Tag Archives: Tottenham Hotspur FC

Researching stadium-led regeneration in East Manchester and Tottenham

A “shapeless spaghetti”

Having obtained a lot of information, one of the major issues was making sense of the “shapeless spaghetti” [1] of data. In answering the research question of how stakeholders influence stadium-led regeneration, there are many different perspectives so there is a need to make it understandable without losing the richness and complexity of the responses. A second issue is to try to make the resulting research thesis of 80,000 words more accessible, although a number of people have asked to read it in this form. I will make it available after my oral examination and the resulting corrections have been made.

The graphic representation

Writing articles about specific elements of the research for peer reviewed journals is the standard approach to making parts of the work available, but even if you are fortunate enough to get an article through the review process, there can be a considerable time-delay. Consequently, I am looking for opportunities to write shorter articles and discuss my research as this allows me to get some material in the public domain faster. My university has provided a starting point through a range of media.[2] To introduce my research I have worked with my partner, Amanda Lillywhite, an illustrator and comic maker to produce a graphic representation that summarises some essential elements of the thesis onto a single page. I’d be interested in your views on how this has worked – see below.

stakeholder-poster-online

[1] Langley, 1999: 694

[2] See: http://www.sportbusinesscentre.com/news/birkbeck-sport-business-centres-mark-panton-on-stadium-led-regeneration/

Tottenham Hotspur FC’s new stadium plans come together, but not everybody is happy.

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On 16 December, 2015, Haringey Council, with Tottenham Hotspur FC Chairman Daniel Levy in attendance, granted full planning permission for Tottenham Hotspur FC’s re-designed 61,000 seat stadium and a 22-storey hotel, allowing for the demolition of three locally listed buildings. Outline planning permission was also granted for the construction of four residential blocks providing up to 585 units, none of which would be sold as affordable housing. Building work is now well underway as the cranes around the site demonstrate. It should be pointed out that Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium is entirely privately financed and the investment of over £500 million into the area was welcomed by many people.

sept-2016

Plans by the London Borough of Haringey to build a walkway to connect the new stadium with a re-developed train station (potentially to be re-named as Tottenham Hotspur Station) on the other side of the High Road, which would involve the demolition of many homes and retail businesses, are still in place.

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The soon to be Tottenham Hotspur station?

However, many in the local community are unhappy about the size of the stadium project and, most importantly, the associated developments.

“They didn’t ask me what I wanted; they didn’t ask my husband and all the shopkeepers in our parade. They didn’t ask them what they wanted …” (L, local resident and business owner, Tottenham, interview with author, 23.07.13).

Many local people, whose own homes and business premises were sign-posted for demolition, were shocked at the lack of genuine consultation and influence of their views on regeneration proposals that were bound-up with the new stadium. These feelings also impacted on local people’s views about the economic and social impacts on their lives, which they viewed with some trepidation, and the lack of transparency around the regeneration process.

Strategies of influence

A range of strategies have been used by local individuals and community groups involved in the stadium-led regeneration process to try to gain salience with the football club and the local council. These groups include local residents and businesses affected by the regeneration proposals. Mobilisation and the formation of groups, alliances and networks were in progress in Tottenham during the early period of my research in 2013, and they quickly moved on to making use of the media in its different forms together with various forms of dissent and protest.

“We don’t have one strategy; we have a whole range of strategies: lobbying, protesting, planning, support alternative planning ideas, we’ve got a positive charter, we’re supporting groups and networks,” (participant observation at community meeting in Tottenham, 06.08 .15).

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Extent of community influence

Community groups in Tottenham managed to gain some salience with focal organisations over the period of this research (2013-2015) and this is an on-going process. However, there were limits to the extent of their power and their overall impacts on the stadium-led regeneration. The power of focal organisations in Tottenham, such as the council and the football club, was sufficient to resist major changes to the most significant of the stadium-led regeneration plans as can be seen from the decision taken by the council on 16 December 2015. Although the slowing down of the stadium-led regeneration since planning approval was originally granted by the council in 2011 may be seen as an important instrumental weapon.

Perhaps the biggest, but unplanned, legacy from the stadium-led developments in Tottenham has been the growth in community networks that have been mobilised, aided by increased access to new technologies. Similar legacies have been reported in other stadium-led regeneration projects in Rio and East London. As RioOnWatch (2016) points out, this may be scant consolation for many of those whose lives have been harmed by the Olympic dream (or Premiership / National Football League vision in Tottenham), but these connections may represent the real regeneration for communities wanting to influence future policy decisions.

Tottenham’s new stadium: not straight forward?

One of the many interesting issues related to Tottenham’s new stadium is that despite the major changes to planning consents agreed with Haringey Council, there is no signed legal agreement by Spurs to build the new stadium or associated developments. So the council has earmarked major funding of some £41 million for infra-structure improvements linked to the building of the new stadium without any enforceable obligation on the football club to build the centre-piece of the regeneration project.

Haringey Council and THFC have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to promote wider area regeneration, but this document has no legal status and is not in the public domain, deemed to be too commercially confidential. Thus, if Spurs ultimately failed to raise the finance for the new stadium, Haringey Council would have no legal redress against the football club for whatever taxpayer funds they had already spent on infra-structure projects. There are a growing number of issues and unanswered questions related to the development. Given that construction of the new stadium (Phase 2 of the NDP development) was due to start in the Summer of 2013, is it likely that Spurs could not, or would not build the new stadium for which they have been granted planning permission?

Image of the new stadium and walkway.

Perhaps most importantly there have always been acknowledged financial risks associated with the new stadium development and these have not disappeared. It should not be forgotten that it was the football club that stated the original plan agreed in 2011 was not financially viable. As a result, Haringey Council commissioned a report from Grant Thornton in to the financial viability of the new stadium development. The report was based on financial documents provided by the football club and accepted there were significant risks to the delivery of the new stadium project.

Like the Memorandum of Understanding, the full Grant Thornton report has never been made public. Again, issues of commercial confidentiality are cited. However, partly based on this report, in February 2012 the council granted revised planning permission that, amongst other things, reduced the football club’s s106 commitments from £16 million to £477,000. It also permitted the building of 285 homes to be sold on the open market, rather than 200 homes, 50% of which were to be affordable. Even with these major concessions from Haringey Council, the Grant Thornton report stated (in excerpts that have been made available), inter-alia, that:

“The revised financial model is predicated on a set of more ambitious underlying assumptions in relation to revenues and a more complex funding strategy than existed in the previous financial model.”

So despite the s106 concessions, the new financial scheme presented to the council was even more ‘ambitious’ or perhaps leveraged. Examples given as a key risk to revenues to be mitigated and mentioned by Haringey Council are debt finance and the securing of a stadium naming rights sponsor at levels envisaged. The level at which debt finance has or will be agreed is unknown, but noticeably Spurs have also not so far announced any naming rights sponsor. So it would appear that despite significantly advantageous changes to the planning consents, Spurs are still not in a position to sign a binding legal agreement to build the new stadium and key financial risks still need to be mitigated.

New jobs, new shops, new homes?

Secondly, information indicates that Spurs may now want to amend elements of the extensively revised planning consent. This would almost certainly need to be reconsidered by Haringey Council’s planning committee and a further agreement reached between the parties. It is not clear at this stage what requested amendments to the planning consents might be made. A recent report in the London Evening Standard speculated that it might involve an increase in the capacity of the ground, which could involve significant further delay. There was no comment from the football club on when work on the stadium might start,

Thirdly, there are already strong local feelings concerning a number of issues connected to the new stadium development. These include the planning consent granted in February 2012 with a deficiency of community benefits secured by Haringey Council from the football club; lack of any affordable or social housing within the agreed plans; proposals to demolish council housing to allow a ‘walkway’ to be built up to the new stadium and comparisons with the benefits secured by Islington Council from Arsenal FC. All this has started to provoke local resentment and protests against the council and the football club, which are seen as working together to promote their own agenda, over that of the neighbouring community. The longer the delay, the more protests are likely to grow.

Haringey Council housing at Love Lane.

Finally, there is the lack of publicly available up to date information on the new stadium development from the football club. The Spurs website does have a whole section devoted to the new stadium development, but it was last updated with information on 18 September 2012. The football club were involved in a fun day on the square outside the existing stadium and this was promoted by the council as allowing people to find out more about the new stadium and how they could get involved, but no specific information about the stadium was available. On 5 September, 2013, with the supermarket due to open, BBC London News reported that work on the new stadium was unlikely to start until 2014. The longer the delay on starting work, the more questions are likely to be asked. It also means that without any signed legal agreement, the existing and any revised planning consents are likely to be closely examined for major benefits and obligations together with the small print. This will be the subject of the next post.

Tottenham’s new stadium: not all lily-white?

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Tottenham Hotspur FC (Spurs) are in the process of building a new stadium, which is now a key part of a larger regeneration strategy for the wider area by Haringey Council. However, a number of local groups are concerned that the football club is being used as a Trojan horse for social cleansing and gentrification.

Haringey originally granted planning permission for the ground in September 2011. This was after Spurs, perhaps rather ungraciously, started casting eyes out of the borough in which they have been playing since 1882, by bidding to move to the Olympic Stadium. Subsequently the club stated that the approved planning consent, including s106 commitments amounting to over £16 million and permission to build 200 housing units, 50% of which had to be ‘affordable’, made the project financially unviable.

As a result Haringey Council commissioned a report from Grant Thornton on the financial viability of the new stadium. The report accepted there were significant risks to the delivery of the new stadium project. The full report has never been made public, but in February 2012 the council granted revised planning permission that, amongst other things, reduced the club’s s106 commitments to £477,000 and permitted the building of 285 ‘open market’ homes. The justifications for the changes were the viability of the stadium development and that ‘open market’ homes would lead to a better housing mix in the area. This is despite the acknowledgement that there is a major need for affordable homes in the borough.

All of this leaves Tottenham in a poor comparison with Arsenal off the pitch in the eyes of some, as their near neighbours were required to contribute around £100 million via their s106 agreement with Islington Council (see below references). Members of the Our Tottenham network have made a number of demands of Spurs and Haringey Council, including that the football club match the monies provided in community benefits of Arsenal. They see Spurs, owned by a private company, benefitting from council and mayoral funding being put in to the area, while arguing against contributing to their increased local footprint. “I’m a Spurs fan and I always want them to do better than Arsenal, so I think they should put in £101 million”, said one member of the group. Spurs say that land values in Tottenham are not comparable with those in Islington. At a recent meeting between Spurs and Our Tottenham, about the only issue on which they could all agree was that Gareth Bale should not be sold. Ironically, his sale might fund most of the demands of Our Tottenham.

Haringey Council view the new stadium, part of a wider Northumberland Park development scheme, as a first step in securing major regeneration in North Tottenham. The council state this will include new retail and commercial floor-space, new homes, public space, heritage improvements and create hundreds of new jobs targeted at local people. This is in addition to the 20,000 extra spectators attending football matches, who are expected to boost local businesses.

Some local residents and businesses are extremely fearful that they will suffer as a result of some of these proposed developments. They see the regeneration, with its stress on private rather than affordable housing and increasing rents, as Haringey Council implementing a poorly disguised policy of social cleansing. Recent development proposals were put forward by Haringey Council that would involve the destruction of large amounts of social housing on the Love Lane Estate (below), together with shops and businesses on the High Road and on White Hart Lane. It seems to be accepted that the housing on the estate is far from the worst in Haringey and many people do not want to move, although would be happy with investment to refurbish the estate. The purpose of the destruction is to move the White Hart Lane station ticket hall to the south of the station and to build a ‘walkway’ up to the shining new stadium.

Many of the local residents and traders have lived and worked in the area for decades and are both scared and angry about the proposals. The football club is seen as bearing a responsibility for their situation. “I wanted Spurs to stay here (rather than go to the Olympic Stadium) and now they don’t want us.” Those affected see the recent consultation, which did not include refurbishing the existing buildings as an option, as a sham with the council wanting to push through their own vision, backed by Spurs. They see the ‘walkway’ as further channelling people directly towards the football ground, rather than dispersing to spend money in local shops and businesses. “Everyone is being pushed out. We’re not making the decisions, it’s big business.”

Our Tottenham see it as further proof of social cleansing with the football club as the Trojan horse for more top –down redevelopment and gentrification of the area. All of this is well before construction of the new stadium has even started and that may yet face further complications. See next post.

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/

http://www.haringey.org.uk/

http://ourtottenham.wordpress.com/

References

http://islington.gov.uk/DownloadableDocuments/Environment/Pdf/section106finalterms.pdf

London Borough of Islington. (2006a) Community benefits from the Emirates Development, London,IslingtonCouncil (www.islington.gov.uk)

Walters G Managing Leisure 16, 49–64 (January 2011)