Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Tree down in Finsbury Park Krankbrother event area
For years the Friends of Finsbury Park and Haringey Tree Protectors have been warning that allowing Krankbrother to use the wooded area in Finsbury Park (down the hill from the nursery) for an event venue for thousands of people will cause damage to the tree roots and possible loss of trees.
Well, in the last week a Horse Chestnut has fallen over in the event area, as can be seen in the attached photo.
Horse Chestnuts have a shallow root system and the compaction of the surrounding soil caused by thousands of event goers leads to damage to the roots and so weakens the tree.
How long before the Green controlled Haringey Council puts a stop to these events? It will be interesting to see how Councillor Bethany Anderson (ex co-chair of the Friends of FP) and Councillor Gio Iozzi (founder o Haringey Tree Protectors and Council Cabinet member) respond.
Tags for Forum Posts: finsbury park, krankbrother, tree damage
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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I live far enough away from the park for the incessant bass thrum generated by most of the concerts to be only a minor irritant, though it’s easy enough to empathise with those living right on top of the events. But, wanttoremainanon — leaving aside attacks on the council team apparently responsible for contracting Live Nation and others — the debate centres on the regular exclusion of people from enjoyment of an area designed to enable recreation and give access to nature, an open space in the midst of a dense urban area which was not intended as a music venue. The scale of the events means that their physical footprint is enormous, the get-in, set-up and get-out timing extends the exclusion periods well beyond the actual duration of the concerts themselves, and the damage caused to the park itself takes months to be repaired. Regularly excluding from a substantial area of parkland those who want to enjoy fresh air and green space is the antithesis of what a park was created for.
There may well be world-class artists performing and they’re doubtless enjoyed by many; yes, huge numbers of people leaving a venue may well cause anti-social incidents wherever it is, but the main question remains: in comparison with a purpose-built indoor venue, or a stadium set up to cope with 45,000 people, provide catering outlets, lavatories, first-aid and permanent seating, standing room and access, is Finsbury Park the appropriate place for major music festivals at all?
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Thanks for engaging Don.
All valid debating points you raise and i think that as with everything in life there is a up and downside. Now i would argue that the upside of having over 300000 people coming to our area for great things outweighs the fact that i may not be able to walk across the show field for a for maybe three weeks, and there maybe some disturbance as they all leave..... i get it i'm not blind to the downside.. however i take a bit more of a broader view that society needs large events ... its part of the fabric of populations where they can vent off..let off steam and forget their woes for a few hours. Hell the Romans had Colosseums and killed people for sport so the masses could be entertained. Society needs these pressure releases...
Clearly damage to the fabric of the park IS a risk. A couple of days of wet weather during the shows or indeed the build and break can indeed cause the field to turn to a mud bath. Its a risk the council clearly accepts and judging bu the amount of ground protection that was down when i went to kasabian they clearly do their best to make FR mitigate that risk as much as possible. I do remember however when i think it was one of the dance shows had a terrible weekend with weather and it was a mud bath the claims that the field would never recover were premature and a bit of seed and good weather soon had the grass back.
To your point about purpose built venues etc you make a point but the music market has clear segments..... indoor arenas, stadia, festivals and outdoors (parks etc) The market decides as they say and while there is a strong market for 45k people to watch a gig in the park the promoters and indeed the artists themselves are going to play them,. Wolf Alice for example are highly unlikely to play a stadium headline show but they will play lots of festivals. That's for lots of reasons not least that stadium audience sizes tend to be much bigger 50k plus and with no disrespect to them they are unlikely to sell that much!
What i can reassure you as someone who does work in the industry that all those things (first aid/toilets/accessibility platforms etc) are there in abundance. Indeed i was pleasantly surprised to see the end of the portaloo this year as FR had clearly found a new solution with proper flushing loos that were a game changer.... no queues either.
If a walk in the park is that vital to you then clissold is just down the road, 15 mins on the Pic Line you can be in Trent Park in Enfield.... Yes a bit annoying to have to go further but it is possible, Even when the FR Shows are in you can walk the north end of the park if you want.
so again i say as a local someone who has worked here for 20+ years i truly believe the shows are on balance a good thing and when i say to people when on my travels i live near Finsbury Park its nice to hear stories of when they ve seen their musical heroes there.....not a different narrative of it being a crime ridden cesspit.
have a great evening!
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I mean from an accessiblity perspective the EHRC had to take action against livenation due to how poorly disabled people were being treated at their events.
And its great they provided nice toilets for the festivals but the parks toilets are often shut due to an issue with tanks and the changing places specalist disabled toilet is locked off most of the time I pass by behind a metal gate making it unusable. So great that festival attendees get lovely flushing toilets but year round park users often have no facilities at all.
The feelings about the festival are stong becuase we see the day to day detiration of the park being eroded by heavy goods vehicles, tens of thousands of feet, the consequential environmental damage and then very litte of the money actaully put back into the park. Plus we can't use the amenity in a meaningful way for many weeks of the years.
I'ts a place where people socialise, excersise, manage their mental health, volunteer, garden, live and many other things and that is all hugely disrupted by the festivals and that disruption should at least paid back in kind by quantifiable improvments to the park and maintenence of existing spaces. What we get is the ring road getting resurfaced in only the Krankbrothers festival area, by the baseball pitch, which only benefits the festival. The rest of the road is crap and dangerous to cycle on in places and only gets worse with the hundreds of HGV's that the council invites into the park to pollute the air and rip up the road.
So we may all seem dramatic, but its sad seeing a valued pulbic resource commercialised and left to decay in many places (i.e. Mackenzie gardens) while multi national profit, extract value and dress it up as good for us.
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👏👏👏👏
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Well said. I would like to see smaller gigs and more local community events like we used to. Finsbury Park has got a really bad rap by many people because of the hangers on etc. lt would be nice to see it more accessible to everyone.
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Did anyone attend the Zoom meeting on 6 July, listed on their website, where Krankbrother were due to deal with queries and concerns about their events? If so, were assurances given about their ecological and sound level policies? Don’t suppose anyone took up the offer of Residents’ free tickets, though!
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Permalink Reply by PaulG
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As someone who has lived in Harringay for over twenty years, has raised a family here, has been visiting, and walking and cycling through this corner of the park for decades, and who visits it several times a week to birdwatch, let me start by saying discussion of the adverse effects (and the benefits) of Kasabian, Wireless et al is, to borrow another’s phrase, a red herring: those concerts are staged in the festival field on the south side of the park.
Krankbrother however asked for, and were given, the beautiful, quiet, grassy, tree-filled north-east corner; this zone is of a wholly different nature, with far richer habitat, than the south side of the site. Yet the council has repeatedly facilitated its violation, not only through its annual multi-week occupations by Krankbrother, but also the ludicrous and shameless Tough Mudder event which saw the most valuable habitat in the park literally trampled underfoot (an outrage which the council only announced they would not allow to be repeated after a massive social media and press campaign by me and others).
Undoubtedly, resident birds are seriously disturbed by habitat being divided and damaged by KB’s massive metal fences: while the breeding season has ended for most native species, Wood pigeons go on breeding into August; indeed, I publicised a few years ago the fact that the Krankbrother event was about to kick off notwithstanding there was a Wood pigeon on a nest within the event enclosure, raising the near-certainty that the bird would be seriously disturbed once the music began.
Furthermore, the reason fewer familiar bird species are seen at this time of year is not because they have gone on holiday but because, having reared their broods, are now undergoing an annual moult, hiding away in trees and bushes in the meantime. And while doing so, their homes are invaded by workmen, trucks, fencing, noise and commotion. Oh, and thousands of people dancing to loud music from early afternoon to late in the evening. And, no - they can’t just fly down to Clissold Park, because their flight feathers are in the process of being replaced. All this, Haringey (and Krankbrother) knows, or could at least find out. The problem is that they don’t care.
And it’s not just wildlife. People come from all over to use this precious corner of north London to stroll, sit, sunbathe, picnic, kick around a ball with their kids, practice Tai Chi, etc etc (twenty years ago, long before Krankbrother , I myself used to play ball here with our eldest). And now? Now, the grass has gone; trees are falling or have been felled (those standing are regularly cut back to an unprecedented extent); and the previously verdant glades here are now a brown, dusty, unkempt, debris-littered near-wasteland.
As for Haringey needing Krankbrother’s cash to pay for the upkeep of the park, I have a simple question: what upkeep? After all, the internal roads and paths are broken up, and dangerously pitted; the gate by Green Lanes has fallen from its hinges; the bench close to that entrance collapsed, was removed, and hasn’t been replaced; the only toilets in the park are regularly out of order; the yellow gates to the children’s playground are still broken, after - what - seven years..?
I could go on.
At the end of the day, the council may own the park; private companies may rent it. But the reality is that it belongs to the people, and that all of us need the council to understand that we all have a duty to preserve this invaluable environment, for those in our community now, and those to come.
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Thank you PaulG. I agree wholeheartedly. Thankyou 👏👏👏👏
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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Thanks PaulG, I agree with all you said.
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One of many aspects of Haringey's Major Events Policy has been the chronic dishonesty associated with it, both from the council and from the useful idiots who have attempted to defend the policy.
A small legal point that underlines your point about who the park belongs to:
The High Court held that the council does not own the park but rather, they hold it in trust for the public.
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nearly 300000 'members of the public' use it every summer too... to see music!
Well done the council!
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And vandalise the park in the process.
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