Guest Blog - North Finchley Business Forum – detailed research

By Paul Evans

(First posted on Finchlinks Website at http://www.finchlinks.com/2011/10/north-finchley-businss-forum-detailed-research/ )

Click the image to download (PDF)

Last week, I posted a write-up of the North Finchley Business Forum meeting at the Arts Depot.
A survey of local businesses was circulated at that meeting, and I’ve now had an electronic copy of it passed on to me. You can download a copy of the report here (large-ish PDF file). It doesn’t contain too many surprises. The focus among respondents on the parking issue is particularly notable, but you probably knew that before opening the report. That’s parking. Every aspect of parking. Everyone is annoyed about it. Parking – get the picture? Other issues include the high local Business Rates and a general sense that the area has deteriorated and isn’t particularly cared for. There was quite a lot of comment about petty crime and anti-social behaviour. Overall, it’s not a hugely optimistic picture, and this is something that needs to be addressed.



One thing that I found strangely lacking though, was an absence of calls for any kind of co-ordination.
Not wanting to put too many noses out of joint, but my experience of North Finchley isn’t always positive. There are lots of empty shops and the landlords don’t seem to realise that leaving them looking scruffy does nothing for the area or … er… the attractiveness of their own property.
This project in Walsall – getting local photographers to help dress the area up – would be good to see copied locally. Also, some places have freindly and helpful staff. Others don’t, and I suppose that’s their lookout. But the way shops serve people and present themselves has a knock-on for neighbouring shops.
I’m surprised at the lack of dialogue between local businesses – and the lack of a sense that it’s needed. There doesn’t seem to be much peer-pressure going on. Most businesses in the area are hugely dependent upon the reputation of the rest of the High St. Yes – that means that the parking needs sorting out, anti-social behaviour and crime need to be looked at and a bit of TLC could be applied by the council to the street furniture. But it also depends upon collective action by the local shops – and I was surprised no-one mentioned this in the survey. It does make me think, wouldn’t it be good if Mary Portas could be persuaded to come by and give a few pep-talks?
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Paul Evans runs the Finchlinks website, which promotes the local community in Finchley. The Barnet Eye is always pleased to support local community and business initiatives. Please get in contact via the email link in my profile.

Belmont Childrens Farm - The Zoo is on BBC London 94.9 righ now

Just listening to the breakfast show on BBC London 94.9. Jo Ann Good and Simon Lederman are currently up at Belmont interviewing Shane Harrison, who is the manager. Very interesting interview. Belmont are having a naming contest for their pigs. All you have to do is go the Zoo on the 28th and pick a great name for one of the pigs. Any suggestions?

Brian Coleman and the rudeness of W*nk*rs and the Queen of Barnet Bloggers

Tonight I am deeply happy. Why? You may ask? Well I found something that made me laugh. No, not a Friday joke, something even funnier. Let me explain. My 16 year old daughter is addicted to Big Brother, so I get dispatched to the kitchen to "play with my blog" when it starts at 9pm. So I'm staring at the screen, bored out of my mind and I think "I know, I'll see what media coverage there has been about the Brian Coleman rude email case" where he insulted Sharada Osman. So I google Sharada Osman. And guess what I find? I find that Sharada is a Barnet Blogger !!!! Not only that, but she was a Barnet Blogger before I was a Barnet Blogger. In fact she was just about the first Barnet Blogger. Sadly and rather bizarrely, the Queen of Barnet blogging stopped blogging 2 days after I started the Barnet Eye blog. Her last post was on 13th October 2008.

And you know what, she is a great blogger ! But that isn't what made me smile. What made me smile was the fact that her blog contained an almost prophetic post.  I wonder if Brian Coleman, having come unstuck in 2009 for insulting one Barnet blogger (Me), would have been quite so rude, had he known he was slagging off the queen of Barnet blogging.  So what is this prophetic blog, I am talking about. It seems to me that her blog post was written in unknowing anticipation that Brian Coleman would cross her path !

It was written on the 12th July 2008 and the title - wait for it - The Rudeness of Wankers. You can read this in it's full glory here -
http://scrummymamma.blogspot.com/2008/07/rudeness-of-wankers.html

But let me quote this choice sentence, with which Sharada signs off :-

Don't let the wankers get away with it. We deserve more. COMPLAIN.

And if that doesn't make you smile, in light of the fate that befell Brian Coleman when he reverted to type in replying to Sharada, then I'm sorry my friend, but you have a heart of stone. Sharada, get back blogging ASAP.

The Friday Joke - 21/10/2011

Which is the odd one out

a) A Polo mint

b) A Trebor mint

c) The Barnet Council Conservative Cabinet, featuring Brian Coleman


CLICK HERE FOR THE ANSWER

Barnet Council - Let's call an end to this Ineptocracy !

Lets have a quick review of the "achievements" of Barnet Council since the Tories took control in 2002.

Parking costs - Massive rises Mill Hill Station Car Park daily fee 2002 - £2 - 2010 £5 =  150% rise

Council Tax -  Massive rise 2003/4 (1st year of Tory Budget) - Band D £796.89 - 2011/12 - £1423
(Note : It would probably be higher if National Government hadn't frozen it)

Council Investments - £27.4 Million lost in Icelandic deposits

Winter Roads Cock up - Last Winter Barnet run out of Grit, hours after Councillor Brian Coleman claimed there was plenty of Grit. Hundreds of cars have been wrecked by potholes, left unfixed for months (The council claimed that cold in winters could not be predicted)

Computer Cock ups - 2006 - Tory Council Leader Mike Freer announced £8 Million SAP project to "transform" Barnet Council purchasing. 2011 - Costs at £24 Million and rising, Audit committee declares purchasing a shambles following MetPro.

Metpro Scandal - Barnet paid £1.4 Million to Metpro Group for security services. No proper tender was done, no licenses checked (because there were none) and other bona fide suppliers found to be cheaper, when scandal exposed by bloggers.

Tory Councillors who don't know how to behave - The record - Councillor Brian Coleman found guilty of breaching Standards Code whilst Mayor in 2009 - NO ACTION taken. Currently under investigation again for similar breach. Councillor John Hart - Under investigation after admitting making racist comments as Chairman of Hendon & District Residents forum, to local resident in front of 20 people - Not suspended from Tory Group.

Aerodrome Road Bridge replacement - Then 2008 - Council Deputy Leader Matthew Offord announces £12 million pound redevelopment of Aerodrome Road rail Bridge. 2009 - costs spiral to £23 Million.

One Barnet/Future Shape - 2007 - Then Council Leader Mike Freer announces Future Shape Project to "transform the council and save millions" - 2011 - no savings, millions (which Barnet refuse to reveal) spent on consultants, workforce on strike and Council in chaos. 2010 - Barnet Council auditors find that Barnet has no business case or project plan.

Abolition of Sheltered Housing wardens - Barnet launch consultation for users of service in 2008 - over 80% of users reject Barnets proposals. Barnet ignore this and persist. High Court throws out changes for failing to take account of equalities impact.

Outsourced Computer centres shown to be at risk of being eaten by rats in April 2011 audit council report. Servers shown to be insecure and data security non exisitent.

Salary of Leo Bolland - Barnet CEO in 2002  - £114,000 per annum. Salary of Nick Walkley, Barnet CEO in 2011 -  £200,000 - How many people do you know who's salary has gone up by 57%. Walkley was promoted from within the organisation, so the argument that the money was needed to attract top talent is clearly a red herring.

Senior Councillor Allowances - Voted themselves a 57% rise in June 2010.

These are just a few of the achievements of the Barnet Council Conservatives since 2002. Can anybody reasonably suggest that they are anything other than inept? The job of Barnet Councillors is to "hold the executive to account" on behalf of the taxpayer. They've let salaries go through the roof. The only Barnet Council committee chairman to emerge with any credibility whatsoever is Lord Monroe Palmer, who is head of the Audit Committee. He produced a highly critical report and has instigated major changes to the council procedures. He has been highly critical of cost cutting in the audit department, which has allowed incompetence and complacency to thrive in Barnet. Is it any surprise that the only committee chair with any credibility is also the only committee chair who is not a Conservative?

The only Conservative Councillor to oppose the allowance rise was Kate Salinger. She was immediately stripped of her responsibility for sticking up for Barnet residents, in a shameful public humiliation. I simply refuse to believe that any ordinary Conservative party member in Barnet who bothered to check all of this out, would want to support such a useless and inept bunch of no hopers as the Barnet Conservative Cabinet. Surely there are wise, intelligent and decent Conservative party members out there who could do a far better job. I wouldn't expect to agree with many aspects of their program, but basic managerial competence would diffuse much of the criticism. Many local Conservative members run businesses and have a huge wealth of proper management experience that they could bring to the table. The Council currently has senior cabinet members like Robert Rams, who's job is to be a back office boy in the Tory party machine. It is time that decent people, with a grounding in management were brought in.

This week, senior Tory Councillor Brian Coleman berated a single mother for "not living in the real world", purely because she had the audacity to ask him for advice in securing a home for her and her son. In the "real world" of business and commerce, failure at a managerial level results in the sack. I'd be all for a bit of the real world to emerge at Barnet Council. In the real world, how many people can vote themselves a 57% pay rise, for doing not an hours more work. How many workers in the real world have seen their salary rise from £114,000 to £200,000 when the finances of the organisation have fallen apart?

This is my message to all Barnet Conservative members. Start to play an active part in your association. Get rid of the dead wood and get in some fresh blood. When you select candidates, ask them what experience they have "of the real world". You have a choice, you can start selecting people of the calibre required or the voters may just kick you all out on your ear. The world has changed since 2002, when the Tories took control. The next election will be a great opportunity for voters to issue a mid term warning to the government. The Tories lost control of Barnet Council in 1994 because they were out of touch, lazy, arrogant and complacent. The local Tory party selection panels do not have a democratic selection process. That is why we have Ineptocracy in Barnet. It is time for it to end

Do they owe us a living? Of course they do !

Here's a couple of quotes from the comments on the Evening Standard website about the single mother who Councillor Brian Coleman insulted.

(Here's where you can see all of the comments -
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24000058-pound-120000-a-year-tory-tells-desperate-mother-to-live-in-real-world.do )

"The father and mother are responsible for the housing, not the tax payer. Its about time this country realises that!"
- Mike, London, 19/10/2011 14:31

Here's another 

She needa a full time job not scrouging off benefits. Another sickening "I beat my chest" victim of a single mum. People are getting sick to death of this "I suffer more" rubbish!
- Colin from Colindale, Colindale - London, 19/10/2011 13:19

I've left the typos in.  These were not the only comments along these lines. The question is  this - are they fair?
Sharada Osman has a six year old child with special needs. She is a 39 year old single mum. Beyond that we know nothing of her. I am married and have three children, I know that bringing up children is not easy when there are two of you, in employment and your children don't have special needs. The first thing I ask myself about Sharada is this. Does society have a duty to help her? Not knowing the spectrum of problems her son has, it is hard to quantify how much help she needs, but yes. If like me, he's mildly special needs (I'm dyslexic) then I suppose that when he's in his mid to late teens he'll be fairly independent. If he has something more challenging he could require help permanently. Who is best placed to give him this help? The Council? A "home"? The Workhouse?  I'd say that his mum is the best person. Would the (presumably hard right wing) commentators say that a child with special needs which requires a more costly education has no right to a childhood and no right to life? Are they saying that if a child has the possibilty of such issues, they should be aborted? If that is the case, then I would most certainly have found myself in a hospital dustbin in early 1962. I'm dyslexic. I couldn't read or write when I was the age of Sharada's son. I now own a business and employ nine people. It seems that Brian Coleman is not the only one who "lacks empathy", his supporters are also shockingly afflicted. But taking the emotion away, I think there is actually a sensible economic argument for helping people who find themselves in a situation such as Sharada.

Sharada is doing a college course, to help her get a job. These commentators give her no credit for this. What would they prefer, that she gets qualified and gets a decent job in the long term or that she is forced to become a minimum wage slave now? Is it that hard to figure out that she has a sensible plan. As for the comments about the father helping. We know Sharada is single. We know nothing about the father of her child. She has made a decision that she is bringing up a child on her own, what right do we have to criticise her. When I was 18, I briefly went out with a single mum of my age, who had a three year old child (conceived at 14, born at 15), who lived on benefits in a squat and lead what you'd charitably call a chaotic lifestyle. She now has a PhD in psychology and is recognised as a leading expert in her field. We hadn't spoken since 1980, but she got in touch today as a direct result of seeing the story in the Standard website. She saw the blog and then realised who I was and felt the need to have a chat about the story.

So what happened? She cleaned up her lifestyle, got a job, started studying, got a PhD through the Open University and a job where she could help people. Because she is fiercely intelligent (my view) she has done well. She lived on benefits and in squats for 6 1/2 years. She had no help from her family from the age of 15, because of the shame she had brought on them (their opinion). As a result they've never seen their granddaughter (which I believe is quite sadly, their loss). She's happy, settled and like the rest of us she pays her taxes.

Unlike me she takes a completely different view of the type of people like Colin and Mike (who's comments I reproduced). Her view is that such comments are a sign of deep inadequacy. It's not that they have no sympathy for the situation of Sharada, they are scared to death of her. By making such comments, they seek to hide their own vulnerability. Much of this is misogynism. They cannot stand the fact that a woman may not feel the need to have a man in her life. They would rather Sharada was downtrodden and marginalised. This way they feel more secure, knowing that their own place in the "natural order" is preserved. The last thing they would want is someone like Sharada to get qualifications, become successful and prove that if you get a little help from society, you can pay that back many times over. The thing that scares them most is the fact that Sharada will not take these insults lying down. She's had the audacity to answer the big powerful man back and that scares the more inadequate members of male society. Imagine if more women started answering back in this manner? Not something I'd have spotted, but then I've not got the scars of soceity that my friend has.

I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know. I would have just put the comments down to pig ignorance and left it there. What I do know is this, Sharada has a young child and NO CIVILISED SOCEITY and NO CARING PERSON  would want a child to not have a secure home life. I wrote to Sharada yesteday and advised her not to get upset by the comments and not to respond. The trolls who leave them get a perverted satisfaction and sense of power out of upsetting people. It is interesting (and quite hilarious) to read some of the comments suggesting that Sharada has done this for publicity or "set Coleman up". How on earth could she have guessed how he'd respond? Someone even suggested that she'd had a professional photo shoot. Doesn't it occur to these morons that the Evening Standard employ photographers? I'd never heard of Sharada before she sent the email to the Barnet Eye mailbox. The reason the story has been picked up is because it is a very interesting and moving story. It is interesting to note that while half a dozen trolls have left an endless stream of messages, over 736 people recommended the story on Facebook and 366 tweeted it.

I think that gives a far truer view of the feelings of people towards Sharada (and Brian Coleman) than the trolls would want you to believe. As I finished my conversation with my friend earlier today, I asked her if she ever listens the the Anarcho-Punk band Crass, who at the time were our favourite. She was quite taken aback - she said "CRASS?????, Do they owe us a living?" She then said "I'd fogotten about that, it's funny how we've got a recession and things are going full circle. It almost seems quite relevant again".

Sadly, that is so true.

Brian Coleman and the ugly side of politics in London

There is a GLA election next year. Councillor Brian Coleman is the Tory candidate for Barnet and Camden. He has (yet again) shown himself to be an very nasty and arrogant man with his comments saying a single mother with a child with special needs should "live in the real world". The story has been picked up by both the BBC and the evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24000058-pound-120000-a-year-tory-tells-desperate-mother-to-live-in-real-world.do


As Coleman lives in a charity flat subsidised by the Methodist church, supposedly designated for poor families, despite being a single man with a £120 K a year job, this is highly damaging. If you read the comments on the story, you may think that many Londoners have no sympathy for a woman who merely asked a councillor to do the job he was elected to do - give her some help and advice. You would be wrong. I know from the years I've been writing this blog, that the Conservative Party is a well oiled machine. Activists trample all over anyone who has the audacity to threaten their interests by leaving anonymous and nasty comments. I just hope the poor lady, who's only crime was to believe that a Tory Councillor in Barnet may actually care about her plight, is not too upset by these nasty and ignorant comments.

Chase Farm Closure - If it's underused, why so many transfers

#BBCLONDON #94.9 are currently reporting on the news that Chase Farm hospital have spent £30,000 on cabs transferring patients to other hospitals. One patient was sent on a £130 journey to Shrewsbury.

How can they claim it's underused. They should be expanding it, not closing it. There is clearly a lack of local capacity

Fantastic Five Barnet Blogger VickiM renames her blog !

My favourite Barnet blog VICKIM57 has gone...................

Boo Hoo Hoo

But Vicki has renamed it..................

Hooray Hooray Hooray

It is now


http://citizenbarnet.blogspot.com/

So please check it out and bookmark it.

The Barnet Eye Exposes who Councillor Brian Coleman and his Tory chums do help with housing !

The Evening Standard has picked up on the story first blogged here, about the single mother who was told to "live in the real world" by Barnet Councillor Brian Coleman, when she asked him for advice and help in relation to a problem with her housing.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24000058-pound-120000-a-year-tory-tells-desperate-mother-to-live-in-real-world.do

So you may ask, who does Councillor Coleman and his Barnet Tory chums think should be given financial assistance when it comes to housing. That's an easy one. His good friend and protege Councillor Tom Davey has just signed off a delegated powers report to give up to £100,000 as "LANDORD CASH INCENTIVES". You've got that? Barnet Tory Councillors won't help single mothers with special needs, but they will give people who can afford to own property "CASH INCENTIVES" to make even more money.

Scroll to page 11 of this document if you don't believe me.
DPR-7

And just in case you think I'm an evil, disturbed blogger who made it up, because it is so ridiculous, here is the link to the same document on the Council website :-


http://committeepapers.barnet.gov.uk/democracy/dp/meetingdetail.asp?meetingid=7026

Funny how they can't be bothered to help the poor, but cash is no problem for rich property owners.