Warning: property of the Committee

One of the issues we had been battling to get to the bottom of, via last year's MUG Committee, was  details of National Grid's licence agreement with Hackney Council for its sub-station in Millfields. In particular:



1. What is the annual amount National Grid pay Hackney Council for the site on Millfields? How long has this arrangement been in place?


2. What are the terms of the agreement between Hackney Council and National Grid about how this money should be spent (for example, is it intended to finance the general upkeep of the Millfields park, specific masterplan projects within Millfields or is it not intended for use on the park?).


3. How have the funds received been spent over the last three financial years?


4. How much funds received from National Grid under this arrangement is still available for spending on Millfields?


The reason this is particularly important is to ensure there is complete transparency that the decision on the alternative route through the park for National Grid is completely independent of any funding National Grid might provide towards a Master Plan project.  One can not be allowed to determine the other. It is also very important, given the financial situation, which is going to mean that even funding for basic maintenance will be an issue this year.


Having got nowhere trying to get a definitive response via the Committee, Millfields Blog resorted to an FOI request which is due for reply within the next few days. Coincidently, Cllr Rathbone, the outgoing Chair, has finally now responded to us with the information. But he has told us we can't share it with you:


"The information is not public, it is the property of the committee to which it is submitted to so should not be generally released without the agreement of the Secretary and/or Chair." 


So we have the information, but you can't (or not at least until we get our FOI response)! 


In the meantime, if you're interested to know the answer please email the new Chair and Secretary to request the information. Their respective email addresses are:-


robert@benge860.freeserve.co.uk
and
timevans@gn.apc.org


(You might also want to ask them if they intend for this year's Committee meeting minutes in future to be shared with park users - policy to date is MUG members don't get to see them.)
 
If you'd like to email Cllr Rathbone on why he didn't think the AGM might be a good opportunity to consult park users on how the NG funding available might have been used on the park this year, his email address is:
ian.rathbone@hackney.gov.uk

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Warning: property of the Committee

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Returning to the back benches…..

Millfields Blog is returning to the MUG backbenches having come last in the election at the AGM for this year’s MUG Committee. The Blog will continue unaffected (with perhaps a few more FOI requests winging their way to Hackney’s park department). However, at the risk of being accused of sour grapes, I have to say it was the most bizarre election I’ve ever come across. I’m still not sure quite what took place.
Cllr Rathbone read out a list of 12 names of people who he said had indicated they wanted to stand for the committee. Two additional attendees indicated they also wanted to stand triggering a vote for the 12 available places. Nobody standing was asked to say anything, such as what they thought they might bring to the Committee if elected, so that people could make informed votes.
Cllr Rathbone asked people to write down the names of six people they wanted on the committee. When this resulted in confusion, he asked people to write down all of the names of those standing and to put crosses against those they wanted on the committee - it wasn’t clear if this meant they still had six votes or if they could vote up to 12.  I still don’t know the answer to that one.Votes were counted by someone who was also standing for the committee. Nobody independent oversaw the process (the parks department once again couldn’t be arsed to turn up). 
Cllr Rathbone  - is this really how elections are run in Hackney???
Most worrying of all Hillstowe Street, a key stakeholder in the future of the park given its ongoing shoddy treatment by National Grid, was left without a voice on the Committee as Wendy Reid also failed to get elected.  

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Millfields Users' Group AGM

MUG is having its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 10 February. The Committee will be sending out details shortly, but in the meantime please do hold the date in your diaries.

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MUG Annual General Meeting

MUG is having its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 10 February. The venue is the Nye Bevan Community Hall, Overbury Street, E5 0AH. There will be refreshments from 7pm, with the meeting starting at 7.30pm.
It should include updates on the Masterplan, the National Grid alternative route through the park (in the unlikely case that  NG have done anything which could even loosely be termed as “progress”) and details on the new communications strategy, including the MUG website.
It will also be voting the appointment of this year’s Committee, including the Chair and Secretary positions – so its really important as many people as possible turn out to show their support and have their say on what they want to happen with the park.  
Sadly, Brian Weller has decided to step down this year as Secretary. Although this blog has disagreed with Brian on some of the issues relating to the park, it does think he’ll be an extremely hard / impossible act to follow as Secretary. Not sure if his mind is completely made up – if you’d like to encourage him to stay on, his email address is: brianandsueweller@hotmail.com

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Millfields Users' Group Committee

Millfields Users' Group Committee met yesterday. I attended to support the Committee with its work to set up a website. It will issue formal minutes in due course, but below is a quick heads up on some of the issues covered. Please note; this isn't intended to be comprehensive of all the issues covered (the Masterplan for example will be revisited at a later point) and it has not been Committee endorsed as accurate. 


Homelessness
·       It was sad to learn people are sleeping rough in Millfields Park and along parts of the river Lea, particularly given the time of the year, with the heavy rain and temperatures dropping. We understand Hackney Council is working an organisation called Street Rescue to try to provide outreach work to the  rough sleepers (as opposed to just moving them on to another location). We wish them well with that.


Bins
·       The Millfields Users’ Group Committee have previously raised with the Council the need to for more bins in the park to discourage littering. It was advised by the Parks Department that: “Due to the current economic situation we are unable to provide additional bins, however we can review the current locations of the existing bins and ensure that they are in the most suitable locations.” Please do add comments below if you have suggestions on better locations for existing bins. I’ll feed these back to the MUG Committee to then feed back a co-ordinated response to Hackney.


Dog Faeces
·       Park on site staff are required to pick up dog mess when they see it.  The Millfields Users’ Group have previously stressed the need for dog mess bags – Hackney, unfortunately, do not have any reserves of these. It has advised:  “we are working alongside the Dogs Trust and are running microchip and dog training events across Hackney, we will be setting up further dates for the new year and have requested that one of these is held in Millfields.  We are also working with the Dogs trust on free tailored training events for our rangers in how to deal with dog related anti social behaviour.”


Signage
·       It’s disappointing given the large amounts of monies secured for implementing master plans in other Hackney parks that relatively cheap ideas for improving Millifields Park get caught up in Hackney bureaucracy. The Council’s written response was it “is currently in the midst of developing a signage strategy for parks this will provide styles and designs for signage and notice boards within all our green spaces.  The bespoke notice boards at Stoke Newington Common were developed before this process had begun.” I guess that means no time soon then.


Masterplan Issues
·       MUG Committee is still awaiting an updated version of the Masterplan – as soon as a recieive a copy - it will be posted here.

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