Coulsdon Commons

• ISLINGTON Council isn’t the only land-owner planning to build on our borough’s limited green spaces, (Louder than words: we need homes and green spaces, May 7).

The City of London has plans for more housing on its York Way estate.

The current proposals, for this and other council estates where planning applications for “infill” housing have yet to be submitted, can be seen here, which includes useful drawings of each of the sites.

Outside of the City, Islington has the least green space per head of population in London, where it’s the most densely populated of the 32 boroughs as well as local authority in the UK.

Without acknowledging the irony, our greener neighbour is planning to help reduce local green space even further.

Estate green spaces are also public-realm health and environmental amenities, demonstrably so in the case of Dixon Clark Court, near Highbury Corner, where the “little forest” of mature trees provided a spot of nature and shade for the foot-fall along adjacent Canonbury Road.

This was particularly so for children on their way to the primary school. Islington Council has already granted permission to build private housing there.

The council homes will be sited on the residents’ former beautiful rear garden. This will be concreted over. Dixon Clark Court is just one among a total of 18 local estates where the Town Hall is planning to build.

New council leader, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, expressed her full support for this new-build programme during her recent acceptance speech.

The catalyst for the densification of our borough was the Mayor of London’s 2018 directive that 10,000 affordable homes should be under construction across the city by 2022.

As Sadiq Khan’s then-deputy mayor for housing and resident of the Barnsbury estate, Islington’s previous housing boss, James Murray, would have been at the heart of these proposals.

Now MP for Ealing North, Mr Murray’s former landlord, Newlon Housing, is proposing demolition of the post-war part of the estate and the building of an additional 600 new homes.

One estimate suggests that only 125 of these will be “affordable”. What’s going on? Perhaps Mr Murray can advise.

Back to the City of London Corporation.

The following was spotted (pictured above) by a walker on the North Downs last weekend: “In response to public concern at the loss of the commons and parks to development in the nineteenth century… the four Coulsdon Commons… were bought in 1883… these four open spaces are protected from development by the 1878 Act under which they were acquired”.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7