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 Clive Carter on
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If this misguided, over-built development goes ahead, it may come to be a text book case as how not to do redevelopment. But its not alone in the march to densification.
The local council, which sometimes forgets about affordable housing requirements, has long been a soft touch for developers. Wards Corner proves that even the 'Conservation Area' designation means little or nothing.
In common with many councils, LBH is retrenching and aims either to sell off public buildings, or to raise rents on property it owns, with a view to selling them off. At one time, even all the branch libraries were for the chop (this U-turn is Haringey's single saving grace). The sprawling River Park house complex is perhaps the only piece of the municipal property empire that will not be sold – unless they chose to move to bigger premises.
The sell-offs or conversions are often for dwellings. The difficulty is, that this trajectory may lead to a London full of ever-smaller dwellings, with fewer open spaces and with a reduced infrastructure.
The housing/densification policy needs a deep re-think, preferably at national level.
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Permalink Reply by 2uw7ps6mn7g2w on
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clive
this developement tis not just about tiny ugly flats in towers it is about lives.
People live there, people work there their lives will be blighted along with the area and they and the people of the area have no say or real consultation. It is sad how some of these people have suffered and to put them through even more for what exactly?
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The Grainger development is just designed to make cash for the council as they get money back from the government to build flats.
It will kill off the High Street economy by killing the existing main anchor tenant i.e. the current market. As the replacement has no social space and relies on all the tenants coming back. Once out other market operators will take them.
The Croydon model of regeneration has been proven to fail by Sheffield University. It is in decline and the future Grainger’s Ward Corner will go the same way.
The shopping tenants will gradually get lower in quality as the High Street dies with shopping by phone and the lack of foot fall with the maintenance charges pushed back to the flats. So then the flat owners will move out and sublet en-mass. It will then lead to unit transience and poor operational standards in the block.
Crime will go to Wood Green levels as the gangs move in and hang around as per the Wood Green style shops. As the displacement of Older people and young children; excluded on cost will lead to a social power vacuum concentrated for teenagers. Anti social behaviour will soar as the Grainger guards will not venture outside as per Tesco’s. Aggressive begging will return and crime will be common.
The council’s economic impact study clearly states the development will offer only a short term boost and the longer term is not guaranteed. Maybe the company may not be able to afford security at all if the site declines. The gates will then be left open to any thing that chooses to roost there from dealers, pimps and prostitutes to the homeless and dispossessed.
The area will die and the existing regeneration of the area and site will stall. The site will then become a gateway – to hell.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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A thought-provoking scenario Clyde.
Could you please let me have a reference or references to Sheffield University's research about Croydon, which seems to be the basis for your critique. I'd be very interested to read up on it. If you are in touch with or have the names of the academics, even better.
Thanks.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Clyde I don't favour the Grainger scheme and hope the council will change its mind about the most suitable kind of development for Wards Corner. But don't you think that suggesting the Grainger's scheme would become a gateway to hell is just a teeny weeny bit of hyperbole?
It's important to bear in mind that Grainger and their partners in the council are engaging in a PR battle and they would be happy to seize on anything that suggests their opponents are extremists (or nutters or few in number, or any other quality to dismiss them). I have seen these tactics deployed before now.
I have to agree with you about "Wood Green Shopping City". This was a 100% Haringey Council development that promised much in the early stages. But the management of this episode attracted such notoriety that it was even referred to, in a critical way, in a robust letter (1996) from the Treasury Solicitor to Gurbux Singh, then the LBH chief executive.
Wood Green Shopping City is less a paradigm for town planning, than a cautionary tale where the client and developer are one and the same. Unfortunately, the local council finds its extraordinarily difficult to recognise conflicts of interest. This is one of the factors that have led to the Wards Corner fandango.
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