TFL launches live bus departure website

For all of us who regularly use buses, there is a useful new feature on the TFL website. A live bus timetable tracker.

Click on the image for waiting times from my bus stop to my favourite pub. A very useful feature, especially for thos of us with web equipped mobile phones who like a pint and need a bus to get to our preferred watering hole.

Former Barnet Tory Councillor calls Hendon Tory Chairman a "Pompous Arsehole" on Twitter

What is it about the Barnet Tories? They really hate each other, don't they? Former Chipping Barnet Conservative Councillor and Tory activist, Daniel Hope, tonight called the Chairman of the Hendon Conservatives and senior Barnet Councillor Hugh Rayner a "pompous arsehole" on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/#!/barnetbugle/statuses/110775485029560320

His exact statement :-

@barnetbugle The Barnet Bugle Ltd

Pompous arsehole Cllr Hugh Rayner continues to obstruct us filming meetings and even collecting papers from the table for the meeting.

41 minutes ago via Tweetbot for iPhone Favorite Retweet Reply 

One can only speculate as to why these two have developed such a tetchy relationship. Personally I think Councillor Rayner is a truly wonderful addition to the local political scene and can confirm that he hasn't got a pompous bone in his botty. You can see him being extremely unpompous in this clip below. Hugh kindly allowed the Barnet Eye to film this Council meeting for a full 27 minutes, before this interjection. He is on record as being the first Barnet Councillor to be filmed in action at a Committee meeting. This was in the days before the Council realised that filming meetings was actually quite legal. 

Oh what fun we had

Barnet FC accuse Barnet Council of failing football in Barnet

Today the Chairman of Barnet Football Club, Tony Kleanthous issued a statement accusing Barnet Council of failing the club. Here is his statement in full (originally printed here on Barnet FC website - http://www.barnetfc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10431~2441820,00.html)

The Barnet Eye fully supports Barnet FC. We believe that Barnet Council has behaved in an atrocious manner towards the club. Association Football is the national game. Barnet FC are a successful club and it is atrocious that their role in the community is not valued and cherished. The Barnet Eye has no arguement with Saracens Rugby Football Club, but we believe it is unfair to seemingly favour a club with no ties to Barnet over our local team. The local Conservative party in Mill Hill have shown a complete disdain for football, opposing an application for a pavillion and clubhouse for Kentish Town FC (ave attendance 30) at Chase Lodge playfields, whilst backing a 10,000 seat Stadium proposal for Saracens Rugby Football Club.

Barnet Council are also trying to force football away from various locations, such as Mill Hill Sports Club and have sold off many playing fields for redevelopment. It is time for Barnet Council to start treating our local clubs with the same respect they treat the multi millionaire backers of some of the schemes forcing well loved local facilities out. Please sign the petition to Save Mill Hill Sports Club (at the top of sidebar), once you have read this blog
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Barnet chairman Tony Kleanthous has broken his silence about the much publicised multi-million pound Saracens relocation plans for Copthall Stadium in a statement issued by the club today. He accuses Barnet Council of contravening the Local Government Act which states that the council MUST obtain best value for any site it disposes of in the borough.
The statement also accuses the council of using delaying tactics, failing to resolve assurances made to Barnet FC in recent years and making it impossible for Barnet FC to operate at Underhill. The council have told the club they do not have any land for it to develop a stadium ... even though they were secretly agreeing to go ahead with plans for Saracens to relocate.
"It is quite clear they want to push football out and move rugby in", says the hard-hitting statement. "Despite Barnet FC having more than 120 years of history as a community club in the area, they seem to want to clear us away".
The chairman reveals in the statement that the football club had an application for a new stadium at Copthall almost ready to go before the Planning Committee but the council would not provide the club with the land assurances needed. The club now realises this was because they had already committed to give the site away to the Saracens, who want to take over Barnet FC's home turf.
The football club was not advised in advance of the Saracens plans, which appeared out of the blue in a Press announcement during last season, despite ongoing discussions with councillors and officers over the years about the long standing Barnet FC wish to build a new stadium in the borough.
Saracens have been offered a virtual freehold for the multi acre stadium site at Copthall for free; Barnet FC have been asked for more than £200,000 just to renew the lease of their 5 - acre cricket club site to the south of Underhill.
When the current Saracens plans were revealed last season, the council asked Barnet not to object to the planning and promised to deal with outstanding land issues at Underhill, including the car park area and access and lighting for Priory Grove whilst finding an alternative site for the football club, which has been in Barnet since 1888. However, the issues at Underhill were left unresolved and the club were then told that NO site was available for them.
The previous Barnet FC application to move to Copthall was called in and turned down by the Minister (John Prescott) ten years ago after Barnet Council and Ken Livingstone, leader of the Greater London Council at the time, had given approval. Copthall was kept on the agenda in recent months during ongoing talks between the club and council but the council constantly refused to back a stadium for Barnet FC on the site.
"Our supporters should know what's going on", said the chairman, "Life has become very difficult since Mike Freer left as Leader of Barnet Council to become an MP. To compound matters we also have Saracens regularly approaching our sponsors and commercial partners driving money out of Barnet FC and the local Barnet community".
In the last few months the club has sent legal letters to Barnet Council, to which they have yet to receive a full response, and have lobbied the London Mayor's Office. "The Mayor seems very well informed and has a good grasp of the importance of a community based sports club like ours, we hope we can rely on his officers' intervention to prevent this appalling situation from going any further" said the chairman.
Barnet FC employs nearly 200 local people on a full and part - time basis and has 11community officers working in the borough for the community. The council have consistently attacked the club's existence since 2002 and efforts to gain the support of MP Theresa Villiers have failed to resolve the difficulties the club faces.
Barnet FC has had a volatile, even hostile, relationship with the council in recent years. This improved when Councillor Freer was the leader but the latest developments suggest that it has slipped back.
"Now the dust has settled on the new football season we feel our supporters and the community should know what is going on behind the scenes", says the chairman.

Guest Blog : Greensquare Field – Planning to Outsource Planning part 2 by Julia Hines

For the last 5 years I have been one of a group of residents fighting development on a lovely greenfield site in Finchley which now belongs to property developers, Higgins Homes plc. On the 7 March 2011 I wrote a guest blog for the Barnet Eye about the plans to outsource the planning department. At the time I did not know how prescient my concerns would be. You can read it here:

http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2011/03/guest-blog-planning-to-outsource.html

At the moment Barnet Council is in the middle of tendering to outsource a number of services, one of which is the planning service. In the running are a number of companies: Capita Symonds, Atkins, Jacobs and E C Harrison. The planning consultants who represent Higgins Homes plc, and have done through 2 planning applications, 2 planning appeals, a village green application and the draft LDF, work for Capita Symonds. If Capita win the tender, they will decide any future planning applications.Martin Cowie, Head of Planning at Barnet Council, kindly spent a long time discussing this with me. I totally accept that conflicts of interest like this one are a big concern to him and Barnet will try to put in place contractual obligations to ensure they are dealt with when they arise. He is not yet sure how. The tender is being considered through a process called competitive dialogue. This means that Barnet Council put certain questions to the companies, for example how they will deal with conflicts of interest, and the companies, as part of their bid, explain what they think is necessary to cover this issue. This will be evaluated and weighted as part of the assessment of the bid, although there can be further discussion and negotiation about exactly what the contract will include.

This feels the wrong way round to me. In my view Barnet Council should be setting out the red lines here, the absolute dealbreakers; asking commercial companies how far they will go to restrict their profits in other areas in order to win this contract does not feel right. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

I know it is not as simple as that. I know that what the bidders come back with will be the starting point for the negotiation. Even so, this feels like an area where Barnet should be setting the agenda. Barnet are not naive about this. They know this is a massive obstacle to outsourcing the planning department. They know that the big companies that are bidding for this contract have their fingers in lots of pies.

In the case of the land behind my house, it is a cut and dried case of a conflict of interest. Capita Symonds represent Higgins Homes in planning matters in the borough.

Will it be enough to reassure me, if they agree not to represent Higgins on any developments in the borough if they get the contract? No. That is the bare minimum they could do.

Will it be enough to reassure me if they agree not to represent Higgins Homes anywhere in the country if they get the contract? Probably not, to be honest. There are people working for them who have spent years thinking about this land, working out how to develop it. Even without a financial interest there will be an emotional attachment to the work they have done. If you take pride in your work you cannot believe that the arguments you have been putting forward all this time are wholly wrong. I don’t think it is possible to be completely impartial in that situation.

And I am not sure how companies can handle conflicts which arise suddenly. If a property developer buys a piece of land in Barnet is that the point at which the potential conflict arises, or is it when the planning application is submitted? If the successful bidder is halfway through representing the developer on another piece of land, will they suddenly dump them? Even halfway through a planning inquiry?

What about other connections? The ones which are harder to discover, for example, if one of the companies bidding did not have a contract as a planning consultant, but were providing other services, like HR? How will residents know about the financial link? Will it be subject to an FOI request or considered a confidential commercial matter? 

At the moment I cannot imagine a situation where I would completely trust any planning decision or advice given by a planning department run by Capita Symonds on the land behind my home. The alternative is to outsource the decision to a neighbouring borough. But that means that I may lose that important democratic link to my councillors, who have been really helpful in advising us in the past and who know about my neighbourhood and the history of this little bit of land.

I will say this. Martin Cowie has gone above and beyond his job description in trying to reassure me. It is difficult for him, because the tendering process must be kept wholly confidential, so he is limited in what he can say. He is a thoughtful and honest man and I know that these issues concern him as much as they concern me. I am sure he will do his best. But I am still left feeling unhappy about the situation, and I do want to say this. If anyone thinks that outsourcing is going to improve the service to the residents they have lost the plot. When was the last time a director of a private company spent an hour and a half on the phone on a Saturday evening discussing a potential problem with you, one that has not actually happened yet?  Never?  Thought so. That is the public service ethos that Barnet risk losing with outsourcing the department. At the moment residents in the borough are the Council’s customers. In the future the Council will be the customer and we will be the commodity. I fear we will be reduced to an invoice of letters written, phone calls made, and complaints resolved (or not).

When I wrote the blog in March I thought that conflicts of interest might well be a problem for some people somewhere in the borough. I had no idea that it might affect me so directly and trust me, this is not a comfortable position to be in. 
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Dr Julia Hines is a Barnet resident and a regular reader of the Barnet Eye. Guest blogs are always welcome. 
Email me via the link in my profile (in the grey sidebar).

Barnet Eye News Round up

Greetings, greetings to one and all. Great news, last night I took a phone call from Brian Coleman and he offered me a non job at Barnet Council paying £150,000 a year, if I agreed to only say nice things about him between now and the GLA election and then told me it would go up to £200,000 a year if I said Andrew Dismore smells of poo. Then I woke up and found it was all a horrible dream, caused by eating too much cheese and drinking too much red wine. So no £200,000 a year, no comfy non job, and no compromising of my principles. Ain't life a bitch, guess I'll just have to keep knocking out them blogs then.

So why you may wonder, was the issue of Brian Coleman & the GLA elections troubling me. I've been hacking through the backlog of emails from my holidays and I found this, which was revealed as part of an FOI response. It is an email sent by Brian Coleman, in response to a resident asking about the Obscene increases in CPZ charges (click on the images for a more readable version).

As you can see, Councillor Brian Coleman responds to a perfectly reasonable query about the Obscene raise in CPZ parking charges, by ridiculing his constituents use of the word Obscene, in relation to the price hike. Now if like me (yup, I live in a CPZ) you are subjected to this huge hike in prices and you are lumbered with it, you'd probably think it was "Obscene". However, if like Brian Coleman, you receive a free parking permit, because you are a Councillor, you probably wouldn't have a clue what the poor chap was on about. Or mayby, like Coleman, you wouldn't give a shit, because you are alright jack.

And why was I think of Andrew Dismore? Well yesterday the Labour Party were out in force in Mill Hill Broadway. A brief conversation with one of the campaigners in an Andrew Dismore T-shirt revealed that they were getting a rather good response. What were the topics people were interested in? Nationally, protecting the NHS. Locally - I was told that many local people have been impressed with Andrew Dismore's stance on the proposed Free School in Daws Lane. People have also woken up to the fact that Coleman is MR CPZ rise. They are also none too impressed with his sneaky attempt to abolish Pay and Display. At the last GLA elections, Nicky Gavron (the Labour candidate) was invisible in Barnet. Andrew Dismore is anything but invisible. I suspect that Brian Coleman may well be £53,439 out of pocket come May next year.

What else has been going on. Well there is yet another great new Barnet website, protesting at the stupidty of Barnet Council. As ever we are more than happy to give them a plug. Please check out the Daily Friern, the new site for the Friern Barnet Library campaign - http://paper.li/friernblibrary/1308604551 - at this blog we always give new bloggers in Barnet a plug. There are plenty of other great blogs in the sidebar. If you haven't checked them out, please have a nose around.

On the subject of Barnet Council & the industrial action, there is a great article by Kate Belgrave - http://www.katebelgrave.com/2011/09/barnet-strikes/ - Kate is a freelance investigative journalist who is a passionate supporter of the underrepresented in society. Well worth a read.

For all Barnet Eye readers who are Hogwarts and about to return for the new term, Network rail have moved the Hogwarts platform at Kings Cross - 9 3/4.

You can find details of it's new home at the Londonist - http://londonist.com/2011/09/hogwarts-pupils-confounded-by-moving-platform-at-kings-cross.php - I hope this helps the young wizards of Barnet to get  to school on time.

And on to this :-

I was shocked to see this picture on the First Capital Connect website. For a second, I thought it was the new uniforms for their revenue protection officers (Ticket inspectors in plain English). Happily for those of us partial to bunking the fair (an activity the Barnet Eye would never condone), it isn't . The chaps in the picture are part of the celebrations surrounding the naming of a First Capital Connect train as "Elstree Studios" - Full story here - http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk/about-us/media-centre/news/2011/full-steam-ahead-elstree-film-studios-and-film-capital-connect/ - Maybe Councillor Brian Coleman would like to collaborate with the Barnet Eye and First Capital Connect and get a train named "Mill Hill Music Complex". This could celebrate some of the fine international artists such as Amy Winehouse and Kate Nash, who started their musical career rehearsing in Mill Hill. The offer is there.

Anyway, enjoy your Sunday. I'm off down to Iceland to get a pot noodle for lunch. Having spent all of my cash (and some) on our family holiday, that's all we can afford. That £200,000 a year would have come in mightily handy this month !!!!

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Time to sell up and move if you live in Mill Hill or Hendon? Radlett Rail Freight Terminal Special

Hands up if you like a good nights sleep? Hands up if you've ever heard a freight train thundering through on the Midland Mainline in the middle of the night in Mill Hill or Hendon?

Well if the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you may like to click on this link

http://www.helioslough.com/aerodrome/development_details.asp

This says that the proposed railfreight terminal in Radlett (two stops up the line from Mill Hill) will have 12 freight trains a day. The question is, when will these extra trains run? Well the line is at capacity during the day, due to the popularity of the Thameslink service. So the answer is.... Yup late nights/early mornings.

And what sort of Freight trains are these? Big buggers I believe


http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/Images/Helioslough%20-%20Commercial%20Rail%20Freight%20Proof%20of%20Evidence,%20Graham%20Smith_tcm15-10869.pdf

To quote the document from the inquiry :-

Longer and heavier freight trains: operate 750m long trains as standard and ensure rail freight terminals can accommodate longer trains. Allow heavier trains (with the resulting increased capacity) on selected routes)

Got that, heacy freight trains nearly half a mile long.

Just to re-emphasise :-

Be capable of taking full-length (775m) trains of W10 gauge with longer-term potential for electric traction and European-gauge containers
Be able to receive and despatch around 12 full trains per day

Or put it another way :-

The established Midland Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) states that off-peak capacity should be provided for two freight trains per hour, one with a trailing weight of up to 2500 tonnes, in each direction. The Draft Network Rail East Midlands RUS also states that two off-peak freight paths per hour of up to 2000 tonnes should be provided in each direction. Trains in excess of 2000 tonnes are for hauling bulk commodities such as aggregates and would not serve the Radlett terminal. Capacity for trains of this type will be achieved during off-peak hours by the provision of additional infrastructure, which is being developed under the Strategic Freight Network initiative. DBSR’s international service from Novara in Italy, at 512m, has a typical trailing weight of around 1200 tonnes.

So as well as the new trains for Radlett, we are to have two trains per hour hauling in excess of 2,000 tonnes in off peak periods (overnight). And just to re-iterate

21. I am aware that there have been adverse comments by at least one passenger train operating company with regard to the Radlett proposal. I do not regard these comments as well-considered. The Route Utilisation Strategy for the Midland Main Line makes it very clear that two freight paths per non-peak hour are reserved. Current utilisation rates of around 60% – (the figures are from Network Rail’s Performance and Capacity Report on MML dated July 2009) – show that there is ample capacity

Out of hours (non-peak hours). The line is currently at 60% freight capacity, so we will have a near doubling of freight.

Now I'm not  a Nimby, I'd much rather see freight on railways than roads, but what I do object to is that I only found out about this all by accident. I was googling Radlett to see if there was still day fishing at the gravel pits. My house backs on to the Midland Main Line. It directly affects me. The proposal says plenty about what will be done to mitigate the traffic in Radlett, but what about in Mill Hill and Hendon. Even more scandalous is the fact that our local Action Man MP Manuel Matthew Offord has not said a dicky bird about something which will affect property values and the ability of his constituents to get a good nights sleep. Does he give a monkeys? Does he actually know? Well if he did, he has said nothing on his website. If you don't live near a railway which carries heavy freight, you probably won't realise that each tran feels like a mini earthquake. We have to regularly repaint the rooms of our house to repair cracks caused by the train generated vibrations. As this will increase by 40%, what do I get for all of the disruption & aggro caused. I was recently involved in a property sale for another house backing on to the line. Was there anything thrown up in the searches about this?

One final thing to bear in mind. The original plans were thrown out by the secretary of State last year. He was overruled by a judge in July, and the plans are back on track.

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/9117626.Helioslough__very_pleased__about_judge_s_ruling/

Isn't democracy a wonderful thing.

Rev Adrian Benjamin - A very stupid man indeed

The Ham & High has covered the story of how Rev Adrian Benjamin "disposed" of the Barnet Alliance for Comminty Services banner.

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/hampstead_archdeacon_called_in_over_row_with_minister_1_1009722

To quote the article :-

Rev Benjamin, chairman of the event’s organising committee, said: “If someone came in with explosives then it would have been me who was responsible for disposing of it and as far as I’m concerned it’s as predacious as a bomb.’’ He referred to Mr Silverman as ‘‘a rogue, a rogue.”

As Benjamin is clearly a little bit dim, lets explain to him the difference between a bomb and a community banner.

A bomb is something which :-

a) You cannot simply ignore if you don't like it

b) Has the potential to kill, injure and maim people

c) Is constructed solely with the intention of damaging people and property

The Barnet Alliance for Community Services banner is :-

a) Something you can ignore, with no risk to your person or property

b) Has no asscociated risk to life, limb or property

c) Is constructed solely to prevent political decisions which will put the safety of the elderly, the young and the infirm at risk

I would suggest that if Benjamin is too stupid to be able to work this out, he's probably about as much good at being a priest as the BAPS banner would be if you wanted to use it to blow up the East Barnet Festival.

As for Benjamins comment that Julian Silverman is a Rogue, let me just say this. If he thinks that it is OK to abuse an OAP who gives up his time for free to try and save people from the effects of cuts to public services, he is a disgrace to the office he holds. He should be sacked. I personally will be writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury and requesting his dismissal. I know Julian and he cares passionately about his community. I am sickened that a supposed holder of a clerical office could say such a thing.

I had thought Councillor Robert Rams was the biggest twat in Barnet. It seems like someone is set on stealing his crown.

Mill Hill Sports Club latest - Mill Hill Jazz club is moving

An update on the closure of Mill Hill Sports Club. The Mill Hill jazz club has found a new home. It is :-

Mill Hill Golf Club Clubhouse
100 Barnet Way
Mill Hill
NW7 3AL

They have a real treat as an opening event :-

Our Next Evening: Wednesday 7th September
The Graham Pike Quartet
	Graham Pike is a great multi instrumentalist transgressing many styles from jazz and fusion to classical, trad folk to blues. On trumpet and flugelhorn Graham's been compared to Chet Baker and Miles Davis.  His harmonica playing and singing is also up there with the best.   He is also a Composer/songwriter for TV and Theatre with a lifetime's experience in studio production, scoring and arranging. The quartet features Graham supported by Barry Parfitt on piano, Jason Simpson on bass and Eric Ford on drums. This band will putt us on the map at our new golf club venue.
Price: £5 Members/£7 Guests

Graham Pike is a great multi instrumentalist transgressing many styles from jazz and fusion to classical, trad folk to blues. On trumpet and flugelhorn Graham's been compared to Chet Baker and Miles Davis.  His harmonica playing and singing is also up there with the best.   He is also a Composer/songwriter for TV and Theatre with a lifetime's experience in studio production, scoring and arranging.
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As to the latest gossip on the Sports Club, and I have heard this third hand so I don't know how true it is. The staff have now been given until the end of September to be completely out of there when the Club closes. Originally they had been given a 3 month rolling contract to be caretakers of the place. Now, allegedly, the council is meeting with the current owners to discuss buying back the property to, as you may know, build a school there.  Whilst the area does need more schools, its not such a good idea when it comes at the expense of loosing sports facilities. The council owns plenty of land in Barnet, so why destroy amenities for the community, rather than using existing sites? We cannot afford, socially, morally or for the sake of our young peoples health and wellbeing to keep destroying playing fields.

Barnet Eye holiday catch up - What did I miss?

As eagle eyed readers of this blog may have noticed, for the last 11 days (until last night), all blogs were forward posted before I went on holiday. So what has been happening since I left? Perhaps the most hilarious story is this

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9219033.Hendon_MP_assists_in_Belize_drug_bust/?ref=mc

Our local MP details how he "participated" in a drugs bust in Belize. I discussed this with a mate who's ex Royal Marines. He explained how MP's and other dignitaries often "participated" in all sorts of operations. They are given basic training and safety information. They are then carted a long to get a feel for how operations are conducted, with a couple of minders to try and ensure they are kept out of harms way, whilst getting a flavour of what happens. His view is that such operations serve to ensure that MP's appreciate the effort and professionalism of the services. I worry that this point may have been wasted on Mr Offord. Reading the article, it appears that Mr Offord is bigging up his role as an active participant. The whole point is that the Royal Marine training course is probably one of the toughest gigs in the world. The idea that an MP could do a basic training course and participate in any sort of active way is absurd. Whilst I think it is great that Matthew Offord MP actually got out and saw the Marines in action, please spare us the idea that he was anything more than a passenger. I hope Mr Offord learned something and the people of Hendon get some benefit.

Another rather strange story is the odd story of the "missing BAPS banner" :-

http://vickim57.blogspot.com/2011/08/one-of-our-banners-is-missing.html

The Barnet Alliance for Public Services hoped to have a stall at the East Barnet fair. They brought down their banner and were in the process of setting up when it appears that the Reverend Adrian Benjamin, assisted by Councillor Brian Coleman arrived, confiscated the banner and then proceeded to lose it. Adrian Benjamin is the type of person who tends to put people of organised religion and christianity (in my humble opinion). I must put my cards on the table. I'm a member of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church in Mill Hill and a member of its pastoral council. We try our best to play a socially responsible role locally. We try and build a sense of community. We support good neighbour schemes, which provide support for elderly people, provide youth activities for young people, provide a base for all sorts of community groups, we raise funds for various projects to improve third world communities. Most of us happily do all of this for free, because we want to make our community a better place to live. Then someone comes like Adrian Benjamin comes along, acts in a totally high handed, pompous fashion, with no regard for other peoples feelings, views or property and alienates a whole section of the community. I can't and don't want to defend Benjamin. All I can say is that I think he's an embarrassment for the rest of us and idiots like him can undo in tem minutes, the work of dozens of people throughout the year. In my opinion  a priest should display humility, wisdom and kindness. As Mr Benjamin displays none of the these, he is a priest only by title. The Church of England does not need such TITular heads in their organisation. It is totally disgraceful and I feel a deep sense of shame for his stupidity.

Another rather odd story featuring our beloved Brian Coleman is the tale of how a local greenwalk has been ruined :-

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9224526.Greenwalk__wrecked_by_council_s_betrayal_/

It seems that local ramblers are up in arms that this walk has been tranformed into a cycleway. Personally I'm just grateful, given Colemans record, that it hasn't become a three lane highway with a carpark.

Perhaps of interest to many readers of this blog is this article in the Guardian, which exposes the fact that most of the new Free schools are in nice middle class areas, which generally already have decent education.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/31/free-schools-middle-class-areas?CMP=twt_gu

Given my associations with Sweden & many friends from the country, I know a fair bit about the Free School movement there, where the idea originated. The main impetus was to allow local people in far flung communities to have local schools, rather than for children to have to travel for hours a day to get to the nearest big state school. It is interesting to see how the free school sector has morphed in Sweden. The are now cases of free schools bringing in English style discipline, as many Swedish parents feel that there is none in the state sector. When I arrived in Stockholm in 1981, aged 18, I was shocked at the level of sophistication of many of my Swedish friends. They simply didn't believe that the UK then had corporal punishment in schools. They were amazed at the concept that children could be beaten. I found the facilities at the local Swedish schools (we played a gig at Tumba Gymnasium in Stockhom and got a tour of the facilities) to be light years ahead of the UK. I suspect that we only just started to catch up under the last Labour government.

As Mill Hill Jewish Free school (AKA Etz Chaim) will open its doors shortly, I for one will be fascinated to see how this experiment progresses. It is sad that a plan to open a school has caused such division in the community. I don't personally support the Free School concept and hope that the next Labour government abolishes the concept, bringing the sector back under local authority control. During the battle for EtzChaim, I declined to give my views on the general principles of the Free School movement, as I had sympathies with the parents trying to do the best for their children, but now the dust has settled, it is clear that the politicisation caused by the Free School movement is not a good thing and that the polarisation of communities, cause is also not good for social cohesion. Having said all that, I hope Etz Chaim is a success and that when we get a sensible government, they re-establish local authority control over education, with Etz Chaim being part of Barnet Education services.

Blog of the week? This prediction from Barnet's very own Mystic Meg - Mr Mustard

http://lbbspending.blogspot.com/2011/07/prediction-roads-of-barnet-will-fall.html

He predicts Barnet's roads will crumble this winter. I discussed this prediction with my very own road construction expert, fast Eddie. He assures me that it all depends on how cold it is. Potholes are caused by Freeze/thaw activity. A mild winter and we'll be OK. Strangely he reckons that exceptionally cold winters are also not as bad, it is ones where there is a heavy frost at night and a daytime thaw. Eddie has worked on Londons roads since the second world war ended. His verdict "Barnet have wasted a fortune on sub standard repairs and unless we get a really mild one, most of them will fall apart".

Now if you know of any roads which have problems or need resurfacing, just get in touch with the Leader of Barnet Council. He'll ensure it is done immediately :-

http://www.finchleyconservatives.com/local-campaigns/newcampaigns.html

Sadly this link for the Finchley Conservatives new campaigns is out of date. It is at least two years old as Mike Freer hasn't been a councillor for over a year or leader for over 18 months. Sadly since his blod words in this, the roads fell apart last winter :-

Your Road Has Been Resurfaced

Barnet has resurfaced more roads than the length of the M25.....

Your road is one of the latest to be resurfaced and we are now addressing problems with our pavements. We pledged to resurface the Borough's many damaged roads. As your Conservative Councillors we are responding to your priorities and delivering on our promises.

If you know a road in need of resurfacing, please contact Cllr Mike Freer 8359 2059 or email leader@barnet.gov.uk   If you want to help support Mike in his campaign, please email him at Fingold@btinternet.com

 

I back Mystic Mustard over Mystic Mike any day !!!!!

Finally, my favourite story of the week :-

 http://www.edgware-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=31662&headline=Hapless drug dealer shot his own leg with concealed gun

Whilst I don't normally like to snigger at other people's misfortune, I'll make an exception in this case.