Bowes and Bounds Connected
A Community Network for Bowes Park and Bounds Green
Myddleton Road... A Street Worth Fighting For
We’ve spent the last 18 months focusing on making The Step the best it can be but we are now thinking more about the future of Myddleton Road and how we can all work to make it a better place. We don’t want to look backwards, we are where we are, but we need everyone including the relevant people at Haringey Council to share our enthusiasm for this street and, more importantly, the Bowes Park area to be bullish and belligerent about our future.
The potential for regeneration in this curious little “Bowes Park Triangle” of ours is immense. We have the excellent transport links, the availability of relatively well-priced housing and the enthusiastic spirit of a creative community. Look at the massive success of the Myddleton Road Market and how it brought our own community together and drew scores of new people to the area. This was a reason to be proud and must be capitalised on.
So we must ask ourselves why the heart of Bowes Park is a rundown, ramshackle street crippled with high density, low quality housing and the multitude of anti-social problems this brings? We must ask why illegal and ugly shutters out number open shop fronts at a ratio of five to one? Because this Myddleton Road does not reflect the vast majority of people who live in streets and roads that surround it so difficult questions must be asked of Haringey as to quite how the street has been left to rot and decay like this. We know of several people who have wanted to set up a business in the area but couldn’t find a retail space to let so we must ask why in less than 100 metres we have ten “property” companies whose activities contribute absolutely nothing to the local community?
We are not kidding ourselves that the solutions are easy and we know the historical reasons that led to the decline of Myddleton Road as a shopping street. There are probably many issues that we don’t fully understand but we founded The Step because we believe in Bowes Park and want to put back something in to the community as well as trying to make a living here. Without being too big headed we are bloody proud of what we have achieved so far but we want to make it very clear that if Haringey Council is not serious in backing the future of Bowes Park then we will move elsewhere and we will do this soon.
We didn’t open our business because we looked at the area and saw pound signs to get rich quick. We opened The Step because we saw a huge potential for long term regeneration and improving the quality of life here but nearly two years on, the signs are mixed and confused. On the one hand, the rubbish in the street is getting worse, anti-social behaviour is significantly on the increase and the quality of housing on the street is becoming ever more alarming and absurd. This is spreading to other roads in the area, make no mistake about that.
However…the positive news is that we know there are local people who want to invest in Myddleton Road. We know that there are many local people in Bowes Park both old and new who care deeply about the area. We know from personal experience that there are many people considering moving to the area but the ugly and seemingly unloved High Street is a big drawback for them. We have a brilliant street market, beautiful community garden, the Tin Tabernacle and an outdoor gym. In two years time wouldn’t it be brilliant if that last sentence was a paragraph?
So let’s not use the past as an excuse for passing more and more poor quality, high density housing in the area …let us use the future as a reason for saying no, this will harm the people who live here, your proposals are of no benefit to Bowes Park whatsoever. Let’s all of us work together to get that English Heritage money flowing in to Myddleton Road because if managed correctly it will make a world of difference.
It is also vital we engage with the certain landlords on the street because when we have spoken to them they don’t seem to have any idea of the damage they are doing to the Bowes Park community. They also don’t realise the huge potential of the properties they own…by train, we are twenty minutes from the City of London and the same from Shoreditch, the creative centre of London. Bowes Park could and should be the next big emerging area of our capital but a handful of cynical, short-sighted landlords don’t, or won’t, see this potential and have their foot to the throat of Myddleton Road. This is choking the life out of a whole area.
Do we throw our hands in the air and leave the future of Myddleton Road and, more importantly, the wider community of Bowes Park in the clutches of a handful of landlords who live far away from the boundaries of Haringey. We have put too much into The Step to walk away just yet and over the coming months we will be doing absolutely everything we can to put Myddleton Road and Haringey Council in the media spotlight…its blighted and bungled past and present, as well as its future potential.
Because it is a story worth telling and a street worth fighting for.
Let us know what you think by posting on our discussion on the Bowes and Bounds Forum.
Yours in hope
Nell and Mat
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Samantha Brown on -
Hi everybody,I moved to the area in August and have really been struck by its community spirit and interesting local landmarks. Having rented in many different areas across London, it's really heartening to find myself in a place where people really care about their local area and community.I'm a freelance assistant producer, making documentaries for a living, and I'm really interested in the possibility of making a film about Myddleton Road and the community around it. I spoke to Caroline about the idea early last month, and she gave me lots of ideas. I will be at the meeting tomorrow with a documentary director friend of mine, and look forward to hearing people’s thoughts about the area and its future. If anybody would be interesting in talking to me about their views please do let me know… at this stage there will be no cameras involved!
I don’t intend that the project will be for television, but hopefully once completed it would be a great way of raising the profile of Myddleton Road. Please feel free to share any thoughts you might have on here, otherwise I look forward to meeting many of you tomorrow evening!Sam
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Permalink Reply by Cllr Matt Cooke on
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Hello all,
Just wanted to post on this Myddleton Road thread. We have been reading these comments since Matt & Nell posted the original excellent blog. We've been involved for a long time and we thought it was important to listen and understand people's views, frustrations and ideas before coming in as your local councillors with our thoughts.
We totally get that despite the efforts of so many people and lots of investment there's a very real perception that the street is getting worse, not better and we wanted to let you know what we plan to do about it, and how we need your help – to what what we think needs to be done cannot be done without you.
We have fought for investment in many different ways for different projects in and around Myddleton Road; from the Bowes Park Community Association’s (BPCA) many and varied projects including the Community Garden planting days, equipment and the new community gym to trees on the road, lighting, re-surfacing and a bespoke parking scheme as well as supporting the new market and community activities on the street.
But we have also worked hard to try and combat some of the entrenched legal and personal issues on the street tackling illegal developments and poor housing. We set up the Myddleton Road Strategy Group together with the BPCA several years ago to help focus efforts and bring various agencies together. Since it was set up, there have been more successful enforcement actions by Haringey Council in Myddleton Road than any other street in the borough over the same period – that’s over 130 in just a few years. We aren’t complacent of course, but this serves to demonstrate the scale and complexity of the challenge in Myddleton Road.
We clearly need a new approach The area is changing fast, and there’s a growing feeling of community ownership and spirit. But Myddleton can feel like it’s going backwards. There’s street drinking, incidents of drug dealing and too many landlords flouting the law. The concentration of poor housing is high and we need more new and vibrant businesses moving in.
So what do we propose as the best next step? How can we tackle these issues which have defied logic, best efforts, the market and lots of investment, time and energy for so long?
1. Your involvement & changing culture. We have to keep the improvement of Myddleton Road high on the agenda and the more strongly public feeling about it is felt, the more we can leverage resources to tackle it. A difficult truth is that there are too many landlord and commercial tenants on Myddleton Road who have no respect for local people, the law and the community. They just don’t care. Tackling that is difficult but local people supporting change and supporting those businesses and individuals who do care can make the difference.
2. Creating a local neighbourhood plan – sustained, action, driven by you. We want to help create and adopt a neighbourhood plan for Myddleton Road to give our community the powers and resources to protect and sustain the street. If we properly constitute a group to drive this we can draw down money from the Government and use the best research already undertaken on Myddleton to help draw up plans to plan its future. This will include legal powers to:
*Tackle poor housing. A renewed focus on the issue of poor housing and planning contraventions. *Protect, conserve and improve the street and obtain the tools to do so. As the Myddleton Road Strategy Group has agreed, introduce a new neighbourhood plan which has the power to properly and effectively protect Myddleton Road in law. This should also make the adoption of the market as a regular feature more simple, and other measures to help local businesses grow and prosper more easily.
3. Proper, sustained action from the Police on drugs and problem street drinking.
The scale of drinking and drug dealing on Myddleton Road has gone on for too long. We met recently with the local police and agreed with them that we want to see a concerted and sustained focus on Myddleton Road. They have also agreed to look once again into a CCTV camera and we will be speaking to officers about the possibility of a council CCTV camera. In the meantime, you should continue to report any incidents to the police on 101 or 999 if it is an emergency. You can also report concerns or contact the local team at http://content.met.police.uk/Team/Haringey/BoundsGreen
We will of course be at the public meeting on the 16th October - tomorrow, at the The Step in Myddleton Road.
It would be great to speak about your views on this plan at the meeting, but we will be there primarily to listen.
Please don’t forget we are available for you to speak to at most times and we hold surgeries which are open to anyone every month all over Bounds Green and Bowes Park and no appointment is necessary.
All best wishes
Matt Cooke, Joanna Christophides & Ali Demirci
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Permalink Reply by Anna O'Neill on
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Hi Matt
I can't help feeling that what you are proposing has already be said and done before, dozens of times. What people in Bowes Park need is to see the council actually enforcing its own planning laws. I appreciate the work that you have done Matt, and for many years, but whatever you and all the brilliant people like Caroline Simpson have done hasn't been enough to stop the decline because of this.
A logical step would be for Haringey Council planning officers and the Met Police to carry out a joint housing raid on Myddleton Rd and soon. Who know what might come to light, ( I don't know but I can hazard a pretty good guess). Landlords being hauled up in court and held to account for repeated infringements, not only of planning but of basic human rights would send a clear signal to them that this is not acceptable. Demolishing the shed at number 97 would also help.
Myddelton Rd needs a no street-drinking sign - and most importantly someone to enforce it. After all people are not asking for a law in the law, they just want the current legislation enforced and upheld.
Best
Anna O'Neill
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Permalink Reply by Clare on
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I agree with Anna and appreciate what has been done so far. However, the fact that "A difficult truth is that there are too many landlord and commercial tenants on Myddleton Road who have no respect for local people, the law and the community" has to be acted upon. It is not acceptable to allow these individuals to carry on like this. They must be made to care by council and law enforcement.
So to echo Anna's post, the laws are there, they just need to be enforced, as a matter of urgency, before Myddleton Road and all the goodwill people have for it becomes beyond repair.
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Permalink Reply by Lindsey Berthoud on
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I went on a walk round Noel Park this weekend when I was down there for Wood Green Lit Fest and I had a look at NoelParknet and delved into the history a bit. Just to put things in context, it's worth noting that Noel Park, a sister conservation area just down the road, is now on English Heritage's At Risk register - one of 21 sites in Haringey on the list. They suffer from similar planning control issues, similar problems all round probably.
I don't know what their ward councillors are like but I'm glad ours are so involved in the issues and I'm looking forward to the public meeting tomorrow. But I'm also aware that Haringey is a borough facing huge challenges with limited resources and solutions initially might need to come from our community rather than the council.
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Permalink Reply by Tim Blake on
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Anna
Love your post and completely agree.
After reading other posts related to this subject it is disappointing to note that there are 21 at risk sites in Haringey. Disappointing but not unexpected from one of the 5 worst run Council's in the country.
I concur with those people who believe it is an ineffectual Council not enforcing the law that lets the situation prevail. I also believe it is within the Council's power (not to mention duty) to provide enforcement.
They recently conducted a huge raid in Soho, right through the Asian restaurants so clearly this type of enforcement is legal and clearly should be employed in the Bowes Park area (not just Myddleton Road.
TB
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Permalink Reply by Derek Keay on
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I enforced the no dropping of litter rule the other day on a drunk couple opposite the Step. I pointed out there was a bin not far from them that they could place their empty lager cans instead of using the pavement.
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Permalink Reply by Suellen edgar on
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Great news Derek :)) I pick up litter most days walking along Marlborough road and notice bags of rubbish, tables and mattresses are dumped almost monthly on the corner joining manor road. Would love CCTV on this notorious corner to catch the culprits. Few weeks back, 3 men were sat outside my house, drinking cans do beer laughing and talking very loudly. It got to 11 pm, so I stormed out in my dressing gown and pointed out this is a quiet residential road, where people are trying to sleep! They apologised and quickly left, taking the cans with them.
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As an aside, has anyone ever seen the secondhand furniture shop on the Londis strip open, ever?
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Permalink Reply by Caroline Simpson on
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Have seen it open. Even bought some tables.
It is run by a pleasant-enough young chap, but when asked why it isn't open more he replies that he has two kiddies that he has to help look after.......... Or that he has been ill.
Perhaps we should find a way to encourage him to open more.
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Permalink Reply by Caroline Simpson on
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I guess it still might be.
On that road, anything is possible!
Could try phoning the number on the door if you are interested in buying something.
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