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Margaret Reese: ‘Third World site’
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£3m green fund ‘symbolic stunt’
Tories in attack on climate change initiative
A DECISION by the Town Hall’s ruling Lib Dems to spend £3 million on combating climate change is being compared this week to Labour’s declaration in the 1980s making the borough a nuclear-free zone.
Conservatives have launched a vociferous campaign against the “costly carbon saving” scheme, which includes putting up small wind turbines on roofs. Tories say tax-payers’ money would be better spent cleaning up litter and graffiti.
The party’s chairwoman, Margaret Reese, launched her attack on Tuesday at Highbury Corner, opposite a derelict site believed to be owned by Network Rail.
She said: “Labour’s nuclear-free zone was a meaningless symbolic stunt 20 years ago and so is this one about climate change.
“The difference is that the ruling Lib Dems are spending £3 million of our cash.
“It is not for councils to tackle global warming by spending council tax. It’s something governments do internationally.
“Meanwhile, we have these appalling eyesores – like this one at Highbury Corner – which make the borough look like a Third World site. This is the first bit of Islington that a lot of people see and I’m ashamed of it.”
Tim Newark, local historian and former Highbury Conservative candidate, argued that the council is spending money on a “fashionable theory”.
He added: “We have no real scientific proof that links rising carbon emissions and pollution with climate change. Indeed, recently scientists have been arguing that the theory is a lot of hot air.
“In fact, from 1945 to the early 1970s, when carbon was actually rising because of the post-war boom, global temperatures went down.”
At the Marie Curie cancer charity shop, next door to the Highbury Corner site, manager Anne Marie Cox said she was worried about a potential vermin problem.
She added: “Since the fence was blown down it’s a terrible eyesore. People use it as a dumping ground. It’s very unpleasant. No one has come to clean it up and it’s just getting worse.”
Labour councillor Wally Burgess described the climate change policy as “carbon saving” gimmicks.
He added: “What is worse than the gimmickry is the cynical use of fear to justify their plans.”
Lib Dem environment spokeswoman Councillor Lucy Watt said she would investigate the Highbury Corner site but suspected it was privately owned.
She added: “I understand there was a fence which blew down a month ago. Ultimately, this area around Highbury Corner will be part of a new regeneration.”
Cllr Watt said the council was already spending hundreds of thousands of pounds tackling litter and graffiti.
She warned: “But we can’t ignore climate change. It is one of the biggest challenges facing mankind as the Conservative leader David Cameron has suggested. Everyone, including Islington, must do their bit for the environment.
“We are the only borough in the country which has got local businesses to commit to a programme of reducing carbon by 15 per cent. Where we lead others will follow.”
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