The Holloway Prison site

• YOUR correspondent Jonathan Ward (A £90m overdevelopment, November 26) and your readers should be aware that the Peabody proposals for the Holloway Prison site are planned to be replicated on the post-war part of the Barnsbury Estate – a site of similar size – by Newlon Housing Association.

A planning application for their proposals to demolish completely and redevelop at three times the density has not yet been submitted, but the residents have been consulted and supposedly approved.

However the ground coverage of the proposed scheme is even higher than for the Holloway Prison scheme, and the density similar, with consequently even less open space per head.

Meanwhile Islington Council itself is planning to raise the density substantially of the nearby Bemerton Estate (South) with additional blocks and storeys, which will result in a much more enclosed feel, and has granted consent to the City of London to build 91 new flats on all the green spaces at the York Way Estate, blocking green views in all directions.

This pattern, now well advanced at Dixon Clark Court, Canonbury Road, is established all over London and will result in the wholesale loss of amenities of our public housing stock.

JAMES DUNNETT
James Dunnett Architects
Barnsbury Road, N1