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Will City types muscle in on this £5m rescue plan?
• THANK you for Róisín Gadelrab’s excellent report of Islington Council’s credit crunch debate (Lib Dem rebel forces party to accept Labour amendment, December 5).
The council now has “a large amount of money sitting in the bank”. This money has been built up by selling Finsbury’s Citizens Advice Bureau, Merlin Street Baths, Finsbury Town Hall, Lever Street Library, community buildings such as the Roger Casement Irish Centre, shop and business properties over the heads of their occupants and valuable land that could have been used for council housing.
This money “should be used for the benefit of the public”. But how does the coalition of Labour and Green councillors, with dissident Lib Dem Andrew Cornwell, propose to use £5million of this cash? As a “rescue package for people at risk of losing their homes”.
In Finsbury live numerous City types on pay of more than £100,000 a year. They have paid £400,000 or so for homes now worth perhaps £200,000-£300,000 at auction. Some of these City types are getting the sack. They are finding it difficult to keep up the payments on their £400,000 mortgages.
Never mind, says the coalition, the council has £5million to spare. How much do you need? This coalition is even worse than the Lib Dems.
FLORENCE and IVOR KENNA
Compton Street, EC1
• WE welcome the news that Islington Council has allocated, albeit reluctantly according to the Tribune report, an extra £5.25million to help residents through the present economic crisis.
These measures do not do very much to tackle the recession’s impact on Islington’s 16,000 pensioners. This is the generation who survived the 1930s recession and all those since, including the one when Norman Tebbit told us to “get on our bikes” while destroying the industrial and manufacturing base of this country.
One in four of these pensioners still lives in poverty and every week faces rising food and fuel prices. There is an obligation on council decision-makers to ensure that pensioners benefit when decisions are taken on how these funds are to be distributed.
One major concern is that the main distributor of these will be Islington Strategic Partnership (ISP). Little is known about it and how its decisions are made.
A majority of councillors have concerns regarding how transparent and open ISP is. Members are not elected and apparently are not accountable to the council.
The Tribune has reported that the council has accepted a number of constitutional changes in how it monitors ISP activities. It does appear to be concerned to ensure that services are being delivered by ISP.
This will be a standing agenda item on the council’s overview committee, to ensure services and targets promised are being delivered. The council will annually review ISP activities regarding delivery of health and wellbeing policies; this originally included as a priority the aged in our community, but appears to have been sidelined.
According to information received by Islington Pensioners Forum less than three per cent of a two-year budget of millions was specifically targeted at pensioners.
Two other areas the council will review each year are whether ISP is delivering its promises on regeneration and sustainability.
What is important to us all when faced with a recession is that the council is democratic and open as to how it is tackling issues in our name.
Cancelling the opportunity for debates, such as Islington Today, and cancelling executive meetings on the grounds that there was not enough business is unrealistic given the challenges we are all facing today.
The council needs to face up to the real world, particularly the world of pensioners, who are among the most vulnerable in the borough.
JOHN WORKER
Secretary, Islington Pensioners Forum
• RATHER than Councillor John Gilbert and other Islington councillors “reinvesting money into the borough” by paying £8,100 to Arsenal for use of its rooms for a two-and-a-half day event for council employees, which included “speed dating” and a quiz, perhaps they could reduce the high rate of business and council tax.
In 2007-8, £164,700 was spent on food and drink – including £3,711 at the annual leader’s bash last Christmas – and £23,000 in 2007 on taxis, all with presumably Islington-based businesses.
Cutting business and council tax would really help those businesses and individuals suffering in this economic downturn. The selfish attitude of these Islington councillors sticks in my gullet.
ORIEL HUTCHINSON
Canonbury ward chair, Islington Conservatives
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