Spurs Plans For Expansion Could Alienate Community
Haringey council are determined to regenerate their local area, and what could possibly be wrong with doing that you might ask? Everyone wants to live in a better area and have a safer place for their children to grow up. But what cost is the redevelopment really going to have on the local community and surrounding area?
As part of the development, local businesses and houses would have to be demolished in order to make way for the huge new 56,000 seater stadium and miniature shopping centre that is being proposed. What better way to help a local community become more affluent than by knocking down their houses and businesses. Now obviously the above statement is quite a short sighted view. If the council has plans to relocate the residents and compensate them for their losses then it becomes a more rational move. However the development site also has plans for flats to be built, but do you really think that they will be reasonably priced so local people can afford them? It seems unlikely, otherwise where would the money come from to support them? The other issue with compensating people for their losses in situations like this is that more often than not the amount they are given doesn’t even come close to the true value of their properties and they are left homeless. I guess one way of making the area more affluent is to force the working class out and replace them with upper-middle class people who can still afford to live in the area.
Tottenham have signed deals before to regenerate their local community but understandably grew more uncomfortable with then when the council seemed to insist on the club paying for more things than they had to. But for a club issuing all the PR to act as a pillar of the community, they fail to mention why they have just moved the ownership of their property offshore to the Bahamas for any other reason for tax avoidance. A piece of flawed logic being batted around states that local businesses in the new area will receive a greater income as result of the development and being close to the football club. Let me ask you, how much effect doesn’t the club really have on the wealth of the local businesses? At the very most they will play 25-26 home games per season which may provide a slight bump in business, but what about the rest of the days of the year? Is it really worth it?
Obviously it is too early to say what is really going on, but it certainly leaves me feeling uneasy as a football supporter and is yet another sign of clubs nowadays being way more than just football teams. They are beginning to behave like the multinational corporations that they are.
Photo Courtesy of Alan Stanton
About the Author
SYC Matt A football fan just like the rest of us. Battling with the usual ups and downs that come with supporting one of the less glamorous teams. Crusader for footballing justice.