Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
We assume the prosecutions are on their way then Haringey Council? Restaurant air pollution
The wind has meant another clean air week for the Ladder but with the choking pollution spreading across the Gardens instead.
Haringey Council needs to put a stop to pollution at the source. I'm looking forward to hearing the names of the restaurants who will be carrying out work quickly to make all of our lives much healthier. And those who aren't going to do anything...
The restaurants don't have to generate air pollution. We can have great food AND clean air - so we should be asking them why they won't invest a relatively small sum to do this.
Meanwhile, black smoke continues from the chimneys into the Gardens - especially worrying that this is happening during the morning school run when children will be exposed.
As residents ask yourself - how quickly would the council issue you with a fine or threat of prosecution? And are the restaurants being treated the same? We'd love to hear that they are!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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COUNCIL staff and the Party of the Ruling Group of the previous Administration enjoyed cosy relations with GL businesses.
My impression is there remains institutional reluctance to inititate prosecutions. Even naming and shaming may be too much for them. The council sometimes talks of using their "soft power" but this can elide into no power or just feebleness.
#Environment
#PublicHealth
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon
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Hi Clive
We lost the election in May. The Greens are now running the Council. They represent the wards along Green Lanes affected by the air pollution. Anna and I set out a plan for working with the businesses to work together to make improvements. I don't know if this has been followed through.
I do know that we would have pushed hard to make it happen, and would have had no compunction about holding the officers to account. That is why we insisted public health be involved as air pollution is a public health issue. It wasn't about favouring businesses. It was about being proactive in seeking a solution and improvement. That starts with working in good faith with all parties.
Its five months since the local elections so maybe Clive, its time to start holding the new administration to account.
Zena
Zena BrabazonLabour Councillor, Harringay ward 2016-2026
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Hi Zena,
Lack of action on charcoal
-burning in GL businessesI don't doubt that you and Anna set out a plan. However, if the change that is needed means businesses having to lay out cash (even if tax deductible), then working together (with them) is unlikely to bring about that change.
On the other hand, prosecutions or the credible threat thereof, would concentrate minds.
I believe you when you said you'd been pushing and trying to achieve progress on this issue for several years. Was it since 2019?
I do not believe the lack of progress on restraining charcoal burning smoke emissions is a lack of willingness on the part of Councillors to advance Public Health measures but rather, the embedded inertia and unresponsiveness among council employees, AKA "officers".
Holding officers to account sounds robust, but unless that accounting is a great deal more than expressing frustration, then it is likely to be water of a duck's back. The dozens of High Officers paid six figure salaries must already feel not only well-padded, but also insulated from the concerns of many ordinary Haringey residents and most of whom are paid between double to four times the annual Allowance of the elected Council Leader.
Arrogance insulation alienation
My distinct impression from talking with persons who have frequent contact with council employees—including several Green Councillors—is that this chronic problem continues with the new Administration.
Institutional paralysis or staff obstruction and intransigence does not exist in all departments, but it does transcend Party politics.
It's a real problem; is it bad manners to raise it publicly?
My view is there is too much at stake and in this case, public health should not wait; the council spends a great deal of money and not all to good effect with too many employees forget who they are working for. Are there also not too many Chiefs and not enough Indians? Is the ballooning senior management structure another hurdle to action?
Earlier this year (or late last) a whole new £1 million layer of five über-Directors was established. Three of these "Corporate" Directors each manage only three other directors.
Does there exist a more top-heavy local authority in London?
The Greens are not, without qualification, running the council, because there is currnently no overall control. This situation may suit the staff well, as the default position leaves even more power in the hands of the "officers".
IMO, unless the Greens get much more assertive with council staff—and improve on the overall record of local New Labour—then they risk not being be re-elected in May 2030 and a return of a Labour Party, reformed after the departure of Kier Starmer.
#Environment
#PublicHealth
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Permalink Reply by Dan77
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Zena,
We have been complaining about the toxic smoke for nearly ten years. For all I know, longer. What I do know is that the previous administration effectively soft-batted us away - until about six weeks before this year's elections. This, anyway, is my account of things, please feel free to dispute it.
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In fairness, most or all candidates pay heightened attention to local issues in the run-up to local elections. The difference this time, in this Ward with this issue, is The Alice B. Factor.
Alice is resident in the Rebel Borough. And a mother and reasonably, legitimately and directly concerned about her children's health.
Whereas lack of interest or motivation from "officers" is year-round. And chronic, over years.
Time to end the internal cosiness. Time for action.
For the unimpeachable cause of Public Health.
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Permalink Reply by Anna Abela
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Hi Dan,
I am happy to share my personal account - not necessarily to dispute your account, but rather to shed light on the sustained efforts that Zena and I made to resolve the issue.
I was one of the Labour councillor for Harringay ward from May 2022 to May 2026. If my memory serves me well, Harringay residents first approached me to discuss this issue around August / September 2025.
Before this, I had received a handful of isolated complaints about specific restaurants in the ward, many of which I was able to resolve by mobilising the Council's enforcement and licensing teams who were able to find these restaurants non-compliant with the law.
Through these conversations, particularly a conversation in September 2025 at one of the Harringay Ladder Street Parties, I learned that this pollution had become systemic on both the Ladder and the Gardens. I also learned this issue had been raised with Haringey Council around ten years ago. Unfortunately, these efforts long pre-dated my time as a councillor. I only became aware of them in September 2025 from this helpful conversation.
Therefore, in mid-Summer 2025 I asked the Council to conduct an unannounced inspection of the restaurants considered to be the main culprits on Green Lanes. This first inspection found the restaurants to be compliant with the law.
I pushed back against this finding as - in the meantime - Alice and a few other residents had contacted me with additional strong evidence of pollution emanating from various Green Lanes restaurants. I therefore asked for a second round of unannounced inspections to be conducted. Officers once again reported back that they had not observed any non-compliance in this second round of inspections. These two rounds of inspections happened in Autumn 2025.
As a result of these exchanges, and further research I conducted into UK air quality law, it became apparent that the current UK legislative framework is very weak - which likely explains why the two rounds of inspections had not found any non-compliance.
As a result, on 9 October 2025, Zena and I then moved to asking officers for a meeting to discuss an alternative approach to resolving this issue, including through a business engagement scheme.
This is where things hit a roadblock. I think it is fair to say that our request was not prioritised by the officers responsible. Zena and I spent six months advocating for this meeting to happen, sending chasers and escalations on a weekly basis. This was of course deeply disappointing - but unfortunately reflects a difficult reality that councillors must often contend with. While councillors can propose a meeting, they have precious few levers to pull to ensure officers prioritise their request over others - so it often takes months of persistent advocacy to move the dial on an important issue.
This meeting ultimately took place on 18 March 2026. In my view, the meeting was unlocked by Zena's inspired decision to involve Haringey Council's Director of Public Health, Dr Will Maimaris, who immediately grasped the public health impact that this situation is having on residents and approached this challenge with a great deal of enthusiasm.
In that meeting, Zena and I convinced all the officers involved to commit to a comprehensive plan to address this issue - and agree to a mechanism to track progress. I posted the outcome of that meeting on this website on 22 March, which I have quoted again below. Had Zena and I been re-elected, our plan was to hold officers to account in delivering this hard-fought plan through follow-up meetings with this group of officers every two months until the issue was resolved.
It is of course now the prerogative of the new Green Party administration to decide whether to take this plan forward or take a different approach.
I appreciate it may have seemed that action was only taken in March 2026. As I've tried to outline, that outcome was however the result of at least eight months of sustained advocacy and bureaucratic wrangling by myself and Zena, working in lockstep with a small group of residents who shared helpful intelligence and evidence with us.
Best regards,
Anna Abela
Former Labour councillor for Harringay ward (2022-2026)
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Dear residents,
In recent months, we have been contacted by a number of Harringay ward residents who are concerned about emissions from restaurants on Green Lanes, which often use wood and charcoal-based ovens.
We want to reassure you that we have been following up on this issue, and on March 18, we had a very positive and helpful meeting to discuss a way forward. The meeting was chaired by Cllr Ibrahim Ali, Haringey Council's new Cabinet Member for Climate Action & Environment, and attended by key officers; the Director of Public Health, the Head of Regulatory Services and senior officers from the Noise and Nuisance Team, Environmental Health and Trading Standards.
Officers told us that they have conducted recent inspections of the restaurants and have found them all to be compliant with the legal requirements on oven and air filtration maintenance. However, they also understand the wider issues related to emissions and appreciated that the high density of restaurants on Green Lanes could be contributing to a cumulative impact on air quality on Harringay Ladder roads. We all agreed that this demanded further investigation, and Cllr Ibrahim Ali was clear that we needed a multidisciplinary approach to tackling the issue and problem solving.
To do this we have agreed to a two-pronged approach to address the issue:
- We want to work with the businesses, which are a unique part of our Borough's cultural fabric. We have therefore agreed that the best approach is to launch a business engagement campaign in late spring or early summer 2026 to inform Green Lanes restaurants about the concerns residents have shared with us. The aim is to encourage them to introduce additional mitigation measures to reduce emissions, working with council officers including Public Health. Haringey Council's Director of Public Health will be involved in advising on these mitigation measures. We know that many local businesses want to make a positive contribution to their communities and will respond positively to this type of engagement.
- In parallel, the Council will develop an evidence base of the issues raised to help support compliance requirements. This evidence base will be built by scheduling site visits to Green Lanes during peak hours (18:00-20:00), seeking specialist legal advice, and exploring additional emissions measurement techniques.
To support this evidence gathering, residents should use the Council's Nuisance Reporting Portal to report specific incidents of high emissions. Complaints sent through other channels are not always received and logged by the Nuisance team, which hampers their ability to form a clear understanding of the time and extent of the issues.
We intend to track our progress by convening a meeting in this format every two months until the situation has improved. We would like to thank the residents who brought this matter to our attention and acknowledge the leadership of those Green Lanes businesses that already have sophisticated emissions-mitigation measures in place.
Best regards,
Cllr Anna Abela & Cllr Zena Brabazon
Labour councillors for Harringay ward
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