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 Lindsey Berthoud on
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Will be listening in, 5pm start folks!
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Permalink Reply by Richard McKeever on
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The excellent news report and subsequent robust questioning of Cllr Matt Cooke is available on the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days - Or listen below.
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Permalink Reply by Martin McDonnell on -
Thanks for posting this
M
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Permalink Reply by Kari Koonin on
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Nell and Mat,
I've just seen this, and I wanted to thank you both for your impassioned plea to the council to pull their fingers out and finally start improving things. Yours should be an open letter - not just to the local papers but also to the Evening Standard and any other major media you can think of. It sums up perfectly and succinctly just what is wrong with our area - and it's a lot worse than I and I'm sure many others imagined when we pop down to use The Step and what few other facilities there are there. It breaks my heart that a street with so much potential and so much history is being left to decay and deteriorate the way this is. Not just the fabric but the community. While we see so many other areas of London being regenerated, it's high time it happened to Myddleton Road. We don't want you to move away - you two have put so much effort and belief into the community and it would be a total tragedy if you were forced to go through lack of cooperation and sheer frustration. We want to be able to be proud of our heritage, our community and our future.
I for one will be listening in today and doing what I can to support the cause. Thanks again for your input, guys.
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Permalink Reply by Anna O'Neill on
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Feel free to call in with those commnets tonight Kari!
Also, BBC London News is looking at filming tomorrow on Myddleton Rd.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Hoggarth on
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Hi Anna,Looking forward to the radio broadcast later today! Great news about the filming tomorrow but will it be in the daytime? That would be a shame as most of the residents will be out at work :(
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Permalink Reply by Anna O'Neill on
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It will be I'm afraid. But at least it is another chance to try to pin down the council about the future of the street and get some of the business like The Step on. Feel free to call into BBC London 94.9 tonight before 7pm to have your say.
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Maybe this calls for a public meeting, to which we could invite a representative of the planning dept to find out what on earth is going on, especially with scandalous situations like this: http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/30070559 . According to Mat, they only had planning permission for a 'live/work space'. What's that about???
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Permalink Reply by Caroline Simpson on
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No its worse than that.
They have not got planning permission at all.
Never had.
They have now applied pretending that there was a living and workspace there before, and applying to upgrade it. No it wasnt there, an old shed was.
Now they have advertised it as a 2 bedroom houselet
You too can object on the Haringey planning website. Dont be scared - just say that you are a local resident and feel that bungalows should not be built willy-nilly in back gardens.
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Permalink Reply by Belsize on
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Sorry if I am repeating info posted elsewhere but...
You can object to the planning application for the 2 bed bungalow that has sprung up in a back garden on 'Myddleton Road here:
http://www.planningservices.haringey.gov.uk/portal/servlets/Applica...
It is advertised to rent as a 2 bed flat here http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/30070559 with no planning permission or local residents consent...
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A reminder that there is another forum thread where people flag up new planning applications.
Please take a look at them, read what others have said and put in your comments to Haringey - whether objections or support. Let's show them that we care about what's happening in the community.
http://www.bowesandbounds.org/forum/topics/building-control-on-mydd...
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Permalink Reply by Carolyn Brown on
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I will be happy to help in any way, let's keep up the pressure and hope a public meeting will be organised soon. Thanks Richard for the names of the councillor, I didn't realise they were still in post as they have being largely silent/absent for some time.
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