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 Caroline Simpson on -
It is great that Nell and Matt are to host a meeting.
People ask 'What can I do?'
1. Parts of the answer are in your pocket.
Spend your money locally.
and
use your phone camera. Take a snap of every rule you see broken on the road - the piles of rubbish, the bin outside no 83, the lads on their motor-scooters racing down the wrong way, deliveries being hoisted across the pavement, shop windows being bashed out, unauthorised uses of buildings etc. Print and display and shame. Send a collection to your councillors. Document and Record.
2. If you do object to any proposal - for more small flats, new steel and glass shop fronts, plastic internally illuminated shop signs, whatever - then take 10 minutes and exercise your right to object formally. Write a comment on the application.
If you dont write, then they dont know.
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Permalink Reply by Kari Koonin on
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Often these things happen without planning consent. What then? Is there any point to retrospective planning applications? In the case of the 'bungalow' in Myddelton Road now advertised on Zoopla, what can possibly happen? If consent is not granted retrospectively, will it have to be pulled down? How likely is that? (I have objected, by the way!)
These are questions I'm looking forward to raising at the meeting, if we can get a Haringey planning person along.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cowan on
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There is a useful video here:
http://www.thenbs.com/nbsTV/ContractsLaw/programme.asp?refCode=3133...
where a planning lawyer explains how councils can deal with breaches of planning. It is all very relevant to Myddleton Road!
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Permalink Reply by Suellen edgar on
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Thank you for this Daniel
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Permalink Reply by Chris Jenkinson on
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I'd just like to add that a great website for reporting issues like rubbish, broken street lights, etc. is www.fixmystreet.com - everything is publicly shown so there is no hiding away the problems!
Chris
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Permalink Reply by Administrator on
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Caroline - LB Haringey have recently launched a new mobile App. (thanks Robert for the heads up) - smartphone users can, as you suggest take photographs of items of concern and the App will direct a picture and report to the relevant officer or team... They have invited the citizens engagement ... lets show them what needs to be changed!
Its called Our Haringey and can be accessed using iTunes or the Android store - depending on your 'phone type
More Details of the App and where to get it are included on page 8 of the current Haringey People mgazine
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http://www.haringey.gov.uk/myddleton_road_-_feasibility_study.pdf
Interesting conservation and regeneration study report shown above
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Permalink Reply by Mandy Norman on
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Thanks for this Suellen. I've been looking for this all over the place!
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Pleasure :))
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Permalink Reply by Caroline Simpson on
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There is a Neighbourhood Plan that was formally adopted in 2003 and is still meant to be policy.
This is also worth reading and for holding the council to account.
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/myddleton_road_neighbourhood_plan.pdf
"Neighbourhood Plans are in effect local action plans that identify local needs and set out how the Council, the local community and other key agencies can work in partnership to solve problems in areas. These plans contain policies and proposals to guide future development as well as specific actions. They allow a joined-up and holistic approach to addressing and tackling local problems."
Hmmmmmmm.
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Hi all,
Thanks for posting this Nell and I hope to be there on the 16th Oct.
I wanted to draw people's attention to the Haringey Lib Dems' campaign against illegal building. We've just launched a petition calling on the Council to act, as well as raising issue in our last Focus leaflet which was distributed by our volunteers over the last couple of months.
We'll be handing the petition in to the Council in due course so please do help pass it around and share it!
ttp://www.flickr.com/photos/haringeylibdems/10074628875/
Best wishes
Chris Jenkinson
Liberal Democrat campaign in Bounds Green
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Signed and shared. Thank you :))
Connecting the communities of Bowes Park and Bounds Green in north London.
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