• ISLINGTON has 14,000 people on the housing waiting list.

For 40 years we have not had a government that will allow councils to borrow to build homes so Islington is trying to close the gap by building more council homes on land it already owns using the fact that local housing is expensive to sell a small percentage of the new properties to finance the construction.

Obviously the land being used already has been used for something; for the most part this is garages and car parking as Islington has very low car usage and this is spare.

Sometimes other stuff also has to be moved and, at Dixon Clark Court, this includes some mature trees.

Extinction Rebellion moved in to block this but eventually reached an agreement with the council that new housing was a good idea and that it was better to spend council money on planting additional trees in the borough than on lawyers’ fees.

They moved out but a group calling themselves Save The Trees moved in and seemed determined to make lawyers necessary.

I’m generally in favour of trees, I’ve probably planted over 1,000 and cut down around 100 in my lifetime so well in credit; but the whole of Islington was once part of a forest so every building is standing where trees once stood!

Finally, mature trees do not stop traffic pollution as that is at its thickest near the ground and their crowns are too high. Hedges and hedgerows are good at blocking pollution and that is what is being included in the new scheme.

BARRY EDWARDS, N7