Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Big new TfL Substation to be built on Green Lanes - but community voice silenced
Today's planning list shows that the space in front of the Piccadilly Line ventilation shat building is to be used for the construction of a new electricity substation.
I do not object to that but it is very odd that the application is being made as a certificate of lawfulness rather than as a planning application. This means that the public has no right to comment.
I oppose the way it is being handled for a number of reasons. I explained this to the responsible planning officer Anna Anderson (anna.anderson@haringey.gov.uk) in an email I sent to her today. I copied in one of our new councillors, Jo Kuper. I have also spoken with Ian Sygrave at the Ladder Community Safety Partnership who has said that he will raise it at this week's meeting and also write to Anna Anderson.
My email is reproduced below. Any resident can write to Anna about this matter, despite the attempt to cut out community involvement. The decision date is due to be 26th August.
Dear Anna,
Re: Planning Submission for Colina Road site (HGY/2026/1854)
I am a resident of the Harringay Ladder.
Today I noticed the above reference application. It is for a significant building which covers a good part of of the part of a plot that has been unbuilt on for almost 100 years.
I see that is had been made as an application for a certificate of Lawfulness. Can I ask why Haringey has agreed to handle this application this way rather than as a full application?
The site is a significant and prominent one which for that reason alone ought to be open to community scrutiny.
There are two aspects in particular which concern me.
1. The level of noise for nearby properties already flagged in the application,
2. The impact on visual amenity in this prominent site. This is not addressed at all in the application and there are no visuals to suggest that visual amenity has been taken into account.
In HGY/2016/1807, the applicant for 590-598 Green Lanes London N8 0RA (which you should note includes this site), made a specific reference in his application to the site in front of the ventilation shaft building that is the site for HGY/2026/1854. The 2016 application specified:
"..we are proposing to create a 'Pocket Space' on the corner of Green Lanes and Colina Mews. This space will be partly used for a few parking spaces allocated to the NHS facility, but the rest of the space during the week and the entire space at weekends could be used for a community led activity such as a pop-up cafe."
They included the following diagram.
This site therefore has a very recent planning history and I assume since the front of the 590-592 plot was not excepted from the decision its use as a pocket park was also given planning approval.
This makes it even more odd that the current matter is being handled under a certificate of lawfulness.
Yours sincerely,
Hugh
Replies to This Discussion
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
Chris, I and others have made it clear that we're not 'against' this plan. In fact it's in all our interests that it goes ahead. (By the way, it's not a new ventilation shaft being proposed: as I said in my initial post it's a new electricity substation).
The issue is that the plans need to be subject to public scrutiny. It may be that challenging the plans could help find a solution that somewhat insulates the neighbouring properties from the noted vibration and provides a structure that is not an eyesore to us all. (Did you know that the occupants of the Evergreen building who face the air shaft are already inconvenienced by it, in that iy quietly send out soot which would otherwise settle in their flats - though quite how this was missed at the plannning stage in 1016 is a mystery to me.)
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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Chris, if there is an engineering case for a new electricity substation, then let's hear it!
At the LCSP meeting last evening, we heard that (a) when at the Planning stage a few years ago, TfL raised little or no objection and that (b) when Approved, the provision for a Pocket Park was a formal Condition of Planning Approval.
There appear to have been slip-ups by TfL and by the Planning Dept.
The Planning Enforcement Team may be smaller than the figure of 6 (six) that I remember from a several years ago. That was six, for the whole Borough.
Developers—some of which the council has been too cosy with—appreciate that this is a chronically weak area.
IMO, one Planning Enforcement staff member for each of the Borough's 21 Wards would not be excessive.
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Permalink Reply by Nigel
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I did try to write in a clear and simple way. I'm sorry if it still came out as 'legalese'.
Planning is very important. Its results affect everybody. Planning laws are drawn and enacted by Parliament taking into account all interests and reaching a particular balance, and of course to prevent abuse.
In this case, railway undertakers are given something of a free pass for development on their land when it is [already] used for operational purposes. If not, they have to go through the system like everybody else.
The Council is made the guardian of that free pass. You wouldn't want it to ignore the balance struck by Parliament, would you?
Going through the proper process the same as other developments won't necessarily stop TFL getting its new transformer there or thereabouts. For example, the adjacent, vandalised Holden air shaft building is crying out for preservation and some creative use.
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
Following my contacting the LCSP, using the information I gave him and the wonderful additional research added here by other residents, Ian Sygrave from the LCSP yesterday sent a strong letter to the Planning Offocer Anna Anderson. This is reproduced below:
I am writing to you on behalf of the local community in my capacity as the elected chair of the Ladder Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) and the Harringay Ward Police Panel.
The LCSP is an umbrella organisation containing hundreds of individual members, along with representatives of Neighbourhood Watches and Residents’ Associations throughout Harringay ward. We are an independent group, although we work in partnership with many other key stakeholders to improve the quality of life for local people. The Police Panel obviously works closely with our local officers and sets priorities which aim to keep the area safe and free from crime, anti-social behaviour and other nuisances.
Our members are very concerned by the Certificate of Lawfulness (C of L) application for a transformer building on the corner of Colina Road and Green Lanes N8. This was fully discussed at our monthly LCSP meeting, held on 16 July 2026.
The nature of a C of L is that it precludes any scrutiny by, or consultation with, local residents. Yet we know from the applicants themselves that the building will generate a degree of both noise and vibration. It is also on a prominent site and will have a major negative impact on the street scene of Green Lanes, not to mention the numerous residents of the adjacent Evergreen development.
We believe that TfL are using the T and C Planning (General Permitted Development) Order of 2015 as the peg upon which to hang the C of L. However, the planning history of the site clearly reveals that this specific location was identified as a “new pocket space” (HGY/2016/1807, Landscape Design statement, Introduction, Para 5). This was then incorporated into the formal planning permission as a condition which “must be complied with” (HGY/2016/1807; Condition 2 … approved plans and specifications: Landscape Design {June 2016}).
However, diligent research by a local resident has now revealed that the original planning permission was changed in December 2021 (HGY/2021/3583) following TfL’s request to take back ownership of their land on the site.
No one in the community was aware of this because the submission was made as a “nonmaterial amendment” under section 96 of the T and C Planning Act 1990 which allows a Council / Local Authority to make a change to any planning permission if it is satisfied that the change is non-material. Furthermore, as this is not deemed to be an application for planning permission, the provisions relating to Statutory Consultation and publicity do not apply. This explains why residents were not aware of the situation.
It does not explain, of course, why LBH Planning thought the loss of a pocket park / green space, much vaunted in the original application, was a non-material issue. Nor does it explain why LBH Planning did nothing to pursue this when they could, between 2016 and 2021.
This digression into the history of the site is necessary because it makes it all the more important that, on this occasion, the application for the transformer building, on what should have been a green space, is subject to a very close scrutiny.
In particular,
(1) Why has TfL chosen this specific high-profile site for a quasi-industrial building, adjacent to dozens of flats and an NHS clinic / surgery?
(2) Have TfL submitted evidence to demonstrate that other locations have been examined, which might be less obtrusive and harmful to local amenity?
(3) LBH Planning Policies stress the importance of “Delivering High Quality Design DM 1” and of avoiding “harmful impacts, especially to the amenity of neighbouring buildings, local character…, new development should enhance the quality of life of those living and working in the borough…” (DM 1, 2.1).
It is very hard to see how a huge and solid building, lacking any distinctive quality, on a prominent corner site of our local high street, could be anything other than an unacceptable eyesore. TfL presumably realise that, as they are proposing an equally unlovely advertising hoarding as a “screen” – all on what was supposed to be a green space.
(4) TfL claim that the site is an “existing operational railway compound”. This is simply untrue. Before the current development it had a variety of wholesale and retail uses, including BDC electrical and Hawes & Curtis clothing, but it has never been a “railway compound”.
We believe this means that future development of the site should not be decided by a C of L because it is not “development by a railway undertaker on its operational land” as the TfL submission claims. As noted above, the site has not been used by TfL (or its predecessors) for operational purposes for many years, if at all.
Furthermore, the non-material change of use granted by HGY/2021/3583 only allowed TfL permission for uses which: (i) would not change the approved scheme for 590–598 Green Lanes and its adjoining site and (ii) required only design changes.
All of this suggests to us that TfL cannot claim lawfulness for a development and railway use on the site without obtaining full planning permission. LBH should therefore reject the C of L as an erroneous and unlawful application and require TfL to re-submit their application via the normal planning process for a new development."
Ian Sygrave
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