Haringey park transformation begins
Friday 8 February 2008
A flood-prone watercourse has been drained and cleared in the first part of Haringey Council’s efforts to transform a run-down open space into an award-winning park.
Engineers have been removing silt from Old Moselle Brook in Markfield Park, N15, to try to improve water flow and prevent reoccurrences of flooding across the park.
The work is the first step in a multi-million pound improvement programme for the Seven Sisters park, which the council hopes will lead to it being awarded Green Flag status in 2010.
Markfield Park, which is on the site of a former sewage pumping site and a floodplain, has two watercourses flowing through it – the Old Moselle Brook and Stonebridge Brook.
These are designed to drain surface water from South Tottenham and carry it to the River Lee, but a build-up of sediment in Old Moselle Brook over recent years has caused problems with the water flow and led to persistent flooding and occasional sewage contamination in the park.
The council believes the desilting work, together with a range of drainage improvements across the park, will help resolve these problems and reduce the chances of further flooding.
That will enable Haringey to carry out a major improvement programme for the park, which includes landscaping work and improvements to listed buildings.
The programme, made possible through £1.48million Lottery funding, £328,000 from the Football Foundation, £1million government funding and £425,000 from the council itself, include:
- A new amphitheatre for performances
- A state-of-the-art children’s play area
- A new café
- A new picnic area
- A new junior BMX area
- Improved sports pitches with better drainage
- Improved community gardens
- New trees
The work will help cement Markfield Park’s position as the main recreational area not only for existing residents in Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale, but also the thousands of new residents expected to move into the planned Hale Village development and other housing proposed for the area under the Tottenham Hale Masterplan.
Cabinet Member for Leisure, Culture and Lifelong Learning, Cllr Dhiren Basu, said: “The draining and desilting of the Old Moselle Brook is a very important first step in our transformation plans for Markfield Park.
“We want to create a really fantastic park for the area, which both existing and new residents will be able to enjoy.
“I look forward to seeing the further improvements in the park take shape over the coming months.”
For more information on the improvement work, visit www.haringey.gov.uk/markfield
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