Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wards Corner temporary setback
Grainger plan voted through.
Five-four, party lines.
Wish I'd bet my house on it, then I could afford to leave. Don't want to live here any more if those are the people who have power over me.
Tags for Forum Posts: seven sisters, ward's corner
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, I hope that getting the full record will be promptly resolved.
By the way, I wasn't thinking of people making a recording inside the meeting, but of the fairly straightforward process of copying either video or audio that's being streamed online.
I have serious doubts about whether a local Council is able to forbid recording of its public proceedings. If it has that right then in my view it shouldn't exercise it. We've had TV in Parliament for a while now and the sky hasn't fallen.
In any case, for a long time it's been increasingly difficult to restrict recordings at public events even where the legal right exists and there are good copyright reasons - for example for live music. Bands know this and so they may sell people the facility to download an audiofile rather than have crappy bootlegged copies circulating. By analogy, the obvious thing for public bodies is to make good accessible official copies.
I've noticed that the BBC now supplements is own archive by using fragments of bootlegs. In fact we owe the bootleggers a debt because they've actually preserved a lot of interesting music and other material. The challenge is giving the copyright owners and musicians a fair share of the proceeds.
As you know, my main concern about council meetings is not people recording stuff. It's the number of meetings held in secret and reports marked "confidential" and "exempt". So credit to Alan Strickland who seems to be one of the good guys on this issue. I hope he can persuade some of his cabinet colleagues who seem to accept the culture of secrecy as normal.
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Permalink Reply by sophia c on
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I was at the meeting at the Civic Centre until the end c. 12h45am. The public gallery was well attended but not full and many more seats became vacant by 10pm when there was a 10min break.
The basis on which this application was granted makes a mockery of sustainable development and political accountability. On the former, 'Welcome to the past', some 30 years ago... As for the latter, what's new, plus ca change...
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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The public gallery was well attended but not full and many more seats became vacant by 10pm when there was a 10min break.
This is what I saw also, so it is a mystery that anyone was excluded on the basis that the gallery could not accommodate any more. The gallery was more than half full but never full. It is more of a mystery since council staff were lurking in the back of the gallery for most or all of the time.
I thought that Councillor Diakides was wrong to use the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the impending eviction that would fall largely on members of a national or ethnic minority from the market. The chair admonished him more than once over this. However apart from that questionable expression, practically everything else that Isidoros said made sense. Amongst other things, he pointed out that the council was breaking their own rules by favouring this outsize development that will loom over the intersection.
The "Conservation" architect alongside Firoka, who may have received a fee for his comments on Monday night, told us about three times that he was merely giving his opinion "as an expert". It would be interesting to know how many buildings this "expert" has saved and/or conserved, especially ones that were in official Conservation Areas.
By contrast, Mrs Patel, had who earlier nearly been in tears, was not being paid to make her representations.
Anyone who was unable to attend on Monday's evening of infamy ought to watch the recording if it is available, but it would be about five hours.
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I arrived at the Civic Centre at about 7:05pm. 8 people were already waiting to be allowed in by that time. We were told we would be allowed in as people leave the meeting. All ten of us were finally allowed in to the meeting at 7:15pm.
Obviously no one had left the meeting by that time, so heavens know what that was about.
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Cllr Pauline Gibson and I arrived at the Civic Centre after 7.15 pm, Abimbola, as we'd been at other meetings. We were among several people who were refused admission. Around 7.30 pm I spoke to Stuart Young the Assistant Chief Executive. He explained that what "that was about" was the safety of the public.
I accept that our staff need to make these judgements - even if it means excluding late-arriving councillors.
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Permalink Reply by William Booth on
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The Committee of Public Safety! A nice sounding idea but one which hides a multitude of sins...
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Alan I am sorry if you and Pauline were refused entry. But you should know that at no time were there fewer than 10 spare seats in the public gallery and probably more like 20 to 30 spare seats (the eight police officers who who taken away from crime fighting duties did not enter the public gallery).
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You're missing my point, Clive. I wasn't complaining about being refused entry. I was saying that senior council officers have to make these difficult judgements. And did so without regard to the "status" of those who are denied entry as a result.
Nor do I criticise people for erring on the side of caution. Neither you nor I would want, for example, someone injured because of an incident in a crowded space and people leaving quickly. There would have been sharp criticism of Council staff and the councillors were that to happen.
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I've been told that the video now posted on the Council's website should be the complete meeting. It's five hours long so I haven't been able to check.Public-i, the company who administer the webcast system, have said that this was due to a technical fault in their systems, and have apologised for any inconvenience caused.
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Permalink Reply by David Schmitz on
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I'll spare readers the 18-page submission which I wrote in opposition to Grainger's application, and will instead make a few short points.
1. There was only the briefest scrutiny of the central question, which was whether the heritage buildings could, as a practical matter, be saved. The appeal by Grainger from the Committee's 2011 refusal of permission for an almost identical scheme could have looked into this and all other issues, thoroughly. Instead, that appeal was pre-empted by a planning meeting where politicians rushed to judgment on the basis of often inaccurate officers' advice and a developer's case which was based upon a false choice between no development and redevelopment on their terms. No-one wanted the buildings to continue to fester, many wanted to try to retain Wards store and the adjacent market, and almost no-one wanted Grainger's scheme.
2. The compilers of the equalities impact assessment expressed regret that the report had had to be rushed But even so, it showed considerable grounds for concern that people will suffer from what is about to happen, in the form of lost homes, lost businesses and lost cultural assets, especially for the Latin American community. Had more time been available, the impact beyond 3 post codes in Tottenham Green would have been considered and the true damage made plain. (The compilers of the report, incidentally, treated Latin Americans as being a separate ethic group from and Colombians and Venezuelans).
3. The Haringey Deisgn Panel, the function of which is to look at designs pre-application with a view to enaging with the architects and improving their schemes, were not permitted that role. They were shown the design after it had been submitted and they made no contribution at all. One member of the panel has told me that all members were critical of the scheme and worried about the precedent it would set within the conservation area. He himself considered it to be unworthy of a conservation area.
4. Clive Carter is entirely right in saying that many of the promises by the developers are not legally enforceable. This includes their promise to include a market in their new development. Their promise is to enter into a contract and lease with a third party. Any such promise is an agreement to agree, and it is fundamental principle of contract law that such an agreement is legally uncertain and void.
5. Elsehwere, I have summed the situation up in this way,
"A landmark condemned, a clone-town building approved, a conservation area disfigured, family businesses displaced, families made homeless, and all of it rushed through to pre-empt a an impartial enquiry set to look at the issues properly and come to a reasoned decision. Huge subsidies to a property developer and no effort to save the site. How disgraceful. How Haringey Labour."
David Schmitz
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Harringay Ward
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How can we actually trust these people who manage the places in which we live?
This is why you get riots. Desperation leads to desperate actions. And this "regeneration" will not solve the community's problems in the least.
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Look at how Leyton is "regenerating" - simple but effective measures. Local people are the direct beneficiaries of this.
Unlike its close Olympic neighbour, Stratford, Leyton in east London has no jazzy new tower blocks or ritzy new shopping centre to put on display.Instead, the local council has concentrated on some low-key but imaginative improvements to the High Road where, almost within sight of the beautiful wooden curves of Hopkins Architects’ Olympic velodrome, the street has been transformed by removing clutter and upgrading the shops with brightly coloured paintwork.
The work has been funded by the Government’s Working Neighbourhoods Fund, and most of the shops have reported an increase in trade. The council also hopes new retailers will be attracted to the area. Mary Portas, the so-called “Queen of Shops”, who has been given the task of saving our high streets, would be delighted.>>http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/area_guides/london/spotlightonley...
Look at what estate agents say about how big developments affect what happens to an area Evening Standard 27/06/12 ...Large scale developments are marketed as a matter of course to specu;lative investment buyers in Asia, who buy off plan and want to trade or rent out their units, not to live in them. >> ...where absentee lanolords and itinerant tenants predominat, the buildiing and surroundings may ot be well looked after. Home owners tend to set up residenst committees to make sure everything is as thye want ti to be...>>
Evening Standard 27/06/12 The Best things come in small packages.
So we know what is going to hapen at Seven Sisters. Not only is the distintivenes of the area bieng destroyed but the cahracter of the area will change to become a highly transient area with less community sense of neighbourhood.
If you look at Grainger's own Com Res poll data you can see that the peole who live na d shop in the area are quite realistic abuot the levels of crime being low. Outsiders may be intimidated by the shabbiness and you can see how Leyton is adressing this. Then of coourse there is a high level of anti socail behaviour. That can also be addressed by improving footfall by restoration led development. The high rise solution we are carded to get will makes things worse.
But I believe the councillors who voted for this actually know this and have taken their decision becasue they use a false paradigm, have no real faith in what the community can actually achieve if given proper leadership, direction and vision AND of course they are panicking because funds are short and they don't want to let what they see as the only thing going pass by.
Labour is morally and intellectually bankrupt. They are only surfing on the unpopularity of the Conservatives. and they, the Tories aren't any better with their individualistic ideology based policies. The worse thing the Lib Dems could have done is to go into a coalition with the Tories because now the only alternative we may have is the Greens. What a quandry we find ourselves in.
We need to self organize and forget the main parties. Let us have locally selected candidates and organize to get them in for our own future
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