White
Hart Lane
White
Hart Lane is an area within Tottenham, and is also more famous as the
home to the football stadium of Tottenham Hotspur. In fact, the
stadium pretty much dominates the whole area, as you would expect.
But more so, there is also a possibly slightly sinister reason as
to why the stadium dominates the whole area. 99% of people who
will visit the White Hart Lane area, who do not live there, will do so
to visit the stadium. They do so, sadly, because there is not
actually that much more to the area than the stadium. And this is for a
good reason.
Sometimes on this blog I have touched upon subjects which might not show
the area in that positive a manner, and unfortunately this is a case
where I have to do it again. Nearly every single shop around Tottenham
Hotspurs seems to be derelict. Now, I am not sure why this is. Far be
it from me to be speculative, and I certainly do not want to say
anything that could be construed as libelous, (especially against a
team that can afford to pay people £120,000 a week) but I can't
help but feel that this may have been arranged so that it is easier
for Tottenham Hotspurs to build their brand-new spanking stadium,
which is due to start any year soon. However, this does take quite a
lot of the soul out of the White Hart Lane area. Empty shop upon
empty shop, especially when you get near the stadium. In fact, apart
from Valentino's wine bar which is right next to the stadium, there
seem to be barely any shops that are actually operating, let alone
shops that are doing well.
White
Hart Lane suffers from the exact opposite of the logistical luck
South Tottenham has, in that it is the part of Tottenham
which is furthest away from central London, and thus people who want easy access into central London want to live there less.
It also has no tube station (here we go again....) But it does have a
train station, entitled White Hart Lane. However, the location of
this train station is pretty weird. It is not on the main high road -
instead it is on a tributary road, the road itself being called White
Hart Lane. Now, I'm not sure if there is reason for this but it does
strike me as bad planning. The few times I had to get off at White
Hart Lane, there were 40 or 50 people getting off the train and
every single one of them, bar none, (and I do genuinely mean every
single one of them) then proceeded to walk the 150 metres/200 metres
walk all the way to the Tottenham High Road, specifically to catch a
connecting bus. Now, I realise that this isn't exactly akin to birds
migrating from Canada to Africa, as it only takes a few mins, but it
does seem to be in a pretty inconvenient position with regards to
making journeys easier.
And having spoken to quite a few people who live in the area, they have said that they can't help but agree. This does cut down the numbers of people that use the train service, and personally I think it is something that must be looked at, if that is possible. The numbers of bus passengers within the area is hugely popular, and to Transport For London's (TFL) credit, I have noticed a marked improvement on the amount of buses that have been visiting the areas. Whereas many years ago, sometimes buses would pass by as they were too full, it is a very rare occurrence now. This is no doubt aided by the fact that buses that go down the White Hart Lane part of Tottenham high Road also visit areas of London that have no tube stations, such as Edmonton and Enfield.
And having spoken to quite a few people who live in the area, they have said that they can't help but agree. This does cut down the numbers of people that use the train service, and personally I think it is something that must be looked at, if that is possible. The numbers of bus passengers within the area is hugely popular, and to Transport For London's (TFL) credit, I have noticed a marked improvement on the amount of buses that have been visiting the areas. Whereas many years ago, sometimes buses would pass by as they were too full, it is a very rare occurrence now. This is no doubt aided by the fact that buses that go down the White Hart Lane part of Tottenham high Road also visit areas of London that have no tube stations, such as Edmonton and Enfield.
So,
so far, I've talked about the stadium and transport links. So this
is the bit where I start revealing all of the fantastic pubs, art
galleries and cultural magnets within the area, right? Well, no.
White Hart Lane does not have any of this. Lots of residential
properties, quite a few budget shops, and lots of empty
shops, and the stadium. That is it, there is no more. It is also
Tottenham's cheapest part, which considering Tottenham is the
cheapest part of London, says a lot. In fact, even in 2013, you
can buy a studio flat within the area for under £110,000.
Now,
this is London, and 2013. And you can get a flat for £110,000!!
For the uninitiated, this is obscenely cheap. In fact, so
cheap as to even raise a suspicious eyebrow, in a "too good to
be true" manner. But no, those are the prices, because the area
is unfortunately one of the less appealing areas of Tottenham. At
the moment. I say "At the moment" because Tottenham
Hotspurs are keen to catch up with the north London rivals Arsenal
and build their own 58,000 seater capacity stadium. Of course, we
will not know until it is built, but there is a real chance that the
area will improve in popularity significantly when this is
finished, meaning that the fortune of the area is inextricably linked
to the success of the football team. For example, if Tottenham were
to become the new Barcelona of football (would that mean that
Tottenham High Road would become the new La Ramblas?) then the area
would no doubt improve massively, both in prestige and also in the
quality of life for the residents. On the flip side of this, if
Tottenham were to suffer a relegation, and were to become the next
Watford, (ie, a team, that is stuck outside the Premierships elite)
then it is likely that the area would take a massive downturn as
well, especially if it meant that the proposed new stadium was
delayed. If you are a local resident, even if you are an Arsenal
fan, you should be cheering on the Spurs! (OK, probably not if you
are an Arsenal fan.....)
Obviously,
the football team is central to the community, but I can't help but
feel that many of the other shops within the area have been driven
out in order to make way for the shops to be empty so that when
Tottenham want to build their new football stadium, there will be no
issues with driving local businesses out at the time, and therefore
there will be no compulsory purchase orders that will need to be
paid. For this reason I would go so far as to say that I think
Tottenham Hotspurs are not actually adding to the local area in the
same way that Arsenal are. For example, when Arsenal moved out of
their old Highbury Stadium, they made sure that the stadium was renovated into nice apartments, the pitch was preserved, the art Deco facade of the building was preserved, and the pitch was turned
into a very scenic garden. Substantial amount of student and
affordable commendation flats were built within the area that
actually provide something for the community, i.e. affordable
housing, and community projects were prioritised. However, at
present, with Tottenham Hotspurs, I cannot see anything that they
have added to the area whatsoever, at least in terms of
infrastructure and investment. There is a strip of land just of the
north of the stadium where, conveniently, Tottenham plan to build a
new stadium. This land has been sitting empty for many years . Are
Tottenham Hotspurs keeping this land empty so that they can one day
eventually use it? Just like the person who leaves his jacket on the
seat in the pub, depriving anyone else a seat for a Saturday night in
a packed pub, and then proceeds to come back three hours and
complain that somebody has moved it and sat down, I can't help but
feel that this sort of behaviour is quite selfish.
Could
they not have leased the land out to the local community project in
the meantime for very cheap or even for free? That way at least
the community will have been able to benefit from the land in the
intervening years, before the club decided to get its act together
and build their new stadium. And on another note, it is quite
surprising how it has taken so long to get this stadium off the
ground. I would have thought that any football club within the
London area would have quite a demand for sports, simply because
London has so many residents who need to be entertained of a weekend.
Let alone for a team that, for the first time in 25 years, is
actually seen as a realistic threat to their north London rivals, as
well as also being a team which, barring a catastrophic end of year
collapse (which to be fair has happened a few times over the years) are pretty
much guaranteed to have Champions League Football next season. Of
course there will no doubt be reasons behind the scenes, but I suspect that if Tottenham Hotspur had built this stadium a few
years ago, they could already have been reaping the benefits of doing
so. And more importantly, the local residents
could have been benefiting from brand-new infrastructure that would
no doubt be put in place to help service the new stadium. The
stadium is meant to be a big part of the area. As far as I can see,
it IS the area.
One
of the other reasons why there are so few notes of interests in this
part of Tottenham if any note was because of the massive abundance of
industrial areas centered around Brentwood Road. And this is not to
say this in a negative manner. I mean, my business is based on
industrial estates, and industrial estates have moved on massively
from the ones that characterised the Victorian era, with smoke
billowing out, and men with sooty faces heading out to the pub at
5:15 PM, only to return to their wives, to impregnate them at gone
midnight with a few shillings left over from there days wage. Now
they are massive contributors to society, not only in Tottenham, but
to London as a whole. Many companies have moved into Tottenham, no
doubt to benefit from the vastly reduced land prices within the area,
meaning that they can keep their profit margin suitably protected.
Industrial estates provide a lot of employment within the area, and
to this end they are very good. If you ever walked down Brentwood
Road (and to be fair, there really isn't that much reason to...) then
you will see car yards, cash-and-carry's, (particularly Chinese
cash-and-carry's), and manufacturing factories as far as the eye can
see. There seem to be quite a few scrapyards based around this area,
as well as shops that are both foreign owned and aimed at a specific
foreign clientele (i.e. Polish/Lithuanian shops etc). So
pretty boring, in one way, but then this is where Tottenham has a
small gem.
As
I mentioned, there seem to be quite a few Chinese food distribution
centres that are based here. In fact, if you were to look at quite a
few packets of some of the popular brand Chinese foods that are in sale
in many mainstream supermarkets, many of them seem to have their
distribution centre based in the White Hart Lane area of Tottenham. So
you may think, "Well, to be fair, I don't really eat Chinese
food that much that I need to go to a distribution centre..."
Well, there are other benefits to it. Many of the Chinese takeaways in the area are of a much higher quality than you would ever
expect. Best of all, they are significantly cheaper than Chinese
takeaways in any other areas. It's quite logical really, as they
are only based about half a mile or so away from the distribution
centre, meaning they can buy their stock in quantities that are much
smaller, at the same price, instead of going to the distribution
centre once a month and getting a massive order. Instead, they can
go, for example, 15 times a month and get lots of smaller orders. So
they still spend enough money to benefit from the cheaper prices that
the cash-and-carry can offer, but it also means that they have less
transport costs, as well as having less overheads as they are in one
of the cheapest areas in London, and the food they have is fresher.
If you are a vegetarian especially, the quality of Tofu/bean curd is
way beyond anything you would get anywhere other than Chinatown. For
example, there is a Chinese takeaway called PeSing (" stop
laughing at the back please......") that, the last time I went
there in approximately 2010, were still being able to serve people
for £3.95 for a Chicken in Black Bean Sauce and Egg Fried Rice.
The portion was plenty big enough to feed a person with even the
most hearty appetite, and it was,(speaking as somebody who has tried
about 50 different Chinese takeaways across the whole capital), to
this day one of the best Chinese takeaways I have had. I wouldn't
recommend you go to the area just to use it, but if you did find
yourself in the area then you would be silly not to.Some of the other shops sell some amazing food that you will not find elsewhere, especially the Eastern European shops.
So
what I would say to Tottenham Hotspur is that the new stadium is
desperately needed in order to revitalise the area. The fact that
they even entertained the thought of leaving the borough and instead
going to Stratford to use the Olympic stadium - Well, that lost me a
lot of respect for them. I hope that they finalise and complete the
project as soon as they possibly can, because it is desperately
needed. It is also worth nothing, unfortunately, that the crime
statistics show that the area has a higher rate of crime than other
areas within Tottenham, especially late at night, although this has
improved over recent years, but it is still worth mentioning. But as opposed to this blog post being about how other parts of the area of Tottenham are so much better, instead it should be about how much fantastic potential this area has. Mark my words, if they decided to build a proper tube line, or a train line run by the government here, the place would shoot up in popularity, which would likely bring with it a similar boost to the area in terms of investment, regeneration and property values. Maybe now is the time to pub some smart money into the area. After all, it is not as if the prices can fall any lower, surely..........?
The
Best Parts:
Cheap
properties
If
you're a football fan...
Chinese
Takeaways
Room
For Improvement
Transport
links
More
things to do in the area
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