Stadium Update... Campaigners demand Spurs puts up £100million for renewal of Tottenham community – open meeting Saturday The recently-formed Our Tottenham group, which draws support and members from community and residents’ groups and businesses in the area, said the contribution would equal that of Arsenal FC’s payments for improvements to the area in Highbury, made after intense wrangling with Islington Council. The amount is more than 200 times the £477,000 Spurs is legally required to contribute under the current legally-binding arrangment. At the club’s request, Spurs’ executive director Donna-Maria Cullen and its head of community relations Adam Davison met with a five-strong delegation from the Our Tottenham network on Thursday. The group condemned the “negative” effect the current Northumberland Development Project regeneration is having on the community, and handed them seven written demands, including that for a £100million commitment. Our Tottenham also demanded that no homes or businesses be demolished for the club’s planned ‘Wembley Way’-style approach from White Hart Lane station, that no public money is used for developments related to the stadium, that at least half of the new homes Spurs builds are for social housing, and that it sign up to the group’s community charter. Ms Cullen said the club would respond in writing and the group claims there was intense discussion about the extent of Spurs’ responsibility for revitalising the local area. Frank Murray, one of the Our Tottenham delegates at the meeting, said: “We are calling on the club to speak out against the threat of demolitions of nearby homes and shops, and to promise to fund the improvements people actually need. “Spurs always say they want to go one better than Arsenal, so we expect them to put more money into the area than Arsenal did since they built their new stadium.” Spurs is currently required to pay £477,000 towards community and infrastructure improvements, a deal agreed in February 2012 after Haringey Council let it wriggle out of £15.96million of further payments, a £1.2million contribution towards education improvements and a requirement to build at least 100 “affordable” homes as part of the stadium development. Some of those costs were passed on to the council and left to be absorbed by Transport for London and the Mayor of London’s £27million Tottenham Regeneration Fund. The council also gave Spurs permission to increase the number of flats from 200 to 285, in order to help make the entire project “viable” and thereby keep the wider regeneration of Tottenham on course. + Our Tottenham will update the community on its campaign at a “street assembly” public meeting at noon on Saturday, July 6, outside Wards Corner above Seven Sisters Tube station, High Road, Tottenham.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:23:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015