Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wanna be a popular council? Then invest in green spaces...
CABE reports findings that if people are satisfied with their local parks they tend to be more satisfied with the council in general.
However, there is great inequality between access and quality to green space with the most affluent 20 per cent of wards having five times the amount of parks or general green space (excluding gardens) per person than the most deprived 10 per cent of wards. You can find the headlines,the key findings and the full report on the CABE website
So, no surprises there...
Well, have a look for yourself at this Haringey
map_of_parks_and_open_spaces.doc
and see where most of the green space is.
and lets not forget where all those new homes will be going in the Haringey Unitary Development Plan
Can't help wondering where all that green space for the East of the Borough is going to come from to keep all those extra households satisfied.
However, there is great inequality between access and quality to green space with the most affluent 20 per cent of wards having five times the amount of parks or general green space (excluding gardens) per person than the most deprived 10 per cent of wards. You can find the headlines,the key findings and the full report on the CABE website
So, no surprises there...
Well, have a look for yourself at this Haringey
map_of_parks_and_open_spaces.doc
and see where most of the green space is.
and lets not forget where all those new homes will be going in the Haringey Unitary Development Plan
Can't help wondering where all that green space for the East of the Borough is going to come from to keep all those extra households satisfied.
Tags for Forum Posts: CABE, green spaces, parks
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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If this is one of Haringey's own maps it's interesting to see how many small green spaces are not shown. This includes many on housing estates; as well as small greens along roads etc.
Jane Jacobs was very keen on such 'pocket parks'. She described how people's eyes can go into these areas even when we can't physically enter.
From time to time I try to photograph these small areas. Though my collection is by no means comprehensive even in Tottenham Hale ward. I learned my lesson back in 2003 when I was a governor of Earlsmead Primary School and the Council sold a small piece of land nearby to a developer. The Planning Service explained that this was waste land. Despite the fact that their colleagues in Parks had been maintaining it!
So I'd urge everyone to photograph those small green spaces; put the photos online; and then post links to websites like HoL.
The Haringey in Bloom awards are a successful scheme encouraging residents and businesses to produce outstanding gardens, planters and even windowboxes. I'm wondering if there can't be a category for saving threatened green spaces, or creating brand new ones.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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It is a council map although a little out of date since it doesn't show Fairland Park, for example.
Another finding of the CABE report was not only that green space is rarer in poorer areas but what there was is often poorly maintained. I wonder if it were not for the tireless work of local Friends groups what some of these parks would look like. Haringey does well on its parks and green spaces, in general but as we have seen recently with Down Lane, for example, they sometimes take their eye off the ball to put it mildly. As well as Friends groups, it would also be useful to make it easy for people to take over planters and small patches of earth by buildings to cutivate.
It is also time to release some of the fenced off areas around stations etc. We are seeing some great work from Transition Finsbury Park and Stroud Green for example around 'releasing' ground for food production, planting trees and cultivating. The community garden in the Gardens is another great example of reclaimed public green space. I have no doubt there are lots more of these places around the east of the borough.
A useful exercise indeed would be to map these places, Alan, (perhaps we need a Flickr group of them) and to find out to whom they belong. Perhaps Sustainable Haringey are already doing it?
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