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.
If you'd like to respond to this post, please consider the sensitivities around the issues before you commit finger to keyboard. Any responses that are not in line with our house rules will be deleted.
Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Lydia Walter on
-
Discussion on name change on BBC Radio London 94.9 Vanessa Feltz now-Wednesday 2nd February.
-
Permalink Reply by Gina Fenton on
-
Can you say roughly what time?
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
About 8.04 - nothing particularly illuminating though other than the fact of the vote. I've added a new post here, including a link to the report sent to the who voted.
-
-
It continued off and on from about 7:45 until 10:00.
-
-
I would recommend listening back.
My personal opinion is that not all the issues shared on this thread were made clear on the BBC-especially the financial costs.
I emailed Vanessa and she read out my mail.
-
-
In light of TfL's announcement that it is ceasing all 'uncommitted" Healthy Streets funding, this decision appears even more absurd.
-
-
As usual with this dodgy council they ignore what the Black People of BBL want and are going by the residents who live elsewhere. That is what this dodgy council do, they ignore the residents of BBL, the most important people especially any black resident of BBL. Are the council a bunch of criminals who love wasting money & time, well what do you think?
-
-
One of the key criticisms of the plan is cost. TfL are the major contributor to the Council's campaign of LTNs, Healthy Streets etc. Given how urgent we are told these changes are, and the withdrawal of key funding, the spending on this internal Labour Party tug-of-war seems ill-judged.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
It's unfair and unjust to put residents of Black Boy Lane through further anxiety and unnecessary arguments. People get consulted. They don't necessarily agree with what some councillors would like them to say and think.
James, it may be helpful to set the wider scene.
There are two unofficial Labour Party groups in Haringey. One, led by Cllr Peray Ahmet from May 2021 until now, replaced the previous team led by Cllr Joe Ejiofor which called the shots from the election in May 2018 to May 2021. Cllr Ahmet's team has the job of trying to fix the inherited problems and messes.
The largest and most worrying mess is nothing to do with street names. And of course nobody would cynically suggest that a streetname might be an easier topic to discuss.
The main accumulated mess from the Ejiofor team comes from their time presiding over a haemorrhage of millions of pounds of public cash related to various property deals. Cllr Ejiofor himself says he knows nothing about these losses. And as far as I know his colleague Cllr Adje. whose "cabinet" remit includes the Council's Finances and Property holdings, appears to have little or nothing to say.
We must of course believe that they are entirely unknowing about what has transpired. And as keen as everyone else to insist that full and accurate facts emerge as soon as possible. If only they could help in this vital task. Meanwhile, as the saying goes, these events remain: "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma".
If you follow the Ham & High newspaper and website and the award-winning journalist Charles Thomson, you'll have seen reports about most of these knotty finance and property issues. The largest loss was with the purchase of Alexandra House, where an over-payment of some £12 million "happened" somehow. That amount of the happening was estimated by the external auditors.
Another odd happening was the purchase of an empty factory at 3 Shaftesbury Road Enfield N18. The sum of £6 million was paid for no sensible reason I can see. Although I imagine the previous owner of the factory ,may have been pleased if it had been on the market for a significant length of time.
There are other dubious property lettings. The most dramatic was with a Council trading estate at 141 Station Road N22. The Ham & High newspaper reported on this and included a video with someone getting neaten-up.
The latest dubious deal has been the subject of a recent series of news stories also in the Ham and High newspaper about overpayment of more than £1 million on a house in Muswell Hill. Linked to a critical Ombudsman's report which named a councillor. Today's new episode reports on the beginning of a Police investigation.
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/crime/police-investigation-into-hari...
Sorry. Let's talk instead about King Charles II Lane.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
