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
Thanks Jacqueline. I have followed your advice and emailed Cllr Claire Kober.
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Dear Alan
I hope that you have more luck than , I have had with Haringey Council , since I came to Omega Works in 2000.
In the 14 years that I have been here , I have documented the various issues by photograph , video and letter .
The Council have seen fit to ignore me and have actually continually obstructed me in my attempts to create a safe , convivial environment at Omega Works.
They gave one of my Leaseholder's £20k , to convert Unit 10B at Omega for a Art Project , which resulted in the Tenant's becoming illegal squatters .
Haringey Housing Department , advised these Tenant's, that they had legal right's of tenure .
It cost me considerable financial losses to bring this matter to it's conclusion and enormous unnecessary wasted time.
I personally organised an Arts Omega Event in November 2012 .
An Event License was correctly secured and paid for, many Haringey Resident's attended this event including HOL.
Claire Kober, Joe Goldberg and Dhiren Basu are welcome to visit Units 10A-D Omega Works whenever they see fit ,and you of course are welcome as well.
Haringey Council's Draconian attitude is a far cry from how the ethos was when lead by Lord Mackintosh .
It is tragic indeed that this organically formed community, has to be marginalised and repulsed to make way for greedy Developers and a Council who cannot account for millions of Rate Payers money .
Complete transparency - that's the spirit! I assume you also sent it to Joe Goldberg at his Haringey email and that he'll want to ask council staff to reply formally.
Please post the reply you get. As I guessed, for several years, Joe and Claire have been rolling-up their sleeves and pitching-in with Council staff to try to help solve these complicated problems.
with respect, jaqueline, the omega works are an eye sore! i walk past there most days and its a tip, last week your tenants were pushing each other around in sainsburys trollys and filming themselves doing so ( hilarious!), infact you have quite a collection there of trolleys. never mind, perhaps the 'vibrant community ' are going to make a sculpture out of them for the community. im still stunned by the lack of regard you show for the wider community, in particlar those who live directly opposite
my error Jaqueline, i had mis read which parts of omega you own. the fact remains though that the behaviour of a few will reflect on all involved with omega and that as a whole it remains an eye sore, the responsibility for that cant fall on your other neighbours on hermitage. the disrespect you have shown for one of them, here on hol is distasteful.
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