Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
FIVE more years of Events in Finsbury Park?
HARINGEY Council prepares to commit to another 5-year
commercial exploitation deal for Events in Finsbury Park:
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At the Cabinet Member Signing at 1PM this Thursday, Cabinet Member Arkell or a substitute will lock the council into another half-decade deal with Festival Republic, the UK subsidiary of US giant global live-music monopoly, Live Nation.
The public are not ordinarily allowed into these little meetings, but at Agenda item seven, this is a specific exclusion (link above):
"Exclusion of Press & Public"
Just before item eight:
This EXEMPT item may discuss how the council will deal with the recent ruling in the High Court case involving Brockwell Park and how they will get around it.
For 11 years, intense and damaging commercial exploitation of Finsbury Park has been council Majority Group policy.
Tags for Forum Posts: 5 years, Cllr Ahmet, Cllr Arkell, Events Team, Festival Republic, Finsbury Park, Grime, Haringey Council, Live Nation, commercial, More…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton
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Hi Giovanna,
It would appear that there is some glitch which prevented the consultation documents arriving in mailboxes of all or most of the consultees.
The bureaucrats and leader-followers may now argue that the resulting silence must be taken as full consent. This is how the tidy, fearful obedient minds of bureaucrats see the world. They will agree on this with those who are themselves authoritarians and long to serve and eventually be powerful leaders.
They will overlap with some others who prefer the simpler life of obeying orders. rather then thinking for themselves.
Like Donald Trump, hearing that Keir Starmer wants to consult his team, the Leader-Leader-did-I-mention-Leader, sees consultation as a mark of weakness.Will this Finsbury Park privatisation consultation now be rescheduled and run properly? As if the views of the consultees are valuable? I hope so.
There is no reason why not.On the contrary, there are excellent democratic reasons for the decision to be made under the newly elected Council. Including at least a precious few fresh-thinking new councillors who haven't yet settled into obeying the Leader-Leader-did-I-mention Leader? (Chief Whip, take their name !)
I have several more suggestions for the new Council. Here are two to be going on with.
(1) Set up a mailbox chain among all the voluntary organisations in Finsbury Park to share information among yourselves. It could limit the extent to which the Council may use information to divide and rule.
(2) Insist on joint-chairing of Voluntary/Council bodies. Try to choose co-chairs who don't favour the rigid closed bully bureaucrat mentality.
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Harper
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But what of those who were aware of the council's intention? What were or are their views?
It is noted how silent the councillors representing Harringay Ward (and therefore, Finsbury Park) have been on this... at least publicly.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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ALAN, what you say makes sense.
By contrast, the current leader wants the deal to go ahead. Cllr Ahmet is soon to become a candidate in Noel Park Ward, but for years has advocated Events & supported "Grime".
Above: it looks like a family photo but in fact it's the promoter with the council leader (right), taken at the 2023 Event in FP – Picture credit: Haringey Council photographer; published by their busy PR team
The leader, the Cab member for Culture, plus the Events Team are likely all to be pressing hard for the deal to go through. The council could hardly be more cosy with the mega-rich, prosecuted, global live-music monopolist.
- The monopolist's enormous events are a Licensable activity
- Haringey Council is a Licensing Authority
- The council awards licences to … their corporate customer
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Giovanna P.S.
I'm thinking back to when I was first elected and we had some training sessions from the Borough Solicitor. A very knowledgeable and insightful woman. (Also with an Italian name.)
She mentioned how Local Councils most feared Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs page.Which prompted my thinking back even more years ago when I worked in Harlesden NW10.
For a few long minutes I shared an old van with some friends in a very slowly moving traffic queue. As we inched forward we saw a young man step from a shop onto the pavement right alongside our van. He was closely reading the latest Private Eye. Enraptured and chortling; and without noticing us enjoying his pleasure and sudden huge burst of his laughter.Was it Rotten Boroughs? If Peray Ahmet has unwisely pressed ahead today with this absurd and undemocratic decision, will there be a titter? Or a chuckle? Or maybe it deserves a full gale of laughter?
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PRIVATE EYE: how many more entries?
I understand that a letter (this one?) about Haringey Council's current conduct has already been sent in to The Eye.
Depending on their behaviour in the next few days, that letter may be followed by others.
In the last 12 months, the council lead by Peray Ahmet has featured at least twice.
Links: Most Rotten ~ Care Bare
In the run-up to the election, how many more appearances by Haringey in The Eye's Rotten Boroughs column, is Peray Ahmet prepared to risk?
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PS. I understand the "Signing" ceremony has been "postponed" until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
This may give a chance for The Events Team to contact as many "Stakeholders" as possible: asking, cajoling or pleading for some kind of response, anything at all, in order to try to make up some numbers for their seriously flawed and possibly unlawful "consultation".
My suggestion is that, if any Stakeholder consultee receives an unsolicited and unexpected call from anyone claiming to be from an "Events Team", then the safest thing to do would be decline to provide any statement. In any event, there would not have been sufficient notice.
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Clive, you must be wrong. No Haringey elected Leader would ever be associated with last minute informal badgering calls from a few Council staff; trying to rescue this shameless shambles of a consultation.
What on earth could they say?"Please, please. pretty please . . . Surely you can find at least one or two of your hundreds of members who knows that heavy machinery is brilliant for tree roots? And that loud jolly music is loved by wild life?
Listen, we're your friends. We know that if you try really hard you can find someone, or maybe someone's oddball architect uncle, who truly appreciates the clean lean, sharp, spare, classic postmodern lines of a steel wall that's just a teensy nine feet high,and a modest. one-and-a-half-miles long?
Don't be shy now. Don't we give you a grant? No? Okay, then a photo in the Haringey People Magazine.
Surely you can be honest and ignore the nay-sayers. And admit that you truly deeply love the adventure of a few weeks of sleepless summer nights.
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\ PRIVATE EYE: STOP PRESS!
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As said elsewhere, these events could be disrupted.
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Brevity and relevance, Alan. You should try it.
Another 8 words!
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Permalink Reply by Konrad B
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This evening in Haringey Council’s online propaganda news “Haringey People Extra” the LABOUR council have this evening announced the signing of the five year deal:
https://mailchi.mp/haringey/hpx20032026?e=b656b85a2a
"As we get ready for our year as London Borough of Culture 2027, we have signed another five-year deal with event organiser Festival Republic, ensuring major events and stars will be showcased in the park each summer through to 2032.
"Approved at a Cabinet Member Signing today (Friday 20 March 2026), this latest contract generates significant income for the park and benefits nearby businesses, the local economy and the wider community."
I live in Stroud Green near the park, were any residents consulted - no. So we have to live with Live Nation taking over our park each summer until 2032! Time to get rid of Labour in the forthcoming elections!!!!
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