March 2009 Archives

Harrow College's plans for a new campus next door to its current site in Lowlands Road, Harrow, have hit a snag.
The further education college won permission in May 2008 for the building on the site occupied at present by Lowlands Recreation Ground.
But because the funding coming from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) will be less than originally agreed due to the credit crunch, the college's managerial team have had to scale down their scheme by losing a proposed basement level.
However, before they have been able to submit a revised application for cash to the LSC, a section of land the college had been preparing to buy as part of the redevelopment process looks to have suddenly become unavailable.
This piece of ground is part of the Transport for London-owned (TfL) car park at Harrow-on-the-Hill station which TfL has now earmarked as the site for new train crew accommodation.
A Harrow Council report on the matter revealed: "A meeting has been arranged with the Deputy Mayor of London to resolve this outstanding issue, which will then enable the college to submit its final funding application to the Learning and Skills Council for approval."

Plans to turn a Harrow town centre shop into a gaming centre and a neighbouring gaming centre into a shop have been recommended for approval.
Watford-based company Ablethird has applied to change the use of 8 St Ann's Road from an adult gaming centre (sui generis) to retail (A1 class) and to simultaneously change the use of 10 St Ann's Road from retail to an adult gaming centre.
Harrow Council's development management committee will meet on Wednesday March 25 to decide whether to follow their officers' advice and give the two parallel schemes the thumbs-up.
Ablethird's original application to turn number 8 into a gaming centre - run under its Agora brand - was turned down by the authority in October 2003 but was allowed on appeal in August 2004.
The firm was actually blocked in October 2007 from changing number 10 into an adult gaming centre.

In the latter half of last year more passengers were paid refunds for journeys delayed by late-running trains on the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines than on any other underground lines.

Figures obtained by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act show Tube bosses doled out £118,447 for 26,273 claims relating to the Met line between June and November. Jubilee Line passengers received paybacks totalling £73,907 for 19,369 claims in the same period.

Travellers can apply to Transport for London (TfL) for a reimbursement equivalent to a single fare if their journey is delayed by more than 15 minutes.

Performance figures for roughly the same six months reveal the District line suffered the most late-running trains, an average of 28 a month.

The Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines held the second poorest record with 24 delays each a month, followed by the Central line's 22.

Those using the Jubilee line experienced an average of 13 services a month in which arrival was more than a quarter of an hour overdue.

However, these are absolute numbers and do not take into account the total number of services run on each line.

There may be a number of reasons why TfL pays out more to Metropolitan and Jubilee line passengers than any other.

Statistics show travellers using the Met have the longest average journey time of any line - around 41 minutes.

This, combined with the fact the line stretches from zone 1 to zone 9 and therefore a typical fare may be more expensive, could explain why a Met passenger would be more inclined to seek a refund than someone who hops on the Northern line for a handful of stops within two or three zones at relatively low cost, for instance.

Furthermore, long sections of the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines run on the surface, especially in north-west London, so are susceptible to the impact of bad weather compared to, for example, the Victoria line, which is entirely underground.

Anthony Wood, chairman of the Harrow Public Transport Users' Association, attributes the large number of claims on the Metropolitan to three factors.

He said: "One, the average journey on the line is longer for each person, so the fare is higher. Two, the line has the oldest trains on the system so there's more failures, and three, the signalling system is the oldest on the network, so there are more faults.

"These are the main failures but these are being sorted within the next seven to eight years - a much longer period than we were originally told."

He added: "There are a large number of passengers who know the customer service charter and are quite rightly making claims."

Parking measures will be imposed on the streets of Harrow's County Roads estate, Harrow Council has controversially decided.
Councillor Susan Hall (Conservative), portfolio holder for environment and community safety, provisionally signed off the plan on Thursday March 12 despite residents earlier handing in several petitions against the idea.
The original postal consultation, held in September last year, showed that in the County Roads area 50 residents supported the idea of a controlled parking zone (CPZ) - but 89 did not, with 11 having no opinion.
The CPZ will be introduced to the whole of Devonshire Road, Dorset Road and Oxford Road, the eastern sections of Pinner Road and Sussex Road, the southern sections of Rutland Road, Bedford Road and Pinner View and part of Neptune Road.
It will mean that drivers must display a permit to be able to park their vehicle within the CPZ between 11am and 12 noon on weekdays or risk attracting a parking ticket.
Extra short-term pay-and-display parking bays will be created at the southern ends of Devonshire Road, Oxford Road, Rutland Road, Bedford Road and Pinner Road.
In addition, certain junction throughout Headstone South ward will be painted with double-yellow lines as part of the scheme.
Ms Hall was recommended to approve the plan by the council's Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel which met to consider the issue on November 26.
Traffic officers at Harrow Council will now publish the legal notices required to confirm the introduction of the CPZ and, if there are no legal objections, the measures will come into force.
Six months after implementation, further consultation will be held to see if residents support an extension of the area covered by the residents-only parking.

To celebrate the opening of its new Harlesden store, Specsavers has teamed up with the Observer to offer four lucky readers the chance to each win £150 worth of eyecare.

The competition is part of the store's two-week celebration to mark its launch.

Each prize includes a free eye examination and a pair of designer specs up to the value of £125.

The four winners can chose from well-known brands including Jasper Conran, Quiksilver, Red or Dead, Missoni and Specsavers' own best selling range of designer glasses - Osiris. A trained store stylist will be on hand to advise on the best frame style and shape to suit their face.

To enter email your name, address, and daytime telephone number to or on a postcard to Specsavers competition, Gazette House, 28 Bakers Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1RG.

The closing date is March 27.

Neighbours in Harrow want to know why Harrow School's cricket fields have repeatedly flooded over the past five years, leaving their back gardens submerged.

John Cooke, of Merton Road, said since 2002, standing water has not soaked away from the pitch after it has rained and eventually the pool overflows into his garden and four others that back onto it.

Residents like him have complained to the school and local politicians in an effort to resolve the historic dispute.

He told the Observer: "Despite spending huge amounts of money on a new irrigation scheme during last summer and autumn, this cricket field complex has ended up with a massive pool of rainwater which remains on the surface for weeks.

"There are other satellite pools also, besides the increased flooding threat over the garden boundaries of Merton Road. Much of the grass surfaces are waterlogged.

"Harrow School is guilty of landscaping all the character out of these grounds, over the years, by removing trees and bushes and eliminating natural land profiles and other features.

"These changes have brought about problems with surface water and drainage. When challenged the school claims that responsibility lies with Harrow Council and/or Thames Water."

In order to find a solution, Gareth Thomas, Labour MP for Harrow West, has brokered a meeting between the Merton Road residents affected and Harrow School on March 30, with the possibility that representatives from the utility company and the council may attend

A fake diamond-encrusted belt and a discarded cigarette butt helped to bring a pair of rapists to justice.

The 14-year-old victim of Jeton Jashari remembered his distinctive initialled belt after he raped her in a wood last year and detectives later found an identical one in his cupboard.
DNA from the saliva left on the cigarette butt found at the crime scene was also used to identify him.

The 18-year-old of Toorack Road, Harrow, was convicted on Monday of raping the teenager in The Grove Open Space in Lowlands Road on September 3.

He and Binak Hasa, 19, had been charged with assaulting two 14-year-olds they had spotted on a 183 bus coming into Harrow from Kings-bury. Hasa, of Salmon Street, Kings-bury, had been accused of raping one of the girls in another part of the wood at the same time, and pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

His brother, who had also been on the bus, followed them from Harrow bus station, in College Road, to Lowlands Recreation Ground, where Hasa and Jashari later caught up with them, the court heard.

Hasa's brother left swiftly, saying he didn't want anything to do with it, the jury was told.

But Hasa and Jashari, both of Albanian descent, followed the girls into a wood in The Grove open space where they began chatting to the two on a fallen log.

When left alone, Jashari pushed the frightened teen to the floor and held her down in the mud, before taking off his trousers and forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

The court heard that the pair also stole a mobile phone from one of their victims and later rang the other saying her friend would have to pay £50 to get it back.

One victim said in interview that her attacker wore a distinctive black leather belt with a buckle containing a fake diamond encrusted J.

n Hasa and Jashari now face lengthy sentences when they reappear at court on April 2.

Police were called at midday on Saturday after an 18-year-old girl was mugged in Station Road, Harrow.

The hooded attacker, believed to be about 20 and 5ft 4in tall, snatched the teenager's handbag, containing £100 cash and bank cards, before running towards an alleyway opposite Lyon Road.

Addicts in desperate need of treatment may revert to crime if health bosses carry out plans to hand responsibility for drug treatment programmes to private firms.

That is according to a senior source at Harrow Primary Care Trust (PCT), who says plans are in the pipeline to commission out the services in a bid to cut costs - raising fears the quality of the provision will be compromised.

The whistleblower approached the Observer because of growing concerns that drug users will no longer get the attention they desperately need and that drug-related crime could rise as a result.

The source said: "If all the services are put out for tender it is likely that voluntary groups will run substance misuse programmes for a lot less money.

"These services do offer decent treatment, of course, but they have a history of having lower standards because they don't have to meet the same government criteria.

"Because of this they are not required to hire staff with greater qualifications and are therefore, comparatively, less qualified to deal with these vulnerable patients."

If these plans do go ahead, the doctor says staff who currently work within the service will be moved or redeployed, not necessarily within the same field, and crucial relationships with users will be lost.

They added: "Statistics show that the best kind of treatment for drug users comes when they deal with the same person on a regular basis.

"If staff are moved around, this rapport will be lost and, therefore, so will the effectiveness of the treatment.

"If this happens then more drug users face failing to deal with their problems and potentially there will be higher levels of crime in the area."

The medic added that at present there are seven programmes set to go out to tender, used by 642 people, according to the latest figures - many of them for the use of drugs like heroin and crack cocaine.