Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Views: 799

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

There's been a huge number of objections to this and just to be clear, it's not just about the loss of some of the local live/work creative community (who are part of our wider community and should stay).

The developer is proposing a huge development in the middle of a small street. If it goes ahead it will overshadow and adversely affect everyone living around it and set a precedent for similar redevelopment of other sites locally. Basically, if this happens there could be 8 storey blocks popping up in your street too.

Please support your community by objecting to this.

It is still possible to object btw, the official date has passed but they are accepting objections right up to the committee date. The two planning references are HGY/2023/0570 and HGY/2022/4310. The application names are Omega Works A and Omega Works B, Hermitage Rd.

It's huge, overbearing, displacing a valued part of our community and overshadowing those who remain. Please tell the Haringey Planners that's not OK!

How big are the warehouses at the moment? I don't remember them being much higher than the surrounding properties so proposing eight storey blocks seems a big stretch.

They are about the same height as the houses, so yes it's a big stretch. All the new blocks in the neighbourhood (Compton Terrace, Adelphi Court, the old pub site) are in scale with the older buildings. This wouldn't be and it would set a precedent for other streets to have similar huge blocks.

If it has to be developed, a sensitive development working with what used to be a great looking building would be far more appropriate. Hornsey, Tottenham and Wood green Councils, followed by Haringey have spent most of the last century and a half knocking down buildings of merit, rather than repurposing them. Many of the neighbouring boroughs have done much better. 

It's not a Haringey development Hugh, they can't insist on private developers refurbishing the existing buildings but there are plenty of valid planning reasons for them to refuse this proposal and encourage something better.

Incidentally the developer proposes retaining two facades, with several storeys of mundane flats poking up above them. It looks like a gorilla trying to squeeze into a mini.

In his Reith Lectures the artist Grayson Perry described the rise and fall of this sort of set-up. Though I think he partly misjudged it.
Here's the link to the Reith Lecture in 2013 which is worth reading for his insights and for sheer fun.
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/reith-lecture3-londo...

"... the currency of bohemian-ness, lefty, arty-fartiness - that has a high currency, especially in the urban ecology. And if you think of artists, theyre like the shock troops of gentrification. We march in. Were the first people to go we like this old warehouse, yeah we need a cheap studio. You know so thats what happens - artists move into the cheap housing and the cheap spaces and they make them ... you know they do their work and theyre quite cool and a little bit of a buzz starts up.

And then
maybe a little café opens up and people start saying, Ooh, thats kind of interesting, that area where those artists hang out. I think Im going to go down there. (LAUGHTER) And people start noticing, you know, and maybe some  designers open up and a little boutique. You know and suddenly, before you know it, the dead hand of the developer is noticing it. And before you know it, the designers move in and thats it. - bang goes the area.
And Ive watched you know this fairy dust of cool, marketised bohemia drift down over various boroughs of London. I should think theres a couple of dozen of them Ive seen it happen to over the thirty years. And of course now, its happening to Derry. Be careful what you wish for.
I think developers should pay artists to live somewhere for ten years, free - pay them -
because we are these amazing ... (APPLAUSE/GRAYSON PERRY LAUGHS) ... because we have this very precious commodity. I mean Im just moving studios from Walthamstow in East London, and now Walthamstow is becoming Awesomestow"
.


What do I think Grayson Perry got slightly wrong? One thing was that if the "Shock troops" read Grayson Perry they'd have realised they needed to ask: "CUI Bono"?  Who were the developers; and what were their medium term plans? Also might the artists possibly avoid "the dead hand". They'd have noticed too that clever developers realise they can exploit a bit of the "the fairy dust of cool, marketised bohemia". Although they almost certainly want it tidied-up and prettied-up. Their super-rich overseas potential buyers may enjoy traces of upper-middle class arty "buzz". Will they feel the same about homeless people in doorways?

RSS

Advertising

© 2024   Created by Hugh.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service