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We’ve nothing
• AS a Labour supporter I don’t often agree with an Islington Liberal Democrat councillor but while reading Emily Fieran-Reed’s letter (July 17) about the refusal by the planning committee to grant permission for a new £3.5million community centre at St David’s Hall in Holloway, I found myself nodding in agreement.
As secretary to my estate’s tenant association I get involved because I know how little there is for our kids, our teenagers, for those who are isolated, struggling with very little money, or long-term sickness. I have seen the plans for what the church is trying to do at St David’s and they are amazing and would be a great benefit for everyone round here. How often does an opportunity like this come along? And that’s why so many hundreds of people wrote to the council to say the scheme should go ahead. Yet it was rejected because the committee wouldn’t shift on their housing targets. Come on planners, you can’t have everything, and because of the lack of flexibility, now we have nothing!
People on my estate can’t understand it and feel ignored and let down, and if the politicians keep on applying their rules on new housing without thinking about the need for improved community benefits for those of us already living here, they are going to find it harder and harder to answer the criticisms of their opponents such as Cllr Fieran-Reed.
The people of this community desperately need and deserve this safe space.
I have heard that the church haven’t given up on their plans, and still hope to find a way forward. If they do try again I hope politicians on every side can help to find a way of making this project happen.
Irene Spence
Secretary, Mersey Estate RTA
• SO Liberal Democrat councillor Emily Fieran-Reed is “furious” because Labour councillors on West Area planning committee turned down a development of three dozen luxury flats on the site of St David’s church in lower Holloway (Letters July 17)?
She thinks it would be OK to squeeze a seven-storey block of flats right on the south west edge of Paradise Park. There’s no other building of that size anywhere in the neighbourhood.
She is also completely wrong to think this would be the best way to finance new community facilities. The church wants to create a new community centre and many local people support that, including me. But they want to finance it by using the profits from an exclusively private housing scheme. Community services are sorely needed in the area but so are affordable homes. It’s a huge mistake to fund community services by creating luxury housing. Instead we should find a mix of council and other resources to build a community centre and find a housing association (or even the council) to build affordable homes on the site. Local Labour Councillors are determined to find a solution and are certain this can be achieved. I am meeting the local clergy next week for a first meeting to see how we can find a solution.
Cllr Paul Convery
Chair, West Area Planning sub-committee
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