The St Mary’s Path estate

• ISLINGTON and Shoreditch Housing Association (ISHA) has just started its consultation on final plans for our estate, St Mary’s Path.

Residents have been waiting for nearly two years to see these plans. Many of us are extremely disappointed and unhappy with the options on the table and with the way this consultation is being carried out.

We welcome the fact that two options seem to be about refurbishment, with the aim of tackling the issue of damp on the estate.

However, the plans don’t seem to include new radiators or lifts, which is a missed opportunity for an estate with damp issues, a high proportion of elderly residents and a number of hard-to-let, four-bedroom family flats on the top floor.

A third option proposes demolishing one of the blocks on the estate, St Mary’s House, even though there is no serious issue or structural fault with the building.

In January 2018, two-thirds of households on the estate signed a statement requesting that ISHA rule out demolition.

With the appointment of chief executive Ruth Davison we were told via the Tribune in February that she was “really happy to make clear that there is absolutely no proposal to demolish the estate” (Upper Street estate residents told their homes are safe from bulldozers, February 22).

So now the option to demolish St Mary’s House comes as a big shock and shows ISHA is still not prepared to follow residents’ views.

On its plans, ISHA claims the new build would offer “22 new homes” but this is misleading as there are already 20 homes in St Mary’s House. So demolition of the current block would only achieve two extra flats.

Demolition would mean massive disruption for all residents for more than two years and we know it is worse for the environment than refurbishing. Would all of this be really worth it just to add two new flats to an estate of more than 100?

ISHA has committed to no loss of social housing on the estate overall, to its and Islington Council’s credit. However, we are worried that ISHA could concentrate all its current 13 “market rent” lets in the new build, and flip more flats to “affordable” housing further down the line.

Without guarantees that it will all be kept as social housing, we are worried that this would eventually mean one new building with modern amenities for private renters – and the rest of the estate with old radiators, no lifts and poor security for social renters.

We do not believe that demolition of St Mary’s House is in the interest of current residents or that it would benefit our community in the long term. We would much rather ISHA improves its current options for refurbishment of all the estate and forgets about any demolition.

In addition, ISHA’s communication with the tenants’ and residents’ association has been very poor in relation to this consultation. Some of our questions and requests from two months ago are still unanswered.

Residents were only given five days’ notice of the drop-in sessions and we are now being rushed into giving feedback in just a few days for something that will affect the rest of our lives.

We asked Connect, the company that runs the consultation, to extend the feedback deadline of this first phase of consultation by just one week so that residents could have time to consider the issues and have a meeting to discuss together what the options mean, but it refused.

There are better ways to add homes than through demolition. We could try to propose alternatives, but they are not even allowing us time to meet to talk about the options as a community.

Despite our requests, ISHA has also said that it is not willing to be bound by any option preferred by residents, which makes us worry that it has already decided the outcome regarding a new build, which will not be in the interest of the community.

ST MARY’S PATH ESTATE TENANTS’ AND RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION COMMITTEE