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Homes will swallow up a rare oasis of greenery
• I AM extremely alarmed by the proposals put forward by Islington Council for the Sobell Centre site, around the corner from my home. I have responded to the consultation document indicating that I am totally opposed to the scheme.
While I must admit I do not use the centre myself, I and all the area’s residents benefit enormously from it and the green area that surrounds the present building and especially from the presence of many mature trees that have taken more than 30 years to grow, and which cannot be replaced overnight.
All of the proposals put forward by the council involve removing this oasis of greenery located on a busy intersection, close by already dense housing on one side of the road. Islington is already one of the London boroughs with the least amount of green space.
I understand the need for refurbishing/ rebuilding the sports centre and for more good-quality affordable housing. I do not believe this justifies the council’s attempts at shoe-horning a huge development and housing onto this plot at the expense of this valuable green space on public land.
Surely the area used at present for parking could be used for any redevelopment necessary while saving the tree area. These trees absorb a lot of the noise and pollution that come from this very busy road and are also a carbon sink in this urban borough and in a particularly deprived neighbourhood.
You could equate the proposal to building a block of flats on Barnsbury Square – except that the socio-economic profile of the residents is not at all the same – and the council officials would never think of doing that.
I also find it disdainful that the proposals place the housing element of the plans exactly on the intersection, directly exposed to the negative aspects of close proximity to traffic, while keeping the non-residential buildings at the back of the plot away from the traffic.
So, not only is the council planning to replace a mature, green space with dense housing, but this housing for those who have less choice will ensure that all the residents in the area are forced to breathe in increased-polluted air from the great amount of traffic that uses this road.
To me this whole scheme is appallingly planned, has its priorities all wrong and something needs to be done to improve it, before and if it goes ahead.
Furthermore, our council has allowed the very rich Arsenal football club to develop a vast amount of land that could have been used for more housing and green space. That scheme in itself was poorly thought out in that it causes much grief and aggravation by bringing many people into what is principally a residential area, where the infrastructure (transport and parking) cannot support the additional inflow on event days because the necessary work was not done in tandem or before the building of the stadium.
Businesses in the area cannot ply their trade on match days, residents cannot invite friends around to their houses and some can’t even park in front of their own property. And Arsenal is being allowed to shirk its responsibilities to the community despite being a very profitable business.
In the recently developed area between Holloway and Caledonian roads, around the refuse handling plant, planners allowed blocks of residential buildings, in effect designing into the scheme the inconvenience of having huge rubbish trucks pass through all day long and people having to suffer the stench of the place in the summer months. Much of the affordable housing looks over the railway and is located in a medium-rise tower, repeating errors of the past.
Is there not something desperately upside down and wrong in this system? Our politicians seem to be paying only lip service, attempting to achieve targets on paper but not really caring what actually happens to people in the whole process. They talk continuously about building communities and sustainable development but when it comes to producing real results it is all negated by expediency. No wonder voters have become despondent and cynical.
JJ Best
Medina Road, N7
• I AGREE with the thrust of Gary Heather’s argument that the Lib Dem-controlled council should have consulted the people properly with regard to the iconic Sobell Leisure Centre land grab (Sobell: It’s a land grab, August 1). However, the Labour Party should come off the fence over the plan to sell off the site for redevelopment, just as the Green Party has.
Islington Green Party (of which I am not a member) opposes any plans to sell part of the Sobell site to fund redevelopment, and highlights the point that there was no chance given in the consultation to opt for refurbishing the facilities on this hugely popular leisure site.
Land speculation was the main theme of Sir David Hare’s play Knuckle. As the protagonist, Curly, comments: “It’s a shabby little island, delighted with itself… I was attracted by the news of the property racket. Slapping people on top of people like layers of lasagne… I found this country was a jam pot for swindlers, cons and racketeers. Not just property. Boarding houses and bordellos and nightclubs and crooked charter flights, private clinics, horsehair wigs and tin-can motor cars, venereal cafés with ice cream made from whale blubber and sausages full of sawdust!”
Hare was not writing about today; he wrote his play in the 1970s when we had another unpopular Labour government. Labour should have learned from the past – show leadership and dump New Labour policies in the waste bin of history.
Don’t sell the Sobell!
Jack O’Connor
Thane Villas, N7
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