• “NO consultation, no debate, no humility, no shame”, the comment of a long-time Islington resident on last week’s council executive decision to back Newlon Housing Association’s plans for the New Barnsbury Estate with a compulsory purchase order.

I understand it took the eight executive members less than one minute to rubber-stamp the
CPO proposal made by housing boss Cllr Diarmaid Ward, who lauded Newlon’s “wonderful” scheme. The entire executive meeting lasted just over 13 minutes…

Newlon announced in January that a planning application for its proposed mega-demolition and rebuild scheme – in the offing since October 2019 – would be submitted in “spring 2022”.

This would almost triple the number of homes on the site from 351 existing social rented homes with an addition of some 600 new dwellings. It asserts that its proposals are supported by the overwhelming majority of residents.

Since a CPO wasn’t included in the resident consultation, this claim cannot stand. And fairness, let alone democracy, demands that the views of the estate dwellers be resought.

Is Newlon really expecting that, without a fresh consultation, it can simply buy out the leaseholders who voted against its scheme?

It’s interesting to note that James Murray, Cllr Ward’s predecessor and now MP for Ealing North, previously a New Barnsbury leaseholder, has updated his register of parliamentary members’ interests to state that since January this year he no longer owns his flat on the estate and that his rental income from same ceased in October 2021.

It’s to be hoped that Islington’s planning committee members will behave more democratically and properly scrutinise this scheme if and when it comes before them, making a mockery as it does of the Town Hall’s “net-zero” and other environmental commitments.

Mature trees will be lost under the proposals, while the Royal Institute of British Architects has made clear that refurbishment should replace demolition because of the “embodied carbon” pollution involved in constructing replacement builds.

And all that before it assesses the increased demands which will be placed on the borough’s infrastructure and utility services from such a huge increase in residential numbers.

Let’s not forget that this isn’t the only ginormous scheme currently under consideration in the borough. Think the Holloway Prison site, and that Islington is already the most densely populated local authority in the country with the least green space per head.

The high-handed bullying which seems to lie behind the CPO decision (were backbench councillors consulted regarding the order which will be used “if necess-ary” to impose the scheme on estate resi-dents?) is ugly, the justification for it the need for more social / affordable housing. It really is time to rethink housing strategy.

Meantime May 5 is election day with an opportunity to reduce the stranglehold of one party over the decision-making in our borough.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7