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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Blog Website Set up to Generate Support Comments for Hampden Road Plans

I'm not once for conspiracy theories, but I do have to admit to being somewhat suspicious about a sudden flurry of comments in support of Fairview's development plans at Hampden Road.  All were generated by a form on a mysteriously sparse one page Wordpress website - fairviewhampdenroad.wordpress.com - screenshot below, lest the site should disappear.

Of the seven comments, three were from Lausanne, three from Frobisher and one from Wightman. (All are attached below as a single document)

All seven support comments show clearly that they originated from this Wordpress website. (Incidentally, they also all appear to come from the email address of someone called James Argles, But I believe that he is just the council officer in the panning team who printed the submissions for posting on the planning website).

Whoever orchestrated these support comments may just be a passionate local pro-housing type, or they may not. It may be they just want to give me and or HoL a bloody nose because they strongly disagree with what I've written.  Whatever the truth of the matter, it's an unusual cluster of comments to find on a planning application, unusual enough to make one wonder.

Should you want to have your own say for or against this application, there's more info here.

Tags for Forum Posts: hampden road, hampden road development

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Dodgy as hell.
The reference to B1 workspace is a bit suspicious. It's from the Use Classes Order and I doubt that many except architects, developers, planners and sad people like me would understand it.

I'll do some more digging but as I've said before, it is a mistake to build new housing with parking provision. There is about to be a revolution in inner city motoring.

It's already happening elsewhere: "Berlin wants to push back car usage on the capital's streets massively to achieve its climate change targets".

http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article207654885/Berlin-will-den-Au...

Car users are slowly but surely loosing their influence in planning future city traffic policies.

And on the same page: 5,000 new homes in just one development..!! All over Europe people are moving away from the country areas and choosing to live in metropolitan areas..  Generally due to the lack of amenities and the attractiveness of city life. http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article207654669/Tegel-wird-zum-Woh...

Yes there should only be car free developments. No reason to have a car in London.

There are others from "ROBERTL321" and 'Fairview' is common to two of them. See

https://supportfairviewcricklewoodlane.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/sup... [LB Barnet]

https://onehousingbangorwharf.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/support-the-...  [LB Camden]

https://fairviewgaytonroad.wordpress.com/author/robertl321/  [LB Harrow]

Are we seeing a pattern yet??

There would arguably be nothing wrong in a developer winkling out the support for its developments, if that what is genuinely happening. However the clustering of the support comments is strange. Also the nature of the comments is atypical.

Generally someone who's taken the time to support or object has a viewpoint they're eager to share, either expressed through emotion or through a carefully constructed argument. All of these support comments are characterised by their blandness.

One has to raise the question about how genuine the comments are and how they were obtained. Clearly no one will find the website without being directed to it. So at a minimum there will have been a leaflet drop. One also has to wonder if the comment is atypical, what was the motivation to comment. 

Or if it's just astroturfing.

Here are the seven postcodes: " n80Hl   N8 0hl   N8 0hp   N8 0hp   N80qu   N8 0 qu   N8 0NA "

Very peculiar consistency of lower case usage.  Who will tell me it's not a common hand?

Also, they were all sent on June 6: the first at 2.48 pm, the seventh at 4.29 pm. Remarkable!

Separately, I wonder if Haringey Planning do Electoral Register checks to ascertain the veracity of comments from respondents.

And all from two IP addresses (82.132.240.134 and 82.132.232.57) which are not registered anywhere near London. They could all be using a Tor browser but I doubt it. FAKE. FAKE. FAKE.

Can we go to planning with our findings and have the comments struck off? I'm personally not against the development but if they get away with this then they might as well just stick in rabbit hutches.

You can live anywhere in the world to comment on a planning application. The worry is if those commenting are real people and resident at the addresses they state they live in. If it is the case that people with those names do not exist or reside in those addresses it is a clear attempt to fraudulently influence the outcome of a planning decision
One thing to bear in mind though is just a bland "Yes, I support this application" carries about as much weight as "No, I don't support this application". The planning process is not a referendum and those objecting or supporting need to do more than stick their hand up to influence the outcome.

I respect your not being against it, John. I'm not against a development there. It's a great place for a development, but it's this development I object to.

I very much hope that planning law prevails in this case since the application very clearly breaches Haringey's own planning criteria. My fear is that the Council has reached the point of being worn down and will just capitulate (See Wanwright excerpts below). 

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