| Home | Haringey Friends of Parks Forum the network for all the borough's local Friends groups for parks, nature sites, recreation grounds, community gardens and other green open spaces... |
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Report
of Forum
meeting, March 6th 2010
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| Present:
Dave Morris (Lordship Rec) - Chair, Joan Curtis (Lordship Rec), Helen Steel (Lordship Rec), Ceri Williams (Chestnuts Park), Ulla Lefmann (Ducketts Common), Adam Coffman (Ducketts Common and Fairland Park), Veronica Bailey (Downhills Park), Catherine Price (BTCV), Michael Johns (Queen’s Wood) – note-taker. Items 6-13 John Morris, Ian Holt, Sarah Jones (London Borough of Haringey) Apologies: David Warren (Parkland Walk), Sally Billot (Finsbury Park), Ros Abrams (CREOS), Matt McCabe (Belmont), Paul Crook (Finsbury Park) and Joyce Rosser (Priory Common) |
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1.
Minutes of last meeting – agreed, subject to correction of the name of Green Gate Common. 2. Matters arising Dave Morris had written to the Trade Unions as agreed at the last meeting. Friends of Downhill Park were still campaigning vigorously against housing on any part of the park. The London and National Forums were both active, campaigning for adequate resources for open spaces. 3. Council Budgets Joan had written a first draft of a leaflet for prospective councillors about the importance of parks and open spaces, including a list of all that they contributed to council policy. She would welcome more contributions from Friends’ Groups on activities in their parks. The meeting made some suggestions. It was agreed that the Forum should work in partnership with other bodies such as the Federation of Residents’ associations in fighting for adequate resources at a time when public spending was likely to be squeezed. 4. Announcements on spending decisions for individual parks For the second time in a year, Labour Councillors had announced spending decisions on Ducketts Common in a political newsletter when the Friends Group had not been informed. At the Forum meeting in March, the Forum had expressed the view that the relevant Friends Group should always be informed before any public announcement and Council officers had agreed with this. On the previous occasion the figure quoted had been badly wrong; the Friends still had no notification in writing whether the figures quoted this time were any more reliable. The Forum agreed that it was very important that Friends Groups were notified in advance of any public announcement. It was also agreed that it was inappropriate to use political newsletters as the vehicle for any announcement. Adam was going to make a formal complaint to John Morris and the Forum agreed that they should be associated with the complaint. 5. Minibus tour of parks Joan still hoped to organise this although she had not had time to take it further so far. She would welcome assistance from others. 6. Local Reports Chestnuts Park The Stage 2 Lottery bid for a sensory garden and play area had now been submitted. The plan to demolish the Play Centre was progressing although it still had to be agreed where the funds for demolition would come from. It would be important that after demolition there would still be room for the Parks Department presence. The rent had been increased substantially but Parks Department had helpfully agreed to provide a subsidy in return for services, the details of which were currently being discussed. There had been a long running dispute about where the path leading from the crossing on Blackboy Lane should run but it was hoped this might be resolved soon. John Morris confirmed that the building would be demolished at the expense of some part of the Council. Queen’s Wood It was hoped that work on the Frog Pool would start soon. There would be a 10 year anniversary exhibition in the Lodge in June; the Friends had had to restrict attendance at the Anniversary celebrations to members only because of numbers. There would be a bird walk on 25 April. Ducketts Common There was concern that Mannings Fair would be returning to the Common this year when the issue of the proper memorial to the child who had been killed last year was not resolved. There could be serious problems if the existing memorial was damaged. The Friends thought the event should be cancelled this year as the income it brought in was small. A hedge had been planted, which meant that new arrangements had to be made for access by large vehicles. An orchard had now been planted in Green Gate Common. The Friends Group had agreed an ambitious management plan with Groundwork – Groundwork, council officials and the Friends had worked together very well. This contrasted with the poor handling of the announcement on spending (see 4 above). The work at Fairland Park had started and it was hoped it would be finished by 20 April with a local community celebration possibly on 3 May. There was some possibility that an Adizone would be installed on Ducketts Common. John Morris confirmed that an expression of interest for one of the Adizones contemplated for London had been submitted. He said that no decision had been taken yet about Mannings Fair but the budget was set on the assumption of a level of income being received and the policy was to encourage funfairs. The Council was well aware of the sensitivity and was continuing to work with the family concerned about an appropriate memorial to the dead boy. He invited Forum members to let him know if they had any ideas on sources of income which did not raise controversy. He explained that the Council had agreed a £300k capital budget for parks for next year and confirmed that £50k of this was being earmarked for Ducketts Common. Funding from other sources was already in the public domain. He apologised for not having informed the Friends. He would await their complaint and respond then to the general points raised. It was agreed that it would be helpful if he could make a presentation to the Forum on the distribution of the capital budget; this would be for information only as it would not be appropriate for the Forum to get involved in decisions on allocations between different parks. Lordship Rec The Stage 2 bid for Lottery funding had now been submitted and it was hoped that it would be met in full although Haringey had not been able to raise the full amount of match funding and there might have to be some scaling back of plans. Joan would give a presentation in due course to the Friends on the process, which was extremely burdensome, though potentially very rewarding financially. The result should be known in September. They had also secured a Community Spaces grant of £15k to restore the island in the lake. They hoped to do the work with BTCV support in September. They had applied for a Green Pennant for the woodland in the park. Downhills Park The Friends had set up a blog to keep everyone informed of what was going on, which could be found at www.friendsofdownhillspark.blogspot,com <http://www.friendsofdownhillspark.blogspot,com/> . Work on the frogpond had been held up by the bad weather. The funding for the café had now been settled. It would be staffed by trainees and might not be able to open on weekends. 7. Biodiversity Action Plan Ian Holt made a presentation about the Haringey Biodiversity Action Plan. The full plan was available on the Council’s website and summaries were made available to Friends’ Groups. It was suggested that a text only version of the summary could be circulated electronically. The previous plan had focussed on preservation both of species and habitats; nowadays, the emphasis was on preservation of habitats since, if this was got right, the species would follow anyway. There was now a biodiversity duty on all public bodies and Haringey had tried to get all services, not just Parks, to sign up to actions. So far six services had done so and more were expected to follow. National Indicator No 197 for councils required evidence that habitats are actively managed and Haringey had committed to 5% improvement a year on this. £25k out of the capital budget was earmarked for pump priming for this work, but there were plenty of external funding sources which could also be accessed. Friends Group support was very important. The Action Plan contained goals with target dates and it would be possible to monitor progress against these through the council website. 8. Surveys Sarah Jones made a presentation on surveys on parks, particularly the 2009 Park User Survey. About one in ten households were approached and there was a 9% response rate which was not bad for surveys of this kind. Use and satisfaction were steadily increasing over time. In 2009 92% of respondents used a park, 70% a Haringey run one. 71% were satisfied compared with only 59% in 2003. Among the boroughs using the same methodology, Haringey had risen from 66th to 6th in ranking for satisfaction. 79% of users felt safe. The most visited parks were Finsbury Park and Priory Park. Toilets were the facilities most commented on as needing improvement. Figures were available from Sarah for individual parks, though care needed to be taken in interpretation as the numbers surveyed were often very low. Other surveys were also undertaken and the results of all of them needed to be considered together to get a full picture. 9. BTCV Catherine Price circulated a note of the services BTCV could perform for Friends Groups and this will be circulated electronically. They were always on the lookout for tasks which their Tuesday and Saturday volunteer conservation groups could do. BTCV also held educational sessions at Railway Fields and would be happy to hold them in other parks if approached by schools. They were currently organising their next year’s programme of walks. On 28 March there would be a litter picking day in Markfields and Parkland Walk as part of the national Big Tidy Up and other parks were very welcome to join in. It was suggested that BTCV should always contain a reference to the website of the local Friends’ Group on publicity for events; if they did not know this, they could refer to the Friends’ Forum. 10. Bye-Laws At the last meeting the Forum had been told that the Council would be consulting on new bye-laws. However, Friends of Queen’s Wood had received a letter from Lewis Taylor saying that proposed bye-laws were complete and they wondered what the true position was. John Morris agreed to research and let the Forum have a note. 11. Planning The Forum asked what arrangements were in place to ensure that the need for open spaces and recreation were included in s106 agreements and what was done to ensure that agreements were adhered to. Ian Holt said he had been involved in discussions to set the general principles of what should be required but was not involved in decisions on individual cases. He would let the Forum know who they ought to contact on this. The notification to Friends’ Groups of development applications in or adjacent to parks remained patchy. The weekly list of all applications was too lengthy for individuals to scrutinise. The Planning Department should include Friends’ Groups in the list of people informed and John Morris would remind them. 12. Any other business John Morris reported that additional Parkforce stewards would be reintroduced after Easter until October. The numbers would be larger than last year because of some additional posts under the Future Jobs programme.
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