Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Our track record in Harringay
Hi everyone,
With the local election soon upon us, I have been reflecting on the past four years of service as your local councillor.
Zena and I have made a dynamic team, working relentlessly together to deliver for Harringay ward – and becoming good friends in the process! We were delighted to be joined by Olly as a new candidate: he has brought new energy, commitment and local government experience to our team.
Looking back on the past four years, this is what we are proudest of delivering:
Making Harringay a great place to raise a family:
- We’ve secured £5 million for the upkeep of South Harringay Junior School and North Harringay Primary School, creating a positive learning environment that contributed to their respective ‘Outstanding’ and ‘Good’ Ofsted ratings.
- We’re securing funding for new playgrounds for our little ones: we've just won a £150,000 Government grant for a new playground in Ducketts Common and convinced the Parks team to apply for a grant to improve the playground in Fairland Park. We’ve also secured self-closing gates at Fairland Park to ensure children are protected from running out onto the roads.
- We’ve delivered new outdoor amenities for adolescents, including the new basketball courts in Ducketts Common, the new Skate Plaza in Finsbury Park, and chess tables in both parks.
- Both Zena and Anna served on the core team that delivered the Mayor of London’s Free School Meals policy across the Borough – ensuring no child went without a nutritious meal during the school day.
Fighting crime and antisocial behaviour:
- We’ve co-designed a Harringay Action Plan with residents that contains Key Performance Indicators to measure the Police and the Council’s progress on tackling antisocial behaviour.
- We collaborated with the Police to secure a dispersal order to stop intimidating behaviour on Falkland Road, arrest an individual who broke into multiple cars, and obtain closure orders on premises used by criminals for the cuckooing of vulnerable people.
- We’ve routinely opposed gambling shops’ applications to operate until the early hours of the morning on Green Lanes, by making representations before the Council’s Licensing Committee and appearing as witnesses before the Magistrates Court.
- We’ve successfully opposed planning applications by entertainment establishments with a track record of causing public nuisance.
Keeping Harringay clean:
- We’ve taken a tough stance against flytipping: we installed a horizontal black bin at a dumping hotspot on Cavendish Road, secured flytipping signage on Mattison Road, and took enforcement action against serial flytippers on Beresford Road and Raleigh Road.
- We asked for a late-night enforcement operation this year which resulted in 21 individuals each receiving a £1000 fine for flytipping on Green Lanes, Turnpike Lane and neighbouring areas.
- We’ve taken action on dog fouling in the Harringay Passage, by securing warning signage, requesting jet washes of the Passage, and have escalated a request for a CCTV camera on the Passage to the Council’s Partnership & Problem Solving Group.
- We’ve established a working group with Haringey Council's Director of Public Health to deliver a plan to address emissions from Green Lanes restaurants’ wood and charcoal-based ovens.
- We successfully advocated for a stronger street cleansing contract from 2027 that is expected to lead to more frequent sweeping of the Harringay Ladder's residential roads.
Delivering safer, healthier streets:
- We’ve resurfaced 10 pavements and 7 roads in Harringay and delivered a sustainable drainage system on Hampden Road to minimise flooding during heavy rainfall.
- We’ve installed 20 new bike hangars in Harringay to increase bike storage spaces.
- We’ve made our roads safer, including by introducing slow road marking and anti-skid surfacing on Endymion Road, improving car visibility at the junction of Allison Road and Wightman Road, and securing funding for a scheme to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety on Green Lanes.
- We successfully opposed the proposed abolition of daily parking permits.
Serving Harringay ward has been a responsibility we have never taken lightly – and we hope residents feel we have earned the trust you placed in us in May 2022. We have taken pride in being accessible and visible councillors, by attending community meetings and swiftly resolving (often complex) resident case work.
There is still a lot more we want to achieve – not least, our plans to deliver segregated cycle lanes on our busiest roads, install living walls to purify the air in the two Harringay schools, and clamp down on rogue landlords.
We would be honoured to be elected to represent you as Harringay's Labour & Co-operative ward councillors on Thursday 7th May.
Best regards,
Cllr Anna Abela – Anna.Abela@haringey.gov.uk
On behalf of:
Olly Bennathan – OllyBennathan@haringeylabour.org.uk
Cllr Zena Brabazon – Zena.Brabazon@haringey.gov.uk
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nicky on
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As a local resident it's very important for me to have local, active and engaged councillors and much thanks to Anna and Zena for ticking that box big time. They've always been very responsive to concerns raised by us and our neighbours about some of the businesses in Green Lanes, and through regular attendance at the LCSP they've shown how committed they are to improving community safety, building links with council officers on issues from planning and rubbish collection to anti-social behaviour.
In terms of the bigger picture, there are always areas where a council can do better, but Anna's summary of achievements is a timely reminder of the range of responsiblities and some real wins - who would have thought we would get an outstanding ofsted report after the tragedies of Baby P and Victoria Climbié?
Thank you both for your dedication and hard work, and it's good to welcome new energy from Olly. The best of luck on 7 May.
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Permalink Reply by Angela on
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Good, hard working, councillors are more valuable than people realise. Our Labour councillors, spend long hours working for us. Much of what they do is invisible - doggedly pursuing council officials to get things done for residents facing difficulties; attending licensing meetings to object to extended hours for gambling outlets; making sure that fly tippers are caught & fined. They rarely get the thanks they deserve. So thank you Zena & Anna.
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The area around Green Lanes is particularly tricky. On the Ladder we are squeezed between crisscrossing railway lines and dissected by the New River. The only cross route is the Harringay passage which is too narrow for bikes And Green Lanes is narrow for the volume of traffic it already carries. We are lucky that our stretch is filled with life due to the restaurants & shops but the combination of rigid transport infrastructure, bustling high street and the need for through traffic down a major road, means that it is harder in this area to retrofit bike lanes. It won’t matter who is in charge. The geography won’t change. If it was easy it would have been done.
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Permalink Reply by Barrie Birch on
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Have you considered what the views of the large number of local indepenedent traders would be about customers not being able to park? Green Lanes businesses mostly do not have service roads behind the business so deliverers have to park on Green Lanes
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i cheated and asked my friend ChatGPT. It told me that:
- The link between parking and retail is weak and inconsistent
- Pedestrianisation often improves footfall and experience
- But success depends heavily on context and wider economics
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Permalink Reply by Geoff on
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Anna, just to endorse the positive comments from others in the Harringay Ward. You and Zena have have done incredible work for the residents of the ward in addressing both very serious and irritatingly niggling issues as they occur. Your resourcefulness, persistence in pursuing positive outcomes and your expertise in navigating challenging situations is second to none. At this level - Councillor level - it is always the best person for the job and you and Zena have undoubtedly proven that you have the track record, knowledge, engagement and expertise to continue to benefit the community in this ward. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Markham on
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I have just read the Greens' leaflet about 'hard working councillors' - They are right such people are needed, and in the Labour trio you have Anna anxd Zena who have proven to be and Ollie Bennathan who has been an impressively energetic campaigner/ worker in waiting. To imply otherwise in a widely-distributed election leaflet is disingenuous, to say the least.
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I would also like to endorse the positive comments from other residents. Our current councillors Anna Abela and Zena Brabazon have worked tirelessly for us residents. I have regularly attended local community meetings for the past 25 years and can honestly say they are the hardest working councillors we have ever had. They attend community meetings and report back on everything the community has asked of them. Unlike some previous councillors, they really do represent us, the community, even if this sometimes does not align with their own views. They have no agenda apart from representing us and what is best for Harringay. As a resident for over 40 years, knowing our area and its history, listening to other candidates’ undeliverable local promises, I have great concerns for the next 4 years.
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What is your policy regarding future implementation of traffic calming measures on the Ladder roads to match the LTNs on the other side of Green Lanes?
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There's a new transport "cabinet" member to replace Mike Hakata.
If they get elected again, hopefully he has some plans.
I know we in Harringay were waiting to hear about some details about TFL funding and what that would entail for the ward. The Ladder traffic consultancy work seems to have been parked, again.
It seems an intractable problem that the powers that be are unable to deal with. I'm told FL are the most bureaucratic organisation in the stakeholder group and take forever to make their minds up.
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As a cyclist of 30+ years I have never imagined a cycle lane down the grand parade part of green lanes. It's a high street and will always need cars, buses, people , vans etc. The goal should be reducing volume and speed of traffic and making as pleasant as possible for pedestrians . Hackney has lots of cycle lanes and LTN,s but I don't think there is a cycle lane down kingsland road. Same in Islington, Caledonian road or Essex road don't have cycle lanes.
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