Haringey's twin town

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on December 4, 2011 at 14:24

Town-twinning in Haringey seems to have been quietly dropped. The era when councillors went off to experience gemütlichkeit in various places abroad seemed to have ended by the time I came on the Council. My former colleague Ray Dodds was cynical about it. And Ray's judgement on these things was usually pretty sound.

Although I'm actually in favour of Council staff being in touch with and even visiting these faraway places and seeing how they do things differently. I've heard there are some interesting experiments in Islington and Camden, and south of the river. Now that we have inner-city rings with some of the features of banlieues, contact with Paris and other cities might be useful.

Maybe councillors who went twinning overseas brought back hundreds of fresh, interesting ideas, and great suggestions for experiment and change. The fact I've never heard of one could be simply explained by Haringey's reluctance to accept suggestions. One mantra is: "We are doing it already".

Recently, councillors wanting to "twin" have been asked to fundraise for the purpose. And right now, given the Government's horrendous cuts, I would be appalled to find that any councillors had got public funding to pay travel and hotel expenses outside London. Especially as we can all use email and Skype; and with video conferencing possible.

(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)

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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on December 4, 2011 at 14:59

Yes, it's all from another time. A time when the general mass of the population weren't so widely travelled and the need was felt to increase knowledge of foreign parts..and twenty years after WW2 to bring former enemies together in the knowledge that they weren't so different after all.

The later addition of twins in Jamaica, Cyprus & Trinidad reflected the real make of the Borough and I imagine these links were perhaps more 'exploited' than the European ones. 

Situated on the confluence of the Rhein & Moselle in a wine producing region, Koblenz with it's castles really doesn't have much in common with Haringey. In fact, the only thing both do have in common is that both have a River Moselle and I think the insignificance of that connection in Haringey may have also contributed to the coolness of the twinning.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Koblenz_im_Buga-Jahr_2011_-_Deuts...

Similarly, Koblenz seems to lost interest in Haringey and I couldn't find a mention on their site.. http://www.koblenz-touristik.de/en/home.html

Alan, are you aware of any recent connections between Haringey & Koblenz at all?

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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on December 4, 2011 at 15:32

Alan, one thing I forgot to mention... you wrote: I would be appalled to find that any councillors had got public funding to pay travel and hotel expenses outside London. Especially as we can all use email and Skype; and with video conferencing possible.

Surely the idea of twinning wasn't just so that councillors could meet up and drink tea all day. The idea was for the younger generations as well as their parents to meet and interact and learn about other societies in an everyday setting.  

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on December 4, 2011 at 16:40

Shouldn't Friends of Fairland Park be responsible for the Koblenz twinning arrangements? Besides its New River viniferous ambience, doesn't FP owe its existence to a Koblenz pilot's failure to defuse his bomb before dropping it?

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