Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey's Warehouse Districts Under Threat?
An item at tonight's Council Cabinet meeting has thrown into question the future survival of Haringey's two warehouse districts and the artistic communities who live in them.
Both the Harringay Warehouse District and the Fountayne Road community now face an uncertain future following the publication of a Haringey Council report, "Tackling Unauthorised Living in Industrial Areas". (Report attached)
The report, which was discussed at the full cabinet of the Council today, recommends a two-year project costing £600,000 which will seek to deal with "the growing problem of unauthorised residential and live work uses in and around (the) Industrial Sites" in Haringey. The recommended process is "to establish a special multi-disciplinary team to fully investigate and address the problem through a combination of regulation, improvement, enforcement and, where necessary, prosecution".
The alarm bells were ringing for me since earlier in the week I had discovered that these areas are earmarked as being amongst those that will "will accommodate the majority of development in the borough over the next 20 years".
In Facebook and Twitter conversations this afternoon, warehouse residents shared their fears that the vibrancy their communities bring to the borough will be overlooked and their communities sanitised and destroyed.
In response to my Twitter requests to Council Leader Claire Kober this evening to protect these communities, Cllr Kober sought to offer some reassurance:
@harringayonline some people in unacceptable conditions. My concern is for safe, decent properties. No intention to undermine communities
@harringayonline no intention to damage what's good. Priority is to go after rogue landlords just as we do elsewhere in borough
When I asked if she would ensure that warehouse residents will be involved, the Council Leader replied:
@harringayonline don't see any problem involving residents. Will ask officers to consider how best to achieve
I very much hope that the approach the Council takes in this project will support these communities rather than beginning the process of whittling them away.
Tags for Forum Posts: local plan, local plan 2014, site allocation plan, warehouse district
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Permalink Reply by ingo pless on
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There are tremendous creative assets embedded in the warehouse community, as the continuity of a rich local artistic and artisan heritage. Even as just one example, artists that exhibit internationally but are relatively unknown to the public in Haringay. I do accept the need for reasoned debate on compliance issues, obviously - breaches can potentially kill more people than art, even when it's bad art!, but there are so many positives. For Haringey as a whole there's a chance to reposition itself, in the broader public eye, away from the post; Colin, Victoria, Peter, Mark - eye rolling responses engendered by it's past tragedies.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Merit in the mix . . . maximum local reward . . . a little local direct democracy . . . real piece of buy in . . .
Sounds great. But can you do subtitles?
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Agree Sharon. We have tried to open up sections of it for years, even recently tried to get a warehouse as community venue, failed. A considerable part of my background is in developing inclusive resources, Haringey Arts recent summer event was a success on the basis of great community feedback. 2 of us set up a residents assoc here - the arena association - in order to agree a voluntary code of conduct that landlords would cascade down to tenants for example and support street events.
We are now involved in comuniart - turning existing venues into galleries on a fair trade model but with inclusivity as my personal mission. This was recently backed by Elan at Winworth, and with genuine interest.
We are working on some major resources (TBA) to finally put the warehouse district on the map as there actually is a rich heritage, some of it documented by Hugh on here.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Glad to hear you picking up on the heritage. Wish I could convince you to honour that heritage by not overlooking the name used for the area by as part of that heritage - or will it be selected parts of the rich heritage only?
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The area was of course the home of Gloria Sarah Tich as a young girl before the whole Tich family emigrated to Australia. But is there any evidence at all that anyone ever called it "The Warehouse District" before now?
Seems to me this may be a "brand" renaming, copying umpteen places in the U.S. where districts in city centres contained buildings where people used to make, import/export and store stuff. Having a nearby river, lake or seafront was very handy.
For instance there's one in Cleveland Ohio. Maybe a Clevelander on HoL can tell us if it was called the Warehouse District before it became, as someone wrote in Wikipedia:
"a hot night spot for twenty-somethings and urban professionals, following a pattern pioneered in Cleveland by the Flats entertainment district, which it ultimately supplanted as the city’s premier weekend place-to-be."
To see where the property developers are taking this, take a look at the "Five Big Ideas" of the"Historic Warehouse District Board of Directors" . The first was more housing units and the fifth was "Build our Brand Awareness".
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I can't control the use of the name Hugh, when I moved here they were simply calling it The Manor.
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No, of course not, Ingo. I recognise how the use of a name ebbs, flows and develops. I was jousting with you in a friendly way over the name and hoping that perhaps you might shade this element in to what you're planning.
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Indeed will. On the heritage basis I am keen to highlight it. If anyone wants to commission me to do a full sized Spitfire on our rooftop at Arena, for example, please feel free to contact - 07535 449299.
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I'm scared to go in there mate, and I run an arts group :(
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Agree, see below. We are establishing a comuniart centre in the Redmond but details are to be announced.
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Permalink Reply by jenny on
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You obviously havent had to live opposite this 'Eye sore' Having to endure late night (all night parties)parties-Abusive tenants, litter all over the streets, bins lining the roads-A so called Artistic community, more like a disgusting, filthy dump,-get rid I say and the sooner the better.
My children and I being woken up nearly every weekend because of the parties/brawls has made me ill, I,m not prepared to put up with this any more..
I would much rather proper flats/houses being built there. The people that live there now have no right to be there, Knock it down ASAP Get proper jobs instead of pretending to be ARTY-Move away & leave us alone. It makes me laugh that people who see this as a Project/a buzzing community/trendy etc do not have to live in Hermitage road!!
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Permalink Reply by Brian Moreau on
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"proper jobs" OUCH!
So how many business do you run?
How many people do you employ?
What contribution do you make for your local community and the people in it?
What have you created or discovered this year?
How many exhibitions have you contributed to or organised?
What have you done to help the young and old in your community?
I could go on, and on.
I am sorry about your noise though, have you tried asking your neighbours to quieten it down a bit?
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