Haringey's draft budget would cut Ally Pally's grant, add pay bays on Hampstead Lane and outsource Park Road Pools, with a £35.4m gap still open. Comments close 4 January.

Haringey Council has published its list of possible cuts and charges for next year. It includes a smaller grant for Alexandra Palace, new pay-by-phone parking bays in Highgate and handing the council’s leisure centres, including Park Road Pools, to an outside operator.

The proposals are in the draft 2027/28 budget report for the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 10 November. Cabinet is not being asked to approve or rule out any of them yet. They go to public consultation, which closes on 4 January 2027.

Even if every proposal goes ahead, the report says “it is unlikely the budget gap can be closed”.

The gap

The council expects to be £35.4 million short in 2027/28, and £181.9 million short over the next five years. That already assumes it keeps borrowing the £84.3 million of Exceptional Financial Support from the government that it needed this year.

The report identifies £7.6 million of new savings:

  • £1.3 million from proposals that need public consultation (listed below)
  • £6.3 million from internal “management actions”, which do not

With savings already agreed in earlier years, that could mean £20.4 million of cuts to deliver in 2027/28. The council says it cannot promise it will not need more emergency borrowing on top. It plans to apply to the government in early December and expects an answer in February.

The Cabinet member’s introduction to the report says “Haringey’s financial position is perilous”.

Council tax

The council’s plans already assume the maximum rise allowed without a referendum, 4.99%. The report says councils receiving emergency support can discuss going higher with the government, and “all options are being explored”. Each 1% raises about £1.5 million. Full Council sets the rate on 1 March 2027.

What is proposed

The proposals that go to consultation are set out in appendices 4 to 4k. The ones most likely to be felt in Crouch End, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Highgate are below.

Alexandra Palace’s grant

The council gives Alexandra Palace £1.75 million a year towards its running costs. Cuts of £100,000 in 2027/28 and £125,000 in 2028/29 were already agreed. The new proposal raises those to £120,000 and £150,000, then adds a £180,000 cut in 2029/30.

The council’s case is that the palace now earns far more of its own money:

  • The grant was £2.3 million in 2010 and has been £1.75 million “for a number of years”.
  • It was 5.5% of the charitable trust’s income in 2025/26, when the trust made an operating surplus of nearly £1 million.
  • The palace’s trading company gave £2.6 million to the trust in Gift Aid last year, against £200,000 in 2010.

Capital funding for repairs and safety work would continue on the same basis.

Parking in Highgate and Muswell Hill

Parking is the longest list. The council proposes:

  • New pay-by-phone bays on Hampstead Lane, Highgate, with potential income put at £120,000 a year.
  • New pay-by-phone bays on Queen’s Wood Road, with £20,000 a year.
  • New parking restrictions at Muswell Hill Playing Fields, Finsbury Park and Markfield Park.
  • More controlled parking zones in streets that have none, but only “where local support is significant”. Current policy needs at least 51% support before a new zone goes in.
  • Surcharges for larger and more polluting vehicles on pay-and-display and visitor vouchers, worth £315,000 in 2028/29.
  • A charge for heavy use of paper visitor permits, to push people towards digital ones. The example given is an 80% surcharge after two booklets.
  • A Workplace Parking Levy on employers with 11 or more parking spaces. The report cites Nottingham, which charges £592 a space a year.

The report says the parking list is “a pipeline of potential schemes rather than committed savings”. Each would still need its own consultation.

Park Road Pools and the other leisure centres

The council took its leisure centres back in-house in October 2024. They include Park Road in Crouch End, Tottenham Green and New River. The proposal is to hand them to “a specialist provider”.

The report says the centres need a £1.232 million subsidy each year. They are also running £1.1 million behind their £7.2 million income target. An outside operator would save about £210,000 over two years from 2028/29, and finding one would take at least a year.

Other proposals

  • Haringey People, the council’s magazine, would stop being designed and printed (£35,000).
  • Funding for the floating support service would end (£477,000).
  • General Fund spending on ethnic minority grants would end (£165,000).
  • Adult social care packages would be reviewed (£1.25 million over two years).

What it means for you

None of this is decided. The consultation starts after the call-in period that follows the 10 November Cabinet meeting, and closes on 4 January 2027. The council says it will be published on its Commonplace consultation site.

Cabinet will see the results and a final draft budget on 9 February. Full Council sets the budget and council tax on 1 March.

If you park on Hampstead Lane or near Queen’s Wood, use Park Road Pools or care about Ally Pally, this is the stage at which comments can still change the plan. We will add the consultation link when it opens.

Sources