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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Owners of Proposed Triple Restaurant in former Fairline/Class A Premises Finally Come Clean

The owners of the almost complete new restaurant in the former Fairline/Class A premises have been pretending for the last year or so that their project was anything but a new restaurant. They even had their agent come on HoL to protest their innocence with regard to any such move.

Of course anyone with half a mind didn't believe them for a moment and they've now finally come clean and have applied for retrospective planning permission.

There are very sound grounds for objection to this development given in Haringey's planning policy and one hopes that the Council will make proper and fair use of these in making their planning determination. 

Local objections, particularly those that can be linked to policy are taken into account and do make a difference. Any resident can object. I am attaching a copy of the LCSP's objection which makes clear which policies can be referenced for your objection.

If you'd like to object, or support, the application, you can do so via the planning pages of Haringey's website here, using the "Comment on Application" button towards the bottom of the page. (EDIT: I made a comment essentially just supporting the LCSP's statement in its entirety).

See the tag below for all other related posts.

Tags for Forum Posts: fairline

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This would be a good forum to canvas peoples' opinions on this subject before proceeding to object or support. I am personally undecided. Restaurants can be a good social asset in that they bring visitors to the area, but these visiters are usually outside normal trading hours and can cause congestion with local parking. Food stores are also good local assets, but does the area really need another foodstore, especially opposite the popular Yasir Halim. The old Arista store proved that didn't work on this paricular site. I don't really know what to suggest as an alternative, perhaps something with more ethnic diversity than the rather narrow  and ubiquitousTurkish one.

For me, the point is that these are people trying to get away with blatantly flouting planning law, including lying repeatedly about it to both us and the council, when it was perfectly obvious to anyone who looked at the development what was going on.

If we don't object, what's to stop every restaurant on GL from turning into a triple-fronter and utterly changing the the feel of the neighbourhood? There are enough 'mega-frontages' already, and to my mind more than enough Turkish restaurants.

In addition we badly need Haringey council to know that residents care about planning decisions and have got their eyes open to what's happening - see the article from yesterday's Guardian and related posts on this site.

Exactly Maddy. This is just playing the system.

Totally agree with letting the council know our feelings, but unless someone can come up with an alternative usage and undertakes to back it with their money, the council are surely going to think that a utilized space is better than one standing empty.

I totally agree with you Maddy.

As I understand it they *are* playing by the rules the Council has imposed. The original application was sneaky, but now they have been forced to acknowledge they need *proper* permission and are applying for it retrospectively. If the council refuse it, the proprietors will have to come up with an alternative usage, or shrink it back to three individual sites. Like most people I suspect the council may acknowledge it as a fait accompli as being the easiest resolution. I wouldn't care, unlike some people, to extend this into a general criticism of council politics and areas of undue influence because I honestly don't know enough about what goes on in council chambers, especially behind the scenes. We have to accept some things at face value and not immediately assign malicious motives.

Not quite Graham. If the Council refuse the application, the owners will be able to appeal to the Planning Inspector whose decisions are notoriously unpredictable. On the other hand if the Council approves the decision, residents have no recourse for appeal. 

A council blithely acknowledging an infringement of the law as a fait accompli and simply letting it stand as the easiest course of action is a real concern to me. We should all be very concerned about any council acting in this way.

It's unclear to me at this stage which laws and regulations you think should be upheld and which can be ignored. Is this a way of behaving that you really feel as comfortable with as your response above suggests?

Surely this is not a great time to be suggesting that any council should play fast and loose with any rules and regulations. Not at this time and not with this council. That way lies dragons. 

Actually, Graham, there's a lot more to the demise of Arista than you might imagine. I'm told that the owners of Arista didn't choose to close the store. Apparently, they made a significant investment in setting it up and left because their lease was unexpectedly terminated.

I'd really like this restaurant to exist and my objection for local businessmen becoming councillors is that they tend to use their position to prevent competition.

However there should be severe consequences for lying as they have and playing the system like this. I just don't see that there will be any appetite to do anything about it. The penalty for cutting down a couple of protected trees on the high street in 2009 was never levied and that has also been swept under the carpet.

Late last year when a local gardening group put some planters on Fairfax Rd the full force of the council was felt despite the careful following of rules and extensive consultation. Should a local resident allow their parking permit to expire they can expect a parking ticket moments after but a local businessman can park his van on a single yellow with impunity and receive not so much as a penalty notice.

I hope you can see where we come in the pecking order Hugh.

My views on this have been expressed repeatedly on this forum. This is not permitted development. Perhaps we can start a petition much like they have in support of their application? I am sure we can gather substantially more than the 18 signatures they got in support...

I would sign - this is completely crooked behaviour and I can't believe the council did not know what was going on.

The issue, for those who aren't familiar with it, is that the place applied for a change of use, from retail to restaurant, which was turned down.

They then put through the change of use under permitted development. Basically this allows smaller premises (up to 150 square metres) to change the use without having to go through the full formal planning procedure. The intention is to make it easier for small premises (which theoretically won't have that much of an impact) to switch from one use to another.

150 sq metres is about the size of a single fronted store though and obviously this was much bigger. To get around this they claimed that it was actually three different premises and got a change of use for each one. Obviously if you look inside the premises it is clear that this was a lie which I imagine is why they're now applying for the correct planning permission.

Apart from the dishonesty (people can make their own minds up whether attempting to game the system is fair or not) the issue is what this could mean in future for Green Lanes. It could open the path for more larger shops to be converted into large restaurants rather than maintaining a balance between shops and restaurants.

The obvious example is Cyplon Holidays, the travel agents. This is a double fronted premises that, at the moment, would require planning permission to convert to a restaurant.

However, if the route of pretending it is two separate premises and then obtaining retrospective planning permission is deemed acceptable there would be nothing to stop it happening to this building, or the other large shops on the street (think of how big a restaurant you could get in Yasar Halim).

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