Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey "the most deeply divided of the 32 boroughs"
This is the observation of the newly released London's Poverty profile created by one of London's largest charitable trusts, the City Parochial Foundation, and the independent thinktank, New Policy Institute.
Billing itself as "the first independent, comprehensive source of information about poverty and inequality in the capital" it aims to create a "detailed sense of the poverty landscape" in London.
Haringey's Page is here and there are lots of stats and indicators to get a sense of the problems in Haringey, most notably:
* Child poverty
* Income inequalities
* Infant deaths
* Attainment at age 16
We sit right between two highly contrasted areas; the edge of the 'rich bubble' that ends at Highgate and the beginning of the area where many problems associated with poverty begin, characterised as the 'Inner East and South' comprising:
Hackney, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark,Tower Hamlets
This site is helpful in showing how one size fits all policies simply cannot work, and that concepts such as Inner London and Outer London don't help us to grasp the problems of individual boroughs.
Even within our own borough, a one size fits plan for the core strategy currently being consulted on seems inappropriate given the deep divisions between east and west. Am I wrong in feeling that what suits Muswell Hill may not be the best solution for Bruce Grove?
And given that the borough is struggling to cope with the problems of poverty and inequality in the East, is it really a great strategy to concentrate all the planned 6,000+ new households there in the next 15 years?
Billing itself as "the first independent, comprehensive source of information about poverty and inequality in the capital" it aims to create a "detailed sense of the poverty landscape" in London.
Haringey's Page is here and there are lots of stats and indicators to get a sense of the problems in Haringey, most notably:
* Child poverty
* Income inequalities
* Infant deaths
* Attainment at age 16
We sit right between two highly contrasted areas; the edge of the 'rich bubble' that ends at Highgate and the beginning of the area where many problems associated with poverty begin, characterised as the 'Inner East and South' comprising:
Hackney, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark,Tower Hamlets
This site is helpful in showing how one size fits all policies simply cannot work, and that concepts such as Inner London and Outer London don't help us to grasp the problems of individual boroughs.
Even within our own borough, a one size fits plan for the core strategy currently being consulted on seems inappropriate given the deep divisions between east and west. Am I wrong in feeling that what suits Muswell Hill may not be the best solution for Bruce Grove?
And given that the borough is struggling to cope with the problems of poverty and inequality in the East, is it really a great strategy to concentrate all the planned 6,000+ new households there in the next 15 years?
Tags for Forum Posts: concrete factory, poverty
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I HAVE little doubt that this description "the most deeply divided of the 32 boroughs", is correct. But that reflects the contrivance of the drawing of the boundaries.
Haringey is a relatively recent creation and an artificial one in terms of the Borough boundaries. I understand that the original intention was deliberiatedly to add a slice of the wealthier Highgate to the poorer Tottenham, in a piece of large scale social engineering. Whether this has done any good is a moot point.
One of Haringey's long term problems is its sheer size. Regardless of the socio-economic make-up, the size makes for an unwieldly structure. Would it make senses to re-divide the Borough into smaller, more manageable units?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Well, I think it would be easier to make sure the poorer parts of the borough received more money if they were a separate financial entity however, you then get stigma problems which is one of the isues I suspect they were trying to sort out when they plugged Haringey together.
A startling statistic for me was the difference in life expectancy of men between Tottenham (72.2) and Muswell Hill (78.3).
One way to even this out is to put a great big f-off concrete factory in Crouch End. Wahoo!
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THE concrete factory doesn't even out social inequalities. The numbers employed are minimal. The factory is not in Crouch End, but it should never have been allowed.
The group who will be worst affected and who I really feel sorry for, is Chettle Court, the large council housing block that overlooks the factory.
Chettle Court, Uplands Road and most of the industrial zone that is Cranford Way are in Stroud Green ward, but the noise and the dust are as likely to affect Harringay to the east as Hornsey to the west and further to the west, Crouch End. Particularly as there is the large open area of the railway marshalling yards to the east of the batching plant.
Oppostion to the factory by responsible community leaders and representatives came from a wide area. In a divided Borough, this was one issue that united almost everyone, belatedly, even the council.
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I didn't imply that it would even out social inequalities, I was talking about life expectancy.
Agree with the rest of what you said but if I had to live on an estate in London, it would be that one.
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Permalink Reply by Anthony on
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To cheer the reduction (or actions which may reduce) of life expectancy of another group seems petty and small minded. I don't see why a longer life expectancy elsewhere should be seen as a bad thing and be brought down, rather that work should take place to increase the life expectancy of the areas with a shorter expectancy. Otherwise you should use the arguement that everyone globally shouldn't have clean water, medication etc because the lack of those causes low life expectancy in some parts of the world.
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I'm constantly struck on this website by how po-facedly and literally some folks respond to what is abviously irony. I think John was making a point - I don't really see him going out to campaign for a second concrete factory in Crouch End, Muswell Hill or Highgate. I myself have campaigned to have the Concrete Factory relocated inside Alexandra Palace. Thus several problematic birds killed with one stone. Anthony, that baby of yours will soon be meeting irony and satire in the junior school Literacy Hour. I hope you'll be up to supporting him/her in the homework department.
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Irony is always difficult to tell from text but I'll take your word for it. Given the previous postings made on other topics there must be a lot of irony going around!
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There was going to be a concrete factory somewhere, no matter what. So if they failed in Crouch End it would probably be put over at Northumberland Park (it had to be near a railway) thus increasing the east/west division.
Perhaps we could do something along the lines of Charlie Brooker's BNP argument the other day where he imagined a duplicate Britain built in the South Pacific just for BNP members...
So, imagine a world where we swap the people who live east of Green Lanes for the people who live west of it. Do you think the life expectancy figures would stay with the people or the geography?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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The launch of the report was on the BBC news on 19 May. If you missed it here's the link. The City Parochial Foundation (CPF) and the new Policy Institute have set up a website. This gives several other useful links to journalists and bloggers covering the launch - including: The Evening Standard; The Guardian; Guardian online; and Inside Housing.
As well as the report and summary, the website has the research and analysis for the report - all available for downloading. And these data will be regularly updated.
Thanks again to Liz for highlighting this.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Scanning the local press for coverage of this report, I can find nothing. Maybe the findings about infant mortality and child poverty aren't as newsworthy as the fact someone accidentally sent some mail to a bus shelter
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