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Residents Tess West and Max Trotter with Islington Leaseholders’ Forum chairman Brian Potter outside the doors |
‘Save our Art Deco oak doors from the skip’ plea
Warning that ‘steel replacements will make street look like prison’
EARLY Art Deco-style doors worth thousands of pounds could be stripped out of council-owned Victorian mansion blocks to make way for “ugly” steel replacements.
Conservationists fear that the 14 entrance doors to blocks off Widdenham Road, Holloway, could end up on a skip.
The doors were made from one-and-a-half inch thick oak in 1904 and remain robust and free of woodworm. Residents in the street say the doors are secure and only their entry-phone systems need replacing.
Each oak door will cost about £16,000 to replace, at a cost to leaseholders in each eight-flat block of £2,000 per household.
Loraine Mansions resident Tess West, 54, a primary school teacher, said: “They say it is about security but we’ve never had a break-in.
“Homes for Islington didn’t realise we are in a conservation area. It would be criminal to replace them.”
She added: “This certainly is not the ‘like for like’ promise HfI make on their website.”
Criterion Auctioneers, based in Essex Road, examined pictures of the doors for the Tribune.
Auctioneer Peter Ball said each door could fetch between £300 and £500 at auction. He added: “The doors look Edwardian and, if they are original, they would sell quite well.”
Brian Potter, chairman of Islington Leaseholders’ Forum and a builder for decades, believes the doors have many years of life left and simply need metal reinforcing strips.
He said: “These doors are beautiful and it would be hard to find a more substantial door.
“If you replaced them with steel, the security would not improve but it will turn the street into what looks like a prison.”
At a recent meeting, residents said HfI contractors threatened to strip out the doors and replace them with tough steel in a “portcullis” design.
Historian Peter Powell said: “I can’t think why the council would just throw them away. If they do it’s a criminal act.”
A spokeswoman for HfI said: “We held a meeting with residents of Loraine Mansions on May 31 to discuss two options. If possible, HfI will investigate keeping the existing front communal doors at Loraine Mansions, and look at replacing the door-entry phone system to ensure the security and safety of the block.
“If option one is not possible, HfI will investigate replacing the existing front communal doors in keeping with appearance and conservation specifications, also ensuring the security and safety of the block.” |
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| Your Comments: |
As a resident of Loraine Mansions, I was appalled to hear that Homes for Islington could be oblivious to the fact that removal of any original features from buildings within the Hillmarton Conservation Area would be a criminal offence, punishable by law. Alteration to the exterior of the buildings, including any repair or replacement, must be quite literally
like-for-like and also requires the approval of the planning department.
Therefore removing any original feature including the entrance doors is by law simply not an option. Islington Council and Homes for Islington should have known this, and made it plain to HfI contractors before any meetings took place. The doors are in any case perfectly sound and require only routine decoration and maintenance to ensure that they close properly.
Replacement would be an enormous waste of Council and leaseholders resources alike.
Jim McCulloch |
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