Cricklewood has a lively town centre and is a great local shopping hub. However, its fortunes aren't helped by the fact that it falls across three borough boundaries - part of it is in Camden (Fortune Green ward), part in Brent (Mapesbury ward) and part in Barnet (Child's Hill ward).
At the last elections the three wards returned Liberal Democrat councillors - and we've been working together to see how we can encourage closer cooperation between the councils in Cricklewood.
This week, Jack Cohen, one of the councillors for Child's Hill ward in Barnet, asked a full Council Meeting to endorse closer working between the three boroughs - suggesting a 'holistic' approach to services in and around Cricklewood.
Jack wrote recently that there are many examples where there is confusion over who is responsible for what:
"No one is quite sure who is responsible for keeping the streets clean. Each Council seems to go its separate ways when it comes to planning and licensing. There is a lot of anti social drinking in the area, it is patrolled by three separate neighbourhood policing teams. Cricklewood is a community that so often seems to be sidelined by the arbitrary local government boundaries. I suggest we investigate some kind of “Special Policy Zone “that would cut across Borough Boundaries so that we coordinate our approach to improving services to local residents”
The Fortune Green councillors support this aproach 100% and have written to Camden's Director of Environment to see what can be done to join Cricklewood up.
Unfortunately, though, Jack's motion was amended by the Conservatives to remove all the bits that would have done anything meaningful. You can read more about it here.
That's not the end of our efforts though - this is a subject we will be returning to again and again!
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