Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The Hell that is Wood Green
Yesterday, I had the misfortune to find myself in the shopping mall. Walking out the big automatic doors and into the crowd of Star Wars pub extras who were smoking, spitting and squabbling on the footpath I witnessed what for me sums up the whole carbuncle on the arse of Haringey that is Wood Green High Road. One of the characters stormed through the crowd with his status dog in tow. I was reflecting on the fact that ‘status’ dogs don't seem to work (as the people who have them only ever seem to be what everyone else in society would consider low status). Everything suddenly went quiet except the ever present sirens. The status dog had stopped and released its copious bowels all over the footpath. It was like turning on the light in an HMO; the cockroaches screamed and scattered. The dog owner laughed and walked on. It was probably one of the most disgusting things I have seen or smelt in London. Eventually the crowd returned and watched the next horde trample the mess up and down the road. There was no-one to turn to, no-one to clean up and more importantly no-one with the authority to challenge and/or shoot the dog owner. Things just returned to normal.
The whole experience made me think how the council, local police and traders believe that we're all animals if they are happy for us to have to deal with this every time we go to the High Road. It's easy enough for me to hop on a bus and head off to Crouch End or Islington or even Enfield to shop but if you're older or disabled and have trouble getting around or not enough money for the bus it must be pretty grim to face it every day. Imagine how the standard little old lady dreads heading out into the crowds, litter, phlegm, smoke and anti-social behaviour of Wood Green every morning to get the milk.
Short of manning water cannons at each end of the High Road and employing some mercenaries with batons to control the crowds, I don’t know what can be done. Are there any clever ‘nudges’ or interventions that could improve Wood Green? Is it a matter of tarting the place up and hoping that the crowds respect their new surroundings? Is it signage to remind, and in many instances educate, people that spitting, littering and barging into other people is just not the done thing? Or do we just give up, bulldoze the lot and install a waterhole in the middle and let the law of the jungle and the status dog owners prevail?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Robert Pike on
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Merely responding to the discussions within the thread regarding urbanism of Shopping City. As suggested improvements are made to similar structures to bring them up to scratch and help eliminate issues associated with anti-social behaviour.
You can see my preference for smaller scale approach to Wards Corner elsewhere on HOL. You have already answered your own point. As illustrated by that scheme an unjustified tear down is not required to make improvements.
The road as a canyon. True but the road is an essential part of the activity. Visit any 60s pedestrianised centre to see how omitting traffic erodes one of the key parts of a district centres long term success. Slowing traffic, reducing road width, improving the pedestrian space with widened footways, better crossings...as indicated in LBH current proposals is a better approach over wholesale pedestrianisation.
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Elsewhere on HOL I have discussed littering. I love boring stuff like that.
Anyway you as a future Councillor should know that upgrades to the public realm need to have a lifecycle cost built into it rather than just look at capital cost of material and installation. Maintenance, cleaning, litterpicking, education on littering...are as important as the jazzy magazine shot of 4 trees per intersection on day 1. What about thinking it will look that good on day 1001? So what is your thinking on that? Is this the approach being taken at LBH level?
But you are probably stuck for money right?
So tell me how many prosecutions there have been? How much should the fine be for littering/ spitting/ soiling/ weeing...in the street? Those fines should be collected in a dedicated fund to pay for maintenance/ litter services/ litter wardens... Community service - litterers spend the day picking up litter and telling others not too. Can't wait to see the Lb Dem policy on this.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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"Upgrades to the public realm need to have a lifecycle cost built into it rather than just look at capital cost of material and installation." Maintenance, cleaning, litterpicking, education on littering..."
Sensible. So how will would you suggest persuading a National Government which sees such public expenditure purely as a cost and not as the maintenance and creation of common wealth. How in practice how do you suggest local councils plan for this when from year to year their funding is slashed by central government? With some of the poorest Councils among those taking the biggest hits.
"Improvements are made to similar structures to bring them up to scratch". As you know, that was one aim of the Decent Homes funding - a cut. Now with "Mixed Communities" ideology used as a pretext to demolish Council-owned social housing. Not to refurbish or renew it. Or even to rebuild as homes for the existing communities.
"... and help eliminate issues associated with anti-social behaviour." Really? It's as easy as that, it is? Are you a practising architect or an urbanist? Can I please go and look at the places you have designed/built to see how they solve these problems?
If not, have you got some practical examples you know from your own experience which I can go and visit? Where this elimination has successfully taken place? Brunswick Square and the Barbican aren't quite the same population mix as Wood Green, are they? And the prices there now aren't going to lead to increased "mixed communities" like the streets where we live in Tottenham.
Or perhaps where you live in Wood Green?
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Yes Alan, Kings Cross ward has a very similar demographic to Noël Park. It ranks high in the indices of deprevation, the bulk of housing is either social or rented, a lot of its large Bangladeshi population are employed in poorly paid catering and retail jobs, there is a large, transient student population, high levels of youth unemployment and major problems with drugs, prostitution and crime.
It has, however, turned itself into an area people want to visit and spend money and the success of the Brunswick has helped the small independent retailers on Marchmont Street (where you can buy a 10p bath plug in Marchmont Hardware or a rather more expensive artisan loaf in Alara over the road). It also has a number of active and engaged resident and tenant associations who are not embarrassed about making a very loud noise until stuff gets done.
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Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on
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Just had a wonder into wood green, everything very peaceful including one policeman in police van happily driving with one hand whilst fiddling with his police phone device looking totally absent minded whilst staring at the screen or fiddling with buttons. He had another copper in the passenger seat. No need to be driving with one hand. Took no notice of anything that was going on around him whilst approaching the main junction.
Registration plate BX61 EEJ about 1.15pm heading up to palmers green from station road, white skin, dark hair.
Really not helpful.
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Citizen's arrest FPR?
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Didn't think, spent the time kicking myself for not having a phone on me to take a picture, saying that it's not that much of a rare sight seeing police in a police vehicle not having eyes on the game.
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Yeah, saw one last week parked on the red line on Holloway Road while the officer was in a shop arresting some chips.
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Also had a look at the prospective tree situation for wood green. I reckon the police will veto and extra tree's (over and above the few already planned) based on required CCTV eye lines, hence why there are hardly any already.
It's possible current policing strategies are key to what's holding woodgreen back in a number of ways.
Wasn't there an important study once showing area's more populated by tree's generally have less crime ?
Too many stark spaces with police posters telling you to 'hide your phone' and very little community policing with hardly any tree's and loads of unhappy gamblers is a recipe for trouble. -
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Wasn't there an important study once showing area's more populated by tree's generally have less crime ?
FRP, I would be the last person to argue against more trees, I favour more. However, one has to be careful about causal relationships. My guess is that this more likely to be a concomitant factor.
Cutting out lead in petrol has recently been suggested as leading to less crime.
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Permalink Reply by Albert Ross on
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I dont know you Alan but you seem a very sensible and well informed chap. You should be a councillor or something ;-)
Anyway - Ref 'we need to talk about Wood green' - what about a tunnel starting somewhere on around Turnpike lane (included in the Crossrail extension works when they start) popping up again the other side of Wood Green tube? The whole of the high road could then be pedestrianised/cycle-only/for 'shopping traffic' (ie no commuter through road).
Yes that obviously expensive but its been done plenty of other places (eg Bloomsbury) and so are any other solutions including bulldozing and rebuilding shopping City or carrying on as is (there is always an 'opportunity cost' of doing nothing). Plus it would remove the blockage on one of the major aterial thoroughfares out of London.
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Well informed? Nah. I rely on snippets from Harringay Online.
Sensible? James, you've come through the wrong wardrobe. Even though there's a through-route called Mary Narnia Road, which - sort of - does what you suggest, you've actually arrived in Koberia. Where it's always All Fools Day but never sunlight and fresh air.
But don't get me wrong. I like your idea of tunnels under the Wood Green shops, whizzing us through at high speed. It's probably too post-post-post-modernist for some people. But we could give it a historic-sounding name. How about "The Piccadilly Line?"
In the meantime, aren't you inspired by the vision and ambition in the Party Manifestos? The LibDems' solution to the major issues in Koberia? Repair more potholes; thirty minutes free parking, freeze Council Tax, and re-elect Lynne Featherstone MP.
Labour's answer - which admittedly I posted as an April Fool spoof - promises more pothole repair, freeze Council Tax, and a better place for all. With bluer skies, puffier clouds; every school in the top quartile for maths. And free sunglasses for each resident to protect us against the blinding reflection off our sparkling clean pavements.
Okay I made a few of those up. But what's life without a little poetry and fiction?
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Ha ha yes its rather underwhelming isnt it. I am really keen to get involved with local politics but then then you get on to discussion boards like this and see the parochial point scoring rows between the local councillors of the various parties. 'But you said no to later parking on West Green road at the last council...blah blah yawn'. I know the devil is in the detail, especially at local level but the party system is so off putting when really everyone wants the same thing - nicer neighbourhoods.
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