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Olympic goal? Real aim is to make millions from housing
• PARDON my cynicism about Islington’s plans for an “Olympic goal” (Olympic goal: a £20m sports centre, June 6). The truth surely is that, being hard up (and having to attain some target?), Islington’s aim is not to achieve this goal but to make millions of pounds from an ill-thought-out housing estate.
The Sobell will have less interior space, and, together with existing residential dwellings, will be dwarfed by high buildings that cut out daylight, not to mention the extra population density crowded into the Sobell space.
How does such a dense housing estate consisting of three-storey houses – probably to be sold for £400,000-plus each – help to rehouse those on the waiting list?
These houses will be bought by anybody from anywhere who can afford these sums. Even so-called “affordable housing” (a misnomer) will be too expensive for the needy.
The consequence of this plan will include:
l Increasing the density of an already overpopulated borough without sufficient schools, doctors and infrastructure to support the increase in population.
l More killer pollution which these two-car households will create, together with even more overcrowded roads as extra vehicles and Arsenal coaches are pushed out of parking areas and onto roads.
l Loss of Kinloch Park, safe for our children since we got rid of drugs, syringes and alcoholics. Instead, we will have a larger, but “self-policing” green open 24 hours a day. Hello again, drink and drugs.
l Replacement of the much-admired Sobell, which your article calls “dilapidated” but which we locals and its half-million users find quite satisfactory. It may not have a swimming pool, but there is one 15 minutes down the road in Highbury Crescent. Please don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting that refurbishment is more expensive than rebuilding.
Finally, is there some reason that we have only 15 working days in which to consider plans that will affect Islington residents for decades.
And why have many people who will be affected received no documents about this? Don`t pretend, yet again, that we have been consulted.
MAUREEN COMAN
N7
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