Haringey Liberal Democrats offer to run Area Assembly

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 4th Jun 2008

Haringey Labour's Deputy Leader last night blamed "unpleasant" local residents for disruption to a meeting of St. Ann's and Harringay Area Assembly. Frustrated local residents, upset by ineffective chairing and bad organisation, were instructed by Cllr Lorna Reith to conduct themselves better in the future.

Local Liberal Democrats, who also attended, were annoyed by Cllr Reith's patronising remarks and have attributed the confrontation to Labour's failure to listen to residents and to keep the meeting in order.

Liberal Democrats have demanded that Cllr Reith apologises to residents and will be raising the issue with the Leader of the Council and Chief Executive. They have also offered to chair future meetings in the absence of competent management of the Area Assembly.

Cllr Karen Alexander (Harringay) comments:

"Harringay and St.Ann's Area Assembly meetings are often very lively as residents are desperate to have their say on the Council's poor performance. Members of the public need to behave reasonably. However, it is typical of Labour to blame this on residents and not look at their own management of both the agenda and meetings. I was staggered that Cllr Reith chose to speak to residents in such a patronising way. I would have thought the most obvious way of approaching this was to talk to those responsible for managing the meeting and get them to conduct these meetings properly."

Cllr Carolyn Baker (Harringay) adds:

"Residents in St. Ann's and Harringay do not feel they are being listened to by an aloof and arrogant Labour Council. I challenge them to let the Liberal Democrats run the area assembly for six months and see the difference."