Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
David Lammy MP up for a bit of gentrification
He was adamant that his job as the MP was to campaign aggressively for the funding to come to Tottenham. Then the detail of spending the money is down to the community. This he acknowledged was tricker and legitimacy depended on people being fairly consulted. But he doesn't 'do the job of the council'. Rather he prods them in 'robust discussions'. One example of success he cited was stopping the council closing any libraries despite funding cuts impacting on local services.
He accepted that 'change can be hard on people'. However, he 'can't play judge' and that it was 'not my job to say which home or shop remains'. Though, he was forthcoming with his view that new developments should be mixed tenure with 'genuinely affordable homes'.
He was very sensitive to the charge of being on the side of Spurs in regeneration decisions. Especially that he has failed to oppose the plans to knock down homes, shops, and Coombes Croft library. He claimed to be on the record for being tough on Daniel Levy. Yet recently praised the Spurs chairman for “doing more for the community than Alan Sugar ever did”.
He spoke about the area being on a journey and even joked about seeing a vote Conservative poster in Tottenham during the May elections. A joke that might re-bound if he get too much of the gentrification he desires.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Philip on
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He is such a box ticker. Don't offend anyone, make nice noises in all directions but leave it all vague. Would have been nice if he's mentioned the elephant in the room-that we just need to build more council houses at fair rents instead of these 'affordable' homes which are just a bit cheaper and smaller that the unaffordable ones.....
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Tottenham IS gentrifying. How can they not see it? Only those on over £50k can buy even a flat here now. The area stays mixed because some people already own or are in secure tenancies + council houses so can stay put for a while. If we have the typical city 10% churn, in ten years it will be unrecognisable here. Goddess help those who need to start afresh here who don't have family money or a high wage.
Tottenham as a town arrived with the railways, all the thousands of Victorian + Edwardian row houses are where huge numbers of locals live and that's whats being sold and/or converted into flats for £1000pm+ rent. If the Powers That Be just looked around, they'd see what is happening and drop their ideological objection to council housing which requires its demolition. We will get new blocks arriving in every bit of spare space, eg I see the local car-wash is now planned to turn into 21 dwellings. Shame about the car-wash jobs but this is less brutal than mass demolition. Intensification, infilling, conversion - can we shoe-horn in 10000 dwellings this way? (Allowing for new schools and other services of course.)
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DL just doesn't get it. I chaired that BGRN meeting and he was asked by at least 3 different residents about the homes planned for an already very dense ward or about the displacement that the gentrification will cause or about what happens to those of us who already live here - how do we get a stake in the gentrification process when we can't get the pavements repaired or the refuse problems sorted, etc. He dismissed these so casually. There are other greater causes you see!
He just doesn't get! He was "sensitive to the charge of being on the side of..." developers, but not sensitive about what is happening to the less well off. He did talk at length about his concerns with the effect of the funding cuts but gave very few solutions or vision as to how a Labour government would change the paradigm. No depth!
Yes he also mentioned that Bruce Grove ward is the ward that gives him the most votes. So smug! A disappointment from a son of the community who had the opportunity to get a good education.
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