Political

Road works sign dumped in flowerbed – but Haringey Council says can’t remove it for “health and safety” reasons

Ah, Haringey Council. The fourth most complained about council in the whole country, one of the worst for fixing roads and the council which failed to answer more than 1 in 3 calls made to it. No wonder Haringey Council was rated the worst in London by the final Audit Commission review.

Of course, Haringey Labour councillors love to blame evil coalition government, but the simple reality is that Haringey is badly run. It wastes time, squanders money and lets down residents through repeated bungling as, in my own small way, I’ve often recounted on this blog when it comes to street-level issues such as potholes and faulty signs.

Today brought the latest example. I reported a while back an abandoned road works sign, disfiguring a flower bed along Stroud Green Road. Haringey’s response to my checking progress on this? That someone had visited the site and decided the abandoned road works sign should not be removed for “health and safety issues”.

You judge whether you think (a) the sign is contributing to health and safety, (b) too dangerous to move, or (c) neither:

Abandoned road works sign, Stroud Green Road

So now Haringey Council will eat up staff time trying to sort this out all over again.

It would have been better, quicker and cheaper to get it right first time round. But then that wouldn’t be doing things the Haringey Council way… and when you know Labour councillors will just try to blame the government despite the council’s staff regularly messing up like this, it’s hardly an incentive for staff to do their job well.

UPDATE: It’s amazing what an email copied to the Chief Executive can achieve… The sign is now gone, though an explanation for what went wrong is yet to arrive.

2 responses to “Road works sign dumped in flowerbed – but Haringey Council says can’t remove it for “health and safety” reasons”

  1. Ah !  But where I live the boot is on the other hand.  Here we have a Conservative MP who unceasingly blames the local Labour Councillors for everything from Global Warming to mice in the kitchen.

  2. I think if I walk along Stroud a Green Road that I may risk my life, remove the sign and take it to the Town Hall 🙂

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