Area Forum
Dear Editor,
Cllr Gordon ( Times 13/10/11) must either be Walter Mitty or have been at a different Hendon Area Forum to me and the other people who attended. He started by saying that he wanted to let people have their say, but he continually interrupted from the chair throughout the meeting from the very first minute: the business would have progressed much quicker, easier and less confrontationally if he had let people have their say, as happened at the BAPS meeting. The agenda was ludicrous. On 10th July, 2 months ahead, I submitted a short list of items , asking if it could be confirmed if they were in order. Reply came there not, despite several reminders, until the start of the meeting. Item 1 on my list was disallowed: how the new standing orders were to be interpreted. It would have been helpful to have this sorted from the beginning. Yes, we discussed the Edgware War Memorial: but we will not be able to follow up the promises made at the next meeting, if they are not honoured! Yes, the Hendon Park cafe owner was able to raise the duplicity of the Council in its dealings with him. However, other items of importance to local people could only be raised in a tangental fashion, by putting the English language through Olympic standard gymnastic contortions to bring the subjects within the new rules. We could not discuss the closure of Church Farm Museum, or the future of the Watling Boys Club building or the former Child Guidance Building on North Road estate, but we were allowed to discuss “the implications for local security of the buildings being kept empty”. We were not allowed to discuss the closure of the ticket office at Hendon Thameslink, but we could discuss “the traffic and parking implications” of its removal. We were not allowed to discuss the proposed move of Saracens to Copthall, or the increase in parking charges at all. It is clear that Barnet Council and Cllr Gordon only believe in democracy if it is them doing the “democing”. They wish to kill off the forums which inconveniently used to raise matters or decisions they were uncomfortable in attempting to explain or defend, by making the forums irrelevant to those who wish to have their say about their local communities. Andrew DismoreLabour London Assembly candidate for Barnet and Camden
