Protesters calling for a stop to road closures across the Islington

• ISLINGTON Council slipped out under the radar their 2021/2022 draft budget.

When we go to the polling stations, we have every faith our elected councillors are going to have the borough’s best interests at heart.

It is with great disappointment that our Labour-dominated council, has produced a budget that doesn’t go anywhere near addressing the feedback from Islington residents. It is unambitious, wasteful, and clearly hasn’t considered the needs of residents.

This year is without doubt going to present challenges for everyone living in the borough. From the poorest to the richest, we will all feel the ramifications and turmoil from Covid-19 and restrictions for years to come.

With this in mind, it is of vital importance the limited resources of the borough are invested in the best possible way for the people of Islington.

The health and wellbeing of our community should be everyone’s top priority. Islington has one of the highest concentrations of social housing in London and many residents have raised concerns about mould growing in their homes.

You would expect that every spare penny would be ploughed into the maintenance and upkeep of these homes; but rather than protecting the community the council have deemed it worthy to spend £9million on “people-friendly streets”.

I’m sure there were great intentions behind the LTNs but on reflection that money would be better utilised to upgrade, insulate, and remove mould from local authority-managed homes. And improving health and lowering fuel costs.

This brings us onto road closures. It may seem a trivial issue but the current road closures across Islington are having a significant detrimental impact on the community; 2020 was marked by protesters taking to the streets calling for the council to see the error in pushing forward with this ill-advised scheme.

Over 2,000 residents across the borough have campaigned alongside the Islington Conservative Federation for just short of a year against these road closures.

They are hitting those with reduced mobility, impeding access for emergency services, and generally making it more difficult for people to go about their daily lives.

Not only is the council wasting a substantial portion of its budget on an experimental scheme it is also releasing a vast amount of its limited resources to other boroughs and authorities.

For example, for many months residents of both Holloway and Bunhill wards, have been informing the council that they are struggling to maintain their bins safely and securely. Not only have the council ignored their pleas but instead they have given £6.3million pounds to the North London Waste Authority.

The overarching message from the budget last week is that the council are simply not listening to the people they serve.

BENJAMIN JACKSON
On behalf of the Islington Conservative Federation