Haringey Council is set to take further large step towards implementing its extensive redevelopment programme by confirming property giant Lendlease as its “preferred bidder” to transform an area opposite the new Tottenham Hotspur Football Club stadium, known as High Road West
The council’s cabinet will make its decision next Tuesday after discussing a recommendation by officers to select the regeneration specialists, who were confirmed in July as Haringey’s partner in a separate 50/50 joint venture company to transform a number of other sites across the borough over the next 20 years. In the case of High Road West, however, the land in question will be acquired in phases by the preferred bidder.
The development area covers 27 acres, mostly comprising the 191-home council-owned Love Lane housing estate which takes up about 30% of the development site, and a number of nearby industrial premises. Haringey intends to replace these with 2,500 new residential properties, of which 750 would be affordable including replacements for current Love Lane tenants and leaseholders.
The plans also promise a new “civic square” with shops and cafes, new green spaces, children’s play areas and outdoor gym, refurbished “community hub” facilities at an existing council building on White Hart Lane called The Grange and new industrial space to support businesses from the existing Peacock industrial estate.
The council intends to be the owner of the replacement homes for its Love Lane tenants once Lendlease has built them, stressing that this arrangement is one of a number to emerge from a consultation process which began in 2013. Councillor Alan Strickland, Haringey’s cabinet member for regeneration and housing, expressed delight that residents’ “vision and priorities have shaped the really exciting plans”. The council set out a series of promises to estate tenants and commitments to businesses in separate charters.
Asked in autumn 2014 for their views on the High Road West masterplan, 70% of the 130 Love Lane residents who responded “agreed that Love Lane should be demolished and homes replaced”, while 81% of all respondents, who also included local businesses and residents from the wider area, agreed with the principle that “all new homes should have access to private open space such as balconies, gardens an shared courtyards”, according to the council’s feedback report (also here).
There was even stronger agreement that Tottenham High Road should “remain the neighbourhood’s main shopping area, with improved shop frontages and public spaces”.
The council says refurbishment of the Grange will begin in 2018 and that construction of new homes should commence the following year. It predicts the scheme will create at least 3,300 construction jobs and more than 500 other local jobs, largely in leisure and retail, once the project is complete.
A Love Lane resident is among people from Tottenham and nearby interviewed in a short film about Haringey’s regeneration plans here.