Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey plans to treble the number of concerts days at Finsbury Park
Haringey Council proposals to treble the number of concert days at Finsbury Park with up to 6 concerts lasting 3 days each. The current council policy only allows 5 concert days at the park, the plans would increase the limit to 18 concert days.
The plans will dismay local residents who suffered from anti-social behaviour and noise during the recent Stone Roses concert at the park and anger local park users who will lose access to large parts of the park for much of the summer.
Each weekend concert takes a week to set up and take down, so a 3 day concert closes the south end of Finsbury Park for two weeks. Six concerts could therefore lead to the park being taken over by concert organisers for 12 weeks over the summer.
The plans were discussed on Monday night at St Ann's & Harringay area forum meeting; the consultation on the proposals will start shortly and continue throughout October. The policy will then go to Cabinet for a decision in December.
I have to say I am not happy with the plans. There needs to be more security at nearby pubs and more toilets to cope with the current number of concerts. Local libdems are calling for a full ban on large concerts during the school holidays, so that local families can enjoy full access to the park.
What is also shocking is that Haringey only charged the promoters £130,000 for the Stone Roses concert, that's just over a £1 a head. The promoters only make a relatively small contribution to the police for the cost of policing the event-around £30,000. This is again shocking, such a small amount when our officers could be out in our streets dealing with crime instead.
Its my view that the council need to rethink the plans and concentrate on charging more for fewer concerts. That would increase the amount they make from concerts and decrease the disruption to residents and damage to Finsbury Park.
As mentioned this is going to consultation very soon but I would love to hear what local residents think.
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park, finsbury park events
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Erm, will they also be trebling the number of toiliets as well?
(if so, I'm honestly OK with this. I like fun. And music. But the Stone Roses was handled very poorly in the facilities department as discussed at the time.)
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Permalink Reply by Cecilia on
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Did they say what kind of concerts they plan to host there? a 3-day concert sounds more like a festival to me and obviously it depends on the kind of festival. I have been to several festivals in urban parks (e.g. Shoreditch Park and Clapham Common) and as they were quite low-key, family-oriented festivals (especially the one in Clapham Common), I didn't see any scenes like the ones described about the Stone Roses gig.
But I agree with Abster - I love music and I wouldn't mind having more gigs near home, however the right facilities need to be in place!
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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Hi Karen, do you know how much money Haringey Council expect to make from all the concerts, and what they plan to do with the money? If it was 6 x £130000 = £780000 and they planned to use a good portion of that specifically for the benefit of Harringay ward then maybe it could be a more attractive prospect?
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Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
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I am not entirely sure of the answer to that Ant but I can find out. I think it goes to the Park Service intially but I would have to check. The park is split between Hackney, Haringey and Islington of course so presumably all would want a share.
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Thanks, it would be interesting to know. Even if that £780k got split between the three councils and Harringay ward only got a portion of the Haringey amount that could still be £100k+. That could pay for things like weekly rubbish collections or more street cleaning, a traffic study, the Green Lanes festival, other community events...dreaming i know, but if its our park in our ward why shouldn't we get a hand in where the money goes?
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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As Karen says this was discussed at the Area Forum on Monday night and generated an interesting discussion. The park is managed and run by Haringey and all the income generated from concerts, gigs, events goes to Haringey Parks Service.
There is an income target of £165k for Finsbury Park so if there are additional gigs there will be a lot of surplus generated. The officer from Parks said additional money would be used for park maintenance and improvements, and also provide needed funding for improvements across the service.
Like Karen and many others I think there are some very big issues here about managing anti-social behaviour, noise, littering and general nuisance. Also about the impact on the park of gigs which with setting up and taking down will mean a large section of the park is out of bounds for over a week every time. So if more big gigs are run in the park the event and management plans have to be very thorough and comprehensive and the promoters need to be held to account.
I think the Police and Council staff have learned from the problems at the Stone Roses gig and they were very open in the discussion about went went wrong - especially regarding the toilets and overflowing pubs. There were also lessons about when events are held. Karen makes a very good point about the summer holidays, but there are also issues about timing during term time.
Can I urge everyone to reply to the consultation and to make a contribution as hopefully your comments will help in shaping a thorough and fair events policy for Finsbury Park.
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, St. Ann's Ward
Chair, St. Ann's and Harringay Area Forum
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It doesn't really sound terribly appealing then does it?Even if its true and "a lot" of surplus money is generated if that just goes to general funding across the Haringey parks service then local people around here wont see so much benefit to offset all the negatives they have to put up with. If concerts are the only answer to the funding problems then couldn't they be spread around other parks in the Haringey so everyone gets to share the burden?
Even if they did say a portion of the surplus was going to be ring fenced for Harringay i'm a bit sceptical how that would actually work. Look at the advertising on the Harringay railway bridge - its completely opaque how much money that brings in, where it gets spent, and who gets to decide how its spent.
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Permalink Reply by Mike on
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Karen I'm totally against this for all the reasons you list: anti-social behaviour, noise, loss of access to the park + the mess it creates afterwards. I'm curious to know whether support in the council for increasing the number of concerts is split along party lines - eg are Labour pro more concerts, Lib Dems anti?
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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I'm also very against it - I live close to the park and can hear not only the concerts themselves but all the sound checks very loudly (thought not particularly clearly!). One summer a few years ago, we had seven successive weekends of concerts - half the park was cordoned off for most of the week on either side, so effectively no-one had access to it for the entire summer.If you have seen how busy Finsbury Park gets on a nice weekend in summer, with family picnics and sports being played, it seems totally unfair for it to be out of bounds to all those users in order to serve music fans - there should be a balance, and I think the current amount is about right.
The grass and other structures of the park were also comprehensively trashed and took months to recover. It's all very well thinking about the money this would generate, but what about the money it costs - the boroughs are struggling to look after the parks as it is.
Karen - Please let us know about how to comment on the consultation.
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The consultation is now on the council website but unfortunately the link seems to be broken. As soon as it is up and running I'll post it here.
It's really important that as many residents as possible respond..
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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I know that the park manager needs this money to keep your park maintained. The parks service is running at below minimum staffing needs and is in desperate need of funding. If you cut off this source of funding you'll need to cut something else in the council's budget, suggest a viable alternative funding stream or, stump up more in council taxes.
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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Do we know what the waste collection costs were, as that needs to be offset against the income and other costs like policing (why on earth don't the promoters have to cover all the policing costs by the way - that seems absurd given that there would be no costs if the event didn't happen).
If this was going to be more regular I'd like to see more attention paid to minimising the impact on residents - eg not closing whole sections of the road for days either side so that people and cyclists have to squeeze together on the pavement. And whoever is in charge of arranging licenses should be draconian about what toilet facilities are going to be included - the situation with the Stone Roses was ridiculous, and really disgusting in terms of its longer term impact.
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