Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Evening standard on tottenham's £1 billion investment
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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This nonsense-on-stilts PR garbage makes me very angry.
And very ashamed. Because I've been a councillor for sixteen years, representing Tottenham Hale ward - near the centre of the riot.
And very disgusted because what passes for leadership of the Haringey Labour Parties continue to put out these half-lies, false promises, propaganda and absurdities just before a local election. Pretending that a plan for developers bears any relationship to the changes needed to respond to the problems shown by the riot.
And sick at heart because this is a fraud and a confidence trick on us, the local people; my neighbours and friends.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor. Tottenham Resident 30+ years. Former Tottenham Labour Party constituency secretary ; and former ward branch secretary.)
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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This is a well written article as it brings together so many complicated threads and makes things clearer re the massive plans for re-development of Tottenham. The following (taken from the article) is one area of concern but there are many;
And amid planning department staff shortages, design quality needs to be driven up to avoid the kind of apartment blocks of flats already built that deploy panels of brightly coloured cladding as stick-on optimism and a cheap substitute for good materials.
Architecture alone will not shape a riot-free Tottenham or create a ladder out of poverty.
They talk here about the large student accommodation blocks at Tottenham Hale which are incredibly imposing, out of place & ugly. I really hope they're not talking about more of the same but I fear they are; take a look at the ugly building, already given planning permission, that will go above the expanded station or transport hub.
The author of the article is absolutely right, it is difficult to find a central physical heart to Tottenham. The ring roads and A10 do carve right through all areas, making it very difficult to bring something together. Trying to bring something better to the table would take sensitivity, intelligence and time ... asking what local people want to see happen. I do wonder if this is happening here.
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Permalink Reply by Neville Collins on
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I have to agree with Alan. The council are trying to raise hopes for a plan that is going to fail, because they are refusing to speak to the struggling local residents, traders, and businesses who have been trying (and failing) to get their collective voices heard. The result will be a collection of poorly designed and built flashy properties like the new station and the proposed new hotel at Image House, leaving the bulk of the area untouched. Local people have seen it all before, and know they are going to be ripped off again. The council seriously needs to address the real issues that caused the riot in 2011.
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They are speaking to us, Neville. Or at least sending consultants to seek our views. And to be fair, the consultants (Soundings) have tried hard within the constraints of their brief. But "They" is Claire Kober and her pals and puppets. And they ain't listening to anything they disagree with.
You know, I'm not even sure they believe in their own claptrap about regenerating, unlocking, kickstarting, catalysing etc. I suspect that when they use the word "passionate" their passion doesn't go much beyond keeping control by winning the election on 22 May. Holding their own seats, in Tottenham and Wood Green of course. And retaining their positions in the "cabinet".
But maybe I'm wrong and Kober and her pals really do believe these dreams? That if the developers build the new Tottenham then the shiny new people will come. Pushing out all the undesirables like us. With the new Tottenham as a blue-tinted developers' theme park. (Don't you think the artist's impression looks like Euston Station with water?)
Although I've never seen them show the slightest curiosity about how we might tackle the real problems for real people here. As you and I know all too well, the HMO landlords have other ideas.
But maybe I've got the whole thing utterly wrong. And their fairyland Tottenham will actually get built. Fill up with well-dressed smiling new residents and work as imagined. A sort of St Katharine Dock-by-the-Lee? An interesting sentence in the Evening Standard article mentions the:
"... bad rep that has seen the gentrifying desire-line that has crept northwards from Shoreditch to Dalston and beyond falter at Tottenham then leapfrog towards Walthamstow."
Well that's at least honest. There's a gentrifying desire line. And we're in the way. Knock down our homes! Move us out! I joked about the Kobon Constructor Fleet. Turns out it's not a joke.
‘There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.’
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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That billion pounds is not some great pledge of inward investment from the state, it's a back of envelope total of the various monies spent on eg the Gyratory and the rail stations, and £700m or so of 'development value' ie the turnover to the private developers currently circling over Tottenham.
Talking of 'rebuilding' is also hyperbole - the amount of actual damage in the riot was a few million ££s worth - three significant buildings and a lot of broken glass at Tottnm Hale and other shops. It really wasn't the Blitz.
At least the article gives a passing credit to 'fierce local opposition'. Thanks a bunch.
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The billion pound lie. As revealed by Martin Ball.
Thanks Pam for giving Martin's Freedom of Information Act question wider publicity. But don't forget that it also includes "£500 million of borrowing guarantees". Coming to our borough: Debt, debt, debt? Haringey council bought and paid for with a few free meals in Cannes?
The article is illustrated not exactly by deceptions about the future, but an artist's fairy story impression. Sketches of unbuilt blocks along sky blue rivers. With the new Tottenham Hale Station imagined in what photographers sometimes call the sweet light of the blue hour.
A symphony of blue buildings with silver lighted windows. A deep blue sky with the new (unbuilt) station block as if crowned by mare's tail clouds streaming onward and upward.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the developers.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Martin Ball on
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The tube station drawing doesn't do justice to the high-rise Tottenham Hale plans. The artist should have drawn in the background the 20-storey tower blocks proposed for Watermead Way.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Just like at the New River Village ;)
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While the shiny towering Tottenham is the image Cllr Strickland is selling to international property investors the reality is that his vision has been rejected by those living in the real present Tottenham.
According to Haringey Council's own Tottenham's Future survey local people overwhelmingly want a focus on action now to tackle the area's current problems before any wishful twenty years visioning. At the top of the list is improving the current state of the physical environment; safer streets, and more community facilities. And far from demolishing neighbourhoods, people want historic Tottenham to be renovated and protected. Long-term the survey found that people wanted decent secure social housing and good quality reasonably priced homes, rather than canal-side tower block living.
Unsurprisingly, the survey also revealed a lack of trust in the Council arising from the fierce local opposition the article noted to some of the Council's big developer schemes brushing local communities aside. If Cllr Strickland really wants to turn Tottenham around then he should be regenerating the area the way local people have asked for.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Morris on
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SEnt to the letters editor, Evening Standard
Tottenham regeneration - a community view
Your article 'Tottenham In Turnaround' about the urban development plans for Tottenham characterises them rightly as 're-engineering its DNA', concluding the plans are not 'without dangers'. Indeed, the mania for top-down profit-led mega-development and gentrification being promoted by the Council and property developers is worrying many thousands of local residents, many of whom are already being forced out by rising housing costs. Also hundreds of family businesses and their staff face threats of demolition or years of unnecessary planning blight.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are many inspirational examples of genuine community-led regeneration in our local parks and previously neglected buildings, and a wealth of passionate and experienced community groups and small businesses who love Tottenham. To raise their profile and demands we have created the Our Tottenham network of more than 40 local organisations speaking up together for the real needs and interests of our local communities. Will local people continue to be sidelined, or will we become the key drivers regarding the future of our own neighbourhoods?
Dave Morris
- for the Our Tottenham Organising Group
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Permalink Reply by Anne Gray on
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Alan is right that imposed gentrification for the benefit of the developers, and fudged consultation, seems to be very much the order of the day. The Our Tottenham network has done a grand job with the help of some town planning researchers from UCL to submit detailed opposition to the plans, calling for far more social housing and far more attention to social infrastructure and green space. But it's going to be a hard struggle over the next few months to get anything much that Tottenham people actually want. First we need to vote in some councillors who oppose the plans and will stick up for social housing, small businesses and their premises, and local jobs. The local NHS is also seriously overloaded and the council isn't using its influence to address the Tottenham doctor deficit.
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