Haringey Council has apologised after bags of unwanted clothes, rubbish and other discarded items piled up beside the bust of Pan-African icon Marcus Garvey outside the Tottenham library that bears his name.
The scene at Marcus Garvey Library sparked concern among local residents after the contents of nearby textile and recycling banks overflowed and spilled across the area around the bust.
The Friends of Marcus Garvey Library said the banks beside the bust were rarely emptied, and the overflowing contents had become “an eyesore, which is not only an insult to Marcus Garvey but also to the whole centre itself”.
A spokesperson for the group said they had alerted the centre’s management and had already held a site visit with the council’s Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure, asking for an immediate clearing of the area and a more appropriate location for the recycling point and bin.
But it was members of the Friends who eventually cleared the area themselves on Monday morning. They moved the bin away from the bust, took the donated items into the leisure centre to await collection, and replaced the bin with a banner welcoming visitors to the library.
The council has apologised, while denying that the discarded items were “rubbish”, and has promised to remove the nearby donation banks until a more suitable location can be found.
“We sincerely apologise that overflow from a nearby textile bank may have created the impression the bust had been moved next to bins or rubbish,” council leader Cllr Mark Blake said.
“This issue has been immediately addressed with the donated items now cleared and the banks will be removed until a more suitable location can be found.”
The council has not said when the donation banks will be taken away.
Petition over where the bust should stand
Meanwhile, a petition has been launched calling for the bust to be returned inside the building. Campaigner and author Alesia Greenidge, also known as Azana Gem, argues that the bust belongs inside the centre, where visitors can encounter it in a setting dedicated to Garvey’s history.
The Friends of Marcus Garvey Library disagree about where it should stand. They say residents asked them to seek its return to the entrance, where it was displayed when the library and leisure centre became fully operational in 1991, and the council agreed to move it.
Both sides are aligned on one thing, however: the discarded items beside the bust were unacceptable. The Friends welcomed the attention campaigners brought to the problem and say they want a permanent solution to the problem with the bins.
Who was Marcus Garvey — and why the bust matters
Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey was one of the most influential figures in Pan-Africanism. His calls for Black pride and self-determination resonated with generations of Black Britons — and still do.
Garvey first came to London as a young man. During the 1920s his newspaper, The Negro World, reached readers in London and British port cities, and in the 1930s he settled in the capital, speaking at Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner. He died in Hammersmith in 1940, aged 52, and a blue plaque marks his former home there.
His connection to Tottenham runs deep. Garvey’s son laid the library’s foundation stone in 1987, and the bust has been a focal point for the local community ever since. The Friends of Marcus Garvey Library emerged around 2015, when residents campaigned against council plans they feared would shrink and downgrade the library to make room for customer service facilities. The group has continued to champion the library and is now pushing to rebuild its African-Caribbean book collection and establish a centre for Black studies.
Libraries across the capital remain vital community spaces, with a reading campaign in Hammersmith & Fulham aiming to put a book in every primary pupil’s hands.
A familiar London problem
Overflowing textile banks turning into fly-tipping magnets is a familiar sight on London’s streets. When donation banks fill up faster than operators can empty them, well-meaning donations end up dumped beside them — and once one bag is left on the pavement, others quickly follow. Charities and councils across the capital have long wrestled with the problem, which can leave clothes ripped open, scattered by wind and weather, and local landmarks overshadowed by mess.
Residents say the answer is simple: banks must be emptied regularly, and sited where overflow cannot blight sensitive locations. At Marcus Garvey Library, the council has now committed to moving the banks — but for the Friends, only a permanent fix will do.
In other Tottenham news, a man has been charged with a 2023 murder after being extradited from Cyprus, while South Tottenham station was shut by an emergency incident on Monday.
