Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Finsbury Park - is this the standard of upkeep one might expect from a park which earns so much money
Finsbury Park is undergoing one of its segregations. There are large parts of it which I cannot get to. This section is a formal garden where as one can see plant beds are left empty apart from the weeds, the grass is left uncut, and the hedges untrimmed.
Unless I've missed some rewilding initiative even in the formal gardens then this doesn't look like a park that's had the money it earns spent on it.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
Is that Mackenzie Garden? Here's a picture I took almost exactly 19 years ago (and put on Wikipedia).
-
Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
-
PUNISHMENT
A colleague suggested to me that this is the first summer that the McKenzie Gardens have gone unplanted.
He was told that the reason is because Wireless was cancelled.
Festival Republic/Live Nation cancelled Wireless, because the Home Office refused entry to the three-night headliner booked by the council's customer. i.e. Kanye West, notorious for his Nazi support.
The previous Council Majority Group may have styled the Borough as the "rebel" Borough, but is very much residents who are the true rebels and not the local authority. It is Haringey residents who typically do not welcome Nazi sympathisers, such as the erstwhile Kanye West booking.
The Events Team now control all aspects of our park, including how money is spent or is not spent. Some residents could view the present McKenzie Gardens policy as effecting a visible punishment on the public, due to the Wireless cancellation.
——
Resident Martin Ball can be seen seated in the planted-out McKenzie Garden the rebel video, exactly here.
.
-
Permalink Reply by Park
-
Strange that the festival organisers sent me a map showing of all the 'open' bits of the park and it doesn't include all this fenced off area at all . Funny that. It does mean they get to pull out seemingly nonsense stats about how much of the park remains open, but when you factor in these extra fenced off areas that don't appear in the map and then all of the areas that are off limits to the public, like the lake, running track, park keeper hq, park dumping ground, tennis courts and the multiple large charity sites in the park, there is actually only a tiny amouint of the park left open to the public. While their fantasy land map doens't actually represent reailty.
It could be consturde as appearing to look like them gaming the numbers in the their favour to keep scrutiny down.
- Attachments:
-
-
PXL_20260609_161802377~2.jpg, 2.3 MB
-
-
-
PARK!
Some 10 years ago in the High Court, the council's customer claimed they took up only 27% of Finsbury Park. On the basis of the smaller footprint then, that statistic may have been strictly accurate then, i.e. behind the steel wall. Which has now expanded to be 1.5 miles long.
However, "27%" was always misleading.
The baseline (100%) would have included much land that is legally part of our park, but which is also unavailable to the public.
But assumed to be available and intended to drive down the occupation to the modest 27% fiction. By land unavailable I mean, could not be used for a picnic, including the lake, the yard, the nursery, the running track, the bowling green, the "boneyard", and scrubland on the west side.
IMO the council's Major Events occupies broadly half our park and the High Court never appreciated the extent of denial of public space. An occupation of half is also partly misleading as the council's hires also dominate 100% of the park and more.
———
Our park is being used as a cash cow, but the farmer does not look after his livestock. Pictured in the Tribune link above is former FoPF co-chair Bethany Anderson.
Bethany is now one of three Green Councillors in Stroud Green Ward.
.
© 2026 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
