Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Friends of Finsbury Park to Mount Legal Challenge to Wireless
The Friends of Finsbury Park want to stop the Wireless Concert occupying "a third" of the park for two week in mid-summer
The Friends of Finsbury Park have set a course to mount a legal challenge to Haringey Council's renting out Finsbury Park for the Wireless Festival
The Friends say of the Wireless Festival, "It is almost impossible to comprehend its vast scale and the impact it has on Finsbury Park. Last year’s Wireless Festival covered almost one third of the size of the Park, surrounded by an oppressive 8ft high green metal barrier to keep Park users out, in some areas stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Many local residents don't have gardens so the park serves as a vital outdoor amenity, and as events such as Wireless Festival take weeks to set up and take down the public is denied access to what should be public space.
"Last year’s Wireless Festival, which was held over two summer weekends, attracted crowds of 50,000 per day causing massive disruption, damage, excessive noise, and antisocial behaviour in streets surrounding the Park.
Relationships between the Friends group and the Council have long been frosty. But now it appears they are breaking down altogether with meetings being cut short or cancelled and now a legal challenge. A spokesman for the friends group said "We've tried everything to get Haringey Council to enter into discussions with us, but they refuse to listen, stopping all public consultation and ignoring stakeholder groups, local residents and park users".
The group is now launching a legal challenge to stop the Council staging the festival and similar major events in Finsbury Park. I am not clear at this stage what the basis of the legal challenge is, but I'm guessing the clue might well be in a recent statement:
Finsbury Park is a public park that was formed by virtue of the Finsbury Park Act 1857; it is registered as a Grade II Historic Park and Garden and is also Metropolitan Open Land.
The group say they will have to pay up to £35,000 plus VAT for issuing the proceedings and having a one day hearing in the High Court. To raise the required monies, a crowdfunfing page was set up on Monday. As of today the page has attracted over £5,000 funding, about 12% of the total amount they may require.
Alongside the preparations for the legal challenge, the friends group have also lodged an official objection to the festival.
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park, finsbury park events, wireless festival
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Well Clive has certainly succeeded in squandering any trust most HoL members had in the so-called Friends of FP.
He's learnt nothing from his earlier LD postings, that his somewhat 'direct approach' just doesn't go down well. Of course, spreading the word that he'd been 'hounded off HoL' didn't help.
Or the even earlier Ally Pally (which btw, now seems totally forgotten) rants and weasel words on the world's first TV programmes.
Not to mention the Chicken runs around Tottenham.
He's a cause always looking for a reason. My advice would be to stop digging, the hole's big enough.
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Permalink Reply by DTW on
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Let's hope the friends realise they don't quite have the support they thought for this.
the lack of accountability is pretty shameful
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Membership of the Friends—from three Boroughs—is about 400 and growing steadily. Followers of the Friends' Twitter account—not all of whom will necessarily support the aims and objects of the Friends—number 1,300.
Web page: https://thefriendsoffinsburypark.org.uk/
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/FinsParkFriends
Crowd funding: https://www.crowdjustice.co.uk/case/save-finsbury-park/
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As far as I can see becoming a member involves no more than joining an email newsletter list....
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I'm not even aware of the membership of the Friends of Finsbury Park having been asked to vote on whether they wanted to engage in this legal action. Clive, can you tell us if the membership took a vote on this?
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My impression from their website is that they held an extraordinary General Meeting on 7th April with a motion to support the legal action. My guess is no more than a few dozen people would have attended. The wider 400 members weren't asked by email to vote. Unless someone can tell me different. ... hello Friends....can someone tell us please. I emailed them to ask what the vote was. In the unlikely event they answer I'll let you know....won't be holding my breath.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Tris, the article on the FoFP website says that it is a reminder of the the EGM, which implies that the notice of the meeting had previously gone out. Link below.
https://thefriendsoffinsburypark.org.uk/2016/03/30/extraordinary-ge...
Although the agenda isn't available on the FoFP website, the emergency motion on legal action is.
"We endorse the Management Committee decision to initiate legal proceedings challenging the lawfulness of Haringey Council’s hosting of major events such as Wireless in Finsbury Park’.
So the EGM wasn't to decide whether to go ahead with legal action, but to endorse that decision, which had already been made by the Management Committee.
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No I'm not a member. But I was talking to someone on the train who said they were and that although they were invited to the meeting they had not been able to attend and no email/postal ballots were accepted.
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I see that in the current (print) issues of the Hackney Gazette and the Islington Gazette, there is extensive coverage of the subject: Wireless Row (cover) and article on pages 10 and 11. Well worth a read for those wishing to inform themselves.
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Clive,
Did you attend the extraordinary General Meeting on 7th April? Can you confirm what the votes were?
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Clive,
I can see you are "online"...are you going to tell us what happened at the extraordinary General Meeting? I do wonder why it's so difficult to get answers to even the most basic questions from the "Friends"....
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Permalink Reply by Pat on
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A ridiculously unbalanced piece of journalism. All the main quotes are from 'friends'. One of them even lied that families were unable do to use the park because "most of the park's usable space is fenced off'. I ran through the park on six evenings (week days) and four mornings (week ends) during the festival period and families were enjoying the park as usual. The playgrounds were open, the gym was open,, over 50% of the park was still usable, so Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones is being very conservative with the truth. I shall be contacting my MP, Mr Lammy, about my feelings about his support of the 'friends'.
Another 'friend' moaned about the imposition of having 40,000 extra people use Finsbury Park station. How does this person cope on match days at the Emirates, which has a capacity of over 60,000?
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