 Dear
N16
Why are our roads dug up in Stoke Newington?
It seems like the whole of Stoke Newington is being dug up. ‘They’re
mending the gas, electric and water’, I hear you say. ‘Yes,
but why?’ I ask? ‘It is all worn out and needs replacing’,
you say. ‘But why now, all at once?’
The answer is the Victorians put much of the current utilities
in place to last 50 years. One hundred-plus years later we are still
patching them up. Local authorities had a real role in coordinating
the planning and control of the electric replacement of gas lighting
in the streets and homes; sadly not today. Although, like now, private
companies carried out the work, they issued bonds and institutional
investors carried the risk of the building project. Councils kept
some control on proceedings and provision of some services, such
as vermin control in the waste water system. Unfortunately, however,
when the water was privatised the new owners of the infrastructure
cancelled the contracts with local authorities leaving no control
of the rat. (Fortunately, new case law has made freeholders responsible
for the vermin that live on their property.) With no overall authority
controlling the Utilities (apart from GARDIT 1992, a cross-industry
talking shop for ground water problems) each company has been free
to do as they see fit.
The water table has been rising from Stoke Newington to the Lea
(0.5-2 metres a year across London.) Apart from dry cellars becoming
wet ones, downstairs toilets flooding, the under-road electrics
short circuiting and water leaking out everywhere, everything is
fine? Who cares? It’s not a problem for each utility company
directly, because you live in a flood area and therefore your insurance
company is going to pick up the cost! Not to worry, though, as the
utilities were sold back to us and the money raised will be used
to replace the crumbling infrastructure. It’s not the Government’s
issue, as it was the previous administration that sold the utilities.
The Green answer is to put up prices, ‘utilities should be
more expensive’. I am not sure we are not just subsidising
private companies shareholders’ risk. Not forgetting hitting
the most needy on basic salaries acting like a regressive tax, a
bit like VAT on fuel. I say we can be green in our outcomes without
raising taxes by taking back control of our utilities under new
local authority powers, as it used to be.
With the state about to make another major decision about our future
energy and utility provision, should we not have a chance to know
the real cost and plans, up front. What is the real cost of nuclear?
Is it really the greenest non-CO2 option? Would we not be better
off with a mixed supply side to our energy and utility requirements?
Second-guessing our future requirements never seems to go to plan!
Can we please have proper consumer representation, as Off-this and
Off-that seems to be Off-somewhere else.
Adrian Gee-Turner, Stoke Newingon
Dear N16,
Stoke Newington likes to pose as being an interesting, perhaps
the most interesting, part of north London. It may have been once,
but in 2006, it most certainly isn't. I lived in Stoke Newington
for five years, from 2000 - 2005. During this time, Church Street
turned from being a heaven of laid-back, cheap, friendly bars, pubs,
shops and restaurants to the expensive, Upper-Street-less-Starbucks
strip of boredom that it is today, complete with its population
of ultra-aloof yuppies, a frighteningly unfriendly generation of
well-heeled young mothers with pricey looking prams (and husbands
in city law firms / banks) along with many, many, more yukky posers,
who it was once a relief to leave standing in Islington as a warm,
crowded 73 Routemaster sped along Essex Road towards that little
pocket of sanity east of Highbury. In those days, the friendly sound
of jazz music echoed around the top of Church Street every evening,
life in Stokey was still affordable and proud of its affordability
I might add, and the High Street yet to be ruined by yet more trendy,
shallow, dull bars and confusingly enormous numbers of ugly new
buses and bus routes.
Goodbye, Stokey of old, I miss you.
Ex-Stokey resident
Dear N16
I am writing to express my frustration at another prime example
of Hackney Council’s ability to get everything wrong and waste
tax money along the way.
Over the past 9 months much work has been undertaken on Windus
Road and the surrounding roads to create speed bumps and narrowing
of the roads to make a network of one-way streets. It is a shame
that after a few days the system has already descended into chaos
and is proving to be a waste of time and money.
It seems to be that drivers are not understanding the signage and
are continuing to drive both ways up and down the streets often
resulting in vehicle confrontations accompanied by bouts of horn
blowing. Presumably the system was put in place to act as traffic
calming but in fact has resulted in added congestion and noise.
Clear arrows on the road would help as well as more recognisable
signpost signals. Unfortunately the 'no motor vehicles' sign does
not seem to be widely understood which is adding to the confusion.
The whole logic of the system should have been thought through
more thoroughly as the one way systems seem to direct drivers a
long way round to reach their final destination, creating more traffic
pollution for the residents. A few simple 'no through' gates would
prevent people using Kyverdale Road as 'rat run' to avoid Stamford
Hill but instead, such a complex system has left everyone confused.
I have emailed Hackney Council (don't laugh) but would appreciate
any coverage you could give this farce to see if we can get it rectified
and improved. Even printing an explanation of the 'no motor vehicle'
sign would
be a help! (attached for your reference).
Kind regards, Gregg Finlay, Kyverdale Road Resident
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