The Liberal Democrat MP kicked off the fast moving, colourful display of talent, that saw dancers from all walks of life and corners of Haringey show off their best moves, including Irish dancing, Indian chair dancing and African-Caribbean street dancing.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“Wow, I’ve been blown away by the talented dancers here today, from young to old, from slow, gentle dance to explosions of energy!

“I’m really proud to be representing such diversity and energy. What a fantastic way to celebrate multicultural Haringey, in this colourful collaboration between our Asian, African-Caribbean and Irish cultural centres.”

After the walk, arranged by Guide Dog UK, the Liberal Democrat MP also met local residents Julie, Annette and David and their dogs Merlin, Connie and Raffles, to hear of the special challenges of having a guide dog in a busy urban area like Haringey.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“Walking blindfolded with Zeus really brought it home to me how difficult it is to manage with a guide dog in a busy area like Noel Park.

“Things like bins and boards outside shops are really major obstacles to negotiate when you can’t see them.

“I think everyone should try this out, and then help spread awareness about small things, like making sure roads are clear and obstacle free, to make everyday life easier for people like Julie, Annette and David.”

The Hornsey and Wood Green MP started off by reading ‘The Great Kapok Tree’, about the Amazon rainforest, to a year 6 class, and ended the special visit by reading ‘Funnybones’ with the nursery class children.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“It’s just been an enchanted morning. There are few things as enjoyable as sharing a good story with children – they are so wonderfully enthusiastic and honest.

“It’s great to get the chance to read with the kids – and so important to help them develop an interest in reading, which will really serve them well in the future – both for work and pleasure.”

The police are planning to expand their presence in Wood Green – keeping the existing police station in use but also moving the front counter to the Fishmongers Arms (right next to the Civic Centre, closer to the centre of Wood Green, closer to where people congregate and closer to the crime hotspots).

I was impressed with the new front counter – not yet in use – when I went with Cllr Robert Gorrie (Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Haringey Council) to see it and meet the local Commander, Dave Grant.

Having staffed and open police stations in the heart of our community is central to the fight against crime and the fear of crime. It gives us a police service that knows its community and whose community knows it. That’s why I fought for so longer to get the Muswell Hill front counter reopened.

The new front counter in Wood Green is much better equipped and located than the current one. It’s all ready to go – brand, spanking new – and has the advantage that local people would be able to use the front counter to report their problems in a much more peaceful and calm atmosphere – no longer needing to mix with the less salubrious side of station life with those who have to report to the police station, and so on.

If the existing building is also kept in use for police services, such as cells and a base for patrol cars etc, then this means overall a bigger and better police presence in Wood Green. Hurrah!

If!

We need to be sure that moving the front counter doesn’t become an excuse to cut back, sell off property – and leave us with fewer services. That has to be the concern in these times of economic uncertainty.

And then there’s still the question of exactly what policing will be done from the existing police station building. The police have promised a public consultation on that – including the possibility of moving the front counter back from the Fishmongers Arms, if it isn’t a success in its new location and local people want it moved back.

We also need to make sure that any building work on the old police station preserves its historic front, which is a real architectural gem that adds to our community. Last time the police made proposals for the station the local community was rightly up in arms at the insensitive architectural designs. That planning application was withdrawn and we await a new one, due to be submitted in the autumn.

So we should be due two chances to have our say – the public consultation on police services in the area and also the planning application for the Victorian police station building.

But ahead of that the police want to try out starting to use the new facilities at the Fishmongers Arms – moving their front counter service from the existing police station to the new location.

I know some people have been skeptical about this, worried that it’s a way for the police to preempt those two chances for us to have our say later in the year.

But if it is a genuine trial, making use of new expanded premises and with a commitment written in blood that the final decisions will only come after we’ve been consulted – then it means we get to try out the new services sooner and it makes for a better decision in the end if there’s some practical experience to draw on.

So this is a debate which will run for some time – and do let me know your own views.

You can also watch my latest film about Wood Green police station:

Lynne Featherstone MP and the Liberal Democrat team have been campaigning for better police services for Wood Green residents and launched a survey in the Autumn to understand residents’ priorities on policing in the area.

Lynne Featherstone MP comments:

“This is fantastic news for Wood Green residents. A lot of crime happens at night, but for some time now, local people have been poorly served by a barely operational police station.

“It’s so important just to know that the police will be there for you at any time, day or night, if something should happen. I think this will make a huge difference.”

Cllr Ron Aitken, Liberal Democrat crime spokesperson, adds:

“Being out on the streets, talking to local people, it’s clear having a 24 hour police station is high up on the wish list, so I really welcome this terrific news!”

(Also on YouTube here.)

Last week Haringey Council announced that new crossings for pedestrians, slow road markings, vehicle activated slow down signs and raised entries to roads off Westbury Avenue will be installed. Local Liberal Democrats welcomed the progress but said that a 20mph speed limit still needed to be introduced in the area.

Cllr Fiyaz Mughal, Noel Park, comments:

“Looking at the evidence showing how many accidents had occurred on this road and after speaking to local residents it was clear we needed to campaign to make this road safer for pedestrians.

“I am glad that the pressure that local Lib Dems and residents have put on the Council has provided results. But we will not stop there – we still believe that to ensure safety we need to reduce the speed limit to 20mph on this road.”

Lynne Featherstone MP, adds:

“Hopefully now that plans are afoot to reduce the speed of vehicles on this road the accident rate will fall.”

The responses are pouring in. In the first 24 hours, since yesterday afternoon, 745 people have already signed the Whittington petition and 89 the North Mid.

It is already quite clear that local people don’t want to lose their local A & E nor see it reduced. That is why it is so important that local peoples’ views are heard loud and clear NOW. Otherwise when the Health Authority ’options’ finally come to public consultation – we may find that there are no options that keep the Whittington A & E open and that in reality the decisions have actually been made. That goes for the North Mid too.

I support improved clinical outcomes, obviously, and there are lots of health services that may be better provided by one or other hospital. But A & E is one of the services that needs to be local and 24 hours – that’s the point.

As one constituent wrote to me who works at one of the hospitals (not the Whittington) ‘there is no more logic to an   A & E unit at University College Hospital than the others.  Medical staff will adapt to what is decided.  UCH and RFH could easily become even more specialist than they already are and would flourish without an A & E.  The Whittington on the contrary exists to provide a local and emergency service and is at risk of having its lifeblood sucked away’.

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

Here’s my latest Ham & High column:

A few days ago I met the new CEO of First Capital Connect, the train company which services much of Haringey. I talked to Jim Morgan in particular about the issues arising from their cut backs to ticket office opening hours at Hornsey, Bowes Park, Alexandra Palace and Harringay stations.

Although the previous campaigning by myself and residents helped reduce the extent of the cuts, the opening hours have still been severely reduced. A local resident contacted me about long queues at ticket machines when the ticket offices are closed. Imagine how cross it makes you when you are running for a train – and you have to miss it because of even one or two people buying tickets at the machine. Mind you, that is when the ticket machines are working – and as if on cue when I turned up to film a clip for YouTube about the problems, the ticket machine at Harringay was out of order and the ticket office closed!

When the machine is out of order you’re forced to travel without a ticket which means at best having to explain at the other end that the machine is not working and at worst that they try and give you a penalty fare. It’s a far too common bane of contemporary life – people who want to obey the law find obstacles put in their way because the authorities (rail company in this case) doesn’t do its end of the deal.

Please watch the YouTube clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWMbZAxF4U8 – it really demonstrates the problem. In it I also highlight the problems with signs at Alexandra Palace Station. At both Alexandra Palace Station and at Harringay station there aren’t signs in the places that you need them to tell you where to buy a ticket – whether from the ticket office or machines. If you know the stations and know where to go, that is fine. But woe betide the irregular or new traveller, particularly in the dark. You can be left hunting around, up stair and down stair, over platform and along platform for the place to hand over your money – with buggy, children, luggage. How helpful is that?

Imagine a shop behaving like that – hiding away without signs where you pay your money!

So – one message to Mr Morgan was to get the signs improved. On the reliability of the ticket machines – he told me that they were very expensive and didn’t break down very often. Given my visit to film the YouTube video found that the only machine was indeed ‘out of service’ I have asked him to supply me with figures for numbers of hours / days when the Harringay Station ticket machine has been out of service over the last year. We will see whether I just had bad luck or whether ‘not very often’ is actually rather often!

More positively on the signs, for Alexandra Palace Station he agreed with me about the problem and is going to investigate what can be done – including repairing the only sign that is easily visible from one direction – but points completely the wrong way! On the Harringay signs – well, that is really a symptom of the ticket machine being on one platform and so out of the way for people using the other platform. So he’s going to first look at the location of that machine.

When First Capital Connect reduced the opening hours of the ticket offices, they agreed to monitor how the changes at the stations in Hornsey & Wood Green were affected during an eight week period. That time is now up – and I asked Mr Morgan for the results of that monitoring. He did not have the figures to hand but said that they had ‘monitored’ queuing times and volume of sales were still in steady decline. However he said they would not be reducing the hours any further. I should hope not! He said the report would be finalised by the end of next month.

Finally, of course I asked him how Oyster Pay-As-You-Go was going. We’ve been long promised that it would be made available for the train services that serve these stations – but we’re still waiting. Jim Morgan told me, “I am very optimistic that the Train Operating Companies will start accepting Oyster PAYG early in the New Year”. Let’s hope his ‘optimism’ is well founded – but I will be nagging between now and then to make sure that doesn’t change! We’ve waited (as have the installed machines) far too long for TfLand First Capital Connect to get their act together on making life easier for us passengers.

If you’ve got any views on these issues – or other ones related to those train stations – do let me know, particularly as I will be regularly checking with Jim Morgan to make sure the promised progress happened. You can email lynne or write to me at House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

GFest is a platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) organisations and venues to promote LGBT arts. Organised by arts charity “Wise Thoughts” which is based in my constituency.

This is the third year of the festival – which each year is growing like Topsy and this year has over 100 artists from all over the world – a testament to the organisers – Wise Thoughts.

David Lammy MP (Labour) hosted the meeting, and the other speakers were Ben Summerskill from Stonewall, Richard Barnes (Tory Deputy Mayor of London) and me.

Last year I remember saying that ‘artists are streetfighters’ and so I said the same again – for it is true. All the speakers touched on the issues around the Daily Mail’s column on Stephen Gately, Nick Griffin’s open homophobia and the appalling killing of a gay men in Trafalgar Square.

Legislatively speaking – gay rights are pretty advanced these days (with exceptions like the blanket ban on gay blood donations and unequal protection in schools against homophobic bullying). The point I was making was that whilst legislation might be in place – clearly from those horrific examples above – at street level there is still a very very long way to go.

Also we forget, in London, how cosmopolitan we really are and how different it is elsewhere.

It was a good launch and I hope that many Londoners will flock to the various exhibitions, shows and so on that form the festival.