green+spaces+-+The+Friends+of+Parks+Forum+-+Forum+minutes+4.7.09

for the Friends groups and general user groups of all Haringey's green open spaces ** Next meeting: **** Saturday 5th September ** 10am @ Bruce Castle Museum, N17 =__ Minutes of general meeting – 4th July 2009 __ __ Present: __ Joan Curtis (Downhills Park), Dave Morris (Lordship Rec) //[chaired],// Joyce Rosser (Priory Common, and Priory Park), Catherine Appleby (Coldfall Woods), David Warren (Parkland Walk), Ulla Lefmann (Ducketts Common), Sylvester King (Duckett’s Common), Michael Johns (Queen’s Wood) //[note-taker].// // From item 4: // Paul Ely and David Brown (London Borough of Haringey) // For item 7: // John Morris (LBH) = =__ Apologies: __ Adam Coffman (Fairland Park), Ceri Williams (Chestnuts Park), Ros Abrams (CREOS) = ** The **//conference for all London’s Friends Groups//** had been arranged for 10 October in Broadwater Farm Community Centre. All groups welcome. ** **//Haringey Independence Day, 30 May.//** This had been a success with a higher turnout than last year, and a Friends groups / Residents Associations discussion on DIY community events in local streets and parks. ** **//Haringey Green Fair, 13 June//** at Ducketts Common had also been very successful. We did joint stall with the Haringey Federation of Residents Associations and it was very busy. ** **//Street Festival in Green Lanes, 20 September.//** The Forum would discuss next meeting whether to have a stall. ** **//Markfield Rec//** was understood to be holding a formal reopening on 13 September. ** **//Lordship Rec festival on 12th September.//** One important criterion was community involvement and Haringey generally scored well on this. David Brown was keen to work with Friends’ Groups to update the community involvement in their plans. He had shortened many of the management plans which had become out of date. He would send a copy of the standards to the Forum. Forum members said that parks without Green Flag status should have a simple management plan so that all parties could be aware of the whole picture and avoid crises being dealt with in isolation. John Morris said that the Safer Parks police team were now in operation. Non-emergency communication should be with the Safer Neighbourhood teams and they would communicate with other parts of the Metropolitan Police to decide which body would respond to a particular incident. He accepted that communications was two months behind schedule and apologised for this. There was a communications plan and a range of materials for each park with notice boards would be issued within 2 or 3 weeks. Friends’ Groups reiterated that it was important that all parks should have notice boards for this kind of material. On the parks side, there remained three area managers and under them the core parks management teams whose primary function remained grounds maintenance and who generally worked a 4 ½ day week from 7.30 to 4.00, 1.00 on Fridays. Haringey were supplementing these with agency staff from Hays who were patrolling the 12 nominated sites during opening hours including evenings and weekends. They wore tabards as Parkforce Stewards. They did some patrolling where possible of satellite parks near the nominated sites. In the fullness of time it was hoped that core staff could be expanded to undertake a lot of this work but this would require negotiating new terms and conditions which would take a little while. There would always need to be some casual labour because of the peakiness of the requirement in the summer. Hays were also working with Capel Manor to employ some horticulture and similar students who were likely to have a greater interest in the work than other agency staff. The key coordination with Friends’ Groups and the police would take place at area manager level. Friends’ Groups said that it was important that team leaders below area manager level were empowered to deal with minor issues. They were the best people to walk around the parks with the Friends’ Groups and Friends’ Groups should know their names, telephone numbers and email addresses. It was suggested that it would be useful for each park to have a log book where incidents and actions were recorded so that it was easy to follow what had happened. John Morris agreed that working together at this level was important but there was a balance to be struck. To the extent that coordination with Friends’ Groups took away the time of team leaders from park maintenance, he would have to find backup from elsewhere which would cut down his resource for patrolling the parks. It was sensible to start with local pilots.
 * Haringey Friends of Parks Forum **
 * 1. Minutes of last meeting – ** agreed
 * 2. Wider events **
 * 3. Membership of the Forum ** Those present regretted that more Friends’ Groups were not attending. There were around 30 groups and 50-60 names on the email group. It was agreed to produce a Newsletter and Joan would write to Groups in advance of the London Conference inviting them to provide some information about current activities.
 * 4. Local Reports //Lordship Rec// ** Some of the proposed new facilities and landscaping needed planning consent and would be put to the Planning Committee shortly. They had set up a wild life/conservation group. Hopefully a bike user group would be set up now a new bike track is planned. There had been concern that key members of staff appeared to have been sidelined in the transition to Parkforce and the Friends had met the council to make representations. There would be a Photography Day on 11 July and a Festival on 12 September.
 * // Queen’s Wood //** The Family Fun Day had been very successful. Funding was being sought for drawing up a new management plan so that Green Flag status could be applied for. They were still waiting for action on no cycling notices and a notice board. //__LBH response:__ Martin Hall was working on signage linked to the Capital Ring. They would pick up on the notice board. They were keen to ensure that LBH was giving all necessary support to the Management Plan.//
 * // Parkland Walk //** The 2008/09 path improvements had been tested by recent heavy rain but had generally survived well; they were looking forward to the 2009/10 work to be planned and undertaken.
 * // Priory Park //** A new surface had been put on the notice board so it was much easier to read again. There had been alarmist reports in the press about security which said the well-used park was a no-go area. Although this was quite untrue and the Safer Parks police had been seen in the park, they would like to have full information about the new security arrangements and better communication.
 * // Ducketts Common //** Clearing up after the Green Fair had been excellent, but there had been a failure to clean up after a sports day on 27 June. There had been consultations about the development plans; the most frequent request had been for the provision of toilets. They were interested in creating an area for petanque. They would like notice boards at both sides of the common. They would like to know what the requirements were for Green Flag status and whether there were different levels of accreditation. //__LBH response__ They apologised for the failure to clean up immediately after the sports day: this was due to the torrential rain. It was too early to say what would come out of the consultation on the developments but they would chase the income due under the s106 agreements. See item 6 re Green Flag.//
 * // Woodside Park //** Planning application for an extra block on top of the café had been rejected. The café was expected to open soon. The Friends were concerned by the nearby furniture dump. They wanted to know what would be done with the bowling club premises now the club had closed. //__LBH response__ Bowls generally appeared to be reducing in popularity. It was difficult to make any buildings in parks financially viable. They would come back to the Friends but would welcome community involvement in any solution.//
 * // Coldfall Woods //** The Friends were concerned that when bikers came into the woods they had not been able to get any police presence and they needed more information about who to contact. There were no notice boards in the Woods. //__LBH response__ This was recognised to be an ongoing problem – see Parkforce below.//
 * // Downhills Park //** The bid to Making the Difference for the pond had been successful. The Friends annual Art in the Park day was on 12 July. //__LBH response__ The café project had now been approved and Martin Hall was in the lead.//
 * 5. ‘Playbuilders’ funding ** Paul Ely said that there was £1.7m available for improving play areas, £550k from Haringey and the rest from central Government. This covered 11 schemes in 2008/09 and 11 in 2009/10. The first year’s schemes had had to be selected very quickly, but there would be a full bidding process for the 2009/10 schemes so that all parks could apply.
 * 6. Green Flag status ** David Brown explained that the Green Flag was a national standard. To obtain it, a park needed a management plan addressing 8 criteria. The park was then visited by two judges and scored against the plan and also by a mystery shopper. Parks needed to be reassessed each year but, because of a current shortage of judges and a large increase in the number of applications, those parks which already had a Green Flag were only being visited by the mystery shopper at the moment and not by judges unless they had been marginal last year. There were no provisions for different levels of accreditation.
 * 7. Parkforce ** Friends’ Groups expressed concern at the lack of publicity and communications and said that all parks needed a succinct notice giving contact details – 999 for an emergency, a police number for non-emergency security matters and a local contact point to talk to about maintenance/management of the park. The local contact person should keep in close touch with Friends’ Groups. In addition ongoing serious problems in Coldfall Woods were not being addressed.
 * It was agreed that John Morris would convene a meeting of the council with a small number of Friends’ Groups to discuss how the two sides might best work together over these issues. ** **He would also let Friends’ Groups have within two weeks information about the volume of resources in each area and a specification of what they would do**.