Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Time for action on Green Lanes! Lets have a festival on Grand Parade!
This article in the Journal this week highlights the problems that Crouch End traders are having at present. A combination of high rents, the 'credit crunch' and the CPZ has resulted in 10 per cent of their retail units standing empty. Local traders fear a 'spiral of decline'.
Well, recently, have you noticed how many businesses on Green Lanes have closed or are up for sale?
What is interesting is that traders in Crouch End are demanding something be done by the council and have put forward proposals like rate holidays for new business as well as banding together as the Crouch End Project, a collective of traders organising events and promotions to boost business. I note a similar intiative in Blackstock Road, posted by 'Finsbury Park' today.
My point is that Crouch End traders are actively demanding action and coming up with good ideas which could equally well be used here on our high street.
As well as encouraging new business, the GLSG and the local traders group which is part of it should be looking to work to promote what we already have which by our own admission we are more than happy with and advise them how to be more customer/woman/family/ whatever friendly and attractive to potential customers e.g.keeping shop fronts clean and tidy, controlling waste, preserving architectural detail, shop layout, even things like a local loyalty card such has been tried in places like Lamb's Conduit street (which was having the opposite problem of being swamped with chains).
Business is business and it would be an odd business that does not want to increase its customer base or that wants to be based in an area where shops are shutting around it.
The Green Lanes Action Group have done an excellent job in cleaning up this area, driving out crime, and making it more attractive but isn't it now time that they banded together into something more proactive rather than reactive and became 'The Green Lanes project' with the intention of promoting and supporting local business and ensuring that the problems besetting other areas do not come here and do not send our high street into a terminal decline.
'Grand Parade festival anyone?'
Well, recently, have you noticed how many businesses on Green Lanes have closed or are up for sale?
What is interesting is that traders in Crouch End are demanding something be done by the council and have put forward proposals like rate holidays for new business as well as banding together as the Crouch End Project, a collective of traders organising events and promotions to boost business. I note a similar intiative in Blackstock Road, posted by 'Finsbury Park' today.
My point is that Crouch End traders are actively demanding action and coming up with good ideas which could equally well be used here on our high street.
As well as encouraging new business, the GLSG and the local traders group which is part of it should be looking to work to promote what we already have which by our own admission we are more than happy with and advise them how to be more customer/woman/family/ whatever friendly and attractive to potential customers e.g.keeping shop fronts clean and tidy, controlling waste, preserving architectural detail, shop layout, even things like a local loyalty card such has been tried in places like Lamb's Conduit street (which was having the opposite problem of being swamped with chains).
Business is business and it would be an odd business that does not want to increase its customer base or that wants to be based in an area where shops are shutting around it.
The Green Lanes Action Group have done an excellent job in cleaning up this area, driving out crime, and making it more attractive but isn't it now time that they banded together into something more proactive rather than reactive and became 'The Green Lanes project' with the intention of promoting and supporting local business and ensuring that the problems besetting other areas do not come here and do not send our high street into a terminal decline.
'Grand Parade festival anyone?'
Tags for Forum Posts: Green Lanes, Green Lanes Strategy group, Harringay Festival, action, business development
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Yeah, put a stage smack bang in the middle of Green Lanes. Music and food. Ask Dasos. He'll probably be up for helping organise it.
Regarding increase in empty shops/space (if that's what is actually happening) then surely it becomes a little easier to find a community space. Should be cheaper under these current economic conditions.
Like I've suggested elsewhere, if HoL gets charity status and then goes for community funding all manner of things could be possible.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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I was thinking of sending a version of the above post to Dasos, and maybe some other GLSG members. I have 'shared' it with the two lib dem councillors already. A festival could be a good way of bringing people to Green Lanes from all parts of Harringay
Have a look, Matt , next time you are going down Green Lanes, lots of shops that are not operating at the moment for whatever reason, I've even photographed a few. Given the bustle of Green Lanes it may not be so obvious but several businesses have been highlighted in the Business watch group. The upside could be that with lower rents and availability, more businesses may consider Green Lanes but will it be delis/restaurants/indie stores/etc or betting shops and takeaway chicken joints? The point is that a little planning for new businesses and a lot of support for current businesses to help them boost their popularity (like the little fishmonger on Seymour Road that we lost recently) could give help us protect and promote the profile of our high street and have positive knock on effects for the whole community.
I may be wrong but I'm not sure it is HOLs job to become a charitable organisation , people may not feel that that is what this site if for, but perhaps from HOL a group of interested people could get together and get hold of a bit of the big pots of money that the government say they are putting aside for community empowerment. The summary of the new white paper that Hugh posted makes very interesting reading...
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Right, have fired off an email to the local councillors for Harringay and St Ann's as well and the LCSP as they all have a seat at the Green Lanes Strategy Group table.
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Permalink Reply by Simon T on
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Cut out the middlemen i say...go straight to the PM you have both met him after all....
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I'm imagining that in the Brown memoirs:
"August 24th: The beginninng of the end for me as Prime Minister with the loss of the Glasgow East by election, but, on the upside, I finally got to meet Mrs E"
Seriously though, a GL festival and support for local business is a good idea, isn't it?
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Very good idea , but who will finance it? The council are doing one in Wood green there can't be an endless supply of cash for road closures and stalls
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Well, I am not up to speed (yet)with how pots of money can be accessed but there are community grants available from central government.
I would say that if Crouch End and Finsbury Park can access funds for 'events' then it should be possible to do here.
The Car Free day is an annual affair so there could be the possibility of bringing it here to Green Lanes especially if we lobby the GLSG hard enough to press for it, don't forget they report directly to the leader of the council.
The main thing is to get the GLSG to consider such ideas and get them thinking differently and pressing the Council harder for good deals for Green Lanes. The Crouch End traders are demanding meetings with cabinet members and making radical proposals because 16 out of 200 retail units are empty.
Where are the voices raised about the empty units on Green Lanes, I can think of 10 units standing empty already and several more with 'for sale' signs on them? The group entrusted with making all the major decisions about Green Lanes have the word strategy in their name...isn't it time they started to form one and tell us about it?
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Make the Difference is one pot-o-cash. Liz's idea of using the Car Free day is a good one. Where there's a will there's a way.
Biggest problem to this festival idea might be the traders themselves. Some of them seem to rely on the Greeks of Southgate doing their weekly shop ... by car.
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Come to think of it ,it is mainly the greek/turkish businesses that are closing or up for sale all but one of the social clubs have gone Lakes is shut so is Larnaca one burnt down. A lot of the bakeries are shut , maybe we have reached a turning point and now is indeed the time to encourage a change so Green lanes isn't somewhere where people who don't want to live here come to shop
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That is my sense too. Although some businesses, like Antiplier are moving with the times, a lot of the others are simply leaving and the social clubs now seem to the haunt of very old men staring out of the window. I really think now might be the time for residents to start demanding a more comprehensive planning strategy and possibly Matt's suggestion that we could ask them to help start work on securing a community space for all Harringay residents could be thrown into the mix.
If we don't tell them what we want, how will they know?! -
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Many of those 'social' clubs have closed down? I didn't know that. We are heading into hard economic times so I'm not sure this will bode well for better change along Grand Parade, except more damned pound shops!
If folk are looking to start up a co-op type cafe/meeting place getting the right landlord along the parade might be a challenge. The head of the traders assoc might help here.
Btw, apparently Wood Green High Rd had a Habitat circa 1988 for a couple of years, then a dip in economy closed it down. -
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