Another Barnet Council Hypocrite

There is an interesting new press release on Barnet Councils website - Councillor Daniel Thomas, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, said:

"Encouraging our youngsters to get to and from school using healthy and sustainable forms of transport is a great idea for so many reasons. It teaches the importance of keeping fit and healthy from a younger age while helping to reduce the level of carbon emissions from cars."

Forgive me while I foam at the mouth with rage. One of the Borough of Barnets largest schools is Mill Hill County High School. Many of the children who attend the school live at Poets Corner in Mill Hill. If you look at the map (click on it to enlarge) The school is shown at the top towards the left. Poets Corner is the block of roads towards the bottom right. As you can see, children have to cross Lawrence Street to get to the school. There is no safe crossing on this road.  During the rush hour, when children are crossing, it is a dangerous scrum of traffic, where they cross to access the quickest route via Uphill Road. I've held meetings with Conservative Councillors and the Highways department, but they say "no one has been killed, so it's not a priority". They also said "No children are crossing". Durr, why do you think that is? Because no sane parent would let them. The route is also used by children passing the other way from West of Lawrence Street to Goodwyn School, St Pauls C of E and St Vincents Primary Schools as well as Mill Hill Public. It's all very well for the likes of Councillor Daniel Thomas to urge parents to abandon the car, but they won't spend a penny to make such a move safe.

Now you may be surprised to know that the person who tipped me off about this ridiculous press release wasn't complaining about how the Council can come out with this, when their policies are completely the opposite of what they say. No they were quite rightly drawing attention to the crass hypocricy of a member of Barnet Council claiming they want to get people out of cars, when their own policy is to force the Wardens who look after the elderly of the Borough to have to drive from location to location. As you may know, the High Court declared this policy illegal. Leader of Barnet Council, Lynne Hillan hasn't given up and she's starting the consultation again.

Why is it great for Lynne Hillan to strip sheltered housing residents of their wardens and force them to drive from site to site, but terrible for parents to drive their children to school, when no safe corridor exists. There is a pattern in all of this. Safety - be it that of Children crossing roads, or the elderly in Sheltered housing - it is the least of the Barnet Councils priorities. Car Journeys are great when it is a warden saving the Council money, but awful when it's a normal resident.