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Homes: the votes speak
• JAMES Kempton and Ruth Polling were on the defensive in last week’s Tribune, trying to claim Islington Lib Dems are committed to 50 per cent affordable housing in new developments.
Let’s look at how they’ve voted. I was at the south area planning meeting last week when the 39-storey Old Street tower was debated. Labour councillor Gary Doolan proposed rejecting it on the basis of there not being 50 per cent affordable housing in the scheme.
And who voted him down on this? George Allan, Marisha Ray and Kelly Peasnell – three Lib Dem councillors. The plans were rejected on other grounds.
Meanwhile, the west area committee voted on developers’ plans for King’s Cross where less than half the homes would have been affordable. They were rejected by the Labour councillors. Only one councillor, Lib Dem Emily Fieran-Reed, voted for the plans.
STEPHANIE CHARALAMBOUS
Central Street, EC1
• COUNCILLOR Kelly Peasnell has made a selling point of the fact she apparently lives in the last council home built in Islington.
In the vote on the Old Street tower, she sided with Lib Dem colleagues in refusing to criticise the plans for a lack of affordable housing. She voted to say she was fine with 18 homes out of 224 being for people on the waiting list.
S FERGUSON
Earlstoke Estate, EC1
• IF there is such a shortage of housing, why has a two-bedroom, ground-floor disabled person’s flat been given to a tenant management organisation (TMO) for use as an office on the Taverner estate in Highbury Grange?
They already have a one-bedroom flat for use as an office that has no access for wheelchairs so it does not meet requirements. But do they have to have a flat on the estate. A portable building or a shed would do the job.
The TMO wants to spend about £30,000 on transforming the flat into an office. No one seems to know where that money is coming from.
There was no consultation with the residents and we are opposing the planning application this week.
This flat should be kept as social housing.
BARBARA WYATT AND TENANTS OF TAVERNER ESTATE N5
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