Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Probably a top ten LBH spin entry
Squeezing Customer Services into Tottenham Library
aka "New plans a boost for libraries"
You don't have to make it up.
Customer services from Apex House to be transferred into Marcus Garvey and Wood Green libraries and the homelessness service to be added to Wood Green Customer Service Centre.
This to allow for the demolition of Apex House to make their 'landmark' 22-storey tower. No details yet re how many jobs will be lost but the logic is that most of this admin stuff will be done online in future. There will need to take 20% floor space in MG library, they reckon 10% can be gained by rearranging the furniture and maybe moving a staircase. Details re Wood Green not yet available.
Cost? £5million - £2m Tottnm, £3m Wood Green. Not quite covered by the £3.4 million that Grainger will pay for the ApexHouse site so they can build 152 dwellings, retailing at estimated 500k each.
So - can anyone find a better press release for my competition?
[I've no problem with increasing the services offered at libraries, but this reversal of the way its being done - subtraction not addition to what's there already - is classic LBH spin.]
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Tags for Forum Posts: 22 storeys, apex house, customer services, grainger, libraries, planning, regeneration, seven sisters
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vanessa Rickett on
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Actually, we can as a community try to challenge these decisions.The South Tottenham Community Development Trust is looking at taking over St Ann's. It just needs a cool £50M! Actually that's not as mad as it seems. There are alternative models to selling off that would also enable the mental health wards to be built. The are other sources of funding. What we need is Haringeyers with ideas and energy and Haringey has masses of talented people. We need to be able to present a complete proposal. The site has been registered as a community asset which I think means they have to wait 6 months before they can go ahead. So clock ticking. Anyone up for it?
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Permalink Reply by Robert Pike on
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Hi. There are far more qualified and knowledgeable people on HOL to talk politics until the cows come home. However I am interested in providing ideas and energy. I support the need for housing and health in Haringey but I just feel that the plans at present are totally wrong and that a better models need to be sought. I would love to see if things could be done differently at St Ann's. I live within view of it. How can I find out more?
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Hi Robert, happy to fill you in. Have put in contact request.
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Well, it can be worse actually. Like one councillor who is on the exec, asking questions in a consultation session yesterday morning, showing her up as someone who isn't at all up to date into what has been happening in her ward. It was cringeworthy!
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Joe, please don't try to put words and arguments in my mouth that I haven't said.
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Pam, I've tried - so far without without success - to contact Marcus Garvey Library to get some official information about this. Lots of: "press 1 or Press 2 and recorded messages. Then speaking to various information staff who did their best to be helpful but didn't have the information about their own library. So much for Claire Kober and Jason Arthur and their extended "offer".
So do you know who has some official 'hard' information on this? Was there a minuted meeting? Did anyone take notes or otherwise record what was said?
I've heard different figures given for the sale price of Apex House. Is £3.4m a confirmed figure?
Are the figures you give for the costs of moving the services confirmed? Including the costs of moving the central staircase at Marcus Garvey? Do you know if there have been Freedom of Information questions?.
Given the cost figures, has anyone yet referred this to the Council's auditors, Grant Thornton?
It seems the height of stupidity if Haringey are selling - or have sold - a building in what developers consider a prime location, if they end up with a net loss to public funds. A love-in at Cannes is bad enough. Loss-making deals on prime sites seems a few steps too far even for this lot. Surely it can't be accurate?
Source: Southwark Notes website.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Alan I started to answer your question by referring to the minutes of the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 15th July 2014, which passed the paper that explained the logic of gifting the Apex site to Grainger. But strangely the LBH website record of that meeting has changed beyond my willingness to search it. Cant find the documents there. Here is the original agenda. Item 684 is the doc which explains that logic. Direct links may all still be there on the current site but meh. I want to get to the market before it closes.
Basically Grainger gets the gift because they have one of the two planning permissions for the Wards Corner site. So they need the land for peanuts so we get a matched pair of ugly buildings with one developer. They move their S106 obligation to rehouse the market into Apex House to grease smooth the logic into a sweetly flowing simultaneous dance of the bulldozers. The discussion re the sum agreed was of course redacted (Item 674), but it has since been confirmed as £3.4 million.
Meanwhile the other, community plan for Wards Corner is extant and being progressed. I'd quite like to know if this got a mention during the secret discussion. Also what an independent valuer really thought a 0.4hectare brownfield site on top of a tube station is really worth. Grainger's share price is holding well.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Two ugly buildings? Pam, I hope you're not saying that Apex House is a handsome building?
The point is that Seven Sisters Corner, Ward's Corner or Page Green, depending on how far back your memory goes, has changed continually over the decades and will hopefully change again. The current situation is pretty dreadful, at least for anyone who can remember The Corner Picture House, the Home Made Sweet Shop next to it, opposite Ward's, with it's model living rooms on the upper floors.
I personally look forward to a tower on the site of Apex House as I feel it will fit in very well at that location. But who am I to say? I don't live there anymore.
The same can be said for Tottenham Hale, which in 2015 looks nothing like it did in 1990, which was totally different to 1970, which was an improvement on 1950, which hadn't changed much since 1935/36 when Broad Lane was widened to enable Trolleybuses to run along it.
Tottenham Hale and Station 1960s
Tottenham Hale Station 1933
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But - this? (Note the bus. I've popped up its colour as it gets a bit lost in version2)
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I agree, that looks quite 'East Germany 1970ish' But I like the idea of a tower at that location ..
Edit: Oh, now I see.. it's a nimby's photoshop of what's coming..
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