Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Lordship Rec has been given £400k (although it didn't win the main prize of £2m so not sure what the plans will be now - sadly I bet that means no recreation of the driving course):

Full story at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7923118.stm

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Reading back over the stuff from Haringey Council, it seems that their aim was to secure 400k so they should be feeling pretty pleased.

I'm looking forward to the City Farm being built myself.
Good news. They may have also received monies directly from the council as Fairland Park has.
This is good news for Lordship Rec. The challenge now is to get the improvements right.

But at the same time, it's a stupid and dysfunctional way to allocate public money to important social projects. It's government as game show. Picking winners and losers like the Eurovision Song Contest.

Which does nothing at all to increase people's awareness of the overall need to improve and defend public parks. Nothing to engage Londoners about the issues involved in having safe, well-used, successful open spaces. Nor to champion the vision - first developed in Boston in the Nineteenth Century - and adopted in London and other cities - of emerald chains, green links, which would join all a city's parks as essential ingredients of civilised urban living.

There are many parks I love right across our city; and many squares, commons and other open spaces, too. I want them all to be cherished, well maintained, improved, well-used - and properly funded.

There seems to be no limit to the money around for bankers. So do we really need to play this silly zero-sum game of beggar-my-neighbour's park?

What's next? Online voting about which local school gets new text books?
It's great that Lordship Rec has got this money and is hopefully going to be restored, but the big shame is that although Haringey Council publicly recognises the vital role that parks play in the health and well being of the community, it is still cutting £450,000 from the parks budget over the next two years.

For details see page 49 of the 'pre agreed savings' for recreation services at:

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/part_6_-_adults__culture_and_community_s...

This means we face advertising in our parks (the one place we can currently escape from advertising), and that the cycle of run down parks needing huge expenditure to be restored will go on and on. Now they've adopted the Greenest Borough Strategy it would be good if the Council could remember 'a stitch in time saves nine' and do regular timely repairs and maintenance to save resources in the long run.

Note the Council already spends well below average on parks - see p36 of the above document - Net expenditure per head of population was £13.63 in 2007/8, within a range of £12.81 - £29.42.

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