Roger Ward on supporting business in Haringey

Roger Ward CBE

Many small businesses call Haringey home and local traders have collaborated to ensure their voices are heard by joining organisations like the Haringey Business Alliance (HBA). We sat down with HBA Chair Roger Ward to find out more about local businesses and who represents them.

Roger 70, has lived in Haringey for around 25 years. Originally from Newcastle, he went to university in America with scholarships and joined the British Civil Service after his studies.

From a poor family himself, Roger has struggled for people of different backgrounds to access higher education and was a leading figure in the campaign to convert old polytechnics into universities to increase student intake while working in government. The project increased Britain’s universities by about three times and he was awarded with the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) honour for his work.

Roger later opened his first restaurant in Muswell Hill, Haringey, going on to own around 14. By 2012 he had semi-retired, divesting all but one restaurant, but is always keen to do his part for local businesses and the community.

Sharing his thoughts about Haringey, he said “having run businesses locally for over 15 years and lived here, I’m an investor in Haringey and a resident, and I love the place,”

“Haringey is fundamentally, a very good place to live, work and invest,” he added.

Having worked as a Trade Union official in the 1970s, Roger was naturally able to support local businesses. “Because of my Trade Union background, I like organising things. So 12 or 13 years ago I helped set up a Muswell Hill traders organisation. It was sort of like a Trade Union for the businesses here,” he explained.

“The principles are exactly the same. You come together, you have things in common, you share an outlook about the way things should be done and when you’ve got all that sorted, you go and find out who you’ve got to shout at to achieve those things.”

He explained that the borough has a large number of small businesses in need of help dealing with the council. “Haringey is very different from most boroughs in London in that over 75% of the businesses in Haringey are small businesses,” he said. “Those businesses have lots of problems and the answer to many of them is found with Haringey Borough Council.”

For Roger, uniting local traders associations was the solution, “I also helped found some other traders groups across the borough, and found people from others like the association on Green Lanes and some in Tottenham. Then our groups came together as friends and shared a common interest and we realised very quickly that many shopkeepers didn’t know who to speak to if there was a parking problem, or how to get certain licences and lots of other things. So the traders organisations across the borough decided to come together and form one union, and we called ourselves the Haringey Business Alliance (HBA). I was honoured to be asked to chair it, which I do, I still chair my local Muswell Hill group here but I also chair our collective of 6 traders groups from across our borough.”

“We’re like any union,” he explained. “We help our members, when they’ve got  problem and they don’t know what to do, they phone us and if we can help them we do. If we don’t know the answer, it’s our job to find it.”

“Most issues come back to the council,” he added. “And therefore a key job for the HBA is to ensure that we have a direct line to the senior council officers. They trust us and we trust them, so we know who to speak to if a shop has a problem.”

Roger also spoke about other new challenges and changes in Haringey’s business world, “the impact of internet shopping has challenged traditional businesses to look afresh at how they serve their customers. Because unless you keep up with the pace of technology, you will probably fail ultimately.”

“Local business really has shifted,” he explained “it’s younger, more dynamic.”

“Many more new businesses are coming in to the area. Things that are really booming now are personal trainers, local gyms, health and beauty because people have more leisure time now. Entertainment industries have also dramatically blossomed.”

“You have more restaurants now, because more people eat out now. But Restaurants are also faced with major challenges, competition is fierce and you need to be on social media. You’ve also got to offer deals, the days of running restaurants and setting the prices and waiting for people to come in are long gone. You’ve got to keep ahead of the game”

He concluded saying that he was “massively optimistic” about the borough’s business future.