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Local Birdwatch

12/3/2021

Now Autumn is merging to winter and only a few migrants are still passing south on our coasts. However, some visitors have been seen on the coasts and in the north which will winter in Britain. Of these we may see Fieldfares, Redwings in our gardens or the parks and even a Great Grey Shrike within striking distance if we are lucky. Geese will be arriving, too, along with many ducks and gulls. Locally our Tufted Ducks and Shovelers have already moved off the local lakes, but gull numbers are increasing. As it becomes colder more gulls and ducks will turn up with visitors in the Lee valley including Teal, Wigeon, Goosanders, Mergansers, Goldeneye and even the elusive Smew.

In our gardens food still lingers, but we need to be filling the feeders now the days are colder. This will encourage our garden birds to stay: Tits (Great, Blue, Coal or even flocks of Long-Tailed): Also, Finches, Sparrows, Thrushes, Starlings. Wood Pigeons and Wrens.

DSH

Enfield Non legislated Street Lighting put in the Shade by Haringey’s

12/3/2021

Roland Hewes

I know I wasn’t the only one to notice the dramatic change in street lighting levels in our area when Enfield switched from Sodium to LED lamp heads last year. This was done to save energy as they are so much more efficient to run; no argument there. However, as can be seen from the accompanying photos, it appeared to have been executed very poorly. This can best be seen when compared to neighbouring Haringey, who have also made the switch but done so correctly.

NEW LED LIT ENFIELD STREET

OLD SODIUM LIT ENFIELD STREET

Thankfully, I was able to connect with someone on York Road who was something of an LED lighting expert through his work, and some other local residents who cared about how this was affecting our neighbourhood. This triggered us to take lumen measurements across a great number of locations to see what had happened to our light levels.

We found that across the board the Enfield side roads gave out a pitiful level of light. Most interesting, for comparison, was Queens Road in Bounds Green as it straddles two boroughs; ¾ of it is in Haringey and ¼ in Enfield.

Here in my video is what we found: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFc5AlPrrLQ

Spoiler alert: Enfield’s LED light heads emitted under 10% of that given out by the Haringey light heads on the same street! In an effort to cut a long story short, It transpired that there were a number of issues at play:

In the Enfield light heads, half of the LED diodes in the light heads remained switched off whilst all are illuminated on the Haringey ones.
It also appeared that the spread of the light heads used in Enfield didn’t match that of those it replaced so you ended up with a ‘zebra effect’ on the roads and pavements (light and dark stripes).

When we alerted Enfield Council to this they were painfully slow to respond and after much chasing they got their lighting people to do a survey. They came back and said that they had met minimum levels. Although to reach these minimum levels they did hack back the trees on York Road. We then saw street safety being highlighted in the media exemplified by the tragic Sarah Everard case.

We continued to kick up a stink and in what can be seen as a partial victory a few upstanding residents of Bowes went out to get some light measures recently and found Enfield council had turned them up a bit. However, don’t crack open the champagne just yet as the Haringey lamp heads on Queens Road are still just over 12 times brighter than we enjoy in Enfield. I do hope the current Enfield Labour administration will be revisiting this issue. We really do deserve better than this!

Stay Safe and keep warm.

Dealing with the Council: Difficult When it’s a One-Way Process

12/3/2021

Stephen Dalziel, Chairman, BHORA

Many BHORA Members will have been puzzled that they have not heard from the Association for many months. As Chairman, I apologise for this. The situation has been caused principally, of course, by the COVID- 19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and other issues which we are all well aware of. This prevented us from holding an AGM in 2020 or 2021. On top of this, it has become increasingly clear that it is currently very difficult to conduct a meaningful conversation with Enfield Council.

The biggest local issue in the past two years has been the imposition by the Council of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in Bowes (and Fox Lane). This was done without any consultation with residents. Emergency government regulations allowed for this, but nevertheless, under the same regulations vulnerable people, local businesses and the emergency services should have been consulted. They weren’t.

As soon as it was announced that this scheme was to be imposed, I contacted the Council on behalf of BHORA, pointing out difficulties that pushing all traffic from the Bowes area onto the North Circular Road would cause. My concerns were dismissed without consideration. So BHORA organised a petition – not to stop the LTN completely, but to put the plans on hold until residents had been consulted. In the space of just ten days, 1,600 residents signed the petition calling for consultation.

Delivering the petition under COVID restrictions was a challenge, but we managed to do it. It took the Council’s Scrutiny Committee three months to examine the petition, but it was dismissed out of hand.

By this time, the Bounds & Bowes Voice Group had become very active in the struggle for a democratic process to be applied to the LTN issue, and BHORA agreed that it made more sense to have one local group leading on the issue, and so stepped back.

The worry here is that Enfield Council has acted in a way that has very serious concerns for the democratic process in the Borough. The Council ignores residents’ concerns, and has even insulted individuals, notably on social media. Have our Councillors forgotten that they are public servants, and that they have been elected by residents to work for the good of the community?

BHORA has not disappeared, and when more people are confident about meeting in large numbers we shall call the delayed Annual General Meeting, COVID restrictions allowing. No-one knows how the winter will pan out, but it is hoped that we can meet again in the Spring.

Bowes LTN - Have Your Say Before Deadline Ends on 26 March 2021

3/16/2021

The consultation period for trialing the Bowes Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme (LTN) ends on 26 March 2021.

Do today & don't delay!
We urge you to submit your feedback / concerns / suggestions for improvement, before the deadline.

Register and feedback to Enfield Council:
https://letstalk.enfield.gov.uk/bowesQN/survey_tools/statutory-consultation

BE AWARE: Phase 2 of the plan involves installing a bus gate (i.e. cameras) on Brownlow Road. This means private vehicles will be excluded from passing through this road.

Arnos Grove Station Car Park Development - REJECTED

1/28/2021

The application by Transport for London and Grainger plc to develop housing on the two car parks at Arnos Grove Underground station was rejected by the LBE Planning Committee on 5th January. However there may be an Appeal.
>> read a report in the Enfield Independent

Arnos Grove Station Car Parks Development

11/17/2019

The proposal by Transport for London and Grainger plc to develop housing on the two car parks at Arnos Grove Underground station was the subject of a second “consultation” event 6/7 November 2019. (Similar schemes are afoot at a score of London tube stations - including Cockfosters where 350 housing units are in prospect with consequential dispersal of vehicles from the carparks).

The Arnos Grove scheme envisages apartment blocks comprising some 150 units, all to be rental, with 40% being classed as “affordable”. The development would be essentially “car-free” with tenants ineligible for access to the surrounding CPZ. A public square would be part of the scheme and the setting-down/bus stops area in front of the station would be reorganised. Surpluses arising from the project would go towards public transport improvement.

A planning application is scheduled to be made in Spring 2020. Completion of the development is envisaged for 2023.

Further details to be found at www.givemyview.com/arnosgrove
Comments to kharris@conciliocomms.com or 020 3890 7318

If you want to STOP this development sign the petition on change.org http://chng.it/HqH7bkhs

Feedback: This event added little flesh to the bones laid out at the event in June.
From a BHORA perspective, several aspects require more hard facts and clarification:

Design: the site is a sensitive one with the Listed 1930s Charles Holden Station superstructure and surrounding trees etc. How will the housing blocks (up to 6 storeys) not compete with or overshadow the distinctive drum of the station building either in bulk or in materials? How environmentally-friendly will these housing units be?

Infrastructure: what guarantees are there that a further enlarged local population will have access to decent community facilities of the kind that have yet to be provided for residents in new housing along the NCR put up by Notting Hill Housing Trust and for which BHORA has endlessly lobbied?

“Affordability” – will the “affordable” rent levels be affordable in any normal sense of the word for those on low or average incomes?

Parking – on the face of it, cars currently parked in the two carparks would simply be displaced into the surrounding residential streets. Is that something that local residents, already afflicted by chronic traffic jams and invasive vehicle parking, would welcome? The promoters of the scheme are apparently in discussion with Enfield Council about revising the existing CPZ. Will anything approaching a parking strategy for the borough come any nearer as a result? Have the promoters considered the traffic queues likely to build up in front of the station at rush hours to set down or pick up users of the Underground line? Have the promoters taken into account the impact of the projected CrossRail2 terminus at New Southgate?

Consultation: the impact of this scheme, along with similar plans for Cockfosters, is not just parochial, so the promoters need to keep a great many Enfield residents fully informed and to take account of their views – and that goes for Enfield Council too.

PWA - Add your Signature to their Response to Haringey's Local Plan

3/17/2015

The Pinkham Way Alliance is at present preparing their response to the final Haringey consultation on Sites Allocation, which deals with land use on important sites.

Among these is of course Pinkham Way, a Grade 1 nature conservation site, whose ecological richness has recently been highlighted in the Council’s Open Space and Biodiversity Study as ‘an undisturbed site of high ecological value ... a rare resource for Haringey’.

As many of you will know, the North London Waste Authority and Barnet, the owners, remain dead set on developing this utterly unsuitable site, located as it is by the most congested part of the most congested road in London, for waste treatment. We experience the daily consequences of this congestion on our local roads.

Haringey are now, to their great credit, assessing the site on proper planning principles and have placed increasing constraints on any development proposal.

This is our last chance to influence the Council and urge them to protect a site which is being revealed as holding an increasingly rich biodiversity. It’s absolutely vital therefore that we collect as many signatures as possible in support of our response (an amazing 900 of you signed up to our previous submission, and we need to beat that by a distance!).

Details of the PWA response are on their website: www.pinkhamwayalliance.org

If you choose to make your own submission, please feel free to use these as a guide if necessary. (You’ll find the relevant Sites Allocation document on the Haringey website, www.haringey.gov.uk. PW details are on pp 138-139 of the document.)

As many adult members of a household as want to can sign up. PLEASE pass this message on to your family, friends and neighbours. The deadline for signing is 5pm on Wednesday, 25th March. The deadline for your own response to Haringey (ldf@haringey.gov.uk) is 5pm on Friday, 27th March.

Also, PWA are holding a public meeting regarding their response. The meeting is at Hollickwood School, Sydney Road, N10 2NL. Wednesday 25th March at 7pm.

Residential Development at Arnos Grove Station - Support Objection

10/24/2014

At Arnos Grove station there are in the region of 600 parking spaces. However, plans are afoot to develop the areas around the station that would include the loss of at least half of all station parking.

See 'Policy 17 Arnos Grove Station (Site 7)' in the North Circular Area Action Plan, which is part of Enfield's Local Plan adopted October 2014.

To have your say before it is too late please download an objection letter and send to the local councillors and MP listed in the letter.

Thanks in advance for your support.

BHORA Autumn Newsletter

9/6/2014

Read our Autumn 2014 Newsletter with news articles on:

Potential Loss of Car Parking at Arnos Grove, and No Parking Provision for Cross Rail Extension at New Southgate Station
The Ritz Parade a local heritage
Lane Unknowingly Sold Behind Houses
Your Trees
Flood Risk in the BHORA Area

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments about any of the topics covered.
>> Download the newsletter

BHORA Spring Newsletter

3/7/2014

Read our Spring 2014 Newsletter with news articles on:

North Circular Area Action Plan
Planning Objections
Support for those on Tax credit
Traffic Calming
The Enfield Ritz: a site for "comprehensive redevelopment"?

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments about any of the topics covered.
>> Download the newsletter