National Crime Agency
THE NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY SUB-COMMITTEE
This sub-committee, led by Geoff Orange (LRA Chairman) addresses any issues arising from the close proximity of the offices of the National Crime Agency. When the Longbarn Residents’ Association was set up there was an obvious problem.
The newly built National Crime Agency (NCA) building on Olympic Park was just being occupied and with an under provision of car parking space (800 staff with 300 on-site parking places) on-site workers and visitors were parking their cars around our estate roads for long periods – sometimes in thoughtless positions.
The problem was particularly felt at the East end of the Longbarn estate.
Residents were anxious that, with all of the parked cars, some parked particularly badly, areas could become inaccessible to the emergency services (Police, Fire & Ambulance).
Added to this, at certain times of the day, Harpers Road, the through road of the estate, became congested with standing traffic and residents were unable to leave their roads for work etc.
Meetings were held with the National Crime Agency at which LRA tried to establish what NCA would do in respect of the under provision of car parking for their workers and in the light of our problem. The NCA building was not very accessible because of security reasons. LRA’s representatives felt unwelcome and that NCA representatives were reluctant to explore how the issue could be resolved.
One NCA contact agreed that if LRA provided the registration numbers of vehicles parked on our estate roads and causing nuisance and danger on the narrow roads, he would encourage them to alter their behaviour. LRA welcomed this “crumb” and spent a good deal of time providing the registration numbers. Subsequently, this member of staff moved location and, following that, the level of co-operation and sympathy from NCA vanished.
With the problem continuing, LRA decided to ask WBC for an Access Only Order on Harpers Road.
After much consultation, this request was turned down by the Traffic Committee of WBC and despite an appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman remains so.
During this difficult time LRA had to make representations directly to the Home Office who ensured that the management at the local NCA looked at our requests in a serious way.
Currently the problem is very much better.
However, it is believed that this is only a temporary situation since we found out that with there being a number of empty buildings on Olympic Park, NCA staff are using the associated parking places.
LRA remains concerned that, as the economy improves and these buildings become occupied, it will again become a significant problem for the NCA and LRA and we will then have to deal with it.
Our contact currently with NCA is very limited and we will have to wait and see how things progress, but this sub-committee will stay ready to respond as necessary.