Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Decides to Rename Black Boy Lane
Following my consideration on the origins of West Green's Black Boy name back in the summer, Haringey Council has decided to rename Black Boy Lane in West Green.
The Council have called the exercise a 'renaming consultation', but the online questionnaire offers only the ability to choose from a shortlist of two new names. So it appears that the decision to rename has already been taken with only the choice of name left to be decided.
They have issued the following press release.
The council has launched a renaming consultation with residents and businesses located on Black Boy Lane, as part of the wider Review on Monuments, Buildings, Place and Street Names in Haringey – which was launched on 12 June 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The council believes that the names of our monuments, buildings, places and streets must reflect the values and diversity that we are so proud of in the borough. One of the street names that has been identified as not being reflective of this is Black Boy Lane.
Meanings change over time, and the term “Black Boy” is now most commonly used as a derogatory name for African heritage men.
As part of the consultation, the council is asking residents to consider new alternative names that celebrate some of the borough’s most notable influencers, and truly reflect the borough’s rich heritage.
The two names that have been shortlisted for residents to consider are, ‘Jocelyn Barrow Lane’ and ‘La Rose Lane’. The consultation will launch today, Monday 28 September and will run for a period of 4 weeks to Monday 26 October 2020.
Letters will be arriving on Black Boy Lane residents' doorsteps this week, who can respond to the consultation using one of the following methods:
- Online: www.haringey.gov.uk/renaming-black-boy-lane.
- Email:
- bblconsultation@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 3797
- By post: Consultation Co-ordinator, The Communications Team, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ
If Haringey residents have concerns or queries about place, street or building names in the borough, please get in touch. Send your views to Leader@haringey.gov.uk.
Bios:Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020) was a Barbadian/Trinidadian British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first Black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.
John La Rose was a publisher, poet and essayist. He founded the Caribbean Artists’ Movement and publishing company New Beacon Books which has a bookshop in Stroud Green. In 1975, he co-founded the Black Parents Movement from the core of the parents involved in the George Padmore Supplementary School incident in which a young Black schoolboy was beaten up by the police outside his school in Haringey.
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Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Stav Aristides on
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I always feared this is how Haringey actually worked.
Lack of purpose, competence or any commitment to democracy.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Not Haringey, Stav. Just the current petty autocrat and his cronies.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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You've been saying that for decades. It's Haringey.
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John, I confess. You're right.
I won't deny it because I'm guessing that you've seen the remastered documentary of Quatermass and the Pit.
Noting that the previously well-kept secret is out. River Park House - the Council HQ - is built over the site where those events actually occurred.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwrkHjX2VEU
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After the Consultation in Black Boy Lane
Haringey Council posted a report
On the Council website.
From which we see how the people
Have forfeited the confidence of the Council leadership
And their views should be "dismissed"
For several excellent reasons.
Would it not be easier
In that case for the Council leadership
To "dismiss" the people
And elect another?
_________________
Inspired by a poem of Bertolt Brecht The Solution" ["Die Lösung"] written in 1953 about the uprising that year in East Germany.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for this, Alan. I think the way this is being handled by the council is truly shocking and needs to be flagged. So I've added a new post about it here.
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Permalink Reply by Anna on
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Minimum budget is £186,000.
£186,000 spent on creating misery for the residents of my street.
£186,000 spent without bringing one iota of help to anyone, other than comfort the people who keep insisting ‘black boys are a bad thing that need to be eradicated’.
This is straight heresy and that amount has been kept undisclosed until the very last minute because no one would have voted to spend so much on one street while Haringey has so many more pressing issues.
£186 000.
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It's in the report Alan linked to above https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/mgChooseDocPack.aspx?ID=9723
This figure does not account for the cost of the consultations, or for the opportunity cost of the hundreds of hours of council officers' and councillors' time.
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