WHERE NEXT?

THE REGENERATION SUBGROUP

NoMac
This is the group who combined to prevent McDonalds' going into the Arcade Motors site at the entrance to Alexandra Palace
HIPE
Hornsey Information Planning Exchange, set up earlier this year by Hornsey residents directly affected by the Waterworks Site development.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCHEME

"The programme's mission is to enhance the vitality and the local economy of the centre of the Borough, making it a more attractive place in which to live, work, visit and invest. Underlying this is the aim of making a significant reduction in the relatively high levels of local unemployment. This will be achieved through major investment in the physical fabric of a concentrated area at the heart of the Borough, integrated with employment and training measures which build long term linkages with employers." (Haringey Heartlands Delivery Plan, Draft 1, February 1997) The programme consists of five interlinked Strategic Objectives: * Enterprise, Employment & Training To exploit the opportunity to bring labour supply and demand together and raise skills and qualifications, enabling local people to access jobs locally and in the wider labour market. * Land Development Between Alexandra Palace and Wood Green town centre lie some 50 acres of vacant and underused land. This will be prepared or decontaminated and exploited for employment, housing and leisure use. In particular, the Waterworks Site (owned by Thames Water) and Hornsey Depot (owned by the Council), both off Hornsey High Street, will be developed. Current plans include a Sainsburys' supermarket (for which outline planning permission has been granted) and a new housing estate. * Wood Green Town Centre The increasingly run-down town centre will be enhanced as a commercial environment to provide a sustainable source of local jobs. * Cultural Quarter This will be developed on the Gasworks Site and the Mayes Road industrial estate behind Wood Green Shopping City. * Housing Housing improvement on a number of estates and in a housing renewal area to the west of Wood Green High Road. Geographically, the Haringey Heartlands programme concentrates upon two complementary target areas: * The Heartlands Regeneration Zone This is an area stretching from Alexandra Palace to just East of Wood Green High Road and including the Waterworks Site, Hornsey Depot, the Gasworks Site, Mayes Road industrial estate and Shopping City. * The Area of Employment Benefit This is "a wider area to the east of the Kings Cross main line including, but extending beyond, the Regeneration Zone. It contains some 50,000 residents and represents one of the most deprived communities in the country as defined by the Department of the Environment's Index of Local Conditions". (ibid) It is in this area, situated to the East of the railway line and stretching from the North to the South of the Borough, that training for the local employment opportunities resulting from the development of the Regeneration Zone will be targeted. In theory, all this may sound unexceptionable. Upon closer examination, however, it all raises a series of questions, in particular: how far will the regeneration process actually improve the quality of life of Haringey residents, both inside and outside the target areas? Already, a group of Hornsey residents, alarmed by the local implications of the scheme, have formed the Hornsey Information and Planning Exchange (HIPE) to campaign against the proposed development of the Waterworks and Depot sites around a supermarket and possible fast food outlet. Despite reservations, Haringey Solidarity Group supports HIPE's resistance to the Council's attempt to railroad local residents into bowing down before the Waterworks development. However, we would prefer to consider the Hornsey confrontation not only within the Borough-wide context of the Heartlands scheme as a whole, but also within the global context of the increasing power of multinational companies over local communities. We believe that it is the demands of multinational companies, driven by their desire to maximise profits at any cost, that set the agenda for local economic development. In the new global marketplace, the function of Haringey Council is less to represent the local interests of its electorate than simply to serve the people of the Borough up to big business. The fundamental question - does Haringey actually need more large-scale developments? - remains unaddressed. New superstores make profits for big business. Regenerating existing shopping streets and rebuilding our communities do not. And the way in which the planning process is structured in favour of developers means that local people have virtually no say in what is built. We are told that the scheme will improve the quality of life in our communities. Is this true? How big an impact will the programme really make on deprivation and unemployment in Haringey? Will it generate worthwhile employment opportunities, or just create more low-paid, insecure jobs with poor working conditions (as required by the multinationals)? How far is development in one part of the Borough at the expense of other parts? Previous superstore schemes in and around Haringey indicate that development in one area merely becomes part of a "musical chairs" process whereby companies in other areas shed jobs or close down altogether because costs are lower (and subsidies higher) in the regeneration area. And what are the traffic implications in the areas surrounding and feeding into the Heartlands?