Do we have a say in what happens in the Town Hall square?

[Adrian Essex]

The Crouch End Neighbourhood Forum has published a blog on the future of the Town Hall Square. We know what the big picture is - Haringey has sold the square to a private developer. Whatever we may think of that decision we are where we do seem to be.

The CENF blog raises a lot of questions - for instance, how long will we be without a Twon Hall Square while the landscapers, JCBs and pile drivers have access?

But I think the thing that most gets me riled up is the proposed retention of the BT urinals, which now serve no communications purpose , and exist only for drunken calls of nature, BT advertising revenue and the recitation of poetry once a year at the festival 

The forum has called for the full involvement of the public in discussions as to how the square should develop.

"The Forum believes that this is Crouch End’s civic space, and as a matter of principle public consultation on design, function and management of the square is required."

[Adrian Essex]

I asked "Do we have a say in what happens in the Town Hall square?"  Well, it would appear someone does. Did you know that the Crouch End Festival has been holding meetings and coming to agreements about how the Square should be laid out for the future. You can see two different takes on the progress of these talks here on the HTHAS blog, and here on the CENF blog. The festival writes "  Most of the suggestions we have put to the architects have been taken on board and many amendments to the scheme have been incorporated into the evolving design." and "For what it’s worth, Crouch End Festival are not worried."

Which leads me to ask "what evolving design?" - what exists now is not the design FEC/MAKE consulted on all those months ago. It has evolved to suit the needs of the festival, but we don't know what changes have been made, we only know that they make the festival very happy. Is that good enough for a community asset?

And what of the Creative Trust? They have not updated their website since November 17th. Are they too in clandestine talks with the developers, as they were during the procurement process.

And what of Time and Space the company that will be running the Arts Centre, including the Square. Will a Festival-perfect Square have what this operator needs. One can only suppose that Time and Space, partners in a joint venture with FEC, will have demands that take priority over those of the Festival. Perhaps the Festival is being fobbed off with promises that may never be delivered upon."

[Adrian Essex]

The Crouch End Festival has published a poster and a note . The poster says “Last year on the Green and Square” which sounds final and very bad news, while website note says “This might be our last Crouch End Festival for a while as HTH is likely to be a building site from July… so we’re looking to make this year as good as possible before our probable hiatus’. Which sounds less final, but still not good news

https://www.crouchendfestival.org/