Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wards Corner alternative plan launched - planning meeting looms
The Wards Corner Community Coalition has now lodged its own plan with the Council’s Planning Department.
The wordpress website is now ‘live’ and all documents relating to the community plan can be viewed here. See drawings of how the buildings can come back to life, and details of proposed management structures and funding.
Meanwhile more nifty moves from the council friends of Grainger the developer shows that they are more determined than ever to push through the wholesale demolition of the area. They have added an extra Labour Party member to the planning committee, so now there will be six Labour to four Liberal Democrat. Last time, with nine on the committee, it decided by five votes to four, to reject the Grainger plan.
The meeting on the new railroaded-through Grainger plan is on Monday 25th June, 7pm, at the Civic Centre in Wood Green. It's not too late to add your comments about the plan, they will be circulated to the members of the committee. See here, click Comment on Application. Reading through others' comments will give you some idea of the issues involved.
Tags for Forum Posts: grainger, planning, seven sisters, ward's corner
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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"Since that, in effect, the jury has been nobbled and the outcome is a foregone conclusion."
Clive, I wouldn't insult either my fellow Labour councillors nor your LibDem party colleagues by assuming they have already reached a fixed decision on this application. That they won't read everything carefully, listen to all the arguments etc etc.
You don't seem to want to accept that there are limited "material" planning grounds on which planning committees can turn down applications. Or at least, can do so without having a planning inspector overturn their decision.
You ask for my views and I'm guessing you'd like a simple thumbs-up or thumbs down verdict. But I think the issues are far more complicated. And that in focusing on Wards Corner, far too many well-intentioned people who care about Tottenham have - as the saying goes - seen one tree and may be missing the wood.
I very much regret, for instance, that the spotlight on Graingers has not also fallen on other more powerful and influential developers such as Spurs, Lee Valley Estates and Newlon. The photo from Grainger's website shows this Developers' Tottenham. Sadly this seems to be the same distorted view taken by what now passes for Haringey Planning & Regeneration service. It's a only slightly larger area than what you might call the commentators-on-riots view which focusses narrowly on the High Road and shops.
If you're really interested in my current musing on these issues, have a look at my Flickr pages. I'm also reading David Harvey's Rebel Cities. (£9.99 at the Big Green Bookshop.) You can find him on video. He talks and writes about land grabs; how public spaces in cities fall into the hands of private interests; and the historical pattern across major cities as the urban poor are dispossessed. You can see similar stories on the BBC series: The Secret History of Our Streets
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Fowler on
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I'm not sure why some people are so keen to retain the existing buildings on this site. It seems to me that the old Graingers building, and the row of Victorian structures on the High Road, have little or no architectural merit; and the housing in the other part of the site is run-down, poor quality Victorian terraces, again with little architectural merit. Overall, the whole area around the junction of Seven Sisters and Tottenham High Road has no architectural coherence now. Demolishing the hideous Apex House and replacing it with something more sympathetic and less brutal would be a start. The whole of Tottenham needs a lot of regeneration, and for that to succeed some money has to come into the area. Investment should mean jobs and better housing, which the people who live in the area (other than gentrifiers) desperately need. This junction has been blighted for years - not just the Wards Corner area, but also the two abandoned banks, one next to Tesco. The structure containing Tesco is hideous, and short of demolishing the whole thing, beyond help. The market area on Wards Corner is scruffy and uninviting. The traders there could be re-housed as part of a re-development in another part of the area.
The end of the vile Gyratory System and its return to two way traffic will make a huge difference to the area, especially to that part which has become an "island" surrounded by one-way, highly trafficked, roads. This is one move towards re-development. Getting rid of the huge Big Box development in the Tottenham Hale retail park (all these big box retail outlets will die in the next 5-10 years as the products they sell move even more to online purchase, rendering the big box stores non-viable), and replacing the acres of parking and tarmac, would be a big improvement. This kind of development would only be allowed in Tottenham, never in Muswell Hill or Hornsey or Crouch End or Highgate, where all the better-off people live. Because the area is poor, the developers think they can get away with anything.
I think there are far more important battles to be fought in the re-development and re-invigoration of Tottenham than a bunch of ugly buildings at Wards Corner.
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An interesting take on the area, Christopher. Do you live in Tottenham? I ask because you seem to be defining it as the High Road. Which I feel is an error - though one often made. The Secret Life of Streets programme about Deptford High Street showed what happens to established and successful shops when the residents who used them are no longer around. (In the programme because they were rehoused elsewhere. For Tottenham now, the fact that people have a range of choices for how and where they buy stuff.)
I'm curious about your comment that the "Big Box" stores in Tottenham Hale Retail park "will die in the next 5-10 years" because of online shopping. This isn't a view I've come across in the business pages - or the Portas Review, for example. So I'd be very interested if you could suggest some reading with evidence of this trend. At present the Retail Park appears very well used and seems to compete reasonably successfully with other big box stores - for example close to the North Circular Road.
But I do have a concern that plans for Tottenham High Road seem to follow work done some 14-15 years ago when the Retail Park was pretty run down and unattractive. As you probably know, Haringey Planning & Regeneration service is like one of those delightfully sunny and optimistic people who carry on doing the same things in the vain hope that one day they may produce a different outcome. And despite the world changing round them.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor and resident)
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Alan - Yes, I do live in Tottenham, if by that you mean by postcode (N15) and constituency. Not in the ward, but near. And I fully agree that the whole area, and its needs/problems needs to be considered. However, I was responding specifically on the Wards Corner development issue, which seems to me to be closely linked to what happens around that immediate area (the junction of Seven Sister and the High Road).
I also agree with your point about how the local users of shops matter a lot, especially if they, or the places where they like to shop, are changed. I intended my comments to be some thoughts on ways of improving things for the ordinary people of Tottenham, who suffer badly from socio-economic poverty, unemployment, poor housing, and lack of good services.
On the subject of the "big box" stores, I have read a little about this, although I am afraid it is probably newspaper articles. The thinking is as follows. Currently, shoppers go to big box stores to buy electrical, electronic, computer products. Formerly, they went to high street shops, many of which are now closed. These shops (including branches of what are now big box stores - Currys, Dixons, PC World, Staples) could not compete with the larger big box branches on range and price. Now people increasingly use the internet/web to buy these products. An online site can offer greater range and lower prices, by virtue of having no bricks-and-mortar outlets, distributing from large warehouses in cheap areas. They offer delivery to a customer's door, often for no or a very low price. The rate at which shopping is moving from buying from a store to buying online is increasing. You will see that already major supermarket chains, such as Tesco and Sainsburys, are putting more and more emphasis on their web order and delivery business. They want to avoid the cost of the big branches (such as Sainsburys at Williamson Road), and encourage people to order online. It's cheaper for them to have one big warehouse, a fleet of delivery lorries/vans, and reduced staff numbers (drivers, warehouse staff) that the branch stores. For the customer, stuff they would have bought in a big supermarket is delivered to their door. They do not need to drive and get caught in huge traffic jams (such as the one that often builds up at the Williamson Road/Green Lanes junction - another poor piece of planning by Haringey Council), and waste time. They do their order from the comfort of home in maybe 20 minutes, and then wait for the delivery. They top up from smaller local stores, either independent or Tesco Local type.
On the basis of this thinking (and my training as an urban geographer, and my knowledge of development of the internet and the web, dating back to 1993) I believe we have reached the high water mark of the big box stores, such as most of those at Tottenham Hale. They will go into decline, and retail parks such as that one will cease to be viable. The enormous amount of urban space wasted on vast parking lots and huge stores will be much better used for housing (huge shortage and high prices in London) and public space.
None of this threatens the well-run high street or town centre. These offer a much wider range of products and services.
I'm surprised you reference the Portas Review. It's complete rubbish, as is Portas. She is solely concerned with self-promotion and making money. Witness recent reports of her wanting priority for her TV company in town centres selected for a miserly amount of government funding as a result of her review. This woman is a joke as an urban planner or a retail adviser.
If you and I are fortunate, we shall live to see what happens to Tottenham, and to the wider area of big box stores, in the next ten years. I am hopeful for the former, and will be happy to see the death of the latter. Oh, and the North Circular and everything around it, are a complete disaster, the result of a motor-car focused planning that dates back to the early sixties, when the dream was that we would, and could all drive everywhere in our own private car. Completely antithetical to any kind of community, or proper urban living. Witness the renewed emphasis on public transport, cycling and walking.
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Permalink Reply by JJ B on
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have you seen exactly what we are going to get with the new return to 2 way traffic on the High Rd? FIVE lanes of traffic where at the moment we only have four!
Two way is better than one way but we are going to have all that traffic from the Hale on our High Rd.
Work is carded to start this autumn!
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I don't understand what is wrong with the current one-way system. It seems to work very well. Perhaps someone could explain ?
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Nothing wrong with it if you're a motorist. Everything wrong with it if you are an ordinary human being. It's a circular race-track, for the convenience of people who in most cases don't live in the area, imposed on the people of South Tottenham. The area inside the circle becomes an "island" isolated from the rest of the area. A clear example of giving priority to the motor car above everything else. Roll on the day of road charging, and pricing all the car drivers off the roads, off their lazy bums, and into walking or public transport.
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Thanks, Christopher. Food for thought. Although your scathing dismissal of the Mary Portas Review made me reread it. As you know she includes several of your main points. Including the High Streets' "real social as well as economic worth to our communities". In other words, she is emphatically pro-High Streets and wants to see them thriving.
I've never seen Mary Portas's TV programmes and know nothing about her company. And, to be honest, I was not expecting anything positive from someone appointed by David Cameron. But I found her report thought-provoking. It was also very clearly written, cogently argued, and backed up by a mass of detailed supporting reports. (Not features of the planning and regeneration reports which Haringey tends to produce.)
A lot of what she wrote chimed with my own observations. Which tended to bias my view, of course.
So I wonder what you disagreed with. Her description? General analysis? Or was it her list of recommendations?
These included, of course, restricting betting shops by making them a separate Planning Use Class. Mary Portas believes that “…the influx of betting shops, often in more deprived areas, is blighting our high streets…" Which is my own view and that of many other people in Haringey. I gather the Government may have ruled this out.
I wonder too about your confident prediction of the future decline of the "Big Box" stores and of the stores along the North Circular Road. But again, Mary Portas proposed changing the law to explicitly favour town centre development. With another recommendation "to require all new developments to have an "affordable shops" quota. Surely her aim is positive even if you disagree with the means she suggests?
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Let's have a re-vamped Wards Corner by all means. Wards might not have great architectural merit, but even in the corner's current (deliberately) dilapidated state, it look more interesting to me than the cheap, over-built, off-the-peg solution offered by the property developer.
Grainger's plans would look adequate: elsewhere, as a new build. What's there now can be improved at less cost and disruption and to everyone's advantage: except to Grainger. Why doesn't the council work with the grain, instead of against it?
And of course, there is what they could be, with some imagination. Here's another angle of the alternative plan:
More pics here!
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The site as it stands has great potential as it is valued by local people. The Grainger plan is basically build to order for the council; which is a 1970's shopping mall in order to create a town centre along the lines of Croydon. Niall Biolger of the council confirmed this. The new build will has short rise then a long term sustained fall leading to loner term decay. It will be hard to demolish due to the flats over it. The councillors who will nod it through on monday night will say it is all the developers fault but the people will remember them though they will see who it was that killed off all those local jobs and businesses. Once again the web cam system will fail on the day I am sure.
The new site will generate about 60 jobs according to the ecumenic reports. plus short term construction job but hundreds more local jobs will be gone forever. What will be the reaction of the local youth and ethnic minorities? Surely the council can not keep hiding from blame forever nor can any labour party would be councillor who allows a subsidise to a billion pound developer, sell off of council homes on the cheap, the lose of up to 40 social homes and the gifting of regeneration money whilst sacking teachers. Shame on you.
Yet we have we have a plan being rushed through, secret last minute design panel meetings, planning officers pimping for support on a sunday. It is just dirty fingers in dirty pies.
I just want to see the cannon fodder who the inner council put on on the planning committee as they would not dare stand themselves. Over the top and we will watch you deal with the community.
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Well, it is hardly a 1970s shopping mall, which would have been much bigger and uglier. It's not remotely like the Croydon town centre, and I wonder if "clyde" has ever been there. I see no evidence for the claim that the new development will have "short rise" and then longer term decline and decay. Unless, of course, you are assuming that this area of Tottenham is in terminal decline, which is not true. Neither do I see any evidence for "hundreds" of local jobs being lost. Of course, there might be some loss of jobs, but on the other hand, overall there should be a gain in jobs from the refurbishment of the area. And I didn't think this particular development involved any sell-off of council homes on the cheap, loss of 40 social homes, as you assert. It may be that overall the Council's policy involves this, but it is hardly the fault of the plans for Wards Corner.
If "clyde" and his incoherent and mis-spelled rant ("ecumenic" reports; I don't think so) are the best that the Wards Corner CCCC can offer, they are on a hiding to nothing.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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200 jobs from the market and shops will be lost. These are small businesses which keep their money local. They would be replaced by chain stores which will pump money out of Tottenham. The jobs available with be McJobs apart from a handful of imported managers/franchisees.
The idea that the market and small shops will be able to move back in after ??? ('up to five' ) years and pick up where they leave off is obviously nonsense. Rents aside, they will lose their momentum.
Graingers were sold four functioning homes for £185k IIRC. Wish I could buy a house in N15 for something under £50k, hey? People currently living on Suffield Road and above the shops will have to be rehoused, so the total housing loss is doubled. There are no social or low-cost houses being built by Grainger, as we already know. They could have brought in Apex House to the plan, as it is earmarked for demolition, and used that site to build new social housing in a proper S106 arrangement. Their only S106 commitment is to give first offer on new shops to the displaced shopkeepers and market stall holders - not exactly social gain for the area. No mention of contributing to the extra infrastructure needed re schooling and health provision, even Tottenham Hale had that until the developer there went bust (correct me if I'm wrong Mr Stanton).
Grainger have only ever completed one development/new build, the one at Hornsey Baths, and there they were forced to incorporate parts of the old building as it is listed. They have previous re screwing up and/or selling on planning permission - look up Moorpool, in the Midlands, where they fought a similar war of attrition to get their hands on an estate and then sold on the licence to another builder. Our concern is that they will pull a similar stunt here. Our worse nightmare is that they will demolish then decide it's not worth the risk of building here and we will be left with a wasteland for years to come. Of course that would be preferable for some veteran councillors to what is presently here.
Oh and criticising someone for spelling and grammar is a pretty sad way of arguing. Look at what the WCCC has achieved, at no cost to the council, and reconsider whether we are on a hiding to nothing.
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