Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Tottenham green
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Shez Shez on
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Hi there - I'm a member of Friends Of Tottenham Green - it really is an exciting project and will be heavily orientated towards pedestrian - where there was 2 way traffic there will only be one way. There will eventually be a band stand area and areas for community interaction and weekly Farmers market, Lots of events and mini festivals will be held in the space and has been rebuilt to accommodate that. If you're interested we have regular meetings which you can attend - let me know - you're most welcome
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Permalink Reply by Jane Elliott on
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Yes, I'd been wondering what was happening. It seems to have been in a state of suspended animation for months. I'm delighted that there's going to be a weekly market - just the sort of thing that might help to create a stronger sense of community around the TG area.
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Permalink Reply by Sharon on
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Thanks all, sounds as if it will be great! I'm a bit concerned about the structural development, it's looking near finished and little seems to have changed on the green. See you all at the market :-)))
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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I learned at a planning meeting for Haringey People's Day that it won't be finished for a while. Nevertheless we are holding a Tree Walk there on Saturday June 7th @ 3pm - all welcome!
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I've made no secret of my deep scepticism about this plan; about the money being spent; and in particular, whose interests are being served.
But I will do my very best to keep an open mind when I see the completed work.
In the meantime, Chris, can I please suggest taking lots of current photos and posting them online. (Flickr is now free - unless you want it without ads. So is Ipernity another photo gallery site.)
It will be useful to have a good record of the project in different stages as it eventually emerges - compared to what was there before.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor until 22 May)
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Can you obtain detailed plans from the LBH property department Alan?
Be good if a local councillor could help residents understand the difference between what was presumably permitted and what actually happened.
There seems hardly any light shone on the procurement and delivery process - be good for officers to know that people are actively watching what they do as they do it. Were the Friends of Tottenham Green involved?
I'm not a good photographer, don't live in the area and will only be there a short while, busy with the walk so can't promise to take any snaps, sorry.
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I go past there regularly on the 259. I'll take some pics. I've watched it's progress and can only describe it as in the above post!
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Chris, from Thursday I'm not going to be a local councillor. Do please request the plans and share them here.
The Friends of Tottenham Green were indeed involved.
The procurement and delivery processes are about 'Who?' and 'How?'. For good or less good that part is over. The money has been committed and is now being spent.
As for the 'When?'. I have no idea quite why it all takes so long. My experience of the failed Kober Kouncil is that - to adapt a quotation from J.K. Galbraith - it does big things badly, and it does small things badly too. And let's not forget that delay often has advantages. Not least because our Dear Leader can talk about "being on a journey",
Anyway, we're now waiting for the 'What?' to materialise. I love this little Tottenham gem, and was disgusted at the failure to maintain it properly - or even to spot when things were going obviously wrong. So I really do hope the changes work well and that they haven't screwed-up.
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Alan, as I don't live in the ward and rarely visit, would you mind getting involved yourself, or maybe asking the Friends of Tottenham Green to do it? Better coming from a resident.
Given that all councils are dimly regarded by some, whatever the facts, I don't think Haringey Council can be as incompetent as you claim - Central Government do not stand idly by if they have grounds to intervene, particularly if it's a Labour Council and a right-wing government hell-bent on austerity.
Surely us paying the Chief Executive and his team of Directors such huge salaries to direct the 4,000-person workforce buys some protection from incompetence, doesn't it, or do you think all 4,000 council officers are incompetent too?
Or is it that elected councillors are forcing those 4,000 council officers to fail on a day-by-day basis? I think the truth is that the Cllrs have very little day-to-day effect on the huge set of complex operations that the Council's workforce perform. There are non-political professional standards applied to the civil service, so they can't get away with much, can they?
The ConDems have even gone so far as get right-wing controlled councils to rehouse people away from London. Haringey refused to do that , as far as I know, so they are able to resist some of the pressures. I bet many people outside of Haringey are now homeless because of the bedroom tax. That homelessness costs far more than it saves - isn't that a vicious irony?
So, if LBH was that bad, surely Central Government would use that fact to force them to do even more of it's bidding and cleanse the poor, wouldn't they? LBH has not moved a single person out, unlike other right-wing councils as far as I know. It's reasons like this that lead me to prefer a Labour-controlled run council with their many faults, rather than live around powerlessness exploited.
It must be particularly easy for the ConDems, having savagely cut for ideological reasons, to prove that a Labour-run council are incompetent, but there has been no such proof tendered, as far as I am aware. Funny how they make no mention in the crowing about the 'recovery' of how much spending will increase, with more huge cuts yet to come. Does the recovery mean more money for the poorest, or not?
I've seen tables and ratings that put Haringey low down some lists and higher on others, but nothing that can justify the LibDem slur that LBH is a 'failing Council', have you?
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Chris, you're desperate to believe that Labour-led Haringey really is not that bad.
Well, under Cllr George Meehan it really wasn't. But now? Drifting. Clueless. Visionless. Unless you think ambitious red-rosetted Tory policies constitute some sort of left-leaning vision.
I readily acknowledge there are some good and sometimes excellent staff working for the Council. But please let's agree with the basic truth that these lions are politically led by asses, donkeys and some of the most the stubborn empty-headed and closed-minded mules I've ever met.
I wholly agree with you in dismissing Haringey's LibDem leadership. Both for its incompetence and utter hypocrisy: the pretence - or perhaps self-delusion - that brutal cuts can be back-filled by closing Haringey People magazine and cutting the Communications budget. But that doesn't excuse many real and substantiated instances of Labour's waste.
Nationally and locally this is a bad time for politics. It's no coincidence that so many people seem to be voting tactically and negatively in these elections Friends and family members ask me who to vote for in their own area to keep x, y and z out of office. Rather than the way things ought to be: who to vote for with a real chance to put good people with solid programmes into office.
That includes people in other parts of England. And locally asking who to vote for to stop the three "Labour" candidates in St Ann's. (Simon Hester and two LibDems seems to be the general consensus.) Who stands a chance of kicking out Kober and Goldberg in Seven Sisters. (I wish I knew.) How to stop Labour in Northumberland Park. (Where only Paul Burnham and Ibrahim Avcil seem to want to uncover and tell the truth about the demolition and social cleansing plans.)
Chris, going back to Tottenham Green, if you scroll up you'll see a comment by Shez Shez who's a member of the Friends of Tottenham Green and seems to have the plans. Although rather than simply the physical layout, you might want to ask about the thinking behind and aims of the new layout. For instance, ideas about having a "Civic Space" and a "Cultural Quarter". Plus the pretence that this was a response to the Tottenham riot. When really it was just another opportunity to get substantial public funds to resuscitate failed old ideas and plans.
By the way I'm not just "claiming" that Haringey was incompetent in maintaining Tottenham Green (i.e. the open space not the whole ward). For concrete examples please read my comments under one of my photos on Flickr.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor till 22 May. Former Tottenham Labour Party Constituency Secretary; former branch secretary. Tottenham Resident 30 years+)
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>>desperate to believe that Labour-led Haringey really is not that bad.
Absolutely not!
I'm keen to better evaluate your experience, Alan, with your overt criticism of a party you openly support - a conundrum! You're the sort of person I want on the Council and I want to know how to get the best out of you - I guess everyone wants that, which is why people regret you dropping out.
I too am a critic - the Council disappoints me but I really don't think anyone I have met there is a bad person in any of the many ways you often state - they're simply doing their best.
The decline in politics is such a self-defeating shame - the worst outcome is surely when people turn away from the topic in numbers - the huge danger is the same as it's always been - that extremists prosper because they're the only ones who can be bothered.
One key aspect of the decline I think is the fundamentally bankrupt promise that all politicians have the gall to openly state - that they will sort out whatever problems the electorate perceive if only they win the vote.
I honestly don't think they can, and I think most of them know it - that is a false promise in anyone's book. Nationally, Thatcher didn't discover North Sea Oil, Major could not prevent the sleaze in his cabinet, Blair didn't see Iraq coming, Brown couldn't prevent the US crash - they pretend they could/can/will but they can't/didn't/won't.
Clinton once said that the US didn't need a President, it simply needed a manager. You can see the attraction of an Italy in financial crisis replacing it's politicians with 'Technocrats'. The devolution of mortgage-rate-setting power to the Bank of England seems popular, why not devolve Educational policy to the teachers? Get rid of a whole layer of politicians?
I think the problem is that we are suffering from a male-dominated society that still hasn't woken up to the fact that it's no longer about having a 'father figure' to decide what is in the public good (after carefully 'listening' to all the arguments and then forming a 'balanced' conclusion), if it ever was.
It's much more about, hey, we've got a chance to improve things, what can we do together and what separately? In other words politicians that represent, not lead.
I think you're a rep. You have your own views some of which (like mine) are idiosyncratic, but I think you are able to speak on behalf of others even if you disagree with them - that you could fairly facilitate action - that's what's needed, open collaboration.
So, accommodate my views and let's just imagine that the Council was as ordinarily quotidien as I think it is. Without rancour, what should have happened in Tottenham Green and what needs to change to empower a better steer in future?
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