Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Consultation Documents Issued for Harringay's High Street
Further to my post last week, Haringey Council have today started a consultation for the Trader and GLA led project to spruce up Harringay's stretch of Green Lanes.
A copy of a six-page fold out document detailing the options for consultation is being posted through the letter boxes of Harringay residents today.
If you're a home and you've seen it, what do you think? Do you like the lights on top of the Salisbury?
Link: Online Consultation
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay regeneration 2012-13, high street parking, high streets, outer london fund
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Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
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I see they are proposing spending a chunk of the money on shopfront improvements including new awnings, fascia signs timber shopfronts and the restoration of upper building facades. Businesses would provide 20pc of the funding
I don't understand why this PUBLIC money should be used to increase the value of PRIVATELY OWNED buildings.
Part of the facade above Dostlar fell and nearly killed someone earlier this year because the owner of the property has failed to maintain it. He should be a) paying 100pc of the cost of improving the building facade as he is legally required to maintain a safe building and b) be fined massively for letting it get into that state in the first place. Not be offered 80pc of the funding to do what he should have been doing in the first place.
Lots of the buildings on Green Lanes are tatty and do need serious improvement both for aesthetic and safety reasons but why on earth should we pay to improve some else's property and increase its value? I'd like the front of my house to be repainted but I don't anticipate getting funding to cover 80pc of the cost of it.
And what if the money is used to new awnings and signs for a business that goes bust two months later? Is this a good use of public money? The failure rate for small businesses is massive.
Who decides which shops get the money? It appears to be the traders association. How do we know if this money is spent well? (Edit- I am sure they are paragons of virtue) Are they people who run the traders association allowed to distribute the money to be spent on their own businesses and shopfronts?
Scrapping the bus lane is insane as well for people commuting. They should extend its operating hours to cover evening peak demand as well.
Otherwise the rest of it seems fine although as someone who lives on Burgoyne, I am concerned that it will make traffic back up much further along the road.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I completely agree with you but was wanting them to back down over the bus lane and just accept that businesses do receive a lot of public money (tax credits anyone?).
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Permalink Reply by Penguin on
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I do agree with your argument. But can you imagine any of the supermarkets or restaurants on green lanes making their shop fronts aesthectically better? We need something uniform to kick off a feeling of pride in our Victorian facades.
Restaurants like HALA and GOYKUZU can't even dispose of rubbish properly. The amount of rats i see scurrying about at the back of these restaurants is incredible.
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We could just enforce the existing requirements to maintain their shopfronts in a safe manner and pass (and enforce) planning directives to require them to have shopfronts of a particular style - other areas, conservation zones etc manage this.
I agree, some of them don't dispose of rubbish properly but I wouldn't want to pay 80pc of their rubbish disposal costs either. They should follow the legal requirements set regarding rubbish disposal and shopfront upkeep and pay for them themselves.
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Permalink Reply by Arkady on
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If we want the facades restored to their former glory – including the traditional wooden shop fronts, then it will need to be mainly funded publicly as in Whitechapel and elsewhere. Presumably the contracts will tie the shop-owners into maintenance agreements, with appropriate fines for neglect. It doesn’t just benefit the shopkeepers – it benefits anyone who has to look at the shops. One could just as easily ask why the shopkeepers should have to spend tens of thousands restoring shopfronts which will benefit passers-by more than the shopkeepers themselves. Of course, the sort of negligence that leads to masonry collapsing is a different matter.
One also needs to keep in mind that the mutilation of the shopfronts is as much the fault of short-sighted and ineffective planning policy and enforcement over the years as that of the shop owners, who were just doing their job and trying to increase business, however misguided.
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Here here! Haringey Planning department have completely failed the area for many many years with regards to HMO's, satellite dish forests and the look of the high street.
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I think the businesses would benefit from restoring shopfronts - to start with, if they own the property, the value would go up. If they are tenants, then a classier shopfront indicates a classier shop which would encourage more people to visit. Baldwins looks classy already and did so without any public money. Why should its potential rivals get a subsidy that it did not?
How do we ensure that if Business X, which gets money to restore its shopfront does not then close down and be replaced by Business Y - which prefers to replace the sign with a cheap neon plastic banner? We can't do that unless we have planning laws that forbid it and enforce them. And if we had those laws, we could just make the shops do their shopfronts up already without paying for it.
I'm not wholly against spending some public money on it to help nudge businesses in the right direction but an 80/20 split seems hugely disproportionate. It also concerns me greatly that it is going to distributed by the traders association. Is that democratic? Will there be any independent oversight of it? Is there going to be any public transparency as to who gets the money? Any transparency as to who applies for the money? As to which construction companies win any work that is commissioned?
It just seems like the sort of scheme that would have Private Eye's Rotten Borough's column rubbing its hands in glee.
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There is no doubt that they would benefit - I did not say otherwise. There is plenty of evidence about the benefits of such restorations. But the benefits may be marginal, particularly if all of a shop's competitors are also being restored, and thus the cost-benefit analysis may not favour the owner. And they may not be able to afford it even if it did.
As I noted above, I agree that there needs to be a mechanism to prevent the shop-fronts being ruined again. This need not require primary legislation though, but could be done through planning regulations or Section 104 - as was done in Whitechapel I believe -and proper enforcement.
On the other hand, I disagree that renovation on this scale could be achieved without public funding. No way are you going to see anything like this scale of renewal from private money. You could regulate to prevent further decline, but not to compel restoration. Not on Green Lanes, not anywhere. That would require primary legisltion, and it would never get through parliament.
Alas no, if we want it to be done then it will take public money. But the aesthetic benefits - and the well-documented social benefits that follow - will be well worth it. And Green Lanes could become LB Haringey's beacon of change, and example of renewal and attached conservation enforcement that could be used as a model elsewhere.
(Your other questions are quite valid)
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So Rob, will there be transparency over who applied for and who gets the money?
Apart from hoping that the trader will look after the shop front or that a new business replacing one which got the funding will decide to fit a more expensive sign instead of a cheap plastic one, will there be any power to actually enforce that they do?
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i thought Green Lanes goes up to Turnpike Lane, so why does the scheme end before the south end of Ducketts common.The area around Ducketts common is key to improving the area, and any improvements would have a huge impact. It should be included in the scheme. The changes could be made at minimal cost with huge impact. We have already lost that lovely old pub the Queens head to a furniture shop and all the old fixtures have been taken out - is that allowed?
Along the south side of the common there appears to be an old hall .=/ theatre / cinema that is now some kind of religious centre?
There are some interesting buildings on the east side of Green Lanes from Ducketts common to the Salisbury that would serve as good locations for an arts centre to bring a bit of variety to the area, which it badly needs. I bet there are nice spaces upstairs in the Salisbury that could be put to use as well.
Overall the scheme has merit as its an improvement over where we are, but its not a great plan and the workplan timing leaves a lot to be desired. Disappointing.
Just to pick up another gripe being mentioned here, something really needs to be done about the traffic / bus situation. Public transport should be given priority and traffic calming measures introduced. And widening the pavement is definitely needed.
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