Barnet Council Update - Get your pothole fixed here

I've been told that the head of communications of Barnet Council receives a salary in excess of £80,000 per year. One of the objectives of the Barnet Future Shape project is to "nudge" all of us, through clever advertising into costing the council less money. They believe that by "persuading" us to do things like generating less rubbish, Barnet Council will save a fortune. So is the Barnet Council Tax Payer getting a good service from the Barnet CouncilCommunications department? There no 1 job should be to inform Council Tax payers of things the Council are doing to make our life better. You'll have to make your own mind up, but let me give you an example of why I think it needs a root and branch shake up.

Barnet Council have just launched an innovate and clever new website where you can report potholes and other problems in your road etc. You can also see what progress has been made. As Barnet is covered in Potholes, I'd expect this to have hundreds of reports listed. It has 65. This is because no one has heard of it.


http://barnet.fixmystreet.com/

So getting back to my point. We are spending a fortune in Council Tax on advertising, communications,  media enquiries, but 99.9% of people living in Barnet haven't got a clue that there's an easy and simple way to get your road fixed. Marvellous, isn't it.

Whilst many areas in Barnet Council are under pressure, with front line services such as sheltered housing wardens being cut, I was intrigued to see the structure of the Communications Department at Barnet Council. This month, Barnet Council has so far put out 18 press releases.Last month, they put out 23. This means that so far, the team have averaged less than 4 press releases each this month. Now of course they do more than write press releases, but in comparison, there have been 47 blogs here this month and 74 last month. Now on top of this, I have a full time job running 3 successful businesses, as well as playing in a band, setting up a youth music project with YMCA and running as a candidate for the Lib Dems in the election. On average I spend less than an hour a day writing this. I'm not criticising in any way the individual officers, as I'm sure they are all doing a stirling job behind the scenes, within their terms of reference, but I have to question the corporate culture within Barnet Council.

The reason I have such a bee in my bonnet about this issue is because I am told time and time again, by all manner of people, that this blog (and a couple of others run for free by residents of Barnet) are the only way people have a clue what the council is up to. What do you think?

Traffic Calming - Barnet Council Style

Last year I attended a meeting of Barnet Councils Cabinet where Mr Novak, who lives in Uphill Road, presented a paper detailing why road humps should be put back into his road. His report had the support of all but three of the residents. He detailed how hundreds of schoolchildren us his road to walk to Mill Hill County High. He detailed how 50% of cars break the speed limit according to the councils own stats (bearing in mind that at some periods of the day there is congestion). He detailed how residents had suffered accidents due to speeding motorists using the road as a ratrun from Marsh Lane to Lawrence Street. He detailed how motorists hurtled down the road to avoid Apex Corner as a cut through to Mill Hill Circus. In short he made his case.

Barnet Councils then road supremo, Andrew Harper (now deputy Leader) dismissed the report. The views of local residents didn't matter. The safety of schoolchildren didn't matter. Why, you may ask?

The answer which Mr Harper gave, in no uncertain terms was this "Barnet Council is a motorist friendly Council so we don't want traffic calming measures, the car comes first". Mr Harper pointed out that the average speed in Uphill Road was just under the speed limit, therefore there wasn't a problem (ignoring the fact that this meant 50% of cars were breaking the speed limit). Mr Harper said that road humps damage cars and slow down emergency services. This is paramount. The emergency services must be able to get from A to B as quickly as possible (no doubt to attend accidents caused by speeding motorists).

As I drove around the London Borough of Barnet this weekend, I pondered Andrew Harpers comments. Due to Barnet  being unable to access £27.4 of reserves in Iceland, having reportedly lost £12 Million completely and having lost milions in interest, there is a cash crisis. As a result Pothles are not being fixed. These have sprung up all over the Borough. On many busy roads such as Pursely road, used by the 221 bus, these are huge. Car suspensions are being destroyed by these menacing obstacles. Wheras you see road humps and there are signs to alert you, potholes are a hidden menace. I saw an ambulance on Pursley Road nearly crash on Saturday, avoiding a particularly nasty hole.

The thing about potholes is that they grow every day they aren't fixed. As they grow, the whole fabric of the road disintegrates. A small hole can be fixed relatively cheaply and easily, as they grow, the whole road cracks up. When it comes down to it, this is one of the first and most noticeable signs of Barnets Icelandic financial woes. A decent administration would have set up a "Potholes task force" after the bad weather and would have fixed them up as soon as they appeared. In the long run this is far cheaper than resurfacing the whole road. Next time Harper and his colleagues tell you they are motorist friendly, consider the damage being done to cars everywhere by Barnets pot holes.

As to the cost. If you damage your car on a pothole, it is the responsibility of the Council. I'd suggest you write to Andrew Harper and ask him for the cash.

Traffic calming measures come in many forms. For Barnets Tories, their favourate is the Pot hole.