We are keeping an eye on the council’s improvements to the Dollis Valley environment. Poppy sent this letter, and the reply is pasted below it.

Dear Dollis Valley Greenwalk team

I am writing as a resident who walks and runs along Whetstone Stray and beyond (behind the school playing fields) most days of the year. I also write as the local Green Party candidate for the GLA elections next year.

I welcome the news that you plan:

• Improving Access – including signage, footpath work and entrances
• Improving/establishing biodiversity and natural habitat – creating wild flower meadows, grassland management and river enhancement works
• Improving/providing facilities and infrastructure – including litter bins, play &fitness equipment

As well as the £400,000 secured through the Mayor of London’s Help a London Park scheme for Dollis Valley Greenwalk, an additional £250,000 has been secured from TfL for cycle and footpath improvements and £30,000 from Walk London to improve signage.

You also intend “To encourage wildlife and biodiversity and improve safety, this will include:

• removal of scrub areas
• clearance at entrances
• localised new planting including native species
• retention of significant dead trees”

You do not mention in your website removing trees, which is what I discovered on the ground. I would welcome learning the reasons for the trees you propose to “replace”.
I would also welcome learning how they will be replaced – in the same locations? with indigenous, wildlife friendly or fruit bearing trees? (I note you write “including native species” – you do not say they will be preferred).
I would also welcome information on how these trees will be cared for, as I have sadly noticed as you have also no doubt, a propensity to vandalise saplings.
You will understand my regret at the potential loss of biomass and tree cover. I am seeking reassurance on these points.
You are also welcome to add me to your list when you invite comments, or plan consultations on these plans.

Yours sincerely
Poppy

HERE’S THE REPLY:

Dear Poppy

Thank you for your enquiry, the trees we intend to remove have been selected as we consider them to be in poor condition and are largely dead or dying.

We will be removing 6 of these dead/dying specimens and will replace them by planting a total of 12 trees in the corresponding vicinity, we will be planting Birch and Lime trees which will help boost biodiversity and attract wildlife.

I hope this news reassures you of our commitment to enhancing the local habitat, I have now added you to our mailing list as requested. Once gain thank you for your enquiry.

Regards

[name withheld as a courtesy]
Project Support Officer, Greenspaces
Environment, Planning and Regeneration
London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP

The correspondence continues. Keep an eye on this site.

A month or so ago we launched our 20mph speed limit on residential streets campaign.

Barnet Greens launch 20mph campaign (L-R: Johnny, Poppy, Andrew, Gardi, Nick (on giraffe unicycle), Phil, Denis)

Poppy had this letter published in the Barnet Times this week (p20):

Barnet shares with Wandsworth the dubious distinction of having the greatest number of council employees earning over £150,000 pa (nine of them) according to figures analysed this week by the Green Party. The chief executive’s pay is 12 times more than the London living wage. He earns £200,976 – only four boroughs pay their chief exec more.

With so many proposed cuts, how does Barnet justify these fat cat salaries? Enfield, our neighbouring borough, has only one employee – the chief exec – on more than 150,000. They might like to ask themselves, do we actually need a chief executive? Soon after Leo Boland went to work as the GLA’s chief exec, they decided they didn’t need him and abolished the role altogether. The Telegraph has revealed this week that Leo Boland, the former chief executive of Barnet, enjoyed an afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason on expenses. Need I say more?

(L-R) Gardi, the Barnet Banner and me in front of the Palace of Westminster standing in opposition to the arms trade

We are not resting in our pursuit of Barnet’s dodgy investment policies. This week we’ll be writing to them for an update on their investments in tobacco – last year it was announced they had £8million carcinogenic investments. For a long time now we have been pressing the council on its lethal investments in weapons makers – especially BAe systems.

In September Gardi and I (Poppy) went to represent Barnet Green Party at the demonstration against the arms trade, and heard Caroline Lucas address the demonstration. That was just before she got some of the traders ejected from the arms fair for purveying banned weapons.

Jenny Jones and Poppy at Avenue House with their bicycles

AM Poppy, our London Assembly candidate for Barnet Camden, writes about the increasingly bad tempered standoff between local cyclists and pedestrians

It appears that conflict is escalating in an unlikely power struggle between Barnet cyclists and pedestrians.

Since the day a month to two ago when I was on a cycling tour hosted by the Barnet LCC along with Jenny Jones, our Green mayoral candidate, the debate has not gone away – and was resumed on my Twitter stream today.

On that day in August, we approached Windsor Open Space, dismounted and were being briefed about the debate over how to spend Boris’s thousands on improving the Dollis Valley Greenwalk when we encountered a dog walker. One of us hailed h

er in a neighbourly way and was repaid with a torrent of angry invective. We sought to mollify her but she was having none of it.

She left us with the curse ringing in our ears that now she’d met us she would lend only more energy to the campaign opposing cyclists along that stretch of the Dollis Valley.

Her tone is echoed in a lobbying e-mail from a constituent this week, who hurled intemperate contumely on cyclists in parks:
“Anyway if you met one or more cyclists coming towards you – you get out of their way or suffer abuse and threats. Cyclists NEVER get out of the way for pedestrians,” he raged.

On those occasions when I have been a cyclist (in summer only, I’m a fair weather cyclist) I have always dodged pedestrians, often on paths dedicated to cycling, so I know he’s wrong, but the volume of this conflict seems to have risen too high for anyone voice to be heard.

On Twitter this week the admirable Mrs Angry and Londonneur have been continuing the controversy over the wheeled-or-footed fate of the Dollis Valley Green Walk – and I’m thinking, who is winning here? Who do I imagine is looking at these exchanges and chuckling closed-jawed like a Barnet Muttley in an unseemly Wacky Races that he controls? Why, Barnet’s own transport supremo and our esteemed representative in the glassy City Hall, Brian.

In this battle, whom are we fighting if not ourselves? There are no cyclists who are not also pedestrians. This battle is absurd. If we don’t wish to play directly into Muttley’s dastardly hands this must stop!

Lets recognise that we all need to share this planet, which means yielding to the weaker and slower, and flying our bikes shouting “wheee” when the opportunity and the slope allow for it.

By all means put up a sign saying Pedestrian Priority Area in places if you must, but that should surely be the rule on all paths. Then we can attend to the real issues that threaten us – global warming, air pollution and the highest road traffic casualty figures of any London borough. Guess where our ire really needs to be directed?

Poppy (second right) and supporters campaign outside East Finchley Underground Station

Please sign our online petition for a 20 mph speed limit in Barnet, at:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/20-mph-speed-limit-on-barnet-residential-streets.html

Barnet’s AM Poppy launched her campaign as Green candidate for Barnet and Camden Boroughs in next year’s London Assembly elections by cycling slowly up East Finchley High Road to highlight our campaign for a 20 mph speed limit on Barnet residential streets.

She was joined by around 10 other Greens and cycling enthusiasts and their protest attracted quite a crowd of onlookers.

Poppy said: “I know it’s provocative to cycle slowly up the road, but the challenges facing Barnet’s residents call for urgent, drastic action, including curbing traffic speed.

“Firstly, there’s Barnet’s tragic road casualty figures – the highest number of road deaths in London, and the second highest number of people suffering injury on our roads last year. (In 2010, nine people died and 1,520 were injured on Barnet’s road network, a rise of 8% on the previous year.)

“There is also our shameful air pollution. For example, the pollution monitor at Tally Ho (the only monitor in Finchley) has registered average annual Nitrogen Dioxide levels above the World Health Organisation recommended maximum ever since the monitor was installed in the 1990s.

“The dangers of bad air are consistently underplayed, and the mayor does everything he can to avoid paying the hefty fines that exceeding the levels carries, rather than everything to bring down the levels.

“In any case I want to see London become a more livable, affordable and happy city, and convert Barnet into a model borough for cycling and pollution reduction, not like it is now – London’s most deadly borough for road users of all kinds.”

Please sign our online petition for a 20 mph speed limit in Barnet, at:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/20-mph-speed-limit-on-barnet-residential-streets.html

- The elections for the Mayor and London Assembly take place in May 2012.

- Jenny Jones has been selected as the Green Party candidate for Mayor.

- The London Assembly consists of 25 members – 14 elected from constituencies 11 elected from a Londonwide proportional list. The Greens have two members on the outgoing Assembly.

- POPPY BIO:

A communications professional with experience on three continents, Poppy went to school and lives in Barnet borough. A life-long campaigner for community, sustainability and fairness, Poppy chaired the committee that spearheaded the successful campaign to introduce anti-sex discrimination legislation in Hong Kong in the last days of the colonial government, and has served as a peace worker in Palestine and in the Philippines. She has stood in Barnet

as Green parliamentary candidate, and now co-chairs the party’s Regional Council. She can also be found jogging along Dollis Brook, cycling across Hampstead Heath, and people-watching with her family at Camden Lock.

Alexis Rowell with Maya de Souza (second left) and other Camden Green Party campaigners

If can help in the campaign contact Alexis at alexis.rowell@greenparty.org.uk

The Green Party has chosen former Liberal Democrat councillor and Camden Eco Champion, Alexis Rowell, as their candidate for the Highgate by-election on Thursday 15^th September.

The Green Party’s Maya de Souza topped the poll in Highgate ward in last year’s council elections and the Greens are going all out to get Alexis elected so that he can help Maya with the great work she does.

The by-election follows the resignation of a Labour councillor who was only elected last year.

Alexis was a leading Lib Dem councillor in Camden from 2006 to 2010, and is widely credited with having significantly raised the profile of environmental issues in the council and across the borough.

But, shortly after winning a national Sustainability Councillor of the Year award, he stood down at the May 2010 elections.

Alexis said: “I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with the Lib Dems since the party joined the coalition government. My principal reason for leaving was Chris Huhne’s support for nuclear power, but I have also been completely unimpressed with the coalition’s overall environmental record and appalled by what their policies and cuts are doing to the social fabric.”

In the past the Greens have held all three seats in Highgate.

Maya de Souza said: “We are delighted to have such an experienced and energetic candidate standing for us in Highgate. It is largely thanks to the work Alexis did last time he was a councillor that sustainability is such a key concern at Camden Council. But he’s also got a great track record as a ward councillor responding to residents’ concerns. His energy, enthusiasm and hard work will be a great asset to Highgate.”

The Chair of the Camden Green Party, Natalie Bennett, said: “At a time when the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are creating havoc nationally, and Camden Council’s Labour administration is closing libraries and playgroups, Alexis is a strong candidate for anyone who cares about the environment and progressive issues generally.”

The leader of the national Green Party, Caroline Lucas MP, said: “Alexis’s move from the Lib Dems to the Greens shows that it is the Greens who are leading the way on progressive and environmental politics in the UK. I encourage all Lib Dems to take a long hard look at what the coalition is doing and to ask themselves whether they really support what’s happening.”

Caroline Lucas MP

Caroline Lucas, leader of The Green Party, said: We reject and condemn the horrendous violence, arson and looting that we have seen on the streets of Britain.

But we must seek to understand why this happened to prevent it being repeated.

If we stop at denunciations and crackdowns, nothing will be learned about why sections of our own population feel they can riot, loot and treat their neighbours and communities so appallingly.

The bigger picture has to be considered. Britain is deeply unequal.

Last year, London’s richest people were worth 273 times more than its poorest.

Given the growing evidence, from Scarman onwards, that increasing inequality had a role to play in at least some of the rioting, the government must commit to an impact assessment of any further policies to establish if they will increase inequality.

If individuals are defined as consumers not citizens, there is danger that those who cannot afford to consume feel they have no stake in their community and become more likely to turn against it.

The Prime Minister has said this is ‘Not about poverty but about culture.’ But it is about both. It is about inequality and culture and how dangerous it is when you mix growing inequality with a culture which puts consumerism above citizenship.

Jenny Jones, who will be the Green candidate for London Mayor next year

Jenny Jones, Green member of the London Assembly and the party’s candidate for Mayor in 2012, said of this month’s riots: “Violence, arson and looting can never be justified.

“The actions by rioters are endangering people’s lives. The priority of the police has to be to protect the public in their own homes and businesses. The vast majority of young people have nothing to do with this.

“But we do need to look at why the perpetrators of this violence are so alienated from society. This is about young people who deeply feel that they do not have a stake in society, some of whom were already engaged in criminal activity.

“Just as we have projects that engage with extremists to draw them back into mainstream society, we need to re-engage with alienated young people in a variety of ways, such as creating employment and training opportunities, advice, youth centres, and community services.”

Jones continued: “Parliament’s immediate priority must be to find solutions that provide security. In the longer-term, all parties in Parliament should work together to address youth unemployment and the alienation that young people feel today.”

Let's recycle not throw away

The North London Waste Authority has made a very welcome tactical retreat on its plan for an unnecessary £100 million waste treatment plant at Pinkham Way.

But the battle isn’t over. We need to convince Barnet’s Brian Coleman and the other dinosaurs who sit on the authority that it makes financial as well as environmental sense to focus on the wide potential for increased recycling rather than to fritter £100 million on a giant rubbish squashing machine.

Most people that I know, young and old, are well aware of the importance of reducing the amount of waste that we throw away. There is every reason to believe that recycling rates would jump immediately in Barnet and the other NLWA boroughs if they brought in the improved recycling systems that have already shown their effectiveness in other parts of England.

Barnet’s recycling contractor May Gurney is confident it could lift Barnet’s recycling rate for household waste to 55 percent from around 30 percent currently if the borough adopted a system that the company runs successfully for a number of other councils, such as five in Somerset.

Meanwhile, Haringey’s contractor Veolia has for example achieved a 50 percent recycling rate for Broadland council in Norfolk.

All across Britain recycling rates are rising and total household waste volumes are falling and this has even been happening in North London, as the authority’s own figures show.

In the three years to April 2010 municipal household ‘arisings’ in the NLWA area fell an average of 2-1/2 percent a year but amazingly the authority’s plans for a massive plant at Pinkham Way were based on a projection of ‘arisings’ expanding at a rate of nearly 1 percent a year.

Of course May Gurney and Veolia or another contractor would want a bit more money for enlarging the local recycling operations but that would be much more worthwhile than handing over £100 million of council taxpayers’ money for the ghastly Pinkham Way plant which on current trends would be half redundant as soon as it opened.

Let’s reduce, re-use and recycle as much of our waste as possible to ensure that any new rubbish treatment plants that do have to be built can be small ones.

Many thanks to the people who have contacted us following our plea for ideas for better reduction, re-use and recycling of waste materials. We now have a list of 27 (see previous news story, below) but any further suggestions would still be welcome before we submit them to the NLWA.

Send your thoughts to andrew.newby@barnetgreenparty.co.uk