Haringey Council aims to deliver 3,000 new council homes by 2031, expanding housing stock by 20 per cent. Since 2018, over 2,073 homes have been completed or are underway, with 700 households moving in by late 2024. Community engagement, including two phases in 2021, shaped the proposals before planning approval in 2022. Ten new blocks, named after migratory birds visiting Tottenham Marshes, will start to complete by summer 2025.

 

Who is on the project? 

 

Liz Hingley

Levitt Bernstein

Formation Design & Build Ltd

Haringey Council

 

Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place?

 

Community engagement lies at the heart of Haringey Council’s ambitious programme to deliver 3,000 new council homes by 2031, expanding our housing stock by 20%. Already, some 2,073 homes have been completed or are under way, and 700 households are expected to have moved into their new homes by the end of 2024. Haringey’s programme isn’t just about building more housing but creating homes set in places where people want to live. The Haringey Deal emphases the importance of developing our new homes in partnership with the neighbouring community. Since 2018, we’ve run over 80 community engagements involving thousands of residents: their views shape our projects prior to planning, and communal, landscaping, and infrastructure improvements. We continue engaging after approval with regular drop-in events, newsletters, stakeholder briefings, and web updates. Our Ashley Road Depot (ARD) scheme in Tottenham Hale exemplifies Haringey’s commitment to community engagement. ARD is transforming an ex-industrial site on Down Lane Park’s northern edge with 272 new council homes, opening new pedestrian and cycle paths into the park, and ‘drawing’ its greenery into the site. We held two phases of community engagement in autumn 2021 on our initial proposals; the second phase reflected initial feedback. Following planning approval in 2022, we’ve kept residents updated with what to expect at every stage of construction. We’ve also involved local schoolchildren to help create our ARD legacy project, a creative project that aims to help integrate the new homes into the wider local community.

 

Who did you engage with and how? 

 

Autumn 2021’s two phases of pre-planning community engagement sent engagement packs to over 2,600 households near the site, with online and in-person drop-in events for residents to discuss the proposals with the project team. Each pack contained an eight-page brochure of the proposals, and residents could respond online or by post. Following planning approval in 2022, we’ve kept residents informed on what to expect from every construction stage with regular drop-in events, newsletters, dedicated web-hub, and stakeholder briefings. In 2023, we launched our ARD Legacy Project to deliver a creative legacy that’ll help integrate the new homes into the local Tottenham Hale community. The council retained a creative consultant, Liz Hingley, to lead the Legacy Project. The council’s 2019 declaration of a climate emergency and ARD’s proximity to Tottenham Marshes prompted an environmental theme, refined to migratory birds visiting the Marshes and reflecting many Tottenham residents’ own migrations to make their home in Tottenham: the ‘Wingspan Project.’ Ms Hingley ran 9 photography and movement workshops for 60 children at Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School and Mulberry Primary School. These workshops included Haringey-based mime artist Guillaume Pige, who helped the children use their hands to sculpt the bird’s form in flight; striking photographs captured their collaborations. The children were fascinated to create ‘flock’ poems and by each bird’s collective noun. The workshops also captured the names for each bird in the languages spoken by the children. Ms Hingley also arranged tours of the ARD site for the children.

 

How did the project and the community benefit from engagement? 

 

The Legacy Project’s theme is now ARD’s organising theme: each of the 10 new blocks is named for a migratory bird visiting Tottenham Marshes. An ‘early doors’ requirement, as the block names were required for utility registrations. The second outcome were designs capturing the birds’ migratory ranges, traced in gold thread across a world map to Tottenham, a silhouette of each bird in flight, their collective noun (such as a ‘Committee of Terns’ and a ‘Cluster of Turnstones’), with the edge embroidered with each bird’s name in the 27 languages spoken by the children. Each design has been digitised and is being mounted on the site’s hoarding for the remainder of construction; the original collages will be displayed in the appropriate block’s lobby. Ms Hingley is currently working closely with the architects (Levitt Bernstein), contractor (Formation Design and Build Ltd), and the council’s project team to integrate the Wingspan Project’s theme of bird designs into the fabric of the new homes, such as on name plaques, on gates, and path in-lays. The initial pre-planning community engagement saw several design changes, notably lowering of building heights along Park View Road (north), with offsetting increases away existing homes. Residents also highlighted the need to improve a local road junction; this now forms part of the final s278 works around the site boundary.