Finchlinks

North Finchley business breakfast

Paul Evans — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:55:04 +0000

On Tuesday, we held what may become known as ‘The Inaugural Finchley Business Breakfast’ at Cafe Buzz on the High Road. There was a modest turnout – about a dozen people were there for at least parts of it – and a few things were agreed. It’s been written up fairly comprehensively here by RogT of the Barnet Eye – but I thought it wouldn’t do any harm for me to something approaching formal minutes here.

Shorter version:

We want another meeting soonish – and we’ve got a subject that we think people will like
We had lots of ideas of projects that could improve the prospects for the High Street – they’re all there if anyone wants to take them up
We’re hoping to do a bit of research – watch this space!

OK. Still here? Then, before I give an account of it, I’d like to explain the premise for the meeting. It came from a conversation between myself and Helen – Cafe Buzz’ owner – about the wider issues facing local traders.

I’d been planning to establish a ‘hyperlocal’ website for the parts of Finchley north of the A406 (i.e Finchlinks). A website is one idea, but I’d be perfectly happy if someone could come up with a better idea to get a lively civil conversation going. A website will do… for now. I like the idea of local community websites (they have lots of positive benefits for local communities) but all of my reading around the subject has suggested that an overly political focus is counterproductive in lots of ways that I won’t bore you with now.

My problem has been that it’s barely possible to start a conversation about the local area without it being dominated by the subject of parking. It’s an issue that excites great passions. It’s also one that is very politically charged.

You see the problem? As long as every local conversation resolves around such a divisive political issue, it’s hard to be a hyperlocal. On the other hand, the parking issue has had a great galvanising effect. People are talking to each other because of it. Like the ‘Save6Music’ campaign reinvigorated an undervalued radio station (and perhaps the ‘Save Friern Barnet Library‘ campaign may transform the local conversation about library-related matters), the parking issue has a catalytic potential.

So I suggested to Helen that we start having local business breakfasts where traders can talk about parking, but also talk about wider issues. Here’s what came up as a result:

Parking is still seen as a cornerstone issue – one that reduces the prospects of other collective action to improve the local high streets. I don’t think anyone disagreed that all and any steps be taken to press for positive changes along the lines that local traders are already doing. One attendee (Keith) had a list of proposals that he suggested that we agree. The text is at the foot of this post and I suggested we’d see if anyone had any amendments. A counterproposal came from RogT of BarnetEye that the Federation of Small Businesses position (PDF) be adopted.

Other suggestions came up – I’ll post them all here without comment as I’d be interested to hear what others have to say:

Local traders could consider a delivery service to encourage shoppers who can’t / won’t bring their cars to the local shops
The Arts Depot and the North Finchley library (among other local buildings) have the potential to become effective cultural magnets – bringing people into the area and changing the way we look at North Finchley
Sundays offer a real potential for growth. Any steps we could take to rebrand the area as being a good place to come on Sunday would help change the way we look at the High Street (and help drum up some local trade into the bargain)
The local ‘loyalty card.’ (I pointed out that this isn’t a simple undertaking and mentioned the slightly damp squib that the ‘Independents Day‘ was last year – but I still think it’s a good idea if people get behind it)
Local area regeneration – there’s a lot of work being done around High Streets and how they adapt to the changing retail environment – out-of-town-shopping, online competition etc.

My proposal was that we pick one of these issues, that we try and find an appropriate speaker and we have ‘The Second Finchley Business Breakfast’ in about six weeks time with the agreed issue as the focus. The last one on the list (local area regeneration) was the one that seemed to attract the most interest and I’ll be working on finding the right speaker (though suggestions and intros would be most welcome!)

It wasn’t a formally convened meeting (next time, I think I’ll bring my copy of Citrine!). Also, one of the attendees (Veronica) suggested that we do some research. She’s planning to get some survey questions to me shortly and I’ll post them here, though I should have mentioned the Business Forum research that was published a few months ago again. Perhaps this is enough for now?

Anyway, here’s Keith’s suggested text:

1 That local traders in the London Borough of Barnet be authorised to distribute to their customers parking permits in designated street parking bays.

2 These permits would allow an initial period of 30 minutes free parking.

3 Thereafter the authorised local traders be permitted to act on behalf of the Council to receive payments from the public, and to account to the Council for these payments, of charges on the official scale of charges.

4 These parking permits and authorised delegation of authority to local traders be printed and issued to the traders by the London Borough of Barnet.

He’s suggesting that it’s sent to the Council on behalf of ‘North Finchley Traders’. What do you think? Comments, suggestions, etc?

North Finchley local business breakfast meeting

Paul Evans — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:30:21 +0000

Cafe Buzz is holding an informal business breakfast for local traders next Tuesday. In case you’re interested, there’s also a LinkedIn group for local businesses – here.

Full details are here – or you can sign up using this form:

Event Registration Online for North Finchley local traders business networking breakfast powered by Eventbrite

Increase in crime concerns local traders

Sue Walder — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:00:38 +0000

Crime was second only to the contentious issue of parking as a major concern for local traders at the North Finchley Business Forum held at Trinity Church on 1 December. This was the second NFBF meeting and was again chaired by Gary Ince of North London Business.

The meeting was attended by two local Crime Prevention Officers plus a member of the anti-social behaviour team from Barnet Council.

Traders were especially concerned about the lack of police presence on the High Road combined with a perceived lack of response to 999 calls when they try to report incidents.

Interestingly, CPO Jenny Denscher told the meeting that due to cuts in the Metropolitan Police Service there are now just 20 police officers covering the whole of Barnet (the second largest borough in the MPS) during any typical 8-hour shift. The Borough Commander of the MPS may be invited to attend the next NLBF to discuss resources.

Safer Neighbourhood Teams ( a mixture of police and community support officers) patrol the residential streets in each ward and hold regular street briefings. More information about Barnet’s Safer Neighbourhood Teams can be found here.

The CPO teams try to visit all local shops and businesses to discuss concerns, and work with the business community to reduce crime. In addition, the CPO hold ShopWatch forums every three months – these are opportunities for local traders to discuss issues with the team. There is also a successful PubWatch scheme whereby pub landlords share telephone numbers and can give each other early warning of criminal activity.

The CPO team agreed that there was a need to improve communication between local businesses and the police. They will hold a ShopWatch meeting early in the new year and will circulate details to all traders.

The CPOs also recommended using the new 101 telephone number to report issues that are not emergencies. More info on this service can be found here.

Other useful numbers:

Barnet Council Anti-Social Behaviour Unit: 0208 359 2000

Safer Neighbourhood Teams:

- Finchley Church End 020 87335598

- West Finchley 020 8721 2982

- Woodhouse 020 8721 2983

If you’re interested in finding out about the level of crime in Barnet, click here to see the Metropolitan Police Crime map for the borough. Incidentally, crime in Barnet is considered ‘average’.

What do you think?

What customers think about Finchley’s shops

Paul Evans — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:30:22 +0000

Just a quick additional post on the report that was circulated at the recent Business Forum event (next one is on Thursday).

This table particularly stood out. For me, it highlights one of the many reasons that large chain stores are beating local high-street shops:

I’ve only copied the very top of the table – there were lots of skills that were identified by only one or two shops, but they’re probably not as significant.

Local shops are clearly concious of the cost and difficulty of finding the right staff with the right skills – and of providing in-service training for the staff that they do have.

Supermarkets, on the other hand, have HR departments, training schemes and ways of identifying problems with their customer services.

If there’s one area that local businesses could get together to problem-solve, this may be it. I’d be interested to know if anyone has seen any effective websites that allow people to give on-the-hoof feedback to local shops about the quality of customer service or other customer issues (range of products, displays, marketing etc)? I’ve seen a few sites like this one and this one for finding tradespeople in other areas and giving feedback on them.

But not for local shops.

That same report does underline the view that local parking is easily the biggest issue. But this is important as well.

Does anyone have Mary Portas‘ direct number, by any chance?

Parking – the live rail of local politics

Paul Evans — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:09:15 +0000

I’ve fought the temptation to write too much here about the issue of Parking – mainly because it is one of those issues that seems to polarise people.

I’m trying to cover issues with a bit of balance here, but I can’t find anyone to publicly take one side of the argument (the pro-changes brief).

So polarise is too strong a word. On the one hand, the support is largely silent.

But there appears to be a lot of people who are very vocal in their opposition to many of the changes that have happened recently – ranging from the hike in the charges through to the changes in the way that people have to pay for it (it appears that the only way to pay is by using a mobile phone).

The opposition to these changes has taken the form of a legal campaign.

The thing is, this issue can’t reasonably be ignored on these grounds. At the recent Business Forum meeting, it was really the only issue that anyone wanted to discuss.

The good news is that the next Business Forum meeting is at 6:15pm for 6:30pm on Thursday, 1st December 2011

The venue this time is Trinity Church, 15 Nether Street, North Finchley, N12 7NN (map link), as the Arts Depot was not available. After a bit of e-mail to-ing and fro-ing, the Council initially agreed to send someone called Neil Richardson who is in charge of operational parking.

In my view, with such a live issue, I suggested that (with all due respect to Mr Richardson) sending an ‘only doing my job’ officer wouldn’t cover what is plainly a matter of policy – something for the ruling group to address.

It now seems that the leader of the council, Cllr Cornelius will be at the meeting on Thursday.

Come along if you can?

Community Safety & Cleanliness in Finchley

Paul Evans — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:33:42 +0000

I’ve now had the minutes from the North Finchley Business Forum meeting the other week. You can download the whole thing here if you like (PDF file).

A few aspects of it stood out and I’m planning to pull individual issues out as stand-alone posts if anyone wants to comment on them either here, or on the Facebook pages for North Finchley/N12 or Finchley Village.

One particularly interesting one was the question of community safety and cleanliness.

Here’s what the minutes say (with a few corrections I’ve made):

Steve Murrant introduced himself as head of Community Safety / Enforcement, who leads a team of 6 dealing with anti-social behaviour, graffiti, dog fouling etc.

SM said they were tackling street drinking by a voluntary agreement with off licences where they initially secure agreement not to sell strong alcohol. After this pressure is ramped up. This was introduced in Cricklewood in April and drinkers move from the area as they cannot obtain alcohol. The initiatives are carried out in close partnership with Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

One business stated that The Arcade is used as a toilet, mainly by street drinkers. Rubbish, rats & flytipping at the back of the shops was reported, as well as unsightly bread left for pigeons on Tally Ho corner and signs on lamp posts. This would be dealt with tomorrow by SM’s team.

SM asked anyone with an issue to contact his team member Mark Connolly, e-mail mark.connolly@barnet.gov.uk

There was a brief discussion on A-boards. Currently Council policy does not allow them. SM’s team just enforces policy set by cabinet so businesses need to lobby their ward Councillors on this.

So. What do we think? Personally, I think this is a much bigger issue than most people realise. We underestimate the way people react against things that repulse or frighten them and this is something that supermarket chains know very well. The High Street has to compete against supermarkets and Retail Parks that go to great lengths to control their environments very carefully.

Combined with street-drinking and the occasional pools of piddle, North Finchley (and to a lesser extent, Ballards Lane) has a lot of unsightly empty shops. That project I mentioned here recently in Walsall – getting local photographers to help dress the area up – would be good to see copied locally.

Advocates of Broken Window Theory would argue that this is a much bigger issue than it appears to be and on balance, I think they’ve got a point.

And what does these mean for Mr Murrant and his team? I suspect that they could be doing more in the area to increase awareness of their work and getting retailers behind it – I’d be interested to know how many shopkeepers are aware of his work.

We’ve got a Conservative Council who appear to be very keen on the whole ‘Big Society’ idea. Whatever you think to them/it, I’m surprised at how far issues like this are still treated as services that are to be delivered (rather that co-provided) quietly by groups of people who don’t communicate particularly well with the people they’re supposed to be serving.

North Finchley Business Forum – detailed research

Paul Evans — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:24:59 +0000

Click the image to download (PDF)

Last week, I posted a write-up of the North Finchley Business Forum meeting at the Arts Depot.

A survey of local businesses was circulated at that meeting, and I’ve now had an electronic copy of it passed on to me. You can download a copy of the report here (large-ish PDF file).

It doesn’t contain too many surprises. The focus among respondents on the parking issue is particularly notable, but you probably knew that before opening the report. That’s parking. Every aspect of parking. Everyone is annoyed about it. Parking – get the picture?

Other issues include the high local Business Rates and a general sense that the area has deteriorated and isn’t particularly cared for.

There was quite a lot of comment about petty crime and anti-social behaviour. Overall, it’s not a hugely optimistic picture, and this is something that needs to be addressed.

One thing that I found strangely lacking though, was an absence of calls for any kind of co-ordination.

Not wanting to put too many noses out of joint, but my experience of North Finchley isn’t always positive. There are lots of empty shops and the landlords don’t seem to realise that leaving them looking scruffy does nothing for the area or … er… the attractiveness of their own property.

This project in Walsall – getting local photographers to help dress the area up – would be good to see copied locally.

Also, some places have freindly and helpful staff. Others don’t, and I suppose that’s their lookout. But the way shops serve people and present themselves has a knock-on for neighbouring shops.

I’m surprised at the lack of dialogue between local businesses – and the lack of a sense that it’s needed. There doesn’t seem to be much peer-pressure going on.

Most businesses in the area are hugely dependent upon the reputation of the rest of the High St. Yes – that means that the parking needs sorting out, anti-social behaviour and crime need to be looked at and a bit of TLC could be applied by the council to the street furniture.

But it also depends upon collective action by the local shops – and I was surprised no-one mentioned this in the survey.

It does make me think, wouldn’t it be good if Mary Portas could be persuaded to come by and give a few pep-talks?

Social Media Surgeries – 1st one on the 8th November at 5.30pm

Paul Evans — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:23:39 +0000

Thanks to Helen at Cafe Buzz, we can announce the first of our Social Media Surgeries on the 8th November (5.30pm – 7.30pm).

Book your place now – before they all go. If you want to, you can register either as someone wanting help, or if you’re a bit of a social media expert yourself, you can offer help to others. Find out more about social media surgeries here.

It’s completely free of charge to attend, this service is designed to help local small businesses, charities, voluntary and community groups get a bit of help, advice, pointers and how-tos in an informal atmosphere.

None of the surgeons will expect payment from you, and it’s very bad form for them to try to sell you anything either. So they won’t.

Helen is keeping the Cafe open late for us, so we’d urge anyone coming along to consider a coffee and maybe a cake. But there’s no obligation either way.

So, what are you waiting for? Book your place now!

Open Gaming Day – Saturday 29th October

Paul Evans — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:42:16 +0000

I’ve had an email from Mike Berry of Leisure Games on Ballards Lane about an Open Gaming Day at the shop on Saturday 29th October.

Gaming: More that just Monopoly.... (click pic for credit)

On the day, a couple of members of the Finchley Games Club spending the day at the shop playing games and encouraging customers to join in. There are several objectives:

To get some people to try some games that they have never tried, or heard of, before
To introduce people who know only the likes of Monopoly and Scrabble to some really good games
To show some people that board games are not boring
To demonstrate the wide range of types of games, to suit all occasions and requirements
To hopefully get a few new members for the Finchley games Club

If customers are interested in a particular game that they have available for demoing then they will try to get a game of it going, or at least talk to people about it.

It starts around 10 to 10.30-ish and going on (with occasional breaks) through the day until around 5pm.

If you need to know more, you can contact Mike on 020 8346 2327.

North Finchley Business Forum – a few points that came up

Paul Evans — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:13:08 +0000

Last night, I was at the North Finchley Business Forum meeting, hosted jointly by Barnet Council and a company called North London Business. It was interesting, and (up to a point) very positive.

Parking. It came up at the meeting, y'know?

It is the first in a series of meetings – the next one is pencilled in for late November (details to follow – join the LinkedIn group to stay in the loop).

There was a lot of good intentions from the council officers there, and some potentially interesting developments for the area surrounding a bid to the Lord Mayor’s Outer London Fund, a subject that I’ll return to another day soon here.

North London Business appear to be instrumental to the continuing energy around the meetings and, presumably, any bidding that is done. They say that they’ve a budget of £300.00 to do the research that they handed out at the meeting (details to follow), the publicity, and four meeting (including last night’s one). That’s a lot to do for that budget.

Predictably, and understandably, the meeting was dominated with barely supressed rage about the parking situation – the ramped-up charges, the decision (which I’ve only just heard about) to remove all of the parking ticket machines so that they can only be bought online, with a mobile phone, and from selected shops.

I don’t think we need fortune telling-skills to know how that one is going to work out.

Either way, on the parking issue, leaving aside the policy issues, I think the biggest problem is the lack of human dialogue.

There’s a lot to disagree with in the policy itself (more here), but there are also a lot of simple suggestions that could be put to a human being who has the ability to open negotiations with local people on this issue. Ideas like ‘pay-for-what-you-use’ parking in the car-parks or the situation where North Finchley’s CPZ runs from 9am-5.30pm instead of the one-hour restriction elsewhere nearby.

As Cllr Schneiderman put it on Twitter…..

“Just attended N Finchley business forum – to say there was some anger about parking is putting it mildly! Officers left to take flak as usual”

We were, however, promised a higher-quality witness from the council on this subject at the next meeting.

Other highlights: Steve Murrant – the Enforcement Investigation Manager at the council (Google tells me he’s a former Chief Inspector, so mind how you go!) spoke about plans to discourage street-drinking, outlining an enforcement plan that he claimed had worked very well in Cricklewood and elsewhere. The meeting was urged to become more involved in the Safe Neighbourhood Team and in ‘Shopwatch’ – a meeting that takes place every three months (but one that had mixed reviews from the businesses in the room).

It was agreed that the police would be invited to come to the next meeting.

Also, the question of the Arts Depot came up. The possibility of it housing a library to replace proposed closures in North Finchley and Friern Barnet (outlined here by Cllr Rams with counter-commentary from Vicky here and as reported, with some scepticism, in Private Eye recently) and the anticipated ‘footfall’ that it would bring to the area was thought to be pertinent to The Bid.

But what about the venue’s role in helping to regenerate the area? Well, the meeting resolved to invite someone from the Arts Depot to the next meeting.

In summary, a lot came up, each issue worth a short article of it’s own.

Parking (and parking, parking and parking!)
The stats that we were given at the meeting (interesting – watch this space)
The Bid
The Arts Depot – the library and the wider role of the venue regenerating the area
Anti-social behaviour, petty crime and making North Finchley feel safer

I’ll try and post a few of them here, but if you want to weigh in, please let me know!

One last thing though. Initiatives like this have been kicked off before, only to dissolve into nothing. A few people at the meeting offered examples to illustrate their frustration.

Personally, I like to stay as positive as possible on this kind of thing. I think that the meeting was handled very well and the officers at the Council were keen to do anything that they can to work with local businesses to improve the area. With someone there from the Council (on parking), the police and the Arts Depot, the next meeting should be worth going to.