North London Parks Votes

Lordship Recreation Ground 4711
Dollis Valley Green Walk 4302
Arnos Park 4158
Elthorne Park 2533
Barnard Park 2405
Lincoln’s Inn Fields 2237
Shoreditch Park 1461
Coram’s Fields 1293
Bunhill Fields 842
Broadley Street Gardens 650

An incredible response considering Tottenham is an area where so many people don’t have direct internet access. A big thank you to everyone who helped encourage people to take part. We thank our fellow residents around Haringey for this massive vote of confidence, demonstrating the overwhelming public support for the community-driven plans for the regeneration of Tottenham’s largest green space. All our hard work and patient partnership-working with the Council and others over the last seven years is at last beginning to pay off.

Despite being one of six parks around London shortlisted for a special ‘one-off’ £2m GLA grant, we weren’t successful in getting that. This means that we still have to work hard over the next 6 months to raise additional match funding in order to ensure our regeneration plans can be implemented.

Dave Morris
Chair, Lordship Rec Users Forum

See the GLA press release below for more details.

The Mayor today (Wednesday 4 March) revealed that Lordship Recreation Ground, Haringey, and Dollis Valley Green Walk, Barnet, are among the top-ten winning parks to each receive a £400,000 makeover following a public vote.

Londoners were recently invited by the Mayor to vote on a shortlist of parks across the capital in order to fund improvements to make them more attractive and safer for local communities. More than 110,000 people cast their vote and the winners have been announced today.

Funding for the parks’ makeovers comes from efficiency savings made from the former administration’s publicity budget including the scrapping of The Londoner newspaper.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: ‘In a fantastic show of people power, Londoners have voted in their droves to decide which of their ten favourite parks will get a makeover. So is it incredibly exciting to reveal today the results of the ‘parks plebiscite’, and thanks to this loyal support of local people, ten parks across the capital are now set to become much more pleasant places.

‘Londoners deserve a better quality of life and making a greener, more attractive city is a top priority, so I am thrilled to announce that Lordship Recreation Ground and Dollis Valley Green Walk are deserving winners.

‘Many thanks to all those who voted and showed such enthusiasm for their local park.

The Mayor also announced that Burgess Park is being awarded a larger £2million grant to undertake a more substantial upgrade. This winner was decided by the Mayor taking advice from a panel of experts.

There are exciting plans afoot at Lordship Recreation Ground and the Mayor’s grant will help to bring them to fruition. The River Moselle, now in a concrete pipe, would be restored to an open stream; development of a new city farm, play area and café; creation of wildflower meadows; restoration of the Park’s historic features.

Although much of the Dollis Valley Greenwalk is attractive, parts have become overgrown, with a run down feel. A grant is expected to: clear overgrown scrub to open up views and help people feel safer; install lighting at key points; and improve footpaths and signage; install new play facilities at Windsor Open Space and natural play features at the nearby Brent Park.

Work to improve the winning parks is set to take place after detailed plans have been drawn up in conjunction with local borough councils, which will be subject to local consultations. For those parks that did not win the public vote, the Mayor has asked City Hall officers to provide advice on other grants and funding that could be available to them from other organisations.
In addition to providing space for recreation and leisure purposes, the benefits of green spaces include: improving health and quality of life by providing opportunities for out door exercise and contact with nature; supporting biodiversity; helping to manage flood risk; providing cooling and shade; and helping to reduce air and noise pollution.

London boroughs nominated almost 100 green spaces in their areas that were in need of extra care and 47 were short listed by a panel of experts for Londoners to vote on. To ensure the money is used on parks across London, the parks were divided into five London sub-regions (North West, North, North East, South East and South West) with around ten parks per sub-region.

Voting took place between 25 November 2008 and 30 January 2009 online, by text message and by postal voting forms. A list of final voting figures per park is available on www.london.gov.uk/parksvote/

Lordship Recreation Ground, N17, is among 47 parks in the capital competing for 10 grants of up to £400,000 through a competition organised by Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

But its chances are entirely dependent on how many local people cast votes for the park.

The funding on offer would help Haringey Council carry out major regeneration at Lordship Rec. This includes plans for a new city farm and environmental centre, substantial landscaping improvements, and uncovering the River Moselle, which runs through the park.

Follow this link for more…

The people of Haringey, by demonstrating our support for the regeneration of Lordship Rec, Tottenham’s largest park, can win £400,000 for improvements there. We need your vote, and the votes of all your friends, family, school mates, neighbours, colleagues and everyone you can think of!

The Mayor of London’s ‘Help a London Park’ campaign is asking Londoners to show support for their local parks. 10 parks across London will each receive £400k. But the decision as to which parks get the funding is to be decided by an online vote. Lordship Rec has been shortlisted, and the more votes the Park gets, the more chance we will receive the funding. The result will be announced by the Mayor of London in February.

Over the years the Rec has suffered from a lack of resources and under usage. But years of dedication, hard work and partnership-building between park users, the Friends of Lordship Rec, community organisations and Haringey Council are finally paying off. A vision for the park has been agreed and some improvements have already been implemented. However this money would be vital in helping us to carry out our ambitious plans which will transform this park into a major attraction for all. Plans include a new city farm, environmental centre, restoration of the River Moselle, improved entrances, play facilities and landscape works.

We need to demonstrate that the regeneration plans have mass local support. So please show YOUR support by voting for green space, helping to make Lordship Rec a park the people of Tottenham, Haringey and North East London can be proud of.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON, AND ENCOURAGE EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO VOTE – AND VOTE NOW!!!

Click on www.london.gov.uk/parksvote/region/north/lordship.jsp to show your support, or text PARKS and your own POSTCODE in full to 62967

‘Years of dedication, hard work and partnership-building between park users, the Friends of Lordship Rec, community organisations and Haringey Council are finally paying off. We now call on all Haringey residents to demonstrate their support for the colossal effort that’s been put in, and for the exciting regeneration plans.’  – Dave Morris of the Friends of Lordship Rec

“I would urge everyone to get voting and show their support for Lordship Recreation Ground. Lordship Rec is one of the borough’s largest and most significant open spaces. It has the potential to provide facilities including a new city farm, environmental resource centre and other restored and improved facilities ­ facilities not only vitally important to the local community, but for residents of Haringey and Londoners as a whole. Winning this vote would bring us closer to achieving these ambitious plans.” – Cllr Dhiren Basu, Haringey Council’s Cabinet Member for Leisure, Culture and Lifelong Learning

Supported by the Friends of Lordship Rec, Haringey Friends of Parks Forum, Haringey Council, Haringey Federation of Residents Associations and many other local organisations…