The Guardian. CGI image of the projected stadium development.
From riots to regeneration!
Who would have thought the 2011 London riots would cause such positivity for tradesmen around the country? As we look back, it all makes sense as re-building the north London district would inevitably mean a huge budget and demand for workers to help regenerate the area, as well as helping construct the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The chaos seen in the summer of 2011 saw thousands of people run riot in the streets of London as well as other areas in the country resulting in over 1000 charges, 20,000+ emergency police calls, 2000+ calls to the London fire brigade, over £100M worth of damage and 16,000 members of the police force having to patrol the streets at night.
The guardian reported that even on the Monday night alone, 93 shops in Tottenham were damaged, whereby tradesmen were called to help repair the damages. However, in an attempt to regenerate Tottenham, £1bn was put towards large scale development projects such as 10,000 new homes and 5,000 new jobs over the next nine years as reported by The Guardian in 2016.
New stadium not possible without the riots?
Now that's a hell of lot of construction and music to all tradesmen's ears across the country. But the massive amounts of investment doesn't stop there. Who can forget about the heart of Tottenham, that is the new Tottenham Hotspur Football Stadium.
According to the the club's executive director Donna - Maria Cullen, the new stadium wouldn't have been made possible had the riots not occurred.
Initially, both Cullen and Daniel Levy (Spurs Chairman) said they struggled to keep the club in Tottenham as they stated staying put was not viable after increasing costs in addition to the demands placed on the club by Haringey Council, Transport for London and English Heritage.
2011 riots
As reported by the Evening Standard, Cullen explained,
"The riots happened in Tottenham. We had a telephone conversation and we said, 'That’s it – we stay in Tottenham'. Something good always comes from something bad.
"All of a sudden there’s focus from local regional and national government. We’d banged our heads against that brick wall for so long. Nobody would have spent money in an area that had no commitment from government to support infrastructure and transport.
"As soon as we had the riots everyone came back around the table and it was something we could do. We always wanted to stay in Tottenham."
Onwards and upwards!
We should be proud of all those involved in aiming to help re-build the area. After the riots, things can only go onwards and upwards for Tottenham and how exciting it must be for the locals to see such development taking place. Especially the young stars of tomorrow seeing their local football team getting a stadium with a capacity of over 60,000 people!
Now, Able Skills are proud to have trained staff working on site over in Tottenham, as former students managed to secure a spot working on the new Stadium! It's a big achievement and thanks to our courses being City & Guilds accredited, it's no wonder they got a place as such qualification is recognised world wide.
We provide construction training courses in the following areas:
Regardless of who you support, I think we can all agree we're eager as to how the new stadium will plan out and fingers crossed it's completed in time for the season!