Chelsea Bloom translates the council press releases into consequences for the high street

By Chelsea Bloom

Haringey Council published its 2025-26 budget last month in a document that runs to 147 pages and which I read so that you do not have to, partly as a professional service and partly because I have a masochistic relationship with local government financial planning that I have accepted as an occupational characteristic. The headline figure — Pound Sterling 18 million in savings required over three years — tells you nothing useful. What matters is where the savings come from and what they mean for the businesses and residents in the borough.

The answer, on careful reading of the document’s appendices, is that the savings come primarily from: libraries (two closures and reduced hours at the remaining four), parks maintenance (deferred capital works and reduced grass cutting frequency, which sounds trivial and will not be trivial by August), planning department staffing (a 22 percent reduction in planning officers, which will lengthen application processing times), and business support services (the dissolution of the Haringey Business Development team, which provided grant advice, networking, and signposting to approximately 400 small businesses annually).

The Planning Department Impact

The planning department cut is the one I think matters most for businesses in the borough, and it is the one receiving the least attention in coverage of the budget. A 22 percent reduction in planning officers translates directly into longer processing times for planning applications, and planning applications are the gateway to any physical change in a business’s premises: new signage, change of use, external alterations, extensions. The current processing time for a minor commercial application in Haringey averages eleven weeks. The council’s own officers estimate this will increase to sixteen to twenty weeks under reduced staffing.

For a restaurant that needs a change-of-use approval before it can open, or a retailer that needs listed building consent before it can install a new shopfront, this is not an administrative inconvenience. It is a business constraint that delays revenue, extends the period of costs without income, and in some cases causes projects to be abandoned when the financing structure cannot accommodate the delay.

What Businesses Should Do Now

Any business in Haringey with a planning application likely to be needed in the next 18 months should file it now, before the staffing reduction takes effect. Any business that has been deferring a change of use or premises alteration application should treat the current staffing level as a limited resource and use it. The Haringey planning portal is the starting point. The Planning Portal guidance covers application types and requirements. Chelsea Bloom covers North London business at prat.uk.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com