Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
WCC Launch Legal Fight To Save Wards Corner
We have formally notified Haringey Council of our plans to bring a legal challenge to its July 2012 decision to grant planning permission to Grainger's proposal to demolish Wards Corner.
We are presenting a range of arguments to the Council challenging both their disregard for their own policy documents and their failure to carry out adequate analyses and assessments of the site that would enable them to make an informed decision about the impacts of Grainger's proposals.
This is the second legal challenge we've made to Haringey's decision making. Back in 2010 the High Court of Appeal quashed the permission granted to Grainger's previous scheme as a result of our judicial review of Haringey Council's failure to comply with their equalities duties.
This is not just about Wards Corner. Our last challenge set a legal precedent ensuring that the equalities impact of all major developments have to be assessed. That process should have been common sense but actually it had to be fought for.
We are not undertaking this legal challenge lightly but sadly this is the only recourse left to the local community is to challenge the Council’s decision through Judicial Review. Given the extent of the Council's regeneration agenda it is imperative that we hold them to account when they take shortcuts in decision making and work against the wishes of local people to force through damaging developments.
This stage of the legal challenge has been funded by the WCC through fund raising activities and the generosity of local people, but we will still need to raise a significant amount to fund the full cost of the Judicial Review, even with support from legal aid. Details of how to donate to our legal fund will follow shortly.
You can read our full press release and the letter to Haringey Council detailing our challenge.
Don't forget to check our website to keep up to date or come to our weekly Monday meeting to get involved. Monday Meetings – 6:30pm Seven Sisters Market, Tottenham (above Seven Sisters Undergroud Station)
Tags for Forum Posts: grainger, judicial review, planning, ward's corner
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Candy on
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Property owners will run down a building that is listed but not profitable, so that they can then demolish it and build a high rise and profitable building. Transport for London have been accused of this in the past in other areas of London. Owners have been known to set light to their buildings to collect the insurance. So it does happen. And property owners do it.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Candy, I don't doubt that many property owners are unscrupulous.
But the implication now seems to be the existence of a secret plan over forty years to allow the building to rot so that a high rise could eventually be built.
Accusations are easy to make. Before anyone points a finger at Transport for London in this case, I'd like a little bit of solid evidence.
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Permalink Reply by mp85 on
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There is an interesting article from 1972 detailing Council plans to redevelop Wards Corner. If I didn't know the date of the article I'd think it was written in this decade! According to the article the intention to redevelopment may have been a factor in why the store closed.
http://wardscorner.wikispaces.com/Council+Plans+hatched+in+1972
Also found on the wcc site a 2003 deputation by the proprietor of the market and I qoute:
In the relatively short time I have been managing the Market I have lost track of the number of interested people in the abandoned space. After in-depth conversations, most have said, we don’t stand a chance. Jill, you do it, you understand them and us.
In the summer of last year I set up a meeting with interested parties as I wished to purchase 251/253 High Road. The meeting was cancelled. I was told - it is political. In retrospect, was this because a larger plan was being considered?
Full text here: http://wardscorner.wikispaces.com/2003+Deputation
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There has been negligence to say the least. The part of the site facing the HIgh Rd is in a conservation area. There are powers that can be used to get such buildings to be maintained or taken over so that they can be adequatuely preserved. I have no doubt that if the right pressure had been placed on TFL the buildings would have been adequately taken care of. There is also the issue of the public realm ALL OVER THIS SIDE OF HARINGEY which we have been discussing in the Bruce Grove Public realm meetings Alan. There has and continues to be neglect for our streets and public space. The "desperately" needed efforts are finally being made but in no way does this excuse the eviction of local independent traders and residents, the destruction of a building that gives our area its sense of place and its replacement with a very bland development. Why was such an effort made to replace the Carpetright building and to use this in all the subsequent Council propaganda? Hypocrisy and ineptitude come to mind. And Ms Kober and her side kick Strickland go about the place with such smuggness as if they are doing us all a favour! Not.. ....!
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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But deliberately running down a building - and reducing its sale value - is the last thing a property owner does.
Alan I'm surprised you affect not to know that some property owners will deliberately run down buildings. Some do it, precisely because it is sometimes in their interests! An architect friend tells me that sometimes reluctant owners of Listed properties, engage in this ruse of deliberate neglect, in order to put the property to more profitable use. Are you really unaware of this?
I wasn't in London at the time, but you may know better than me that some unscrupulous property owners would intimidate long term tenants into leaving, thus increasing a property's value and freeing the building for sale.
I think you may be overlooking land value, which in London, often exceeds the value of the improvements on top. Thus, a library might be run down as a library and there may be other forms of council neglect, but a library building could have alternative uses. Land value normally increases whether or not a building is retained, run down, neglected or improved.
Planning Consent and approved changes of use can increase land value further. These are in the gift of Council Planning Committees and there can be conflicts of interest - that the council often does not recognise.
As soon as I attempt to provide evidence of running-down, you know nothing about it. The long time, non-repair of a leaking roof was another factor in the disgraceful running down of Alexandra Palace over many years.
I would also argue that the council's allowing AP to be left in charge, for a long time, of a manager who was widely believed to be unsatisfactory, was another, more subtle form of running down. Even the disgraced Cllr Charles Adje correctly noted that "... the issue of governance as inherited (which is a perennial issue) ... "
Thankfully and very belatedly, this particular aspect is now reversed, with the appointment of the excellent Duncan Wilson OBE.
Billy Hole is of course right about the confusion of capital expenditure with maintenance. I felt uneasy about this conflation and I should have spotted it myself. In accounting terms, these are wholly different animals.
Simply put, the council could achieve so much more with its existing huge income, if only it would cut out waste.
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"As soon as I attempt to provide evidence of running-down, you know nothing about it."
Yes, Clive I freely admit that I heard nothing at all about a particular leak in the roof of Hornsey Town Hall, at some unspecified date in the past. Shocking eh?
Although your telling me of such a leak does not constitute evidence of: "the council engaging in a policy of deliberately running down a public building over a period in order to justify sale, disposal or demolition."
I have been a Governor of a school which had a leaky roof. Spending revenue funding to fix it wasn't successful. So eventually capital funding from Haringey replaced part of the roof. As far as I am aware, the leaks were not part of any nefarious conspiracy to run-down and sell-off the school.
I realise you may find it hard to believe, but my ignorance and gullibility are not "affected". I really believe that sometimes decisions are taken by people who innocently think that budget choices are because of limited available funds. And not because of secret conspiracies.
I am sure you will wish to have the last word in this dialogue.
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Alan I am sorry that I am unable to provide a specific date on which the roof leaked, or began to leak, on the Grade II STAR listed Hornsey Town Hall. I hope you will forgive me.
Is it reasonable always to complain about a lack of evidence, only to shift the goal posts the moment any evidence is furnished?
Although I'm unable to provide evidence up to the standard your require, thanks to the Internet however, there is still some record of this council carelessness.
At one point, the delinquent local council tried to flog it to a developer on the sly.
If Hornsey Borough had not been part of a forced marriage in about 1965, it's likely that this masterpiece building would have been used, properly maintained - and a lot better municipial decision making coming out of it, to boot!
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Permalink Reply by Duguneek on
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I am inclined to accept the word of 'ordinary residents' more than of Cllrs at the moment - sorry
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Thank you Ms Pamish
I think it good that you take them to court. This is not just about money it is about lives. there are people who live, work there and come to visit.
Tjis dreadful developement had already cost one life how more doe sit have to ruin.
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I agree Dalia,
This whole planning process has been a death of democracy for our community.
No one has been given any say in the granting of public fund to this unwanted 40 year old scheme for some ugly flats and we have been mislead as to what will actually be delivered in the way of shops. Even the latest Grainger glossy pamphlets have look alike name like HSBC bank and Costa Coffee in the pictures but none of these brands has signed up.
It is just wrong that a poor community is being punished and locals driven out. The market and existing shops will just fade away and never return as they can only work as the bigger picture.
It is just terrible that a poor community has to go to court to make a deaf council listen. They should have gone to the people first.
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And the proposed Grainger development would do precisely the opposite to its intended goals. It would kill of any possibility of making Seven Sisters into a "pull factor". By building new, relatively small retail outlets we will get another small-sized national supermarket oulet (these ARE NOT cheaper nor do they offer more choice for family shoppers) and possibly some national chain pseudo-fast food outlet. Then the mass of smaller hmes propsoed will oly serve to increase the transience in the area.
The present buildiings on the High Rd have more potential, if sensitively renoveatd to provide attratcive outlets, they would preserve the long standing businesses allowing them to grow. Chnge could happen organically and teh architecture would COMPLEMENT the Historic Corridor that HAringey Council has talked up so much.
The Council is not being logical but quite schizophrenic. They preach local entepreneuship and development but do exactly the opposite. They talk about consultation but certainly in the more needy east of the Borough just decide things and then get us to contribute allowing them to say they've consulted.
And the real problems - investment in human capital and working systems just get neglected because of "the reduction in budgets".
So the end result is that unless they socially cleanse Tottenham - maybe that's what they intend - the social uprest will recur again and again and again becuse they aren't actually getting people to improve their lot but factoring the "problem people" out of the equation.
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The new developement will do nothing but harm to the whole area. Just look at the wasted opportunity of those ugly Ujima flats futyer up the road. Dumped next to a listed Gerogain House and the green it tottaly destroyed that part of the high Road and destracts from the whole street scene.
The last council offical said that the area was to be the new Croydon. Sdaly an out dated model as Croyden suffered badly in the riots and its ecomonic model has declined as otehr model have come to the fore.
The Portas report shows that area need specialist shops, markets and parking all of which on the site at the momemt. Plsu it has history, attarctive old buildings and potential to get better and better. The largest Latino market in Britain is a niche market and should be protected but thta market depends on the surrounding shops for supply, storage, sahred services such as drivers, accountants, handy persons, etc. Shopping centres need to be unique esepcially in London where destination social shopping is king.
The new devlopement does nothing for social coheshision as it rips out peeples lcoal hertitage which shwos the council think nothing of them but stands up for Muswell Hill consevration. Once built the new developement will start to decay and any short terms gains will fade away.
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