Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Traders fear parking charge rise from £2.80 to £6 will kill off shops
Traders in Harringay have hit out at parking charge hikes which they warn could spell the death of their high street by “driving away” potential customers. Shoppers will now have to shell out £6 to park for up to two hours on the stretch of Green Lanes next to the Harringay Ladder, and business-owners say the increase from £2.80 imposed by Haringey Council is already costing them dearly.
Clive Disney, 49, of Disney’s furniture shop, a family business which has been based in Grand Parade since 1913, told the Advertiser: “People are going to pull up to the meter, see the charge of £6 and drive off.
“This is going to have a really big impact, especially in the current trading situation. If times were good, it is something we would fight anyway but so many businesses are really struggling at the moment.
“Already we get so many people ringing up for a quote because they say they passed by and couldn’t find a parking meter or it was too expensive to stop.
“The trading estate is just up the road and it is free to park up there. We are supposed to compete on an even basis with those shops but it’s impossible.
“Once we have got the customers in the shop we can hopefully impress them with our service and the more personal experience of shopping at an independent, family-run shop like ours, but if we can’t get them in in the first place we don’t stand a chance.”
Shefik Mehmet, chairman of the Harringay Traders’ Association, called an emergency meeting of traders on Tuesday afternoon to address the issue.
He said: “I get calls every day from traders reporting back from their customers about parking problems. We are being classed the same as the Wood Green shopping centre area which is ridiculous. “This is going to make things very difficult for business-owners and we are going to see more shops closing.”
Councillor Nilgun Canver, cabinet member for neighbourhoods at the council, said that the rise in parking charges was the first since 2008.
“Careful consideration was given to the impact of the increased costs, and the changes were introduced in April following a consultation period, including a survey of visitors to the area,” she said.
“The popularity of Green Lanes as a shopping area means that demand for parking is very high. We hope that the new charges will encourage a turnover of use – discouraging drivers from taking spaces for too long and allowing more shoppers to visit the area, which will be of benefit to traders.”
Story from Haringey Advertiser
Tags for Forum Posts: high street parking, high streets
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
-
Now Paprika is one of my regular haunts. They don't make enough rye bread though. If I go in after 11am on Saturday, there is never any left. rye bread with cream cheese and smoked salmon - yummy.
-
Permalink Reply by Protheroe O'Shea on
-
There was an english grocery which now the other half of Gokuzu. I think it closed down due to lack of business.
-
Permalink Reply by Neville Collins on
-
Traders across the borough have been suffering ever since Haringey imposed the first CPZ in the mid-90s. Parking controls have had a devastating impact on shopping in Seven Sisters, despite the fact that local shops have been dying on their feet. There is a fear that the likes of Green Lanes and Grand Parade will end up like West Green Road, where the only types of shops that trade are off-licences, hairdressers, betting and pound shops.
The council needs to take this threat to our shopping areas seriously, and reverse these charges (or better still, scrap most of them altogether). Weekend parking controls should also be axed.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
Lots of good bus services to and from those places.
-
Permalink Reply by JeremyS on
-
The point is Neville that in recent years Green Lanes seems to have developed in the main to serve a Turkish and Kurdish community. Whilst Harringay obviously has a Turkish and Kurdish population, it's in no way large enough to sustain the number of shops on Green Lanes. So I'm left to conclude that most of the customers have to travel here. Many drive. If local shops were more diverse and served a wider range of local needs, surely fewer customers would need to travel from beyond the area.
Before I get seven shades of hell raining down on me, I've nothing against Turkish and Kurdish shops; I'm just not in favour of retail monocultures. So let's increase the diversity, please.
-
Permalink Reply by JulieB on
-
I agree with you Jeremy, I would like some diversity and as others have said deli, baker, butcher and cafe similar to the Crouch End variety.
Because the traffic is so bad I do the vast majority of my grocery shopping with Ocado, and I've saved a lot of money doing it this way - no more impulse purchases in Sainsburys or popping into Next, and no hassle from the children about requests for McDonalds.
The only place I use on Green Lanes is the post office twice a year when I ebay some children's clothes and Tescos very rarely when I've run out of milk. It's a shame living so close to shops that don't offer the types of things I buy and I order online or drive somewhere else.
-
Permalink Reply by Malcolm on
-
We have an amazing butcher on Green Lanes - Baldwins. It's on the corner of Mattison Road and it's fantastic. Great range of meats (yes, including organic/free range), game and butchers who actually know which end of an animal is which.
I agree on bakers - it's not that easy to find say a decent granary loaf. As for deli - except for cheese I think you can get most deli products around here. Especially olives.
-
Permalink Reply by Anette on
-
Jeremy, I could not agree more!!!!! Also ElleCarumba's post, very much agree. the shops on Green Lanes are very very samey.
-
-
And the ones in Crouch End aren't? Let's see, Crouch end has how many coffee/patisserie shops?
I'd suggest both are pretty samey, it's just that some here prefer the Crouch End type of sameness to the perceived strangeness of here.
-
Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
-
Like many local residents I am hugely disappointed with the council's decision to increase parking charges on Green Lanes to this level. There is no doubt this will cause damage to local traders as people look elsewhere to shop. When the decision was first agreed by the cabinet the Liberal Democrats "called" the decision in to be referred to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee (the council's watchdog committee) on which I also sit. There were many compelling arguments against the rise and the committee got the cabinet to agree to do an impact assessment before being referred back to the Labour administration for a decision. Not surprisingly the cabinet decided in their wisdom that increasing the charges was still the right thing to do despite massive opposition. So much for a council that professes to listen to its residents and helps them in tough times!
-
Permalink Reply by Angela on
-
I agree with others calling for a greater diversity of shops, and in particular food retailers. And tbh, some of the local shops are not exactly clean, tidy or tempting in what they have to offer.
I'm sure I remember 2 bakeries (Kossoff's??) which were very popular - one on Turnpike Lane itself and one near the tube station on WG High Road.
Apart from that, I don't drive and get by on a mixture of public transport and shank's pony (and increasingly, online shopping)
© 2026 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
