Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Threats to our neighbourhood heritage in Harringay
English Heritage are currently running a campaign to protect the 9,300 conservation areas in England.
Despite the fact we have our own rich neighbourhood heritage in the form of Grand Parade, the late Victorian and early Edwardian architecture of the Ladder and Gardens and the oldest park in London as well as the traditions surrounding the Harringay Stadium and Arena, inexplicably we are not a conservation area.
However, by the sounds of it, being a conservation area does not necessarily protect an area from neglect, damage and damaging change.
English Heritage revealed the Top 10 threats to our neighbourhood heritage today:
– plastic windows and doors (83% of conservation areas affected)
– poorly maintained roads and pavements (60%)
– street clutter (45%)
– loss of front garden walls, fences and hedges (43%)
– unsightly satellite dishes (38%)
– the effects of traffic calming or traffic management (36%)
– alterations to the fronts, roofs and chimneys of buildings (34%)
– unsympathetic extensions (31%)
– impact of advertisements (23%)
– neglected green spaces (18%).
All but the last one sound horribly familiar, don't they?
What seems depressing to me is that areas where local councils actually have the powers to protect are struggling, so what chances do areas that have not been designated have?
Still, two of the three recommendations seem to make sense for those that are responsible for guiding Harringay's future, namely the Green Lanes Strategy Group and the Neighbourhood management team
Firstly, all departments need to be responsible for conserving a neighbourhood. Some joined up thinking from the council on how Highways, Environmental, Housing, even Health and Education can work together. After all, people's mental and physical health is improved when the area they live in is pleasant, clean and cared for.
Secondly, they believe that local people are the best people to help get the processes going with residents groups helping councils by finding out what local people value, by doing street clutter audits, commenting on planning applications or helping to prepare local lists of historic buildings. Where there is strong community support, projects are much more successful.
The chief executive of EH, Simon Thurley expresses it thus:
Well-cared for [neighbourhoods] ... encourage good neighbourliness, give a boost to the local economy and will continue to be a source of national pride and joy for generations to come.”
Haringey conservation areas 'at risk'
Despite the fact we have our own rich neighbourhood heritage in the form of Grand Parade, the late Victorian and early Edwardian architecture of the Ladder and Gardens and the oldest park in London as well as the traditions surrounding the Harringay Stadium and Arena, inexplicably we are not a conservation area.
However, by the sounds of it, being a conservation area does not necessarily protect an area from neglect, damage and damaging change.
English Heritage revealed the Top 10 threats to our neighbourhood heritage today:
– plastic windows and doors (83% of conservation areas affected)
– poorly maintained roads and pavements (60%)
– street clutter (45%)
– loss of front garden walls, fences and hedges (43%)
– unsightly satellite dishes (38%)
– the effects of traffic calming or traffic management (36%)
– alterations to the fronts, roofs and chimneys of buildings (34%)
– unsympathetic extensions (31%)
– impact of advertisements (23%)
– neglected green spaces (18%).
All but the last one sound horribly familiar, don't they?
What seems depressing to me is that areas where local councils actually have the powers to protect are struggling, so what chances do areas that have not been designated have?
Still, two of the three recommendations seem to make sense for those that are responsible for guiding Harringay's future, namely the Green Lanes Strategy Group and the Neighbourhood management team
Firstly, all departments need to be responsible for conserving a neighbourhood. Some joined up thinking from the council on how Highways, Environmental, Housing, even Health and Education can work together. After all, people's mental and physical health is improved when the area they live in is pleasant, clean and cared for.
Secondly, they believe that local people are the best people to help get the processes going with residents groups helping councils by finding out what local people value, by doing street clutter audits, commenting on planning applications or helping to prepare local lists of historic buildings. Where there is strong community support, projects are much more successful.
The chief executive of EH, Simon Thurley expresses it thus:
Well-cared for [neighbourhoods] ... encourage good neighbourliness, give a boost to the local economy and will continue to be a source of national pride and joy for generations to come.”
Haringey conservation areas 'at risk'
Tags for Forum Posts: heritage, preservation
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Hatch on
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Sorry Matt, only just seen this... it's a good question. I am happy to contact the planning dept and ask them what I need to do as an agent if I want to erect a board on a grade 2 listed building... if nothing else it will be interesting!
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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They need planing permission for a listed building
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Can I suggest it would be useful to get the exact address and then search on Haringey's Online Planning page for any available information - either relating to this property in the past; or a current application.
Are you sure the sign is larger that legally allowed? If so I'm always in favour of 'going through the front door'.
In other words, email, phone, or simply go into Paul Simon Estate Agents and ask if the sign is the legally allowed size and, if not, request they use one which is. I find that a polite inquiry and request often works. If the person you speak to isn't helpful, then ask for the contact details of the directors.
They have two websites - one for residential and another for commercial properties. There may be information there about this particular property.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I can't see anything on the Haringey Planning site that would forbid the display of a board on a Listed building.
The applicable rules would be:
" Adverts relating to residential use or development are permitted to be 0.5 square metres, or if two joined up boards then an aggregate of 2.3 square metres is permitted. "
" The maximum projection from a building face is 1 metre "
" No part of the advertisement should be higher above the ground than 4.6 Metres, or 3.6 metres in an area of special control, "
The board on the Salisbury might infringe the height restriction.
I wonder why two joined up boards are allowed to have a surface area of nearly five times that of a single board ?
I hope PS doesn't see that :-( -
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I noticed that a Conservation Area Character Appraisal has just been published for Crouch End.
Wouldn't it be nice to have one for Harringay. Or is there such a thing already?
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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I think there is a step before that whereby Harringay has to be designated a conservation area.
A character appraisal is for existing conservation areas defined thus:
"Conservation Area Character Appraisals define the special qualities and architectural and historic interest which warranted the conservation area designation.
In particular, Character Appraisals determine the distinctive qualities of the conservation area.
They provide the following benefits:
1. used in conjunction with existing statutory planning policies, detailed guidance and site-specific development briefs, they assist ongoing management of conservation areas;
2. they will form the basis for programmes of enhancement;
and
3. they also provide a sound basis, defensible on appeal, for local plan policies and development control decisions."
It is down to the local authority to designate an area a Conservation Area (in London, English Heritage seem to have the power to do it as well). See the EH site for more CAs on and here for conservation area management.
As Steve suggests above, the purpose of a conservation area is not to preserve in aspic but to ensure management of an area that protects its unique character and where any new development is an enhancement (although not a pastiche) of the area.
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Permalink Reply by OneWomanAndHerDog on
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I realise that this post is not going to be popular but as someone who worked in the London conservation teams at English Heritage for eleven years I thought I'd add my two penneth.
It may simply be that too much of the original quality and character of Harringay has now be lost for the area to be seriously considered for conservation area status. A very high proportion of original features have be lost: windows, doors, slate roofs, shopfronts, paving, front pathways etc. And a great many unsympathetic substitutions and accretions have taken over: uPVC, concrete, plastic/internally illuminated signage, front garden parking to name but a few.
I believe that the Senior Conservation Officer at Haringey is Vernon Farmer - a man with aeons of experience in building conservation. He's the man to convince.
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Realistically, I'm not sure that Haringey would designate new conservation areas on the scale of the whole of Harringay when they are struggling to manage the ones they have.
However, some consciousness raising about the value of their local built environment (and more brutally convincing people that they are probably lowering the value of their homes by bizarre home improvements ) is surely a useful exercise. Damaging change can be arrested and sometimes reversed even in neglected areas
We could start with some smaller scale work on Grand Parade, say in the vicinity of the listed building, cleaning and restoring, persuading shop fronts to abandon the loudest signage etc.
However, it seems to be the case, that to secure funding for projects from the usual sources, you need some kind of conservation status, is that the case? There have been a number of small areas of Tottenham High rd that were roughly equivalent to stretches of Grand Parade that have benefited from injections of cash.
We do have neighbourhood mangement here and a coalition of residents groups, local politicians and traders called the Green Lanes Strategy group. Having, by and large, achieved their original aims around safety and crime, its time for them to take the next stage and draw up imaginative plans for the future of the area. Vernon Farmer should be invited to help them with that plan.
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