what Haringey thinks is my local area
One of the things that Haringey Council send us is the Haringey People “Local News” magazine for  Northumberland Park and White Hart Lane.
I largely disinterestedly flicked through the last one, none of the stories particularly catching my attention.
At the back was a nice little map of the area that shed light on my disinterest. This was clearly labelled “your local map” and helpfully explained “your local neighbourhood has been highlighted on the map of the borough”.
But IÂ don’t really go places in either of the two wards that Haringey has decided are my local area. My house is there (and my allotment!) but tube/rail stations, doctors, dentist, pubs, restaurants, shops, post office, parks, supermarkets and actual markets, vets, garden centres are all in other wards. Â Even my bus stop isn’t technically in *my* ward.
Partly this tells us that these wards are pretty deprived, even by Haringey’s standards. Not just financially but culturally. There’s not a lot of reasons for me to venture deeper into my own ward.
Another part of the problem is the print medium. Online they could have defined local in a circle around my location rather than relying on political boundaries. A circle would have been better but would still have a included a lot of space to the north that I’m not particularly interested in.
Local for me is stretched in a particular shape. That shape is formed by the gravitational pull of transport links into London (i.e to the south), the facilities available in the wealthier west of the borough but also by the cheap shops and restaurants further south.
I actually wanted to read the newsletters from all the six other local areas and not my own. Thanks to the internet I can but the glossy magazine is going to be rather a waste.