Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Decides to Rename Black Boy Lane
Following my consideration on the origins of West Green's Black Boy name back in the summer, Haringey Council has decided to rename Black Boy Lane in West Green.
The Council have called the exercise a 'renaming consultation', but the online questionnaire offers only the ability to choose from a shortlist of two new names. So it appears that the decision to rename has already been taken with only the choice of name left to be decided.
They have issued the following press release.
The council has launched a renaming consultation with residents and businesses located on Black Boy Lane, as part of the wider Review on Monuments, Buildings, Place and Street Names in Haringey – which was launched on 12 June 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The council believes that the names of our monuments, buildings, places and streets must reflect the values and diversity that we are so proud of in the borough. One of the street names that has been identified as not being reflective of this is Black Boy Lane.
Meanings change over time, and the term “Black Boy” is now most commonly used as a derogatory name for African heritage men.
As part of the consultation, the council is asking residents to consider new alternative names that celebrate some of the borough’s most notable influencers, and truly reflect the borough’s rich heritage.
The two names that have been shortlisted for residents to consider are, ‘Jocelyn Barrow Lane’ and ‘La Rose Lane’. The consultation will launch today, Monday 28 September and will run for a period of 4 weeks to Monday 26 October 2020.
Letters will be arriving on Black Boy Lane residents' doorsteps this week, who can respond to the consultation using one of the following methods:
- Online: www.haringey.gov.uk/renaming-black-boy-lane.
- Email:
- bblconsultation@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 3797
- By post: Consultation Co-ordinator, The Communications Team, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ
If Haringey residents have concerns or queries about place, street or building names in the borough, please get in touch. Send your views to Leader@haringey.gov.uk.
Bios:Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020) was a Barbadian/Trinidadian British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first Black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.
John La Rose was a publisher, poet and essayist. He founded the Caribbean Artists’ Movement and publishing company New Beacon Books which has a bookshop in Stroud Green. In 1975, he co-founded the Black Parents Movement from the core of the parents involved in the George Padmore Supplementary School incident in which a young Black schoolboy was beaten up by the police outside his school in Haringey.
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Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Hugh - "This discussion has now become the most commented on discussion since this site began 14 years ago."
So I would hope. Aren't the underlying issues among the most fundamental we face?
Not that anyone would know this from the poverty of ambition shown by the focus on a few street names.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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No it hasn't corruption in internal Haringey Labour politics was more than twice this one.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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It's not a competition, John; just a finger in the air as to what gets people engaged.
But, for the record, you seem to have added three discussions about fraud in candidate selection in St Ann's ward. The comments to all three total up to 753.
If you're minded to use the cumulative counting methos however, ther are another two threads on the street renaming theme. One of those has a total of 71 comments, the other with 19. The comments on this thread currently stand at 646. The comparable cumulative total is 736.
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Sorry to tell you, John, but the total comments on this thread are now 695. That brings the cumulative total of comments on this topic to 785.
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Only because I split mine in two ;)
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We could definitely try to learn something from the Labour Party's vote-rigging scandal. For people who don't know, there were so-called ward "members" who attended a Party selection meeting and who were later proved to live elsewhere. In another ward, or even in a different constituency in London.
Can you imagine the outcry if something like that that happened now? Say - for a hypothetical example - that someone who has their main home in another city over 100 miles away and had an important cabinet post in Haringey?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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As the requirement is to live OR work in the local authority you are standing for it would require a change in the law. One which, by the way, I would support
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This is about the bloke who tried to sell Alexandra Palace to Firoka now living in Bristol. It is our fault that we have crap representation, because none of us are willing to do what it takes to get elected.
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Permalink Reply by Stav Aristides on
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I think a lot of the problems with our democracy can be traced back to the fact that politicians are not required to live and remain resident in the electorate they represent.
I'll mention three examples, Tristram Hunt, George Osborne and Nick Clegg. None of them represented electorates where they lived and I would argue knew sod all about the lives of the people in those electorates. The complaint that representatives live in London bubbles is justified.
Another example is David Lammy who moved out of his electorate so he didn't have to send his kids to school in Haringey.
This is equally true in local Government and any councillor moving out of their ward should have the decency to resign.
The fundamental issue is whether we want our elected representatives actually representing us or simply imposing policies developed centrally in head office upon us.
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When I was a councillor and read such things, the rules of the Labour Party stipulated that people should live - not simply work - in the borough where they wished to stand as a candidate for that borough council.
Also that when ward branches selected their candidates the Party members who actually lived in that ward were those who were entitled to turn up and vote in the meeting of branch members who voted for their ward's council candidates.
I think there's also a value to having local Council representation. These are our local shops, our neighbours, the streets and parks we use. Plus a linked ethical issue of telling people truthfully where you live - or at least where you have your main family home.
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Permalink Reply by Anna on
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Sure. I have sent you a connection request, then you can message me directly, in private, for starters.
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This is all very sad. Many generations of families have grown up on and around Black Boy Lane. Treasured memories of school years, lost loved ones, dear friends and happier times are entwined with the name. I sympathise with anyone who experiences racism but the road is named after the old pub which was identified by a picture of a chimney sweep. That is the Black Boy. It is not a slur. How could it be? The pub and the road name were here for at least a hundred years before the Carribean and African communities arrived. A plaque explaining this could easily be placed next to the road sign.
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