Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wards Corner alternative plan launched - planning meeting looms
The Wards Corner Community Coalition has now lodged its own plan with the Council’s Planning Department.
The wordpress website is now ‘live’ and all documents relating to the community plan can be viewed here. See drawings of how the buildings can come back to life, and details of proposed management structures and funding.
Meanwhile more nifty moves from the council friends of Grainger the developer shows that they are more determined than ever to push through the wholesale demolition of the area. They have added an extra Labour Party member to the planning committee, so now there will be six Labour to four Liberal Democrat. Last time, with nine on the committee, it decided by five votes to four, to reject the Grainger plan.
The meeting on the new railroaded-through Grainger plan is on Monday 25th June, 7pm, at the Civic Centre in Wood Green. It's not too late to add your comments about the plan, they will be circulated to the members of the committee. See here, click Comment on Application. Reading through others' comments will give you some idea of the issues involved.
Tags for Forum Posts: grainger, planning, seven sisters, ward's corner
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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On Monday, the Planning Committee will go through the motions.
At the end of the charade, the outcome is highly likely to be the result on which the council has been determined all along.
But even though the council will grant permission to the scheme in which they've been deeply involved for so long, I suspect it may not be the end of the story.
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Permalink Reply by Neville Collins on
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Clive, you're right on this one... and I don't mean just the immediate criticism that Haringey will face once they force through the application. Legal action against them will certainly follow. The council, the WCC and Grainger fighting each other in court, which would end up costing taxpayers millions of pounds. Solicitors must be licking their lips at the prospect of a huge pay day....
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I like the Turkish proverb about taking a wrong turning:
No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Very wise and gnomic, Clive. The problem is that, in your view, it's always other people who have gone down the wrong road.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Fowler on
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There's a difference between "hundreds" and "200". I find it really hard to believe that the current Wards Corner group of businesses actually employs 200 people. And those small businesses would re-locate to another part of the High Road, so I don't see all the businesses dying, or the jobs in them being lost. And I don't think you have any justification for claiming that jobs in any new stores would be "McJobs". In any case, this term is supposed to refer to jobs in McDonalds being dead-end. I suggest you take a look at the training and opportunities that the firm actually provides for entry level staff. There are many things to criticise and dislike about the firm, but you don't need to add an unjustified one. Neither should you assume that new businesses moving in will provide only low-wage or dead-end jobs. The fear seems to be they will be national chains. There's a justification for the fear that this reduces the diversity of the area. However, are we to take it from your comment on "Mcjobs" that you think all these national chains are only providing low wage or dead-end jobs? And what proof is there that the current businesses are actually providing any better pay or prospects for the people employed?
I thank you for the information about housing on the site, which I was not aware of. That is, indeed, a cause for concern. I was under the impression that though there was no social housing proposed on the Wards Corner site, that Apex House would be demolished - no bad thing considering how ugly it is - and social housing built on that site.
I can see the basis for your concern about Grainger's ability to carry through the development, and the risk of a "wasteland". However, the Wards Corner area has been blighted for years by the war of attrition fought between the Wards Corner CCC on one side and Grainger on the other, with the Council vacillating in between. How much longer do you expect this to go on?
I did _not_ criticise "clyde" and his posting on the basis of his spelling and grammar, I did so on the basis that it was an inarticulate, incoherent rant. And you are the one who is really sad if you don't think that correct spelling and grammar are important if you want to put forward an argument, whether orally or in writing. I note that you manage to write coherently and correctly.
And I am not sure what your group has actually achieved, except to impose planning blight on Wards Corner, and the surrounding area, for years. Talking about the market and the small businesses and the jobs is just political cover for a middle class group which is opposed to change and has some kind of sentimental attachment to the old department store building, which is in my view of little architectural merit, and has, as a structure, outlived its usefulness.
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Surely, Christopher, there's nothing in itself wrong with a sentimental attachment to places and to old buildings. And it seems to me that architects have become increasingly inventive about reusing old buildings and finding new uses for odd difficult spaces. The redevelopment of Castlefield in Manchester provides some interesting examples. Or how about railway arches in various places?
On the other hand, I also accept that restoration isn't always the best option and neither is low-rise. We do need to house London's growing population - and not just in overpriced hutches provided by slumlords.
I agree if you mean that debate about Wards Corner and many other sites in Tottenham tends to be clouded by exaggerated claims and counterclaims. Sometimes this is about the historical importance of this or that building. Or about how many jobs will be lost or created; or fantasies about "kick-starting" regeneration of part or the whole of the area. Unfortunately the Council's claims and "pledges" about regenerating Tottenham are equally exaggerated.
It doesn't help of course, that so many people have lost confidence in our planning service. It's a while since I sat (as a substitute) on the Planning Committee. But what dismayed me was that on a major development, the report had typos and other mistakes on page after page. A last minute document had to be tabled on the section 106 (planning gain) agreement because that hadn't been sorted out either.
What concerns me most of all is that while a few people are shouting - and sometimes screaming abuse - at one another over Wards Corner, another more worrying agenda is underway. As Haringey's planners with Spurs, Newlon, Lee Valley Estates and other developers quietly move ahead with a fake "Cultural Quarter" at Tottenham Green, and the goal of shoving-up more tower blocks at Tottenham Hale Station, on Hale Wharf, and in North Tottenham near Spurs. (And I mean buildings nearer twenty-six storeys than six.)
(Labour Councillor Tottenham Hale ward)
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Alan - Agree with you one hundred percent about the "overpriced hutches", not only as a result of new building, but also conversion of existing ones. These are the result of the abolition of the Parker-Morris standard (I think I have that right) which guaranteed minimum space etc. As a result, we have the smallest homes in Europe. And the new ones are pitifully small and lacking in storage space.
I also agree about the hysterical level of the argument over Wards Corner. On the one hand, fat cat money-grubbing developers, on the other worthy, conservative (in the true sense of that word) yuppies; both screaming at each other, while in the middle is a local council so deprived of funds that it is unable to fund development itself. Also, unable to fund properly a planning department that can even police the current housing stock, let alone properly evaluate new proposals.
I'm certainly not surprised to find that documents presented to councillors are riddled with typos and errors (and probably written in jargon-laden, grammatically poor English). This is a clear sign of the failure of the British education system to produce a literate, or indeed numerate, population. Again, the fault of successive governments since the eighties. No wonder employers prefer to employ people from the rest of the EU.
On the Spurs development, agree with you again. It's horrible, it takes the whole area away from the local community, and it is being driven though because of Spurs blackmailing the council with threats of decamping to another part of London. Personally, my response would have been to f*** off, take your poxy team with you, and then we can re-develop the whole site for something for the people of Tottenham, not for the benefit of football fans and rich club owners. As for Tottenham Hale and its high-rises, it is actually a very appropriate place for them. Plans for zones of high rise development focus on them being adjacent to major transport hubs, of which Tottenham Hale is one. Of course, the standard of the flats themselves may be dubious, and the services necessary for the additional population may not be there, but that is all a wider issue. There is, in fact, nothing inherently wrong with tower blocks, if they are of a good quality, and properly maintained. Until such a time as we have a national government prepared to stimulate economic development in other parts of the UK, this is the only answer for London and the South-East, unless we are going to pave over all the countryside that remains.
Whatever we end up with at Wards Corner will be crap, but at least it will end the planning blight, and allow us to focus on the wider area, including the areas that you mention. Stand near the Seven Sister/High Road junction and point out to me _anything_ that you can see that is any good. Every building, new or old, is rubbish, and most of them are hideous, ugly and anti-human.
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To me, Christopher, Tottenham Hale station doesn't appear to be "a major transport hub". Paddington and Kings Cross are major transport hubs. (And now perhaps Stratford.) Tottenham Hale is an interchange station between the undergound and overground, served by bus routes.
Nor is it an "urban centre" as claimed in the Masterplan. The former GLS site - now a pretend "village" - was a brownfield site next to the River Lee, the regional park, with some beautiful views of reservoirs.
In my view, the phrases major transport hub and urban centre are "cover" - your useful word - for developers and planners who wanted a cluster of out-of-scale, out-of-place blocks to make more money. And of course to pay back massive bank loans.
I've no doubt whatever that Hale Village will create a number of jobs. It may even kickstart the regeneration of the entire Euro-Asian landmass. With perhaps, important lunches and awards at black tie dinners. Yet I suspect it will make little difference to the underlying problems of Tottenham.
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in the middle is a local council so deprived of funds that it is unable to fund development itself.
How can the council be said to be "in the middle"?
The council has manifestly sided with the developer and their risky, misguided scheme. What better evidence can there be for that, than the donation of tax money from the poor council to the rich developer, of nearly £2,000,000?
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Alan there's much in this post I find myself in agreement with.
I believe you're right that many have lost confidence in the planning service.
Tottenham (and all of the Borough) deserve a first class planning service chock full of expert, competent and imaginative town planners.
Sadly, I think we are some way from this. Have any town planners ever been sacked to make way for better ones? Does the council even want to have adequate employees in this important department?
A full listing of their waste, mistakes and poor judgements is too long to recount here, but most of us can thing of a few and they would probably include the Tottenham Gyratory and the design brief for Wards Corner.
Tottenham is part of Europe's largest city yet seems to have a third-world planning service. The public deserves better.
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Permalink Reply by sophia c on
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Research observing how people socialise and occupy city spaces show that there starts to be a disconnect between people and the life on the streets for buildings about 5-storey high upward. The research also shows that this is linked to our human senses (how far can one see, hear etc.). High-rises therefore become problematic if what you are trying to achieve is a lively street life. And as people are attracted to places that are full of other people, the high-rise environment is not generally ideal (unless it has a good social life and networks on its own, or provided with adequate services as usually the case in City centres for historical reasons, but much less so in the periphery). See the work of Jan Gehl 'Cities for people' and earlier publications.
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Many thanks Sophia, for introducing me to Jan Gehl. Last night I stayed up far too late watching a long video of a talk he gave in Melbourne (I think in 2010) about the book Cities for People. Fascinating stuff.
http://fora.tv/2011/05/02/Jan_Gehl_Cities_for_People
Obviously he doesn't cover everything in this or his other books. And while what he said made me even more worried about the towers in Hale Village and envisaged in North Tottenham, I really couldn't see the immediate relevance to the Wards Corner application.
About the research you mention, one point Jan Gehl makes is the comparative lack of studies on how people use city spaces. He remarks on the fact that Jane Jacobs' ideas - which he approves of course - aren't followed far more often. Especially by starchitects who, he says, fly over and "drop" towers on cities.
I'd be interested in the projects which you as an architect or your consultancy have designed. Are there some in London I can go and see? Have camera will travel.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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