Angel Edmonton Town Centre

Enfield Council have been awarded £11,902,562 of Levelling Up Funding Round 3 (LUF3) for Angel Edmonton from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

The bid focused on a programme of projects in Angel Edmonton delivering on LUF themes: Town Centre Regeneration, Culture and Transport.

The bid was developed with the local community to deliver ways of increasing footfall, create local jobs, reduce crime, encourage active travel and create a more attractive physical environment.

Building on the Good Growth funded projects (Angel Yard, Living Room Library, Grove Street School Street & Fore Street Murals), the programme aims to improve the lives of Upper Edmonton residents, supporting them through significant change and ensuring they can benefit from opportunities delivered vis Joyce and Snell's and Meridan Water developments.

Currently the programme consists of 16 projects (5 of which have already been delivered as part of The Mayor of London's Good Growth funding).

1. Angel Yard Workspaces - Delivered
2. Living Room Library - Delivered
3. Fore Street Murals and Poetry Trail - Delivered
4. Grove Street School Street - Delivered
5. Fore Street For All - Delivered
6. Boundary Court Food Hub
7. Boundary Hall Reprovision
8. Wadham Recreation Ground
9. Florence Hayes Recreation Ground
10. Leeds Street Market
11. Angel Community Centre
12. Florence Green Park
13. Community House
14. Fore Street Public Welcomes
15. Claremont Street Neighbourhood Improvements
16. College Gardens link to Silver Street

Curate Enfield is a grassroots public art programme creating 5 new public artworks for the borough - one for each of our town centres:

• Angel Edmonton
• Palmers Green
• Enfield Town
• Southgate
• Edmonton Green

Young people and community leaders from across the borough have been recruited as public art champions to curate these commissions. The champions have selected the sites they would like to see transformed and enriched by public art; consulted their local communities for ideas and feedback and worked with local artist-mentors to devise and develop artist briefs for their respective town centres.

In Angel Edmonton, public art champions Alf, Camrhon and Dejani were mentored by Chantelle Purcell – artist, curator and founder of Hive Studios. The public art champions created a brief to commission an artwork that could provide a warm welcome to residents and visitors; and be inspired by the cultural diversity and local character of Angel Edmonton town centre. Following an open call out, the public art champions selected artist Rafael Klein to deliver this commission.

Over the summer of 2023, Rafael led creative workshops with pupils at St James and St John’s School in Grove Street and with local residents as part of the Fore Street For All’s London Lates event. Workshop participants explored themes around ‘angel’ and created 3D designs in response. These will be directly incorporated into ‘An Angel for Edmonton’ a striking sculptural artwork, which is currently being fabricated and expected to be installed on the green outside Joyce & Snells estate in late May 2024. The sculpture will be positioned near the border of Angel and Haringey - a fitting location to welcome residents and visitors alike. A mock up of 'An Angel for Edmonton’ is shown below.

This new artwork will be a welcome addition to the fantastic collection of public art that has emerged in the area over the last couple of years. This includes the Fore Street Murals - commissioned by Enfield Council and funded by the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund; Our River Lea poetry trail funded by Enfield Council through our Stories of Enfield programme; and Fore Street Open All Hours Gallery artworks on shop shutters and council owned bins, both curated by Fisher Cheng Architects & REACT and funded by Enfield Council).

Details of the launch of 'An Angel for Edmonton' will be announced on the key dates section of this page shortly.

Angel Yard - a creative hub containing 35 affordable workspaces designed for young local entrepreneurs, was launched in September 2023. The launch event took place as part of the London Open House weekend around Angel Edmonton.

Supported by the Mayor's Good Growth fund and Enfield Council, the units between Joyce Avenue and Snells Park estates were transformed from formerly derelict garages and designed by architects Jan Kattein and constructed by local firm Sullivan Brothers Ltd.

Angel Yard is managed by Launch-it – a social enterprise charity who support young entrepreneurs to launch their creative visions, jumpstart business ideas, enhance their skills and benefit from other support and opportunities.

Half of the units in Angel Yard are 'incubator' spaces, allowing tenants to rent these at an affordable (and below market) rate for 2 years, build up their reserves and develop their business, before being supported to move on to other workspaces, and allowing a new cohort of emerging businesses to move in and grow.

Current tenants of Angel Yard include an acting coach, architects, illustrator, wig-maker and an aquaponics educator.

Fore Street For All CIC is an organisation formed through a collaboration between community group Residents of Edmonton Angel Community Together (REACT), Edmonton art organisation Artist Hive Studios and local architects Fisher Cheng.

The project successfully received funding from the Mayor of London following our prototype event held in December 2021. It was one of 15 projects around the capital to receive funding as part of the ‘High Streets for All Challenge’, which sought innovative high street recovery strategies to “breathe new life” into town centres through local partnerships.

More information can be found here: Fore Street For All

An exciting new community Living Room for Angel Edmonton.

Enfield Council appointed Jan Kattein Architects to lead on the design of the new 'Living Room', which responds directly to concerns raised during community engagement. Local community groups and residents felt that they were lacking essential spaces to host local groups, workshops and importantly, engage with large scale redevelopment in the local area.

The refurbishment of Fore Street Library has allowed the space to host a wider mix of uses, from youth facilities to business support, alongside improved functioning as a library, to create a highly versatile 'Living Room Library'. The space has given Enfield Council the ability to become more responsive to local people, and gives residents a space at the heart of their community to host advice clinics and workshops.

The Living Room creates an open shop window space in the front of the Library for exhibiting drawings and models, as well as hosting talks, presentations and advice surgeries. Beyond the reception area, a series of pivoting bookshelves and mobile work stations allow the entire space to be opened out to host lectures, readings, performances and training sessions for local people while retaining the core function of the library. In the rear, a new children’s section with elevated reading nooks brings to life the magic of reading.

The capacity to hold evening functions expands the opening hours of the library, giving a boost to the night time economy and improving security on the high street.

The space was jointly funding by Enfield Council and the GLA through their Good Growth Fund and was opened in July 2022 following completion of the refurbishment by two local contractors (Nico Construction and Building BloQs).

Supported by the Mayor's Good Growth Fund, a series of vibrant murals exploring local living heroes and drawing together themes of past, present and future have been created for the Fore Street area.

The aim of these public artworks is to:

• Enhance and celebrate the diversity of the high street
• Change local and external perceptions of the area
• Improve sense of belonging to Angel Edmonton
• Encourage community engagement

• Improve health and well-being

Each mural has been created by artists who are local to Enfield or who are from neighbouring boroughs. Albert Agwa (Bud Studios), Hanna Benihoud, Static, Christina Kalinowski (Doodle Designs), Emma Ghafur (Tiger Monkey) worked with local communities and schools in different ways to design and deliver the artworks. For example, Hanna Benihoud asked local residents to describe their happy place, and produced a mural that merged resident's love of the outdoors with home comforts. The mural also contains a floral wallpaper with national flowers representing the cultural diversity of the area. Please see images of the artworks below:

'Inside Out' in Joyce & Snells Estate, by Hanna Benihoud

'Charlie' in College Gardens, by Agwa

'Charlies Wall' in Leed's Street by Christina Kalinowski of Doodle Designs.

'Sacred Geometry,' in Fore Street by Static

For more details on the artists, engagement and their works please visit www.forestreetmurals.co.uk