The Holloway Prison site

• ISLINGTON Homes for All agree with the five Islington councillors that the securing of 415 homes for council rent on the Holloway Prison site is to be welcomed in our borough which suffers from an acute shortage of homes at target (council) rents, (Holloway Prison site would be transformational for Islington, March 25).

Nonetheless we are concerned about two aspects of these homes, relating to their location and design.

• First, although Peabody has stated that the development is “tenure blind,” private flats will be located in separate blocks in the most advantageous locations.

The plans show 44 per cent of flats for council rent will be located in the most disadvantageous positions: bordering the noisy, polluted main roads (Parkhurst Road and Camden Road).

Just 7 per cent of private flats will overlook these roads while the majority will look onto the attractive central landscaped area.

Another block containing flats for target rent will receive insufficient daylight as it will be located between two other blocks.

• Secondly, there is the question of lack of adequate ventilation as many of the homes for council rent will only receive ventilation from the outside by means of stepped, bay-type, windows situated immediately next to each other on the same outer wall.

Peabody has claimed that ventilation for the flats from these two windows will be adequate. However they added at a planning meeting with Islington Council that the flats would also be equipped with mechanical ventilation to ensure adequate air flow.

This form of ventilation is operated by electricity, an unsustainable resource which, with the rapidly increasing cost of energy, will have to be paid for by those residents who can least afford to do so.

We are dismayed that Peabody does not attach the same value to their social residents as they do to their private (more profitable) residents on this development.

Instead of encouraging the formation of a community on the site (albeit without equal access to community rooms and no indoor youth provision) social divisions will be accentuated.

Islington Homes for All earnestly hope that the shortcomings mentioned will be rectified before work starts on the new development.

JENNY KASSMAN
Islington Homes for All