Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Tough Love stops Tough Mud in its tracks
Following the uproar about damage caused to Finsbury Park by the the Tough Mudder event, Mike Hakata, councillor for East Harringay (Hermitage and Gardens ward) and Haringey Council Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member for Climate Action, Environment & Transport has said that Tough Mudder and similar running events will no longer be held in Finsbury Park.
Reacting to locals, last week, the Council announced that a smillar event, Pretty Muddy, which raises funds for Cancer Research, due to take place in the park on 21st May, would be called off. race.
The Friends of Finsbury Park said it was “devastated” by the damage. Posting on Twitter, the group said that it would make a formal complaint to the council over the damage.
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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In a letter to the Guardian this week, Cllr Hakata justified holding events in the park as having helped to “plug budget gaps caused by austerity, and funded a wide range of improvements”. This doesn’t come well from a council that’s just spent £180,000 on re-naming a road rather than using the money to help relieve poverty, homelessness or residents’ energy costs.
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Hi Don; Just so you know, I talked to Peray Ahmed about the cost to the council re: Black Boy Lane. She said the figure was closer to £50,000. In saying that, I don't disagree with you. Any amount was too much. And do I believe Ahmed? I have seen in print £150.000 but not £50,000. With all the commotion over it, you'd think she would want to set the record straight. Oh, the council.
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50k alone is the admin officer post. The overall cost was quoted over 100k by the council.
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Thanks, Cowper. I took the higher figure from the council’s own estimate in the original meeting minutes (published online) when the re-naming was debated — in 2020, I think — so if the actual cost, to date, is lower, that’s all to the good. I would have checked with Peray Ahmet, but I got no reply to my e-mail to her after she complained on Twitter about the new signage being defaced. As I’m also still awaiting replies to my e-mails from Ann Cunningham and Mike Hakata (about Green Lanes mitigation for the LTNs), it seems Haringey’s default position is to ignore correspondence from residents, so congrats if you managed to get a response to your enquiry!
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We are one of the families who had signed up for the Pretty Muddy event before the awful devastation the Tough Mudder caused. Now we were rebooked first to Croydon and then to Welwyn Gn City. It's an event that we roped other families in that all fundraised (the kids' granddad has cancer), trained and geared up for so not great to now cancel. Yes, it was shite what happened, but could the event not have happened with the ground not being ripped up? Our kids would have just been happy with a normal obstacle course. It seems to me this is a completely political decision and Cllr Hakata fancies gathering some media points. Is it better that X amount of people and cars are now driving an hour away? Don't think so
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I imagine Cllr Hakata would suggest you walk, cycle, scoot (or, at the worst, take a train) to get to Welwyn for the rearranged event, not a car….
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Permalink Reply by tigha on
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Hi Tina
I'm sorry for your loss of event. It's rubbish, and all political and makes no sense the damage has been done and so another event so soon after is not going to make any difference
Unfortunately there are a few very loud powerful people around who make a lot of fuss, and try to stop as much fun happening for others in the park. Even though it also brings a lot of revenue and its easy to see the benefits around the park over the last 10-15years. Grass grows back very easily and people seem to forget that i am in finsbury park everyday running,and cycling and the most annoyance i find is the circus which is there for so many weeks, blocking my route. But clearly thats not political
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As someone whose main enjoyment of the park derives from A its beauty and B the opportunities it offers for birds to be observed as they feed in the park, pass through / over the park and make it thelr breeding ground, my reaction, on discovering (on the eve of the event) of the scale of the Tough Mudder operation and the exact running route that had been set out, was one of horror. Hence my tweet thread (https://twitter.com/harringaybirder/status/1646781488732467200?s=46...), which was subsequently promoted and amplified by the Friends of Finsbury Park who have for so long been campaigning to preserve the Park as a haven for nature, and an escape from the cramped and hectic world so many of us urban dwellers inhabit.
To be clear, though: while I have no interest in taking part in TM - and know no one who did - I have no objection (and can have no reasonable objection) to such an event being held in the park. My concerns were twofold: location, and timing.
Location, because the route (as shown in my tweets) went through the centre of the quietest, most attractive, and most bird-rich part of the park. Furthermore: virtually no part of the park was left unoccupied by stakes and orange tape.
Why was this allowed? The park belongs to local citizens - far too many of whom have no access to a garden, not paid subscribers to a private event.
And timing, because it was scheduled for two whole days at the height of the bird nesting season.
This was, further, unnecessary. If the event had to take place in April, it could have taken place in a less ecologically valuable venue: Chestnuts Park, for instance. Alternatively, it could have been confined to the “festival field” at the south end of the park. It could even have been made smaller. None of these possibilities appear to even have been considered by the council, or by TM.
It is true the event was routed through the same area previously. It is wrong to say this caused no concerns: I had concerns, and raised them with the council. It was only on this occasion however that my tweet “took off”, and the storm of adverse publicity for the event that followed (the issue was reported in the national press) finally led to the council announcing this TM event would be the last (albeit they claimed it was the unexpected level of damage to the ground which had led them to their decision).
But the defensive statement put out by the council makes abundantly clear that despite the nebulous references to biodiversity strategies they are really only capable of seeing the park as a venue for events - a vision that is clearly in conflict with its existence as a haven for nature where people also meet, relax, exercise and so on. Fair enough: it has been a venue for events for decades. But those of us passionately committed to the defence of nature and spaces where citizens may enjoy the peaceful beauty of the natural world will never consent to the occupation, staking out, trampling over of a park left in trust for all people to enjoy, not just those who have paid a handsome fee for the privilege.
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