BBC Sunday politics coverage of Haringey Development Vehicle

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on January 28, 2017 at 9:55

Thanks Michael, I'm told that the majority of members of Hornsey and Wood Green Labour Party took a similar view. This -together with the Scrutiny Committee's Report - has resulted in the Labour Group voting to proceed but attempting to stipulate new and tighter safeguards in the proposed deal.
I don't doubt the good intentions of all of the Labour councillors who voted for what I see as a fudge. I think it's beginning to dawn on some of them that this proposal is hugely risky.
But I'm sceptical because experience elsewhere in London and other cities elsewhere in the world, suggests that disparities in power and resources mean that developers usually tend to get what they want. Which is to grab the choicest parcels of land and push out the poorest and most vulnerable people, who are seen as bringing the area "down". by being criminals etc.
Although in many cases the real "crime" of people in social housing is that they occupy homes on land particularly coveted by developers. So if someone poorer lives near a river or stream; an attractive park; or a station they may expect at some point to be told that their homes are the causes of crime and poverty. And so it's in their and everyone else's interest for their homes - now described as "unfit" - to get "regeneration" a prettier weasel word for demolition and clearance.
This story is repeated in neighbourhoods and cities in thousands of places. Of course, it's not entirely a mountain of lies.

One key aim of the developers circling round Haringey and licking their lips (aided and abetted by the right-wingers on our Council) is "uplift".  Another prettier way of saying something else: namely land price inflation. Plainly if developers already own land they may make a "killing" as prices rise. And it will help massively to increase their profits if they can get a gullible local Council to give land to them - or lease it - on very favourable terms.
Naturally the sale or lease has to be linked to clearing the people who live there. Or at least insisting that it's not really viable to build social housing or genuinely affordable new homes.
And it helps when the so-called Council Leaders, wined and dined by their fair weather friends in the "developer community" - have the propensity to believe the developers' promises irrespective of any evidence to the contrary.

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on January 28, 2017 at 13:22

Sadly another no-nothing troll piece from an Enfield resident who was once a Tory party member.

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on January 28, 2017 at 14:16

I'm hope most HoL readers will be able to distinguish between the facts I report and my opinions. And not be taken in by the lies Mr Hoyle peddles about me - that my posting here is "based purely on my fantasies". 

I don't go along with the now fashionable idea that we are in an era called "Post-Truth". Sometimes issues are complex - assessments of viability for example. Or the slippery meaning of words like "affordable". 

Opinions and interpretations may differ, of course. But really what's the point of suggesting, for example - that I am fantasising about the developers and their lobbyists wining and dining Haringey's leaders? Or that land price "uplift" is not a key aim of Haringey's policy?

It is perplexing that Mr Hoyle feels compelled to lie.

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on January 28, 2017 at 15:22

dftt

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