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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

For those interested finding out more about the controversial Haringey Development Vehicle there is a public meeting tonight at 7pm in the Wood Green Social Club, opposite the Haringey Civic Centre, Stuart Crescent, Wood Green N22 5NJ.

Leaflet attached.

Tags for Forum Posts: haringey development vehicle, hdv

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Anonymoose, I agree with you.
However my thinking is that we have here an incredibly wide coalition/ convergence of views opposing and questioning Cllr Claire Kober's scheme.
So, for example The Greens are leading on a possible Judicial Review of Haringey's decision. Both LibDem and Labour councillors are discussing "calling-in" the cabinet decision. Even the Tottenham Tories are speaking out against it.

Of course, not everyone has the same doubts and similar objections. In fact there are so many serious objections to the scheme, we are all spoiled for choice. For example there are people who don't object to the principle of the private sector involvement and demolition  of council estates, but who think it should be done on a small scale and not with just one developer.
And not everyone in this broad loose coalition will necessarily give prominence to a class and race perspective.

As I'm guessing you know well, one of the falsehoods presented by the proponents of this scheme is that it will produce a "mixed community". One of these warm fuzzy terms which refers implicitly to aspects of class and race but with deliberate and misleading imprecision.
(Professor Loretta Lees is very helpful on this issue.)

My apologies John and to others who may be offended by me bringing class or race into it. The opposition to the HDV does indeed include people from all areas of Haringey, class and race, as Alan has stated. I have met many of them and they are a compassionate and a well informed bunch. I will refrain from making my arguments a class related one. 

Just so it's for the record, my criticism for this scheme is purely towards the Cabinet of the council and especially to the few proponents of this scheme (Cllr Strickland, CEO Nick Walkley and Cllr Kober).

Basically FPR, the problem is that things have already happened and are still happening.
In parts of the borough where people's homes are threatened with demolition; and where 'Planning Blight' is likely to interfere with sales, purchases, investments and people's plans for their homes and lives. For an example, if you haven't seen it please take a look at this Evening Standard story.

The KoberTories and their developer pals and others would love a narrative (= fairy story) that portrays this as just an internal argument within Haringey Labour.  But it's not.
FPR, you might want to look further than Haringey and read about what's happening elsewhere in London. And in other cities - among them: San Francisco, New York and Vancouver. I recommend the intro to Anna Minton's "Big Capital; Who is London For?". 

Personally, my own street doesn't seem to be directly affected. Or is it? There are Council-owned homes a few minutes walk away. In the diseased Kober fiefdom of Haringey such information is withheld. Hundreds of yellow coloured pages are marked EXEMPT and kept secret from the tenants, leaseholders and freeholders whose homes and businesses may be for sale, or face compulsory purchase, or - likely - demolition.

Some senior officers lie by omission. It's on the maps, they may say, or in the Area Plan. But the key pieces of information which anyone should and wants to know are withheld. Because people usually want and need to know something simple and direct: about Number XX, and Y Road. Why? Because they live there. Or maybe because they are thinking of buying or renting there. Or it's the home of their friends/relatives. Will our Dear Leader or her minions tell them?
They won't. 
I'm told by people who have been allowed a glimpse of the secret yellow pages that some of this information is held on dense tables. Some almost unreadable in tiny print. But still perhaps without sufficient detail and context to give people reliable solid chapter-and-verse-facts about their own homes.

It's par for the course that a recent presentation to the Council's External Auditor explained that agents will be asked to negotiate for purchasing properties without telling residents or businesses they are acting for the Council or the Homes Destruction 'Vehicle' (HDV). Why? Because they may be able to cheat the resident or business out the true market value of their property which they'd ask if they knew the full picture.

I hear that Cllr Claire Kober has told the Ham & High that people are now distrustful of politicians and of the HDV, because of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I can assure Ms Kober that the total and complete lack of trust I and other people feel for her is entirely of her own making. It's due to her execrable record as "leader"; and the risk her HDV plans pose for both residents directly affected and the rest of us should the Vehicle drive off the cliff, leaving the borough with a massive new debt.

"That will be the leader who disciplined you and deselected your wife." that looks like something Councillor Kober would take exception with. You seriously think you can make that stick? You seriously think Zena's deselection in 2013 was orchestrated from a kitchen in Muswell Hill?

Many in the Labour Party at the moment admire Alan for WHY he had the whip withdrawn, his objections to hiring Nick Walkley.

Alas, poor Will Hoyle. Almost always gets it wrong.
I voted against the appointment of Mr Nick Walkley because I had information from  Barnet where he was the Chief Executive that he was an arch-privatiser. (Not surprising given their record and public right-wing stance.) I was warned that Mr Walkley would probably be bringing in his own team of privatisers.

But trying to be fair, I tried to keep an open mind when he first arrived. I met him and he seemed - or at least played along with an impression of a new broom with new ideas.
For a brief while.

Very soon the warnings from Barnet about his privatising and senior appointments turned out to be accurate. In fact even their most apparently absurd prophesy turned out to true. As in Barnet, Nick Walkley had meaningless motivational posters put up.
Poor Richard's Almanack
As you say, John. we have no proof of who orchestrated the St Ann's ward branch vote-rigging. Or in whose kitchen the charts were displayed.
As you accurately urged, people joining the Labour Party in vast numbers has completely altered the balance in many wards including St Ann's. It's no longer possible to join-up half a dozen "members" who don't actually live in a ward. (Or even in Haringey.) and swing the vote.
In any case, Mr Hoyle's suggestion that my criticism of Claire Kober is personally motivated is petty and silly. My criticism of The Dear Leader is because I think she is an appallingly bad leader with Tory policies.

That poster isn't meaningless. It means the no 1 mantra of liberalism, like you espouse, is not rewarded in that environment. 

That mantra is "do not judge me on the outcome of my policies but the quality of my intentions." From what you post here day in day out, I can see how that poster would have no meaning to you sir.

Your premise is that RETURNING to the private sector something that government has nationalised one way or another is inherently bad. I would disagree and can provide examples going all the way back to the invention of the wheel of advancements in civilisation that government had nothing to do with.  But you would rather see as much of the economy given over to the management of people who don't even know which way a screw turns. I would not for the same reason I don't want you to come into my office and tell me how to run my financial services business.

PS - Whether someone is "right wing" or "left wing" doesn't matter, virtually everyone from every party in this country is a statist like you.

I linked to the poster, Knavel, because it illustrated a practice which Mr Nick Walkley used in Barnet and brought with him when he came to Haringey.
So it's a shame that you take issue with what you assume I think ("the no 1 mantra of liberalism" which you believe that I "espouse") while ignoring what I actually wrote.
Before now, I've never come across anyone who believed that: "virtually everyone from every party in this country is a statist".  Makes it a bit difficult, (wouldn't you agree?) to have any sort of dialogue to explore possible areas of shared ideas.

Let me assume charitably that you are simply an ignorant troll rather than someone who thinks it's fun to make up lies.

Thanks, Maggie. We hadn't yet collected our Guardian from the newsagents.

But it seems that however many well written factually informed newspaper stories there are, the Labour councillors supporting the Dear Leader are still determined to press ahead with this poisonous plan.

Some explain that families come to their advice surgeries in desperate need of housing (undoubtedly true.) And then these apologist councillors repeat the line that "we're giving people hope."  Apparently unwilling even to consider the bleak facts about the number of genuinely affordable homes likely to be built. And equally oblivious to the fact that existing tenants displaced from their homes by HDV demolition will take precedence over people on the existing waiting list.

I suppose that it's at least something a few councillors are well-intentioned in their gulliblity.

I shall probably regret answering this. But who exactly do you mean?

ill-informed. Quite.


Awkward, twitchy and thoroughly ill-informed. Little wonder the residents saw through you and rejected you overwhelmingly.

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