Barnet, we feel dumped
The area with the highest proportion of Jews in Britain has lost the street cleaning plot
MARGARET THATCHER would be turning in her grave. Today, large parts of what was her north London constituency and its environs have become a dump — literally.
For years, “Finchley” has been synonymous with “leafy”, an environmental jewel glistening in a grey landscape of urban shabbiness. Its green credentials have been among the reasons why London’s Jews have picked it as a place to live.
Now, bins often overflow with rubbish, roads, gullies, footpaths, parks and hedgerows are pockmarked with plastic bags, bottles, cans, fast food detritus, paper, cardboard — you name it. Pavements are speckled with grey splats of chewing gum, the second most commonly dropped litter after cigarette butts.
Sections of the towpath by Dollis Brook that once offered a brief fantasy escape to pristine countryside are now blighted by litter that’s been there so long it’s embedded into the undergrowth.
Sure, Finchley is still green — green with the weeds that sprout from paving stones, kerb stones, and traffic islands, an embryonic urban jungle that’s been abandoned since last summer. Or maybe even the summer before last. June 2017 is the last date that I can find on the internet for the local authority’s most recent “Weed spraying programme”.
That local authority is the largest in London, Conservative controlled Barnet. Finchley Central tube station is the gateway to the heart of Finchley. Exit its main entrance, cross over the main road into Nether Street, and you straight away hit an eyesore, a 50-yard wall of garbage abutting a wire fence. Peer over the fence into the grassy dip, and there’s a mulching graveyard of rotting detritus.
Travel on down Nether Street, and even though it narrows, Barnet Council has marked off both sides with resident parking places so that every inch is now jammed packed with metal, one tyre on the pavement, the other on the road.
Leave by Finchley Central’s other exit past the cycle shed, and almost nightly it’s dominated by dope-smoking, beer-swigging saddos who’ve littered the shed with cans and fag butts. Several lights from my bike are “missing — presumed nicked” after I’ve carelessly left them attached to my bike in my haste to catch a train.
I’ve lived in Finchley for over 16 years and have witnessed the slow but unmistakable visual decline of its public realm. Barnet’s street cleaning budget has been paired back, time and time again.
True, Barnet has a funding gap to fill but saving on the physical environment is a false economy. The link between an uncared-for physical environment, crime and anti-social behaviour is well established and both are rising in Barnet.
Barnet boasts about its “ongoing commitment to listening to and acting on the views of the public.” Really? My polite letter to Barnet’s panjandrums asking what is to be done gets not even a “thank you for your letter” — not from Council Leader Richard Cornelius, nor from the £181,000 pa Chief Executive John Hooton, nor his £144,000 pa Strategic Director of the Environment Jamie Blake, nor my local MP (and former BBC colleague) Matthew Offord, nor from my local Conservative councillor, John Hart.
The only politician who does reply is Labour’s Andrew Dismore, my former MP and now London Assembly member for Barbet and Camden, a more assiduous and constituencydevoted political representative you could not hope to meet. To the dismay of many, however, the Corbyndespairing Mr Dismore is about to give up front-line politics.
What to do? Environmental awareness campaigns can help, and Barnet youngsters have started a commendable do-it-yourself campaign called “Don’t be mean, keep Barnet clean.” It’s “important to love where you live” they say.
New laws, notices and circulars do not seem to make much difference and Barnet’s fixed penalty fines of £80 for dropping litter are risible.
But zero tolerance does work. Look at how successful the 24-hour army of yellow vested cleansing staff at Westminster City Council have kept its vastly more densely populated streets clean. Zero tolerance encourages small individual actions because they become infectious and residents become more conscious and caring about how their immediate world looks beyond their front doors.
But ultimately only Barnet Council has the means to trigger that infection to prevent its slide into the same shabby state as so much of London.
Barnet’s cleaning budget is paired back again’