Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Your Neighbourhood Name: whose right to choose?
The rebranding of our neighbourhood is about to become a live issue again with the Council asserting its claimed right to choose what we're called for the signage to be erected as part of the 2013 regeneration work.
The tussle over Harringay's name has been going on for over a hundred years. Throughout that time it seems to have featured a struggle between the Council, on the one hand, claiming a right to choose and the local people, on the other, demanding a right to self-determination.
Over a hundred years ago, and long before the creation of Haringey borough, Hornsey District Council decided to change the spelling of Harringay Neighbourhood to Haringey. Local people took exception at this imposition from above and resisted the change. The opinion was expressed by, amongst others, the Harringay Ratepayers Association who represented the people of one of three Harringay Wards. Theirs was in part of what is now St Ann's Ward. The legacy of the struggle can be seen today in the signage along the Harringay Passage.
Local people won the day then and our name was safe until the latter part of the last century when the Council administration decided they had a right to change Harringay's name. Haringey Councillor and cabinet member, Nilgun Canver explained a couple of years back:
Too much emphasis on Harringay confuses everyone with the borough Haringey and I’m afraid it refers to the Harringay ward and excludes the Gardens
It's odd to see the modern day Haringey Labour party, erstwhile representatives of the people, following in the footsteps of the Tory burghers of Hornsey Council. Moreover, I'm afraid this argument just doesn't wash with me. The inhabitants of countless other London boroughs seem to manage perfectly well with boroughs and towns that bear the same name. Islington, Hackney, Camden, Enfield and many others all survive. Perhaps the real issue is that a name was chosen that doesn't share the same name as the Council's chosen administrative capital as it is the case for all the other London boroughs I've mentioned. Their vanity perhaps requires that it should do so. But is this reason enough for us to be stripped of our historical name?
For many people, this whole issue may seem esoteric and rather irrelevant. However, I'm not alone in taking a rather different view. My belief is that for our neighbourhood to thrive and for people to identify with it, it needs to have a single name. Right now, as the traders magazine posted through your door just before Christmas bears witness, we have at least three names. How can our identity and distinctiveness be developed when this is the case.
I said just now that I wasn't alone in taking a stance on this. In New York, Democrat Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries thought the principle involved in the issue was so important that he introduced the Neighbourhoods Identity Act, requiring New York City to develop a community-oriented process of community agreement before neighbourhoods can be rebranded or boundaries redefined.
I'm with you Hakeem.
So then, which name? The current variants are:
- the original Harringay
- Harringay Green Lanes
- Green Lanes
Others have been suggested including Harringay Park and Harringay Village.
My choice is simple. I stick with Harringay. Why? Two reasons. Firstly, that's the name we've had for 130 years and I see no need to change it. Secondly, the other names don't work for me. Green Lanes is a road that runs from Newington Green to Enfield. If avoidance of confusion is the aim, this doesn't do it. Harringay Green Lanes is a three word name. Three word names don't stick. Most of them tend to get abbreviated to the first word of the name anyway. Kingston-upon-Thames for example is more commonly called Kingston. St Martins in the Fields is known as St Martins, and so on.
I suppose there is a third reason for me and that's just that I don't like people asserting rights over me that I don't believe they have. I don't believe that the Council or the Green Lanes Strategy Group have the right to change the name of the place I live in, no matter how much good work they may do. That just bridles. No, I'm with the thoroughly democratic instincts of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Even if I am a voice in the wilderness, I say if there's any need to tinker with the name of our neighbourhood, then let the community decide what it should be.
In 2013, as things stand the Council and the Green Lanes Strategy Group will assert their right to brand your neighbourhood as they see fit as part of the Harringay regeneration project. I was promised that the community would be given the right to choose and to influence the way that choice was made. In a few recent email exchanges I have detected the possibility of more than a little back-pedaling on this issue.
So, once I have written this post, I will email Councillor Canver, Chair of the Green Lanes Strategy Group to ask for her public commitment that the community be given the determining voice in what our neighbourhood is called.
Amendment
The following paragraphs were added as a comment to this thread by the original author on 5th Jan 2013. Since they cover key issues, and I have been told the comment is hard to find, I have copied them in below:
Having picked up on Alan's suggestion to refer to the legal situation for changing an area's name, a relatively quick spin through sources available has turned up some interesting information.
1. A neighbourhood name has no legal status.
2. The closest approximation for any legal status is contained in quasi-legal or "official" gazettes, such as the Royal Mail's PAF Gazette.
However, even though the information they contain is official rather than legal, it's fascinating to see what lengths the Royal Mail has to go to in order to change the name of a neighbourhood.
Their guidance details a three month consultation process in order to allow changing the name of a neighbourhood in its gazette. The process includes writing to every address affected as well as the MP and other official bodies.
3. Street names and numbers are governed by law, as Alan was told. The relevant legislation is the Public Health Acts Amendment Act of 1907. It says:
The local authority may, with the consent of two-thirds in number of the ratepayers, and persons who are liable to pay an amount in respect of council tax, in any street, alter the name of such street or any part of such street.
So, there is no law that governs the naming of neighbourhoods, but there are principles of justice aplenty that should guide the Council in how it behaves in a situation when it seeks to change an area's name.
As Planning Organisation, Planning Sanity puts it, a neighbourhood is:
" an area where inhabitants live and that it is their state of mind as to what constitutes their neighbourhood. A neighbourhood should not be seen to correspond to any legal or physical division, but more as a social concept, the evidence for which may be given by the people who live there."
If we take as a precedent the principles enshrined both in law and official practice and the opinion of urban experts, I can find no precedent or reference to any principle of justice which suggests that a name change can or should be imposed from above by a person, group of persons or body. At every turn I find evidence confirming my belief that the naming of a neighbourhood belongs to the people who inhabit it and should only be changed with painstaking consultation. It seems extraordinary then that any elected member or officer should even be considering taking it upon themselves or a small semi-official body to rename a neighbourhood however well meaning might be their intent.
In other areas where a change has been sought, consultations have been the norm. Staines is the most recent example.
It's difficult not to wonder, if a Council is prepared to cut corners on allowing local people self-determintaion in less weighty situations such as this, where else are such 'efficiencies' made at the cost of democratic justice?
I remain convinced that unless and until we have a proper process whereby local residents approve a change, the Council should in all documents refer to Harringay as Harringay.
Tags for Forum Posts: glsg, harringay name
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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But Alan thinks that this is not the work of the council... and as a councillor he should know.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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This is becoming a bit silly, John. As a ward councillor from Tottenham I am allowed to know very little. Have you forgotten this is Claire Kober's secret garden? Where the tallest plants are weeds and their names are marked "Confidential".
What I suggested is that there isn't some monolithic body called "The Council" which speaks and thinks in unison. And certainly not a hive-minded entity which - as you seem to think - has decided as a priority to "kill" the name "Harringay". Apparently as part of some tidying-up of names process.
My puzzlement about this whole issue is genuine. Are you saying it's all because TfL produces a document which refers to a "Green Lanes Corridor Scheme"? Is that the "evidence" of this supposed urge to stamp out the name Harringay?
Planners are always coming up with names for projects which range from sensible to laughable. Take for instance a signpost at the corner of Alexandra Road and High Road Wood Green which points to Cultural Quarter.
The older I get the more ignorant I realise I am. But I can still remember that Raymond Williams wrote that "Culture is Ordinary". However, it seems that Haringey's head honchos think "culture" refers to a former factory down a back street. And has nothing to do with what happens between people in their homes, or in the stores, offices, and along the pavements of Wood Green High Road. Nothing to do with the fashions in the shops; the religions vying for our attention; or Wood Green Library and the Big Green Bookshop. And yes, even the betting shops, fruit stalls, pubs, and occasional buskers and beggars in Lymington Avenue.
The same blinkered view is now being taken by planners and other people determined to have a new "Cultural Quarter" near Tottenham Green. Yes they will no doubt waste lots of our money on this daft project. And erect signs telling us where this "quarter" is. And we will do what the residents of Harringay will do - smile ruefully and get on with living in real streets in the real world.
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Permalink Reply by dont want to give name on
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Kober bashing is rather like fox hunting.Considered to be cruel but also rather fun (for some). Fox hunting does kill off elderly and unwell foxes freeing up the food available to young foxes to let them live a healthy life in the countryside so therefore arguably beneficial for young healthy foxes. And therefore a good thing.
It would be rather ironic if Harringay was renamed as "the warehouse district" as H suggests
My interest in this thread is that I am interested in the idea of an authority renaming an area.
I am not sure why Hugh has posted his photo of closed up shops in Green Lanes?Bad image.
OAE - I was referring to Hugh's use of the word whose not who's in title of this thread.John D disagrees and picks me up on my use of my mispelling of loose/lose.Perhaps he's right?
Hugh links to music journalish Mr Pete Paphides tweet,that he highlights above.Mr Paphdides writes about how he went to the posh shops in Crouch End to buy corriander.They had run out so he journeyed from his home in posh Mount View Rd N8 neighbourhood across the foot bridge to Green Lanes,he described Green Lanes as "lovely and open all hours". I think that corriander is what posh people use to flavour their food;a sort of posh people's ketchup/or HP sauce,but don't quote me on that.
Hugh's argument is that Harringay can't be rename "Green Lanes" / "Harringay Green Lanes" because the high street Green Lanes is several miles long and is not representative of all districts that make up the historic neighbourhood called "Harringay".
I think someone suggested that Haringey Council put up the banner across Green Lanes on train bridge that read "Welcome to Harringay Green Lanes" -as a way of saying to people we are going to rename your area "Green Lanes" or " Harringay Green Lanes". So they can say we have tested this out it works for us.
I'm not happy with a cabal changing a name of a district of London without consulting all.
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"I added a search column for Green Lanes on my social media management dashboard."
No idea what that means.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Haringey Council produced the leaflet, Alan (or, to keep you sweet, someone in Haringey Council produced the leaflet and I assume, with good reason, that it had high level approval).
And Alan, I've cited several times a senior elected council member saying in effect that as far as they're concerned the use of Harringay for the neighbourhood is dead. They will only allow it for the ward.
There's no imagined paranoia here, Alan. It's evidenced in all Council publications and has been stated as the Council's position by a senior elected member.
C'mon Baggy, get with the beat.
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"... a senior elected member saying in effect that as far as they're concerned the use of Harringay for the neighbourhood is dead. They will only allow it for the ward."
Who? When? In what context, please? Not I assume the Maximum life-president Dear Leader. No one else has been vested with this kind of supreme authority to rub out whole neighbourhoods and change placenames on a whim. Anyway she would appoint a Commission to do the job. Which would take months to come up with something entirely pointless and anodyne.
So Baloo just try and... relax. Yeah. Cool it.
(Tottenham Hale Harringay Furthest East ward councillor)
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Here. Haven't we been round this loop several times before.?
I's relaxed. I'm just falling apart in my backyard. It's them Council prickly pears wot keep pricking my raw paw on this issue.
And shouldn't that be (High Street Hale councillor)?
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Nah, we're all Spartacus.
But if Nilgun is really proposing to magick away all reference to Harringay does that mean the word Harringay in Harringay Green Lanes Station has to be pronounced as three silent syllables?
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I like this use of words by Mr Stanton: I think this is rather poetic and good riting below.. so.good riting (if not good spelling by meself)...
"The older I get the more ignorant I realise I am. But I can still remember that Raymond Williams wrote that "Culture is Ordinary". However, it seems that Haringey's head honchos think "culture" refers to a former factory down a back street. And has nothing to do with what happens between people in their homes, or in the stores, offices, and along the pavements of Wood Green High Road. Nothing to do with the fashions in the shops; the religions vying for our attention; or Wood Green Library and the Big Green Bookshop. And yes, even the betting shops, fruit stalls, pubs, and occasional buskers and beggars in Lymington Avenue.
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Oh Alan, you're a hoot.
No one said the Council wants to "magick away all reference to Harringay", merely its continued use as a standalone term to describe the neighbourhood of....er.....Harringay.
You're teasing me on this thread, aren't you, you naughty naughty man. You really do have some point to make don't you, but you're keeping us in suspense, eh?
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Tom Lehrer wrote a song called The Folk Song Army. The first verse:
"We are the Folk Song Army.
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares."My point? That enormous numbers of people - in Harringay, Haringey, London and practically everywhere else - care deeply about local history, including the names of places. They object to planners, estate agents, property developers and anyone else arbitrarily imposing new names. For example, make-believe "villages". Or borrowing the names of historical figures to add a patina of heritage. Or deciding that a loss-making arts centre is bestowed with the name Cultural Quarter while successful independent artists' studios nearby are ignored.
So I very much doubt that everyone on the Green Lanes Strategy Group and the local traders are "squares" who care nothing for that history. Or - as John McMullan put it in that gentle, low key way he sometimes writes - has "a deep desire to kill the name Harringay". In fact I think you'd find that every one of them cares, too. Including I would guess, for a good commercial reason, that heritage, tradition and old place names are excellent selling points.
So Hugh, ignore all this "senior councillor" crap. It just gives more power to decent but very ordinary people in a dysfunctional system. Insist on people involved talking to one another offline. And even better with "ground rules" which ban childish party point scoring and posturing. And where someone explains firmly to council officers that they are there to serve the public - not vice versa.
In other words, try some deliberative local democracy to solve a local issue. I'd be amazed if there weren't at least a dozen residents within walking distance who could offer useful mediation skills if needed.
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Hugh has been trying that for years Alan. Yawn. If you can't help us on this thread then I think you should stay out. You've not made a single positive contribution and that is what I am usually chased away from things for so...
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