Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
It's bye bye bridge banners as Harringay wins £1.8 million for Green Lanes in new fund bid
Hard on the heels of the successful bid for Round 1 of the Outer London Fund, it has just been announced that Harringay has won £1.77million from the Round 2 bid submitted last year.
The bid was submitted by the Green Lanes Strategy Group with the drive and vision coming in particular from Rob Chau of the Harringay Traders' Association.
The Harringay project was also singled out for particular mention this morning by Boris Johnson when he announced the bid.
The £1.77m will be augmented to almost £2.1m with matched funding coming from local traders. The project focuses on three key elements, most of which echo many sentiments expressed here on HoL
1. Create a new gateway for Harringay - a total revamp of the bridge. Gone will be the banners and the tat and in it's place a stylish entrance to our hood. LED panels and a showcase for local artists will be part of the approach.
2. Improve the public realm at street level - this will focus on a 'mini town square' approach - improving all the junctions that lead on to Green Lanes with better trees, building up the side road headers to pavement level and adding benches. Power points will also be added to allow the development of a street market culture.
3. Improving shop fronts - a limited number of shop fronts will be replaced with quality wooden ones, echoing a more traditional feel. Initial funding will limit the number to 35, but it is hoped that these will pioneer improvements elsewhere. Individual traders will add 20% of the cost themselves
More details on the bid soon. In the meantime some pictures for you to conjour up your imaginations:
Rob summarised his exhilaration with a measured statement of purpose, "The festival has shown just how vibrant our high street can be. We want to help guarantee our competitiveness against other high streets. We just haven't had the funds to do it till now. This is the biggest amount of funding we've seen for thirty years"
Once the dust has settled, a series of consultation events will be held to provide local people with an opportunity for direct input into exactly how the funds will be spent.
You can catch a little on the Mayor's announcement on the BBC news this evening. They're supposed to be coming to Harringay for a few shots and quick interviews.
More soon, I'm sure. In the meantime, well done to Rob and the bid team! Great news for the hood.
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay banner, harringay bridge, harringay regeneration 2012-13, outer london fund
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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@ Wm Booth, getting satellite dishes onto the rooftops would likely be beyond the pocket of most of their owners. They are used for getting overseas TV so that people can stay protected from the influence of English culture especially the BBC with all its naked ladies + stuff. It's the first thing that happens over here (N15) when tenancies change, VanMan and ladders and a new set of holes in the wall. On a good day they take down the old dish. VanMan would charge a lot to go five floors up to the roof.
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Permalink Reply by William Booth on
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Yes, they no doubt would, as the rules stand, but if they had to do that as standard then I bet the prices would come down. Oh, imagine there was a regulated maximum fee chargeable for such work, it isn't hard to do... (in comes Lennon on piano...)
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Don't get so wound up about satellite dishes. They aren't so necessary these days.. I only give the majority of them about another ten years..
Mine's already gone, as everything foreign (British) I want to watch is now available on-line and my TV/internet screen does it all.. vorausgesetzt you have good quality internet connections..
or if that doesn't happen, you could get your 'overseas TV viewers' (PC for foreigners) to customise their dishes :o)
Enlarged: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isarsteve/5539647463/sizes/o/in/photos...
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Permalink Reply by Protheroe O'Shea on
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Alan I fully appreciate the hard work residents and local business and perhaps councillors have done. And on hearing the good news was one of the first to congratulate all involved
And of course estate agents boards and satellite dishes are not solely the key priorities holding back this area. There are many other issues as well. Such as rogue landlords filling as many people into a house as possible, a transient communities who have little respect for their neighbourhood, litter, poverty, language barriers, gangs, traffic, drugs, prostitution, dog shit, gambling, lack of cultural integration, fly tipping, HMO, illegal conversions, to name but a few.
Many of the issues I stated suggest a lack of respect for the neighbourhood we share. Boards and dishes fall into that category and just add to the sense of deprivation this neighbourhood can appear to have.
Buildings covered with rotting estate agents boards and huge satellite dishes, many of which contravene planning conditions are ugly and cast a negative shadow over the area and suggest a bedsit society with little local community values and little integration.
Whilst it is unreasonable to suggest people cannot watch satellite TV or legitimately advertise the selling or renting of their property. It is perfectly reasonable to hope that once a building does get spruced up and returned to its original state it will not become a blank canvass for the local estate agents to stick let by, to let, sold by, managed by etc for up to 4 years! It is also perfectly reasonable for one to hope that the landlords who are the lucky recipients of the free makeover will have a responsibility to keep the building in its original state and not allow tenants to pepper the facade with satellite dishes. As a landlord myself I would never allow tenants to stick a satellite dish on the house as they are so ugly and do nothing positive for the local amenity.
I am sure you would not be terribly happy if I covered the house next to yours with advertising boards and left them there to rot for the next few years. Or if I placed one or two monolithic satellite dished more than a meter wide and sticking out a meter from the wall inches from your bedroom window and front door.
I know that as a local councillor you do recognise the importance of ensuring the local architecture is conserved and free of commercial vandalism, so it saddening to see you so readily pooh-pooh any suggestion of keeping parts of green lanes free of it.
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Its nice to see in action 2 page 19 the people behind the bid see the importance that the buildings are free of estate agents boards and satellite dishes. hopefully this can be the beginning of the end of the local estate agents' unlawful corporate vandalism of Harringay Green Lanes.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I'm not sure about that Alan. Creating consultative committees and discussion groups just allows individuals to say " Why doesn't somebody....? " I go for the individual responsibility approach.
The New River walkway is much tidier since one individual decided to take action, rather than moan about Thames Water not cleaning rubbish which, after all, was not dropped by them.
But ( hint ) if it goes wrong for me and you find a body on the sidewalk ooooooozing life, it could have been Mack the Knife.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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John, I agree that committees and discussion groups have little point unless they lead to a programme of action.
And that includes actions agreed by the participants. Who may be individuals, or organisations. Or collaborations among and between them. The "Agreement" part is to make the process and outcomes open and public. Bringing into fresh air and daylight things usually hidden "behind the curtain".
Interesting you mention Mack the Knife. Our German old friends once pointed out that the original version has a chorus - missing from the words usually sung in English.
"And some are in the darkness
And the others in the light
But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see."
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Permalink Reply by Tony Moseley on
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I had a rattly old recording with Brecht singing, he rolls his Rs in a sinister fashion.
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Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on
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Hi All,
Apologies, been a little busy... Congrats, this is fantastic news and I cant wait to see it complete. Just a few points I dont get... how does this work? Normally the council have the money and they have the internal ability to liaise with other departments (environment; planning; parking etc.) What is (if any) the relationship with the traders and council on this project. I am just curious for my own education and not eluding that either relationship is better or worse.
Secondly, again without sounding negative £1.7m/£2.1m isnt a lot in capital works terms, I am sure it is all budgeted properly but it feels a lot wants to be achieved with this amount. It is roughly the same amount the Bruce Grove Heritage project got and it felt (prior to the riots) a bit incomplete.
I really am conscious I am sounding negative, just want to see it work and reduce the stress capital projects can bring to people, especially as they are doing this in their own time etc.
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Well done and thanks to all involved. I do wonder whether Betfred etc. will be having their shop fronts spruced up - ye olde betting shope? And maybe they could send the clientele of such places (who can often be found loitering in the doorways, smoking fags and amusing themselves by shouting crude comments to passers by) to charm school as well?
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