Creating community with the circular economy in Wood Green town centre

All comments regarding this proposal welcome!

Wood Green lacks a town centre. The crowds constantly tramp up and down the High Road between the shops and bus stops strung out north-south along it, some milling outside Boots or the Library. Back in 2018, the Council had ambitions to create a brand new town centre, with large retail units to entice visitors (HDV). Demolishing the Library and the larger buildings around it, this scheme would at least have opened out the High Road to the west, along Coburg Road, and extended connections further with the east-west cycle route, linking Hornsey to Tottenham.

Since then, however, there has been an increasing chorus of commentators declaring that new shops and restaurants do not necessarily regenerate a town centre. Town centres need to be repopulated as community hubs, noted an independent review, and we need to put the heart back into the centre of our high streets, said Mary Portas.

The current draft Local Plan does not, however, attempt to put the heart back into the town centre. It proposes demolishing Wood Green Library (one of the busiest in the country at one time), creating a new public square, and demolishing Morrisons, replacing it with a Tall building with restaurants and such on the ground floor. There would be new housing in both areas, which is of course very welcome (if affordable), but given that this Heart of the High Road* is the only area where a successful centre to Wood Green could be feasible, it is the wrong place to devote instead to new housing.

Below are some ideas for creating a sense of community here, in particular by retrofitting the peculiar shaped building at the back of the Library, formerly known as the Library Arcade.

The Library Arcade

See pdf attachment for illustrations referred to below.

The area around the Library Arcade [Fig 2] is still characterised by ‘half-empty car parks’, ‘underused service yards’ and ‘blank facades’ as described in the 2017 Wood Green Area Action Plan [Figs. 3 and 4]. These could be replaced by a pedestrianised haven, sheltered by the Library from the air pollution (several times higher than the WHO guidelines) of the High Road, as well as the noise and road danger for children from the 11 bus routes and other traffic (the bus stop outside the Mall shows a bus due to arrive every minute on its Countdown, during shopping hours):

• Remove all surface car-parking – 6 floors of car parking on top of the Mall (2 floors not used) and Morrisons are available, with lifts to the shopping areas.
• Filter out the rat-run running along Caxton Road to Station road, via the Morrisons car park.
• Move the main entrance of the Mall from its current dark, poky and polluted position under its bridge on the High Road, to the pedestrianised precinct, with a cafe in the Mall, and outdoor tables and chairs [Fig 5]. The Marketing Manager at the Mall has called this an ‘attractive idea’, and the Regen Team at the Council were very enthusiastic about it.
• Move the very popular Kervan Restaurant’s outside tables, currently on the pavement next to it, onto the pedestrianised precinct, next to the Mall’s cafe tables [Fig. 5].

The Library Arcade – a people-centred magnet for residents
At the Council’s excellent Wood Green Voices meetings (held over the last 3 years), the most common concern was that Wood Green should be a welcoming place. The Library Arcade is currently dark with blank frontages, because the series of tall, curved windows facing south-west are boarded up [Fig. 6]. The sun would flood into the building, however, unhampered by any tall buildings, if the boards were removed, making this a very welcoming community centre. Including [Fig.7]:

• Haringey Fixers’ very popular repair cafes could have a permanent, accessible venue in the town centre where people know they can take their broken kettles, machinery, textiles etc. every day. ‘Fixing Factories’ are established in Hackney and Camden, and indeed Haringey – but the latter is very inaccessible, and so used mostly for training.

It’s surprising just how uplifting and joyful repairing can be for everyone involved… For communities, repair projects offer a welcoming space for people of all ages to gather and interact with a common purpose. It’s a place where under-valued practical skills and knowledge take centre stage and are freely shared, increasing everyone’s ability to repair.

• Several tables in the middle of the room could be devoted to repairs, some with sewing machines fixed to them for upcycling clothes. A Library of Things could be available for people to borrow equipment and household or garden gadgets – located in the main Library or in the Arcade.
• A venue for eating and drinking – in particular, an idea taken from the charity Migrateful – this borough has so many ethnicities, many of whom will be skilled in cooking their (or their parents’) country’s food, that some of them (on different days) could cook food for sale using equipment provided.
• Easy chairs, small play area, misc. market stalls …

The Library Arcade working with the Community Hub in Caxton Road (formerly the Asian Centre). The Hub provides essential services: adult social care, many classes of various kinds, excellent Indian lunches, and counselling. They have a number of rooms available for hire, including kitchens, and are keen to work with the proposed project in the Library Arcade. An obvious collaboration would be if they provided venues for courses in repairing equipment – such as are repaired in the Arcade - and learning how to cook the food that is sold in the ethnic food outlets. They also have a large hall and stage on the first floor.

Connectivity using EAV Bike-taxis – ideal for a shopping centre on a cycle route. The east-west cycle route from Hornsey to Tottenham (connecting to the huge, cycle-friendly LTNs) runs through here. If the route was widened in places, it could be used by EAV bike-taxis, which would be cheaper (no motorvehicle overheads), and often quicker than the Ubers used by so many people to take the weeks’ shopping home from Morrisons (or pick people up from local stations etc.). Each would take a carer and two children, with space for lots of shopping under and behind the seats (example review here).

Publicised in 2020 but found not to be suitable for the Uber app model, I asked if half a dozen of them could be trialled using an old-fashioned taxi hub (here, next to the Library Arcade), and EAV thought that would be workable. The taxis are just a variation on the very popular 4-wheeled EAV cargo bikes, but heated in winter and cooled in summer [Fig. 8]. They can also be temporarily made suitable for wheelchairs (see pic.).

North of the Library Arcade – fruit and veg stalls under a pent roof against the north wall, and outdoor dining under a delicate pergola – like one that a cafe at Kew Gardens used to have [Fig. 9]. There could be a play area at the end, safely away from cars. EAV bike hub on the corner.

Evening activities – when the Repair Cafe has been put away for the night, there are opportunities for a restaurant and performances. This evening presence would help with the safety of this area – only a couple of years ago, a man died after being mugged on the path by the Library Arcade (this path is also unsafe in another sense – a blind corner for cyclists).

A restaurant on the top of the Mall, where one of the unused car parks is now, could be popular – with a view over to Ally Pally [Fig. 10].

Biodiversity – just ten minutes walk down the ‘cultural corridor’ – past Karamel restaurant and the Goodness Brewery, to the edge of Alexandra Park – there are the old filter beds that used to be a haven of biodiversity (hedgehogs, house martins …) and could be so again, together with the new Wetlands by the reservoirs. Not many metropolitan town centres could boast such biodiversity and people-friendly parkland right on their doorsteps!

Conclusion

This project for the Library area could be seen as fast fashion/food meets the circular economy – people going to Primark (the busiest branch in the country, I am told) also coming to have something repaired, or altering what they have bought with the sewing machines provided.

It would also assist the large retail units which these days tend to cluster in and around the Mall. The Mall itself has only managed to replace Wilko with a Poundland look-alike, and the unit next to it – which used to be the upper floor of New Look – is still empty. They need people to not drop in and buy something and leave, but to linger and socialise, then buy some more! The manager of the Mall apparently said something similar not long ago – but the Mall is not an enticing place to hang around in.

Annabel Gregory May 2026

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The ideas above have been worked out with the help of discussions with the organizer of Haringey Fixers, Chris Setz, the architect Jonathan Hagos (who co-designed the very successful retrofit Wood Green Youth Hub with the young people who would be using it), the head of the Haringey Regen Team, Pippa Gueterbock, and with other members of the Wood Green Voices residents group, co-ordinated by the Regen team over the last 3 years (none of these are responsible for the ideas above, however).

*Shaping Wood Green – a pamphlet produced by the Council summarising the deliberations of Wood Green Voices.

Air pollution refs.: WHO guidelines 2021, annual air quality on Wood Green High Road 2023, pp. 13 and 22; pollution from car tyres worse than from exhausts.