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Joe Trotter in City Road. ‘Everywhere else seems to get hanging baskets,’ he said |
‘Make this race track bloom’
Office developers urged to fork out for hanging baskets to brighten up City Road
ONE of the borough’s best-loved characters, former Lib Dem Mayor Joe Trotter, demanded of the Town Hall this week: “Where have all the flowers gone?”
He spoke out as Islington Council refused his request for hanging baskets to brighten up City Road – a busy main route between Angel and Old Street – for the third year in a row.
Mr Trotter said that if the council cannot afford the cost of a couple of dozen baskets – anything between £5,000 and £10,000 – then it should seek the cash from one of the many developers working in the road.
Born and bred in Finsbury, Mr Trotter is proud of being a council tenant who lives on the seventh floor of a 26-storey tower block, Peregrine House, in City Road.
He said: “But you are not even allowed to install window boxes in case they fall and hit someone on the head.”
He described City Road as a concrete race track that desperately needs a bit of floral cheering up. “Everywhere else seems to get hanging baskets at this time of year,” he said.
“From Archway roundabout to Highbury Corner down to the Angel there are hanging baskets as far as the eye can see. The town hall in Upper Street has some wonderful floral pillars.
“But after the Angel the baskets seem to stop. Maybe they don’t think we are good enough in City Road.”
Developers building flats or offices along the road could help with cash for the floral baskets, he added. “The developers all have to pay what is called 106 compensation money for environmental improvements,” he said. “But we in City Road don’t seem to be seeing any of that money.”
Ironically, Mr Trotter, a councillor for 18 years, believes it was his idea to provide the award-winning baskets that brighten up other parts of the borough.
“I’d been to visit my son in Belvedere [south-east London] and was impressed by the floral arrangements in that area,” he said. “I suggested we introduce hanging baskets in this borough to the previous Lib Dem council leader, Steve Hitchins, which is what happened. That was three years ago but we still haven’t got them in City Road.”
The council put up 400 hanging baskets this year at a cost of £90,000. They included 260 central barrier baskets (on central reservations such as near Nag’s Head) and about 25 floral “pillars” (such as those near Highbury and Islington station and the town hall).
There are floral displays in Seven Sisters Road, Holloway Road, Blackstock Road, Highbury Park Road, Caledonian Road, Exmouth Market, Camden Passage, Upper Street, Goswell Road and Essex Road, along with others near libraries.
The council’s Lib Dem environment chief Councillor Greg Foxsmith said: “We’ve had very positive feedback from the public for our displays, and residents have also been enthusiastically playing their part by contributing to Islington in Bloom.
“In an ideal world we’d love to put flowers in every road in Islington, and we’re happy to listen to suggestions of where they should go. But with a limited budget we have to put them in streets where they will have the biggest impact and be seen by most people.
“Compared with other streets like Upper Street, Essex Road or Blackstock Road, City Road has a relatively low footfall.
“The situation is also complicated by the fact that part of City Road is actually in Hackney.” |
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