Living on the Harringay Ladder

Ian Sygrave is Chair of both LCSP and Harringay Police Panel. He has lived on the Ladder for the past 42 years.

Harringay Green Lanes: certainly a name to conjure with, but what images does it bring to mind? Restaurants and cafes, barbers and jewellers, exotic fruit and vegetables, crowded buses and traffic jams, bookies and slot machines, noise and bustle. Green Lanes is, of course, all of these things and much more besides.

Unlike so many other high streets, whether in Haringey or nationwide, Green Lanes seems to have developed the knack of re-inventing itself every so often since it was first created some 130 years ago. The coal merchants and haberdashers may no longer be with us, but the internet cafe, snack bar and restaurant, along with all the other elements of twenty-first century life, have successfully kept the show on the road.

Above all, it is food and drink which attracts not just a local but an (inter) national fan base to the area. This is quite a recent development as shops have, sadly, found it increasingly difficult to prosper in the age of the internet. Eating out, however, is a fast-growing and popular leisure activity, especially when the competition in Green Lanes keeps prices at very reasonable levels, which is no doubt a major attraction for customers.

Excellent transport links have also encouraged this development. Harringay is one of the best connected areas in London. Not many high streets can boast an Overground station, three bus routes (two of which are 24 hours) and a tube station at either end. Yet despite all of the excellent public transport, Green Lanes remains a major north-south arterial route across the borough and there is no doubt that is suffers from a very heavy flow of traffic, along with Wightman Road, its near neighbour at the western side of the Ladder. This remains a hot topic and one of the key issues for improvement over the coming years, not least from a pollution point of view.

“Harringay is one of the best connected areas in London”

However, Green Lanes is not just about its commercial outlets and transport access. As already briefly noted, it is at the heart of a strong local community and it is local people who have come together to shape, mould and improve their environment. Above all, and especially over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a very significant and positive degree of co-operation between residents and traders. This is visible here and now, as the present writer, a local resident, was invited to offer his thoughts in this annual magazine, produced by the Traders’ Association. The links, of course, go much deeper than that. It was the Green Lanes Strategy Group (founded in 2002 by our sadly missed Ladder resident, Councillor Nilgun Canver) which, over a period of more than ten years, made possible the regeneration of Green Lanes and, with it, the adjoining residential roads.

The work of this Group was a key turning-point in the recent history of the area, and gave it a real and positive future on which to focus, rather than a difficult period in the past. All of the Ladder roads, from Umfreville in the south to Sydney in the north, have seen the benefits of regeneration. More owner-occupiers have moved into the area, as they come to appreciate the quality of the Victorian housing-stock: good-sized rooms with high ceilings, often with some original features still left, and decent gardens by urban standards. Of course, there are still too many HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) run by absentee landlords, who have little to offer the area except dumped mattresses and overflowing bins. Even so, the Ladder Roads, as a whole, are much improved, as the Council’s HMO Licensing schemes (recently renewed) and the efforts of residents themselves, have made a real difference to the street scene.

The Harringay area is also very fortunate in its easy access to green spaces. How many high streets have a gem like Railway Fields, with a frontage on Green Lanes itself? With Finsbury Park and Duckett’s Common at either end and both Fairland Park and the New River Path running alongside the northern end of Wightman Road, the area has truly exceptional levels of green space on its doorstep. This is obviously a particular bonus for those residents with young children who do not have access to a garden.

The quality of our local primary and junior schools, both of which can be accessed via the Harringay Passage, has also improved very considerably over recent years, making the Ladder roads an attractive proposition for young families looking for a good state education in a safe environment.

There is no doubt that Harringay used to be something of a crime hotspot. In fact, one of the key local groups for residents, the Ladder Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) was originally set up in 1999-2000 in order to bring together different organisations to work with the police and the Council to reduce crime (especially burglary and anti-social behaviour). Fast forward, and the levels of crime are now very much at the bottom end of what might be expected in a busy, inner-city type area of London.

Admittedly, Harringay has enjoyed a huge stroke of good fortune with some twenty years of service by the local ‘bobby on the beat’ (PC Glyn Kelly, who is interviewed elsewhere in this magazine). Glyn therefore had a lifetime’s experience and knowledge of Harringay and its characters, but it says much about the area, and its powers of attraction, that he chose to remain for so long before his retirement last year. Sadly, Glyn did not live to enjoy the long and happy retirement which he so richly deserved, but his presence lives on in Green Lanes where the LCSP has planted a commemorative tree and a memorial plaque.

This leads back to where this article began: the importance of a strong local community, with a long-term commitment to the area and to one another. For the present writer, at least, this is the secret of Harringay’s success; it is about people and relationships and the ability to pool talent and resources to get things done.