high street looks a mess.

Commercial shop owners on the stretch also are annoyed..

1. Can the dumped donations be collected?
2. Can the council please speak to charity shops and express that fly-tipping isn’t allowed
3. What is the legislation around flipping around charity shops/ donating when the premises are closed?
4. Are residents even allowed to keep donations outside the shop?

Kind Regards,
Cllr. Stephanos Ioannou
Conservative Councilor for Southgate ward,

Response:

Dear Cllr Ioannou,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Donations left outside of charity shops would remain the responsibility of the source and not the shop itself.

The shop cannot be held accountable until they accept the donation and, as many charity shops have been closed for a long period (some remaining so) this has likely led to an increase in donations being left on the pavement. In normal circumstances, charity shops accept donations and dispose of what they cannot sell in accordance with their commercial waste agreements.

Enforcement work has been carried out along Chase Side, N14 to ensure that businesses are complying and fulfilling their Duty of Care when it comes to commercial waste.

Many charity shops have a sign or sticker in the window asking the public not to leave donations on the pavement outside the shop. Unfortunately, the shops cannot do much more than this.

As the responsibility for leaving donations outside of charity shops remains with the source, any depositing, specifically outside of business hours would be treated as a fly-tipping offence. The difficulty is with regards to obtaining evidence from the items, as it is unlikely that items containing the individuals name and address will be left outside the premises.

Back around May time, the Council made an appeal on Social Media regarding this very issue, which is increasingly difficult to enforce, asking residents not to leave charity donations on the street when businesses are closed.

I have liaised with the street cleaning team who have advised that crews collect dumped donations daily.

Kind regards,

 

Original Email:

Dear Department,

Could you please pass this on to the relevant person in Property Services (I do not have a contact any more).

I was talking to the people who rent the garages in the depot the other day and they said it was like a jungle.  They can barely get to the garages and drive their car in.  Also the trees are very overgrown and need cutting back.  The depot looks like a complete tip, needs a thorough clean and the grass and weeds need to be cut.  They are going to try and contact someone in the Council but said most of their contacts have left.

Response

Thank you for your enquiry and for bringing these issues at Hillside Grove Depot to our attention.  We have instructed our Highways team to raise a job with the contractors and have asked for the trees to be cut back, and a general clear up to include the weeds, debris and waste.  These works will be undertaken as soon as possible.

Classification: OFFICIAL

Dear Cllr Ioannou

I do apologise for not sending this response sooner as I had received a similar enquiry to which you had been copied in.

You may now be aware that the encampment was dealt with last Friday and I am pleased to advise that the Park was left in a tidy manner and all rubbish was bagged as agreed and collected during their short stay and indeed at the end of their occupation by Council officers;

Presently during Covid 19 the guidance from the MHCLG whilst dealing with encampments is such that the Council have agreed that each site will be assessed on the following criteria below prior to decisions being made around enforcement.

1. Public Health Risk
2. Health & Safety Risk
3. Illegal Activity ( it needs to med- high risk)

The Council do have a Borough wide injunction but as highlighted above there is currently guidance around how Councils deal with encampments during Covid 19; in addition there is a moratorium on evictions proceedings which has being extended until the end of September.

Welfare assessments also are critical; they need to be conducted so that we can identify any concerns and assist or support those that may need primary health care or other types of  support during lock down. During the assessment two occupants presented with acute health issues so this combined with availability of police resources meant a temporary short stay was granted through a leniency agreement. This was implemented by the Council and the Police collaboratively  and the occupants were happy to comply and did and were closely monitored by us and the neighbourhood ward team.

Thanks for your patience and understanding whilst we dealt with this matter.

Kind regards

Dear Councillors

PAVEMENT RENEWAL SCHEME

Road Name: Queen Elizabeth’s Drive N14 (No.52 to No.80 – both sides)

A section of the above road has been identified for pavement renewal. Please see the attached letters (which includes a plan) that have been delivered to residents, notifying them of the works and how to apply for a dropped kerb for vehicles.

The work is scheduled to start on Monday 28^th September 2020 and will last for approximately 5 weeks. The scheduled dates could be subject to change due to any unforeseen circumstances.

For further information on pavement renewal schemes, please see Road and Pavement Maintenance.

This was in response to a recent planning application by ASDA to make some modifications. I rasied further points I thought were important:

Original Email:

Dear all,

I feel compelled to give feedback here.
Having looked at the application I feel the proposal here does not actually go further enough.

ASDA has for a long time been a key player in the Southgate Shopping Centre area.
Given that factor, ASDA have not stepped up to the plate in terms of taking care of the land it owns.

For a start the proposal looks to replace an existing sign on page three, where ASDA have consistently failed to maintain the shrubbery the sign sits on. I can provide instances where I have emailed both ASDA HQ and the council department asking for this area to be cleaned and ASDA have said this is not their responsibility, and the council try and chip in but also say its ASDA land.

Then on page four the sign here sits on what is apparently according to the council- St. Andrews Church & Council land. Thus this shared space was not under the authority of ASDA, and this was the impression given both by your staff at the store and also ASDA HQ who insisted this maintenance of this area wasn’t there responsibility.

The area has been left uncleaned, rubbish sits in the flowerbed, the shrubbery makes the area looked cluttered and people smoke, take drugs and drink behind this shrubbery, not mention they do this also in the hidden ASDA stairwell behind where this shrubbery sits. ASDA have not taken care of this space that now they seek to utilise.

Finally I want to make a frank point. As an electric vehicle owner and ASDA shopper I am baffled how your shop doesn’t have a charging point area, this is the 21st Century this space deserves it.

Can I just get some reassurance here? Because ASDA want to utilise this space and spend money on a sign but clearly don’t care about the cleanliness of the area.

Thanks
Kind Regards,
Cllr. Stephanos Ioannou
Conservative Councilor for Southgate ward,
London Borough of Enfield

Response:

Dear Cllr Ioannou,

As per my voicemail, Jon has forwarded your email to me as I look after Asda Southgate.

Asda take the cleanliness of their stores very seriously so it goes without saying I will investigate and correct any issues with rubbish collection and landscaping maintenance.

With regards location of the proposed signage it is my understanding these have all been placed within Asda’s demise.

On electric charging we are looking at this and I hope we will be able to bring something forward in the near future.

If you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to call.

Kind regards