I especially like the ‘green for Stroud Green’ and co-ordination of councillors. Bravo.

Where can I find out more about the Woodstock Road Association?

I’m game for naked pagan maypole dancing and other larking about.

The proposed green would be much improved by the demolition of the eyesore behind it, home of Granny’s Caribbean Shack.

Has anyone actual bought food from there? A

If they were prepared to be more flexible I'd definitely consider opening a shop here.

Thanks to everbody for the thoughtful contributions so far. I forgot to mention in launching this discussion that you can contact the Woodstock Road Association at thewra@hotmail.com or by 'snail mail' at 69 Woodstock Road N4. We haven't got a website yet but plans for this are in the works.

A note to Andy and Miss Annie: Flexible financial arrangements for small local businesses DO sound like a good idea. This is, indeed, done in Paris (I used to live there, myself). T'would be good to give the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury a run for their money, wouldn't it?

Not much to add, but re: the shops on SGR - when Michael Morris opened his estate agent (admittedly perhaps not a crucial local amenity), it lay empty for about a year iirc while the council to-and-fro'ed about the consent. In that time, two fruit and veg type shops opened seemingly overnight, as did the kebab shop near the wig shops.

Suppose it depends whether the council(s) thinks a shop is 'right' for the area, and appear happy for places to be stagnant for a very long time rather than let the 'wrong' type of business open up - making the area unattractive to pretty much everyone. Seems a bit hairbrained, but am sure the council boffins have a strategy.

The idea of an actual tiny green at SGR/UTP is nice, would support that.

Where the green could be was where Busby had his WW2 Swiming Pool

Hello Commissionar17

I like the park idea. I knew the architecture student who did some plans for the area. I also met with the Finsbury Park Partnership Programme Manager years ago about it. There was quite a lot of work around it and a lot of consultation that happened. I still have a lot of the paperwork. Local Councillors were supportive and so were John Jones I remember.

One of the ideas was to get rid of the road and pave it over, perhaps have some market stalls there. The traders there were very against that bit. It came to nothing really for lots of reasons, which I can't go into on here. Since the council owns the land, they would have to do the work/put it out for tender. In my discussions with the Council and FPP I always got bogged down with how we could only have street furniture from the existing pallet, which was quite limited, health and safety, disability access, long term maintenance, insurance, tendering the work, parking, drains etc. Then it would be expensive, upwards of £150,000 and it wasn't a priority. We talked about fundraising for the project, but this is hard to do unless you own the land. We would have to fundraise and give the money to the council which is a bit odd, but maybe not impossible, could be done with a third party facilitating the work. Groundwork do this sort of thing, but they're expensive.

I'd be happy to brief you on what we did, although it's a little hazy, was years ago. I also fundraised quite a lot of money for consultation, and it's still sitting in HSBC on Seven Sisters Rd, probably earmarked, ironically, as a dormant account that can be used for Big Society projects.

Many thanks for your detailed comments on the mini-park idea, Dorothy. I'll pass them on at our next WRA meeting.

Andy for Mayor.

1. Lifts would be nice but more importantly open and extend the second tunnel so it connects the Seven Sisters side to the SGR side. This might alleviate crowding during the rushes.

2. Er . . . I thought Stroud Green already had a ‘green’. I could be wrong but I thought it’s called Finsbury Park.

Of course everyone is for more green space but given that the walls and plantings on the corner of SGR and UPT are not maintained to a good condition now I’m not sure the idea of enlarging it into a ‘green’ makes sense unless a ‘big society’ association is created and funded to maintain it and maybe organise some small events so it just doesn’t become another place to sit and drink beer.

3. Agree with Andy -- not a bad idea but hasn’t SG.com replaced the need?

4. Agree with Andy -- what about local pubs, churches or schools?

5. More communication and cooperation is always welcome.

And to add to the list:
6. Encourage people to tidy up their front gardens. Would it hurt to pull a weed or pick up a crisp bag when it’s on your doorstep? (By the way Woodstock Road has some of the worst offenders.)

7. Plant more street trees.

8. In a perfect world . . . have TFL enforce a strict policy wherein people reading the paper, texting or are otherwise occupied by tasks other then entering or exiting the FP station are beaten to a bloody pulp about the face and neck. . . oh and loved-up couples walking had-in-hand should be slapped silly and reminded it’s the bloody Tube, not Noah’s ark.

@Arkady – supposedly plans were afoot at one time to put the bus station on SGR between Perth and Ennis Roads and this was blocked by residents.

@Joe V
Point 8 should be made into law immediately.

Totally agree about what people say they want and what people actually do.

But if this plan was run properly you could attract people with successful small business looking for a second venue, or people thinking about opening elsewhere or people looking to take the plunge but nervous about the banks. Or people running small businesses who could step into bigger premises if the costs were right. And if was done across, say 4 shops, then you could change the vibe of the street.

Lots of the empty shop programmes are really short term 'pop-up' deals. This could look to create a spine of sustainable, long term independent businesses.

I don't think we could guarantee success, but I do think we could lower the cost of failing.

The council do have details of all owners of property on SGR. They should spend time chasing them on matters such as proper provision for waste disposal by any tennats of the flats above. e.g above shops and Karmenz/K1 etc. on top section of SGR to junction with Stapleton Hall Rd. - many of these are accessed from a rear alley and a lot of rubbish just gets chucked by lampost adjacent to side door of The Mind Shop, a lot just gets put on SGR too because tenants have no proper arrangement. Fortunately the bin men take most of this stuff away but over the years a habit had formed for dumping old furniture and at that junction of SGR/SHR.
[ I challenged someone doing this and he said 'it's a collection spot for old stuff and the council collect it every weekend" - !!! I corrected this urban myth and helped him put the sofa back into his hatchback]

David, maybe we could have a cupcake bike knitting workshop?

lifts are a great idea for older residents and Transport for London should have done this year ago... shame on them and Islington Council for not making more of a fuss. prob if we all wrote emails to TFL and annoyed them enough collectively something may happen sonner than it may happen.

Def agree we need a little pocket park.... if you live in a little flat with nor garden its either a walk to Finsbury Park or nought! It would be nice to have a small space to sit down and read the paper in on a sunny day...

community centre is not really feasible in this climate i.e no money at all. But we have all these community spaces that are empty most of the time. People like Father David who is the Priest at St Melitus would prob let any friendly soul use the church's community space if they asked... i am sure there are lots of spaces like this dotted about the area, what facility managers and community groups need to do is to work together to 'sweat' these assets more effectively rather than leaving them empty after 5pm e.g. local schools.

Councillor co-operation - Islington councillors seem to be a bit more responsive now they are running the Council so if we all emailed them from both sides to run such a group something might happen... from working with local govt what we really need is the officers in the council meeting to discuss this rather than just the politicians - prob save both Councils money too... maybe we could have a unified team stroud green that looked after street services for both sides of the area

In related news that I haven't seen on here yet:

"Plans have been approved for the refurbishment of Hornsey Town Hall. The conversion of the grade II listed building into an arts and culture centre is part of a scheme that will include offices and homes."

I haven't seen any plans so I don't know what the proposals are but I wouldn't have thought that the area is big enough for anything other than a strip of grass and a few benches, wouldn't this just attract the homeless/street drinkers who sit outside Tesco and opposite The Lion, meaning that other people: shoppers, the elderly and people with young children probably wouldn't use it? This would be a major nuisance for the traders and residents in Charter Court. I think it would also provide a more attractive hangout for the weapons dog yobs from further up the road, so the dogshit would be a major health hazard.

I'm all for creating nice spaces for the community but I'm just worried that the planning is a little rose tinted and not actually realistic. I live very close to the site and often walk by late at night. It is already a bit of a dodgy hangout spot but at least with the cabbies there it's a bit safer. I also agree with ADGS, it's in a really noisy, busy spot by the crossing, I certainly wouldn't want to sit there when Finsbury Park is only a few mins walk away.

Those shrubs that are there at the moment are too tall and provide camouflage for all the dodgy goings on. They need to be taken out and replaced with low level, tidier planting, which would allow people to sit around the edge should they wish to, this could be planted with brightly coloured flowers which could change seasonally to bring a bit of colour and cheer to the area, this could be done by a group of volunteers with local business sponsorship so wouldn't cost the council anything. Maybe we could also have a community noticeboard there.

Re the benches outside Tesco, turn them round to face the road and put them closer to the road, then the majority of passers by will be walking behind them, making them less attractive for the scroungers and street drinkers so that shoppers and the elderly are more likely to use them.

As with the zebra crossing issue, there needs to be a common sense approach to this. Yes, it would be 'nice' to have a little green there, but if it's going to cause more problems than it's worth then surely we're better off without it?

I understand that, but they (apart from the bottlebrush) are quite ugly and as I say, provide cover for the dodgy goings on and also get full up with litter.

We could have some much nicer ones to brighten up the place and these would still require less maintenance than a small park on the site.

...while we're on the subject, where is "Ferme Park"???

Doesn't that border Xanadu, just west of the Five Ways?