Highgate Christmas Festival’s parking restrictions divide high street traders
A row has broken out between Highgate’s shopkeepers over parking restrictions on the day of the village’s popular annual Christmas lights festival.
Three high street traders are furious that parking bays in South Grove will be suspended all day on Saturday, November 22 to allow emergency service vehicles to access Pond Square.
They claim the parking restrictions will cause the high street’s independent businesses to suffer a significant loss in trade during the busy festive season.
“We’ve got nothing against the lights at all,” Robert Sinfield, of Le Chocolatier, said. “It’s all right for the cafes and restaurants because most of them are chains but the independents, which are the core of the village, lose out.”
However, festival organisers Highgate Festive Events, a team of high street traders, strongly rebuked the claims and said it was a case of “bah humbug”.
Camden’s cabinet member for environment and sustainability Cllr Sally Gimson said: “The temporary parking restrictions scheduled for November 22 are to help people attend the festival with the minimum amount of disruption to the local neighbourhood, whilst also ensuring that vehicles of the emergency services can still safely access the area.”
Most Read
- 1 Seven Sisters stabbing: Three jailed over Green Lanes gang killing
- 2 'We're proud of what we do': Kossoffs celebrates six months in Kentish Town
- 3 Two dead in Maida Vale: Woman stabbed and man 'struck by vehicle'
- 4 Hampstead, Highgate and Muswell Hill constituency changes consultation
- 5 Muswell Hill service ‘disgraceful’ as Royal Mail crisis continues
- 6 The most expensive homes sold in Haringey in November 2021
- 7 'The joy of addiction is when you are free of it,' says Hampstead author
- 8 Italian sandwich shop opens in a Hampstead telephone box
- 9 Man arrested on suspicion of murder following Maida Vale deaths
- 10 BAFTA-nominated BBC series returns to the Royal Free Hospital
