A neighbourhood forum for Crouch End, the first in Haringey, was approved by the Council last December. Plans for forums in Highgate and Stroud Green are also in the offing. To the south Stamford Hill have been trying to get Hackney Council to approve one and following the Finsbury Park regeneration conference last year, a steering group has been formed to discuss founding a Finsbury Park Neighbourhood Forum.
So what might all this mean for Harringay? Does it mean we should be looking at this too?
First a quick brush-up on what a neighbourhood forum is.
Created by the 2011 Localism Act, designated neighbourhood forums are organisations or groups empowered to lead the neighbourhood planning process in a neighbourhood area where there is no town or parish council (ie. including parts all of London).
Neighbourhood planning enables communities to shape development in their areas through the production of Neighbourhood Development Plans, Neighbourhood Development Orders and Community Right to Build Orders.
Neighbourhood Development Plans become part of the Local Plan and the policies contained within them are then used in the determination of planning applications. Neighbourhood Development Orders and Community Right to Build Orders allow communities to grant planning permission either in full or in outline for the types of development they want to see in their areas.
The policies produced cannot block development that is already part of the Local Plan. What they can do is shape where that development will go and what it will look like.
The process starts with defining boundaries. Everything then has to be approved by the Council. I've heard that to our south those behind the nascent Stroud Green forum are likely to include Finsbury Park within their borders. What might this and any other influence these groups wield mean for Harringay if we don't have a champion?
Is it time for Harringay to think about a Harringay Neighbourhood Forum? (This question was also raised on the site four years back)
Here's a map drawn up current and possible forum boundaries drawn up by by Stroud Green resident and HoL member Arkady.
Tags for Forum Posts: neighbourhood forum, neighbourhood planning
Titter.
I take your warning though, Chris.
I'm not necessarily a fan of appointing electing another group of people. Having said that, whilst it may not be clear from my post, my motivation was less about creating another layer for its own sake and more oriented to thinking about what the implications might be if neighbouring areas have well-organised groups managing things at a local level. I've heard, for example that the Finsbury Park group are debating claiming part of Harringay ward in their patch - Finsbury Park. Probably no big deal, but then I stop to wonder, but is it? Should we give pause for thought?
Titter ye not. But beware of the Reds in your delightfully misspelled title.
The Crouch End Neighbourhood Forum has a new website paid for by the public purse. Grants are available for much of the Forum set up process. As far as I know a NF has no right to a precept on the rates, though a parish night have (?). Almost all of London is un-parished [sic]. A Neighbourhood Forum has , in theory, some right to a percentage of the CIL raised within its boundary.
There is no question of 'appointing' a group of people - a parish would presumably be subject to the election of parish councillors, while the Forum Plan is subject to a referendum. Even the definition of the boundary is subject first to scrutiny by officers of the council, and then is put out for consultation to the public. The CE boundary was challenged both by those who wanted to be included within it but were not, and by those who thought their homes should not be within the boundary, but the Forum case was sufficiently well argued to withstand these challenges.
The location of parks may very well be significant. Priory Park was at first included in Crouch End, but after negotiation with neighbours in Hornsey was removed. Perhaps this might yet be a mistake if Hornsey does not form its own local group? And remember these boundaries are drawn only because the law says they must be - there is nothing to stop a resident of Stroud Green, or Harringay or Auchtermuchty coming to the CENF meetings to express a view on any subject that proves to be relevant to the local plan, See eligibility criteria below.
But one does have to wonder how much power is left after the diktats of the European Commission, the European Parliament, Westminster, The Mayor of London and Haringey have been taken into account. But all it takes for these basilisks to turn us all to stone is for good men to do nothing
Eligibility for Membership
All residents of the Neighbourhood Area, businesses and their employees located within the Area (one vote each), and representatives of affiliated residents associations, friends groups and amenity societies and associations are eligible for membership, as are all who work, visit, shop, own property or are being educated in Crouch End.
"delightfully misspelled title"? Eh Can't see my typo. Help me out!
"appointing" - my bad - loose language - edited.
Boundary process interesting - we'd have to think of something different. Can you imagine walking round here and asking simply, "Do you live in Harringay?" You may remember this exercise I did back in 2012.
Thanks for putting me out of my misery! Looking in the wrong place!
A reference to the 2014 Harringay Ward election voting outcome, surely.....
Appointing - it is of course very largely the usual self appointed suspects who put themselves forward for election.
CENF is the first entirely within Haringey. HNF is partly so, and partly in Camden,
HoL already has post codes for its members. A simple online poll asking each member "Do you live in Harringay?" would provide a lot of data, easily plotted on a map.
What happens if they all reply, no we live in East Highgate?? (The Kilburn/West Hampstead question)
The rule of thumb that Hugh prefers to ignore, or terms outdated, was that around the Green Lanes area, N15 was Tottenham, N4 Harringay (excepting parts of N4 in Hackney & Islington) and N8 Hornsey.. Quite simple really.
And used postally every day:
Warwick Gardens, Harringay N4
Woodlands Park Road, Tottenham N15
Frobisher Road, Hornsey N8
No Stephen that's your rule of thumb. There are plenty of other people who like you have lived outside of the UK for decades but grew up here and have a rather different rule of thumb to you. The same goes for people who grew up here and still live here.
But what I think or you think is largely irrelevant. It will be the mass of people living here today who decide.
Yeah, yeah, when there's no other argument, throw it in my face.. You seem to forget that I have/had very close relations and friends who continued to live in Harringay and Tottenham.. even though I absented myself.
I am aware of the concerted attempts to make more out of the name Harringay, for whatever reason. Especially the exorcism of the name Tottenham i.e. lousy property prices, from all things Harringay. That's how gentrification works, isn't it?
I was and still am proud of my background and if asked still say that I come from Tottenham, even though I lived in Harringay. Of course I could say Hornsey to make it sound better, but I don't. I also speak, as you are well aware, with a north London accent.. Not the R.P. of today's aspiring Harringayites.
Stephen, I'm not meaning to throw anything in your face. My response was just a statement of fact, blunt to the point of your previous comment.
I'm not aware of anyone tying to exorcise the history of Tottenham from Harringay. It's a fact that a large part of Harringay was in the London borough of Tottenham, but it was still Harringay. The borough of Tottenham has been gone for for half a century. We remain in the constituency of Tottenham.
As for Tottenham property prices, take a walk around Right Move! Things have changed enormously over the past few years.
You have woken up grumpy, Stephen. Yes, because this discussion isn't dealing with what I see as important here. It's good that it's been raised as an issue and it would no doubt be a bone of contention were moves to be made to et up an NF in Harringay. However, in my opinion, its prominence in this discussion is now more reflective of your interests and mine than it is of its importance in the general scale of things.
I very much hope that the question of the boundaries would be in the hands of local people in the event of an NF being set up. It's one that's been done to death elsewhere on the site - there's even a tag for it.
The issue for me here is what the impact will be on our lives of having or not having a neighbourhood forum.
Edit: (Apols, this comment should have been added after this one).
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