The 'Gas Person Cometh' in Herne Hill
Herne Hill is an up and coming mini town centre straddling the border with Southwark where shopkeepers and residents have aspirations. Its energetic and well organised Herne Hill Forum acts as a local area assembly and sounding board with regular turnouts of 200 people or more.
Imagine the disappointment then that must have followed the re-election of two Labour councillors last May who despite their local profile don't appear to be anyone's first port of call when people need help. One of them is even a Cabinet member with a whacking special responsibility allowance who clearly needs to spend more time in the ward and less in the town hall balancing the books.
Instead it's the Conservatives who've been asked to help do something about the fact that shopkeepers think Lambeth Council seems to be hell bent on "driving the retailers out of business." So what do they say - loading and unloading for traders is becoming "impossible for all shops, bars and pubs in Railton Road; parking bays were meant to be sorted out last November but has still not been done four months later; CCTV cameras were supposed to prevent street crime in Herne Hill but only seem to issue parking tickets."
Having documented the grievances, we'll now monitor how quickly anyone from the Council responds. One of the complaints is in the old Flanders and Swann category of the 'Gas person cometh' - "a man came and started to paint some gray railings black, ran out of paint, and then never came back leaving the railings a piebald colour." Oddly enough that was the first point the Council officers responding to these complaints picked up on, probably because it doesn't require a statutory notice to fix it - just another pot of paint which is actually on sale less than 25 yards from the railings.
Imagine the disappointment then that must have followed the re-election of two Labour councillors last May who despite their local profile don't appear to be anyone's first port of call when people need help. One of them is even a Cabinet member with a whacking special responsibility allowance who clearly needs to spend more time in the ward and less in the town hall balancing the books.
Instead it's the Conservatives who've been asked to help do something about the fact that shopkeepers think Lambeth Council seems to be hell bent on "driving the retailers out of business." So what do they say - loading and unloading for traders is becoming "impossible for all shops, bars and pubs in Railton Road; parking bays were meant to be sorted out last November but has still not been done four months later; CCTV cameras were supposed to prevent street crime in Herne Hill but only seem to issue parking tickets."
Having documented the grievances, we'll now monitor how quickly anyone from the Council responds. One of the complaints is in the old Flanders and Swann category of the 'Gas person cometh' - "a man came and started to paint some gray railings black, ran out of paint, and then never came back leaving the railings a piebald colour." Oddly enough that was the first point the Council officers responding to these complaints picked up on, probably because it doesn't require a statutory notice to fix it - just another pot of paint which is actually on sale less than 25 yards from the railings.
Labels: CCTV, Herne Hill, Herne Hill Forum, Parking, Shops
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Sunday, April 01, 2007
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