Haringey Council is to back a bill that would increase the fines for leaving vehicles idling and make it easier to levy fines, thanks to an intervention from a local Liberal Democrat councillor.

At a Full Council meeting on July 15th, Cllr Scott Emery (Muswell Hill – LD) called on Haringey Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment, Cllr Kirsten Hearn (Stroud Green – Lab), to write a joint letter to the Secretary of State for the Environment supporting the Vehicles Emissions (Idling Penalties) Bill. This is a private members bill put forward by the Hon Wera Hobhouse, who is MP for Bath and Liberal Democrat spokesperson on the Environment and Climate Change, to “increase penalties for stationary vehicle idling offences; to grant local authorities increased powers to issue such penalties.”

Haringey Councillors last night resolved to use any legal measures within their power to support a national education curriculum that included teaching about LGBT+ families and relationships, and vowed not to tolerate the kind of aggressive and homophobic protests that have targeted schools in Birmingham.

Urgent steps are needed to tackle pollution in the River Moselle, according to a Haringey Lib Dem councillor. Known as 'Haringey's River', the Moselle rises in Highgate Wood and flows east through the borough (mostly in pipes underground) but surfaces in Tottenham's Lordship Recreation Ground before eventually flowing into the River Lea in South Tottenham.

A documentary mostly filmed at Lordship Lane Primary School is a stark warning about the dangers to the health of children posed by air pollution, warns a councillor who is also a parent at the school. 

Local Liberal Democrat councillors have expressed dismay at Haringey Council’s approval of a controversial planning application. Cllr Scott Emery ‘called-in’ proposals to redevelop the shops at 1-9 Fortis Green Road in order to add flats. He feared that the plans would create a large bland façade out of keeping with the well-preserved Edwardian architecture of the surrounding area. There is also a risk that it will displace the popular small businesses currently based in the shops.

Popular local campaigner and Haringey councillor Dawn Barnes has been chosen by the Liberal Democrats to fight next year's election for the Enfield and Haringey London Assembly seat.

Dawn Barnes, who took a seat from Labour in Crouch End in the local council elections last year, is a seasoned campaigner who has pledged to build on the party’s stunning success in June’s European elections across the two boroughs. Just five per cent of the vote separated the Lib Dems and Labour, with all other parties out of contention.

What a fantastic result it was on Sunday night for the Lib Dems! The EU elections have shown us to be the voice of millions who want to Stop Brexit, and who no longer feel represented by the country's two main parties.

Nationally, we won more seats than Labour and the Conservatives; we topped the poll in London for the first time in our history for any election; and pro-remain parties, of which we were by far the largest, won more votes than the Brexit Party and UKIP.