Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
unclaimed land -- what to do about it?
Hi all,
Searching for ideas. As some people will know we have a stretch of unclaimed land running between harringay gardens and park road.
In the past its been a home to travelling people. and now there's a garage business there, a lot of drug dealing and of course fly-tipping.
My neighbours and I are searching for a way to stop the anti-social behaviour.
The land being unclaimed, there is a due legal process we could potentially follow to claim it.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Ideally (in a dream world) we could convert it to allotments and put up high fences each end to stop the anti-social traffic.
The council planning dept have will have another look into the matter of taking it over, but its likely to be too costly.
Surely somewhere in out great city some other group of neighbours have had a similar headache and done something about it?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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The Localism Act may give you influence on the future of the site. Get Googling!
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There is a very vague community right to challenge and stuff about communities taking control of buildings. No one has tried it yet - as far as I know - but you could be the groundbreaker!
The plain English version is a good place to start. If you want to know more I have a colleague at work who is a bit of a Localism twonk. Want me to find out more?
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First thing is to establish ownership. The Land Registry should be able to let you know that.
http://www.landregistryservices.com/?gclid=CL3z-7TCj7ACFcshtAodzGYaoQ
But they charge. Planning may be able to help with this at zero cost. If you are struggling let me know as I have another colleague with a Registry account. I would need the precise location.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I'm sure I've seen something on funding opportunities for this type of thing. I'll flick a share over to Rachel Fisher who may have some ideas.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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There's loads of folks being pushed out of Westminster etc. A nice row of rabbit hutches, perhaps.
Alternatively, invite the Travellers back, supply them with gardens, running water and room for a pony, then make this stretch of land a second gated community, on condition they do their own tarmacking. It's worked before.
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Permalink Reply by Rachel Fisher on
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Hi there,
Yup the Localism Act - which the new Community Rights agenda is useful. The best people to get advice from on this kind of thing are Locality - and in particular the Asset Transfer Unit.
The now sadly defunct CABE did a piece of work on community ownership of green spaces with the Asset Transfer unity and I am still in touch with the ATU team. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http://www...
If you wanted to go down the allotment route then there is the National Society for Allotments http://www.nsalg.org.uk/
Are you talking to the council about this already? If so, which team?
Happy to help if I can...
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Permalink Reply by Thierry on
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It would be good indeed to get this land sorted once for all and I am happy to be involved and help where I can.
However, some of us have the benefit of a right of way to access our garages so the fences your are suggesting would need to include at least one gate.
We can connect and discuss further off line?
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Permalink Reply by Alix on
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Hello - yes, well in another great city another group of people did have the same headache! Or a similar one, at any rate. In Glasgow, my sister's been involved in the campaign to save North Kelvin Meadow.
Their situation wasn't exactly the same - they knew that the council owned the land. They just didn't like that they hadn't looked after it for 25 years, and then wanted to sell it off for housing. While the proposals for development have been debated and discussed, the local community has gently colonised the space, building raised beds, growing veg, planting trees and holding picnics. It's become a lovely community asset.
The Meadow has a website here which is worth checking out ( http://northkelvinmeadow.com/about/) and I can put you in touch with my sister if you PM me. She also used to be a Harringay resident, so is very fond of this area - I'm sure she'd be happy to share from her experience.
Hope that's the inspiration you need!
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