The Labour councillors at Yerbury Primary School 

• AS the Islington Labour councillors for Junction and St George’s wards, we have stood with our local community to campaign against the proposed Ocado delivery hub in Tufnell Park throughout the past year-and-a-half.

Ocado want to run a round-the-clock warehouse and distribution operation right next to the playground of Yerbury Primary School and the Whittington Park nature reserve.

They continue to ignore the community’s legitimate concerns about the additional traffic, noise, light, and air pollution, that their operation would bring.

They also refuse to acknowledge the evidence presented to them by experts about the damage to children’s health from air pollution, including particulate matter generated by electric vehicles.

The Ocado plans go against everything the council is doing to create a greener, cleaner, safer Islington.

Throughout the process Ocado have ignored the concerns of local people, ploughing on regardless and seeking to find legal loopholes to bypass the council’s planning process and avoid a full public consultation.

Their recent “consultation” is no different. The responses won’t be released publicly nor will they be shown to the council or we ward councillors.

Instead Ocado will likely cherry-pick the answers they like and use this as “evidence” for their case while harvesting the data of residents who do respond to use as part of their marketing strategy.

We joined the local community in refusing to engage with their “consultation” and instead have continued to support residents in their campaign.

Ocado should know that we are not going to let up. We will continue to fight against their awful proposal, for the sake of Yerbury’s school children and the rest of our community.

CLLR JANET BURGESS
CLLR SHEILA CHAPMAN
CLLR KAYA COMER-SCHWARTZ LABOUR, JUNCTION WARD
CLLR TRICIA CLARKE
CLLR SATNAM GILL
CLLR GULCIN OZDEMIR
Labour, St George’s ward