Tory bungling that could turn your local streets into open sewers

If Mike Freer MP or Matthew Offord MP come knocking on your door, asking for your votes, you may care to point out to them that their One Barnet Scheme has put your street at great risk of becoming an open sewer, with sewage running down. This might sound like an absurd and outrageous claim, but this is exactly what a recent Freedom of Information response reveals.  Freer and Offord were the Council chiefs who dreamed up teh One Barnet schem, which has put Capita in charge of the London Borough of Barnet and removed all democratic accountability.  A recent FOI has shown just what a disaster this is threatening to be. A local resident asked

"please could you give me the details of all correspondence for the past 24 months relating to the following site: Re: The land to the rear of 7-35 Victoria Road, Mill Hill, London NW7/https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmaps/51.6184169883,-0.2446588115,17. On or around 23rd December there were 2 operatives from Barnet Council/Capita taking photos and referring to plans for a proposed "flood alleviation scheme to the rear of 7-35 Victoria Rd NW7".

 The council response was truly shocking.

Response
The council holds the information requested and it is attached/ the answers to your questions are below please could you give me the details of all correspondence for the past 24months relating to the following site: Re: The land to the rear of 7-35 Victoria Road, Mill Hill, London NW7/https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmaps/51.6184169883,-0.2446588115,17. On or around 23rd December there were 2 operatives from Barnet Council/Capita taking photos and referring to plans for a   proposed "flood alleviation scheme to the rear of 7-35 Victoria Rd NW7". As part of the Drain London Tier 2 package of works, London Borough of BarnetCouncil (LBB) commissioned a Surface Water Management Plan (SWMP) outlining the preferred surface water management strategy for the entire borough. As part of the strategy, Critical Drainage Areas (CDAs) were delineated in order to establish locations identified as being at high risk of surface water flooding (i.e. from sewers, drains, run off from land, and small watercourses and ditches that occurs as a  result of heavy or intense rainfall). Following a prioritisation exercise undertaken by LBB, 12 high priority CDAs have been identified, which will require detailed investigation. Of these 12 high priority CDAs, two of the top ten highest risk CDAs were already under investigation (Mill Hill CDA – Barnet_26 and Decoy Brook CDA-Barnet_018). These were excluded from further consideration. Following CDAs and Ordinary Watercourses are selected to undertake a  further investigations: 1.CliterhouseStream (CDA Barnet_20 - Childs Hill), 2. Folley Brook (not contained within a CDA), 3. Barnet_09 - Friern Barnet, 4. Barnet_15 - Bittacy Park, 5. Barnet_29 -   Oakleigh Park, 6. Barnet_14 - Muswell Hill, 7. Barnet_04 – Barnet, 8.Barnet_19 - Hendon Way, 9. Barnet_07 - Longmore Avenue, 10. Barnet_05 - Hadley.Capita submitted a proposal to LBB for the Barnet Critical Drainage Areas & Ordinary Watercourse Investigation on 23rd August 2016.  Barnet accepted the Capita’s proposal on 11th November 2016.However, the project has not been commissioned by means of a Workshare Agreement (WSA) therefore Capita have not officially started the study at this stage.

In other words, a HIGH RISK of overflowing sewers has been identified across the Boroug, but due to chaos in the councils work commissioning process, they have not even managed to commission Capita to start a study to address the risks, as of the time of the FoI response, nearly six months after the the initial investigation identified the issue. As far as we are concerned, this is a major scandal and our bungling MP's should be called to account for their role in setting up a scheme which can't even do the most basic public health tasks.