Press+-+Property+Week+-+Backed+into+a+Corner

=Backed into a corner= Richard Heap - Property Week ( 29 August 2008)

In Seven Sisters Market, south Tottenham becomes South America. Latin music is piped into the Transport for London-owned Wards Corner building, while people bustle between stalls packed with imported food.
 * Grainger’s plans for Seven Sisters’ Wards Corner have provoked strong protest.

Victoria Alvarez, franchisee at the Wards Corner branch of Ria Money Transfer, is Colombian and has worked at the market, a focal point for the Latin American community, for five years. She is also a key figure in a local movement to protect the market from demolition. ‘It’s like a little bit of home in London,’ she says. ‘I cannot imagine my community being wiped out from here. It would be heartbreaking.’ Next month, developer Grainger expects to hear whether Haringey Council has approved its proposed retail and residential development for Wards Corner, above Seven Sisters Tube station. The former department store building, at the corner of Seven Sisters Road and High Road, where Alvarez works, would be bulldozed to make way for the £80m scheme, which could be finished by 2013. Shops on West [|Green] Road to the north of the site, and homes on Suffield Road to the west, would also be demolished. Locals are battling to protect Wards Corner. The Wards Corner Community Coalition, a group of traders and residents, says it is important to relocate the market and it wants to see Wards Corner refurbished, not demolished. A council decision on Grainger’s plan, expected in July, has been delayed, which local traders hope will mean further consultation on the proposals. The coalition is working up its own refurbishment plan for the buildings and hopes to link up with the Prince’s Regeneration Trust to progress its proposals further. The group says that, as well as the market, it wants the 1909 former department store building to be protected in any redevelopment.

The local traders could have the backing of London mayor Boris Johnson, who last month said he wanted the Wards Corner building refurbished as part of any development. Alvarez says people come to the market from as far afield as [|Bristol] and [|Nottingham] to buy products from their home country. More than one third of traders in the market are South American, while others at the 35 stalls come from Africa, Iran and Jamaica.
 * Mayoral seal**

‘It’s the only Latin American market and it’s a place where everyone can come and hang around, with our own food,’ Alvarez says. ‘It’s not just about the service you provide. It’s about the social part, the human part.’ Grainger development director David Walters says the company has spent four years on its plan, which features 197 homes and 40,000 sq ft of retail divided between nine high street stores and 20 smaller shops for local retailers. He says the scheme’s retail focus would be on getting convenience stores such as a [|Boots], as well as a bank, to appeal to people using Seven Sisters Tube station. Transport for London, which owns most of the Wards Corner site, says more than 13.5 million journeys were made to and from this Underground station in 2007. Walters says Grainger is looking at providing for the market following Boris Johnson’s intervention, but adds that ‘we’ve been looking at that for the past four years’. He says Grainger tried to engage with traders but has found it hard to do so. ‘They don’t want to move out, so how do you get them to talk to you? It’s very difficult,’ he says. Retailers retort they are angry that they would be moved out with no plan to relocate them (see box). Coalition campaigner Roy Jose says Grainger’s plan is not the best way to achieve regeneration, because Wards Corner could not compete with high street retail at Tottenham Hale retail park and shops in the heart of Tottenham. Grainger says its plan would spur regeneration by cutting crime around Wards Corner. Haringey Council – having heard Boris Johnson’s input – must now decide whom it favours. ||



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What the traders say
‘[Grainger’s scheme] is a gated community where people would live here and work in the West End. They would march up and down without contributing anything to the local economy. We don’t object to Grainger being the developer, but we do object to their proposal.’ ‘The multiple retailers left 20-25 years ago. Now the developer is planning to bring in multiples again and get rid of the independents that have kept this area going over the past 20 years. They left. Why do we need them back?’ ‘There’s no plan to relocate us. I’ve been running this shop for 30 years and the area has got a lot better in my view. In terms of crime it has improved a hundredfold. I’d like to see the buildings refurbished rather than all of us be kicked out.’
 * Moaz Nanjuwany, owner, The Eye Practice**
 * Lagu Sukumaran, owner, Fair Deal Cash & Carry**
 * Bernard Keys, partner, Inkwell Printing Company**