HOW HARINGEY IS ABLE TO APPROVE A DEFICIENT PLANNING APPLICATION

The Pueblito Paisa Ltd is a non-profit company formed by Iberian-American businessmen to further the interests of their businesses and their community. They are based at 231 High Road, Tottenham, London. Their objective when they started in 2001 was to create a place that would serve as a magnet to their community members locally, regionally across London and nationwide.

They successfully managed to create a vibrant and thriving community facility in the area known as Wards Corner together with other ethnic minorities that were already on the site forming at the same time a cohesive multi-ethnic trading unit.

Their success attracted other Iberian-American businesses to Tottenham, (South Tottenham, West Green Road, High Cross and Seven Sisters) contributing to the economic regeneration of the area despite the neglect of the site infrastructure by the local authority and Transport for London.

Particularly since 2003 the Pueblito Paisa has worked very hard to promote the physical regeneration and conservation of the site and many representations have been made through a coalition of traders, local businesses, residents and other local organisations to invite the local authority to engage with them in a collaborative approach to regeneration and sustainable development.

Haringey council not only refused to recognised them as stakeholders an d partners for regeneration but  joined with other organisations and resolved to grant permission for a scheme that will virtually wipe out the Iberian-American presence from Tottenham ignoring the willingness of the Wards Corner community and their representatives to participate in the making of Wards Corner not only a Greater Place but also a tourist attraction for the Olympics and beyond.  

The Rio Summit (1992) agreed that the best starting point for achieving sustainable development is at the local level. Thus, each local authority is supposed to draw up their local agenda (LA21) following discussions with its citizens, including community groups, businesses and ethnic minorities. It drew the conclusion that sustainable development is achievable without sacrificing the quality of our lives.

The UK government’s response to those international initiatives is to improve strategic planning and delivery, developing urban areas in such a way that they meet their own economic and social needs supporting communities that are prosperous and with a strong sense of community providing them with well designed, safe affordable housing.

The Sustainable Development Framework for London (2002) set out the objectives to guide decision making to produce consistent economic progress, with transactions conducted to high ethical standards, decisions that are informed by a long term perspective, developing a culture of fairness to protect the right of Londoners to pursue fulfilment, to celebrate the unique ethnic and cultural diversity of London opposing all forms of discrimination and prejudice, creating a city in which conflicts will be resolved as part of a transparent and participatory process.

Major developments can have an adverse, positive or neutral impact on ethnic communities. However, the regeneration strategy for Wards Corner and the subsequent planning application failed to give due consideration to ethnic groups and London Assembly Economic Development Policies, fundamental to achieving strong economic growth and cohesion, have been ignored.

The level of support to enable ethnic groups to participate in planning and regeneration is inadequate. Institutional racism has been common in the area of regeneration. Racial disadvantage has developed through lack of investment because regeneration has been aimed at buildings and not people, thus failing to tackle disadvantage in minority communities and the consideration of Grainger’s application at Wards Corner is a case in point.

The scheme makes no provision for the market to continue to function throughout the construction of the new development and this will destroy the community facility that has been established at the site. The minority groups that rely on Wards Corner deserve better, they deserve to have their facility safeguarded with continuity of trade guaranteed for the market in the short, medium and long term because otherwise, there will be no market left to return to the development when it is completed.

Had Haringey Council assessed the magnitude of the impact of the development on the black and minority ethnic (BME) communities that are reliant on Wards Corner, a temporary relocation site could have been sought from an early stage with the Council and the developers working with the local community to identify and address their needs and mitigate against the effects of the development on BME communities. Instead, a market space was identified as an afterthought and no regard was given to the short term effects of the development on ethnic communities.

El Pueblito Paisa Ltd.
 

 

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