Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
TK Maxx moving in to Royal Mail Arena Premises
Following the success of their Wood Green Branch, TK Maxx are planning to open a new store in Harringay.
With the vacant space created in the Arena Retail by the departure of the Royal Mail, TK Maxx have reached agreement with Arena's owners, Coal Pension Property Ltd, to occupy the former Royal Mail space and to add a mezzanine floor to it. This will create a store of just under 24,000 square feet (2,200 Sq m), which is just under 15% of the total retail space at the Arena shopping Park.
"Big Labels, Small Prices" store TK Maxx opened in 1994 and is part of TJX Companies, which also owns Homesense and Marshalls. In October 2011 it had 261 stores across the UK and Ireland. The company claim that a typical store has 50,000 items in stock and receives about 10,000 new items a week.
In a recent mini poll by The Guardian newspaper, TK Maxx was the overwhelming favourite in in a face-off with bargain basement competitor Matalan. TK Maxx took 68% of the 1,169 votes compared with Matalan's 18%.
One survey respondent commented:
"Had some fantastic bargains in TK Maxx on homewares. Dartington crystal decanters and jugs typically down from £70-£80 to £10-£15. Great for gifts (especially if you "accidentally" leave the original maker's price on). Good deals on Tefal, Le Creuset etc."
I'm not sure TK Maxx would be my first choice as tenant for the premises, but with John Lewis unlikley to move in, I guess I'll have to welcome the opportunity of bagging some bargain basement clothes and Homeware
Good for the Area?
Under the banner LCSP, local resident Ian Sygrave has submitted an objection to the planning application because of the loss of the Royal Mail Sorting office which is part of the whole change.
For my part, I'm hoping that the planning committee will take a very careful look at the impact that a store of this size will have on traffic. Opening a TK Maxx isn't just adding 15% more retail space, it's adding 24,000 square feet of retail space that will likely be very well used.
Have the Council required a transport impact study to be done? Remember how they totally missed this when Sainsbury's expanded? Remember the chaos the ensued?
A travel plan submitted by the former Arena owners in 2007 prior to the opening of Fitness First estimated that retail space generates six times the traffic than that generated by leisure activities such as a gym.
The current planning application from the Arena landlord says:
The application premises are located in a sustainable location with good public transport links located in close proximity to the site. In addition there is a large resident catchment population thereby enabling local residents to either walk or cycle to the application premises.
Really? I wonder what proportion of their customers will live in walking distance and how many will cycle? Has anyone calculated the likely extra number of car trips it will generate on local roads?
So, a cautious welcome to TK Maxx, but I'd like some reassurance that this time round the traffic impact is being properly looked at and the Council aren't sleep walking their way in to this again.
Tags for Forum Posts: arena shopping park, t k maxx
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Hugh please don't be quick to welcome TK Maxx, cautiously or otherwise: the opportunity cost is high. I hope that circumstances are such that they are not able to come.
The premises are of course the sole parcels collection office for the N4 postcode. The alternative they envisage for us is significantly further away, somewhere west of Holloway Road on an industrial estate near Tufnell Park. It would be inconvenient for all, but none more so than the disabled or elderly.
On Saturday I helped gather signatures for a petition to Royal Mail to oppose this closure (and others in the Borough: there's one parcels collection office for each post code). I can assure you there is overwhelming public opposition to this change.
In other news today, we learn that the Royal Mail is to create 1,000 new jobs for its parcels division, where half its profits are made. Apparently, the parcels service is booming due to more purchases being made via the web. If this is the trend, then the RM should be trying to accommodate parcels customers better, not making life harder for them.
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Permalink Reply by Protheroe O'Shea on
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Yup. however much I love TK Maxx I would prefer to get my parcels from down the road rather than Tufnell Park
Clive where can we still sign the petition?
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Tunbridge Wells, here are links to petitions:
Regarding the Parcels Office for N4 in Green Lanes
Regarding the Parcels Office for N8 in Hornsey
Also, see comments of Cllr Schmitz, below.
It ought to be an organising principle of the Royal Mail that Parcels Offices are located within the post code to which they relate and desirably, as near as practical to the middle of the post code area. This, in order to be as convenient as possible for all, especially the elderly and disabled (or the just busy).
The alternative offered is in N19, in another Borough. Quite a trek away.
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Thanks Clive. Have signed.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I don't see the welcoming (cautious or otherwise) of TK Maxx as having anything to do with the Royal Mail parcel office, Clive. The Arena parcel office is almost certainly gone, petition or not. I don't welcome that, but by this stage it's just a fact of life. The lease under which the Royal Mail occupied it has expired, it's being let to TKM. Done, as I understand it, and dusted.
You know me, I'll campaign with them best of them where there's reason for hope. That's why I started the campaign against the KFH betting office. But I'm a realist. So my focus here is on seeking to ensure that the neighbourhood in which I live isn't badly impacted by traffic as a result of whatever is to come at the Arena.
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The lease under which the Royal Mail occupied it has expired, it's being let to TKM. Done, as I understand it, and dusted.
Hugh, I'm glad you have not taken a similar view about the assigning of the lease by KFH to Tipico to create a betting shop!
The closure threat by Royal Mail is supposed to take place in about February or March and if it goes ahead, it will affect the weekly lives of most who live in the N4 postcode - i.e. hundreds or even thousands of residents. It will have a bigger effect on more people than (yet) another betting shop.
I'm less opposed to rolling out the welcome mat for TK Maxx, than I'm opposed to the closure of the parcels office.
Sometimes big organisations change their minds in the face of strong public opposition.
It is possible, as you say, that someone (TK Maxx or whoever else) will come in to replace the community's convenient collection office, but until that happens, IMO, it should be resisted, don't surrender just yet! Remember the fat lady!
[For Tunbridge Wells: I'll come back to you about the petition.]
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Clive, we disagreed on the KFH case at the time. As I said from the off, I believed that it was a campaign which I believed could won. As it turned out, events showed that's likely to have been the case. I don't believe that anything can be done on retaining the sorting office at the Arena premises. So I won't be spending any time on it. The fat lady is on the number 29 on her way to a great night out in the West End.
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Hugh it has not turned out that the KFH case has been won: far from it. There's been a stay of execution - and little more than that from the KFH side, on whom the financial pressure remains.
Meanwhile, Royal Mail are threatening to switch our parcels collection point a long distance away from the residents of N4 and N8.
I understand that at a Harringay and St Ann's Area Assembly meeting, there was unanimous opposition to this change. I'm sorry you won't be spending any time on this issue but I hope you won't mind if others try to get the Royal Mail to change their mind.
My sense is that it's more urgent and more important to more residents, to get RM to think again on this matter of lasting, widespread impact - than to be concerned with TK Maxx.
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Permalink Reply by Geraldine B on
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I am very definitely behind Ian's efforts to protect Arena Retail AND the local residents. Haringey Council have been seen over and over again to take the money first and then do a planning assessment after. Well, we all know who and what will suffer - us and our environment i.e. this means us spending our hard earned money on stuff we don't really need, made by people we know do not get properly paid and adding to the local air-pollution because of more and slower traffic. I do not know what an alternative could be but that does not mean to just roll-over and let this happen, so, I say welcome to TK Maxx - NO THANK YOU!
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THE area that would be affected by a closure of the Royal Mail parcels collection office (near Sainsburys) is N4.
N4 is centred on Finsbury Park and represented by the grey dashed line below. It would affect thousands of us.
Click map for full size
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Thanks Anne, can't believe I missed that. Odd (now attached below).
Having had a quick look at it, (and without the benefit of any expertise in interpreting it), as I understand it, they're saying that they expect around 10 additional cars per hour during their peak shopping periods (about 30 per 3 hour 'peak period').
THeir figures seem significantly lower that those that Wildmoor predicted in 2007 for a retail space, on third the size of the proposed one:
I imagine they're justifying thee lower figures that by claiming that most of their customers will come from the customer base of existing retail park users:
An additional non-food retail unit at the retail park is unlikely to result in a significant change in the vehicle trip attraction of the retail park as a whole as a large proportion of trips to the new retail unit will be linked with exiting trips to the retail park, rather than being new to the retail park
They conclude:
The net change in traffic flows is not considered to be significant and would be unlikely to result in a material effect on the operation of the local road network.
Didn't Sainsbury's say something quite similar?Hmm, I must admit to being very sceptical, particularly given the poorly scrutinised claims of a similar nature made in the past. I'll see if I can get an expert eye cast over the plans.
- Attachments:
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483154.pdf, 2.9 MB
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I must apologise to TK Maxx because in my comment yesterday I said "... this means us spending our hard earned money on stuff we don't really need, made by people we know do not get properly paid and adding to the local air-pollution" and I do not actually know anything about their trade or employment policy. I got a bit carried away and am very sorry. But I do still stand by everything else I said.
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