English: 24 February 2013. Potholes in Chesterfield Gardens N4.

Scroll down for an ► Update 4 March when Haringey Council explained why they ain't fixing this street. (Not yet, anyway.)

The FixMyStreet Website

I reported these potholes to Haringey via the free website FixMyStreet

Haringey Council would prefer me to use its own website's Report a Problem pages. Which I usually do with most street problems. But for potholes I tend to go with FixMyStreet for three reasons.

First, I can send in a photo. Second, anyone can look at the street maps and the photos on FixMyStreet and see if and when previous reports were made. Neither is yet available on the Haringey website. Third, if there are recurrent problems, or patterns of problems, residents can begin seeing these for themselves. And so can Council staff.

We can call this "crowd-sourcing or perhaps "co-production". Or even increasing participation and accountability. All these terms express useful ideas. But my basic hope is for our elected council and its contractors to work better with residents instead of just doing things to or for us.

Now is the pothole "season" as water in road surfaces freezes and thaws - this Winter several times. Zena and I parked in Chesterfield Gardens to visit The Café Lemon nearby. From my photo it's not hard to work out why potholes appear where they do. Two rows of parked cars mean the street has, in effect, a single central lane, and vehicle tyres hit the same two strips of road surface; with smaller potholes gradually getting larger.

The Café Lemon at 28 Grand Parade, Green Lanes N4

The website of the London Review of Breakfasts heads reviews with a quote from Thomas Macaulay: "Dinner parties are mere formalities; but you invite a man to breakfast because you want to see him."

Which is apt for The Café Lemon where we met up with our friend Adrian for a late Sunday breakfast - or was it brunch?

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§ Aerial view of where I took this photo. (Back button returns to this page.)