Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey's Warehouse Districts Under Threat?
An item at tonight's Council Cabinet meeting has thrown into question the future survival of Haringey's two warehouse districts and the artistic communities who live in them.
Both the Harringay Warehouse District and the Fountayne Road community now face an uncertain future following the publication of a Haringey Council report, "Tackling Unauthorised Living in Industrial Areas". (Report attached)
The report, which was discussed at the full cabinet of the Council today, recommends a two-year project costing £600,000 which will seek to deal with "the growing problem of unauthorised residential and live work uses in and around (the) Industrial Sites" in Haringey. The recommended process is "to establish a special multi-disciplinary team to fully investigate and address the problem through a combination of regulation, improvement, enforcement and, where necessary, prosecution".
The alarm bells were ringing for me since earlier in the week I had discovered that these areas are earmarked as being amongst those that will "will accommodate the majority of development in the borough over the next 20 years".
In Facebook and Twitter conversations this afternoon, warehouse residents shared their fears that the vibrancy their communities bring to the borough will be overlooked and their communities sanitised and destroyed.
In response to my Twitter requests to Council Leader Claire Kober this evening to protect these communities, Cllr Kober sought to offer some reassurance:
@harringayonline some people in unacceptable conditions. My concern is for safe, decent properties. No intention to undermine communities
@harringayonline no intention to damage what's good. Priority is to go after rogue landlords just as we do elsewhere in borough
When I asked if she would ensure that warehouse residents will be involved, the Council Leader replied:
@harringayonline don't see any problem involving residents. Will ask officers to consider how best to achieve
I very much hope that the approach the Council takes in this project will support these communities rather than beginning the process of whittling them away.
Tags for Forum Posts: local plan, local plan 2014, site allocation plan, warehouse district
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Permalink Reply by Sharon on
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I agree with Jenny, the Omega works are an eyesore despite the fancy mirrored gate they have installed, and myself living near to the Overbury warehouses am yet to see any sort of benefit to the wider community at all apart from watching hipsters score weed from the local kids! I've mentioned before the noise nuisance when club nights and parties are held. It's difficult lying in bed at night to locate where the bass lines are coming from..who do we complain to? This should be policed among the community who should also tell their guests to keep their shrieking mouths shut on the way home from the parties.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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"I am hoping things will be dealt with in the best interests of everyone."
By whom?
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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If the " rest/majority of the warehouse residents.... are very much disturbed ... " why don't they do something about it? Do they, for example, call the Noise Team ?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Your question could be applied equally to any resident anywhere and I am assuming this is implied in your question, John.
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Of course.
I had about 6 months of musicians in the flat below mine playing loud guitar music every night until 2am. When I complained they said " but we're musicians " I kept up a barrage of complaints either directly and via the landlord and letting agent and they eventually got tired and moved out.
I just realised - they said they were going to move to a warehouse
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It's not just the soun systems themselves which are a nuisance but the drunken noisy fallout in the early morning with revellers returning home down residential streets such as Tiverton and hermitage road, shouting, screeching, pushing themselves along in Sainsbury's trollies ( what fun!) i think it's worse for the people opposite omega. They are situated in a residential area where most people have kids and work regular hours. I can see why Jenny is so annoyed and upset. Reaching out to the wider community (I've yet to see that) might be too little, waaaay too late.
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Hannie, this is not a criticism, either of you nor the steps you and other people have taken to try to solve these problems. But clearly there are - or have been - some problems which persist. Or maybe recur when new people arrive who think that 'anything goes'.
Sometimes these are resolved by individual approaches, as you've done. Sometimes not. My suggestion is that what seems a positive cooperative/collectivist ethos among the factory/warehouse residents may be a good foundation for co-operative solutions that work with one another, with public agencies, and with near neighbours.
You may know a helluva lot more than me about possible models along these lines. But anyway here's a link to a page about Good Neighbor (U.S. spelling) schemes which I suggested to Haringey staff and fellow councillors as worth exploring; and which perhaps could be tried in other situations the Council meets. (The actual examples are out-of-date but the ideas are not.)
Apologies for boring people on HoL who've seen this stuff before from me.
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Permalink Reply by Takaokagiejin on
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OK I give in. The "but they are so good and deserving and nobody local can comment because they don't do so much for the community idea" is just too overwhelming. Here was the demographic of the people in the houses at the end of Vale Road just before Linkway last time I looked: occupational therapist, IT manager, special needs teacher, social worker (x3), web designer, graphic designer, musician, tailor, Phd student, writer, elderly / disabled (x5), families with young children (x3), maths professor, refugee support worker, cancer researcher, child minder, tennis coach, care worker, retired GP. Why the quiet lives of these people should be disturbed by over 1,000 people living in illegal conversions simply because the residents are arty and make the local pub better is beyond me. As a community this group of people are tolerant and neighbourly. We were consulted about the plans to work 24/7 for years digging a massive tunnel just yards from our homes and agreed to it. The plans were considerate of our needs and the works vital for the city. Trust the same community to plan what happens to the industrial units in their road rather than give in to conspiracy theories about council corruption and fairy tales about the current illegal occupation having a positive impact.
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Takaokagiejin, is it totally a fairytale to think there's no possible win-win outcome?
I'm asking, not to take sides, but because I'm genuinely curious to read your answer and the thinking behind it.
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Permalink Reply by Julia Bell on
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Takaokagiejin, Jenny & John - sorry you've had problems but . . . These warehouses have been here for years and the council is collecting council tax from them so I don't see how they are illegal. And it's not a fantasy to that the council uses H&S as social cleansing - I could point you to many different pockets of London - Dalston for eg where they are trying to knock down some beautiful, tho delapidated Georgian shops - because they are not big enough for 'open-plan' shops ie Tesco and they can cram more people in if they put up high rises - H&S is being used as leverage here and developers have started without permission - but by which point the damage is done - here: http://opendalston.blogspot.co.uk/ in fact I don't know what the outcome of this meeting was I hope they saved them.
If the neighbours in the warehouses are noisy - complain and complain again but don't assume that all the warehouses are the same - just as all the houses in Harringay are not the same - I've had issues with noisy neighbours from time to time which has been a real pain in the ass and I live in a flat in a converted Victorian house - there are acknowledged problems on Hermitage Road - but Overbury Road is not full of rubbish anymore and it was an issue with Veolia not with illegality. If you were to take a snapshot of the demographic in Hannie's warehouse you would see a mix of people similar to those living in the houses/flats on Hermitage Road - teachers, NGO's, musicians, artists, librarians . . . I seriously object to the craze for new build highrise that is going to turn our bit of Haringay into some boring (and possibly badly built) dormitory AND the assumption that all the people living in the warehouses are troublemakers on drugs - some kind of mixed, community-driven solution surely has to be the answer rather than something imposed on us by councilors with grandiose plans who live in Mumswell Hell . . .
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Nobody has said that ALL the warehouse residents were troublemakers on drugs. In fact, nobody has said that at all. I think we can assume that some are from what has been said though.
I'm positive they don't all pay council tax. Especially when I see comments on here like "it's included with my rent". That is a matter between the landlords who are no doubt telling their tenants this, and the council. I suspect it's a lot of money too.
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