Supermarkets must not be allowed to continue their anti-social behaviour

by Natalie Bennett

In a letter in the Ham & High of May 2, 2013, Mr Uys (Drivers faced with trolley jam) expresses eloquently the frustration of  Highgate High Street residents, workers and visitors with the thoroughly anti-social behaviour of the Tesco store there, but the problem is much wider than this one store.
Camden Green Party members talk regularly to residents near Tesco and Sainsbury stores in Kentish Town High Street, Fortess Road and Swain’s Lane, among others, who are plagued by trolleys blocking pavements, HGVs blocking roads, and noisy unloading at all hours of the day and night.
These supermarket chains are simply anti-social and abusive of the power of their size, and are being allowed to get away with behaviour that advantages them against their independent competitors – stores that are of far greater benefit to their local communities and provide far more jobs and business opportunities for suppliers.
Independent stores typically get deliveries by small vans, from a range of independent wholesalers and food manufacturers, and they have storerooms in which stock is held (on which they pay business rates).
By contrast the chains stock the stores straight from HGVs three or four times a day, using the public space of the pavement, and road, without any respect for the rights and needs of others.
When Camden Green Party had a pop-up shop in Fortess Road, the Sainsbury’s Local opposite regularly littered the highway with traffic cones, blocking off an HGV-sized space outside their store. They have no right to do that – only the arrogance of size and sense of entitlement that has infected far too many of our large companies, as demonstrated also by the way they continue to squeeze down staff wages, enforce casualisation on unwilling workers and employ unconsciounable zero-hours contracts.
The Green Party seeks on a national level to ensure that supermarkets pay the true social cost of their way of conducting business, or make major changes. On a local level, our councillors seek to ensure that noise abatement cases are brought by local authorities to address the nuisance that occurs.

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Highgate Library faces threat to its survival – Labour has no answers

By Cllr Maya de Souza

The recent outcry about plans to slash funding for Highgate Library, reflects the current administration’s lack of openness and transparency about its plans for our libraries.

In mid-2011, a decision was made to radically reform our library provision, taking three libraries out of direct council control and giving them to communities to fund.

Two other libraries, Highgate and Regent’s Park, were also subject to change: the former to lose over 60% of its funding, and the latter to be closed and for a homework club-type arrangement to be set up instead.

I immediately raised questions about the cuts, pointing out that it seemed that if no alternative funds were found for Highgate Library, it was at risk of closure. It was not possible to see how a library already running on a shoe-string could struggle on with such severe cuts – if it did, it could not have anything like the same level of service.

And there was no evidence at all that any of the possible schemes and sources of funding mentioned by officers and Cabinet Members would come to fruition at all.

When Alexis Rowell, our Green candidate, pointed out in by-election material – leading up to the narrow election of Labour councillor Sally Gimson, that Highgate Library was clearly still at risk, Labour denied this strongly. They said that the library was not at risk and that it would stay open.

However, this June – nine months later – the Council held a public meeting led by Cllr Leach where it was stated that almost 75% of funds would be lost and admitted that they had no thought-out plans for ensuring sufficient funding for the library come April 2013 – now only about nine months away.

Cllr Leach admitted that the current funding level involves running a library on a shoestring. Clearly without 75% of its funds the library is at risk!

Residents have now put forward a proposal for a community-led steering group to explore options and guide the council as to the library’s future, and they have asked for the funding cuts to be put on hold until after a solution has been found.

Highgate Greens and I are pushing for funding cuts to be reduced, and in any event put on hold pending a solution.

We will be seeking to ensure that we do not lose this invaluable community resource. We think the library needs to be made even better, NOT starved of funding.

The sums involved are manageable, considering that Camden has cut its budget faster than is necessary.

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Final push in Alexis for Highgate campaign

by Natalie Bennett

We’re now in the final stages of the Alexis for Highgate campaign. The Highgate byelection has kept us very busy over the past month, but it has been great meeting and talking to so many Highgate residents. And it’s also brought us a string of visitors from around the country, including Green Party leader Caroline Lucas.

Today deputy leader Adrian Ramsay will be joining us.

If you’d like to find out more about the campaign, you can read our campaign page on the Camden site, or visit Alexis’s blog.

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A gap in coverage of Camden’s political history

By John Collins, veteran Highgate Green Party member

In his new book, Camden: A Political History, available from tomorrow from The Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town, and probably also other good local bookshops, former local Tory leader Piers Wauchope says the Greens were “such an unknown phenomenon” in 2006 that the main parties were “baffled by their appeal…especially in Highgate”.

Perhaps he was misled by his own otherwise excellent statistical appendix, where he strangely omits any reference (on p.367) to the Highgate ward Green Party candidate Ronnie Eyres, who polled 628 votes in 1994, well ahead of all three Lib Dems.

In fact the Greens were ahead of the Highgate Lib Dems in four of the five elections from 1990-2006, and, as Wauchope duly acknowledges, won their first two seats in 2006.

Editor’s note: CNJ editor Richard Osley has also been commenting on the coverage of the Greens, specifically of Sian Berry.

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Excellent turnout for Save the Whittington A&E march today

The weather was threatening, and TfL had closed practically every transport route it could think of, so it was great to see an excellent turnout for the Save the Whittington Hospital A&E march today.

It was led out by the Camden New Journal (which with the Ham & High did a huge job in promoting the march) and Unison campaigners on an open-top bus (which later served as a stage for speeches).

Estimates for numbers I’ve heard ranged from 3,000-4,000, and practically every organisation you can think of, from pensioners groups to many unions, was there. And also all of the political parties, although you really do wonder how Labour felt able to show its face, given surely all that would have been needed to give us all a free Saturday would be a phone call from Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham to the North London PCTs. (And I did notice an awful lot of their leaflets, far more than those of others’, dropped on the road.)

It was something of a party reunion, as we marched as a Green Party block, catching up with old friends and new from Islington and Haringey Greens.

The next meeting of the Defend Whittington Hospital campaign is on March 22, 7pm, at the Whittington Community Centre.

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