The Holloway Prison site

• PEABODY have at last launched their second consultation on the redevelopment of the Holloway Prison site.

Unfortunately the masterplan presentation is very patchy and key information is left out, which makes it impossible to fully understand and assess the quality of the proposal.

It includes generic descriptions of design approaches but gives no details of how these apply to the project, despite repeated requests by Community Plan for Holloway for more information.

Number of homes: First, the number of homes to be built is not stated. This is essential information.

At the most basic level it allows respondents to understand the site density and compare it with the last proposal, or the council site capacity study which, for example, states that 880 homes would be overdevelopment.

Building Heights and sections: No cross sections are provided or confirmation of building heights; and no comparison with other similar projects. Heights were at least provided last time around but have inexplicably been omitted this time.

Dual aspect design: The document states that 95 per cent of the apartments are dual aspect.

This is a welcome initial target, but around 50 of the homes will still be single aspect and at risk of overheating, but it is not at all clear how even 95 per cent is achieved.

The continuous block facing Camden Road will have a number of single aspect apartments on a central corridor, and the elderly care accommodation appears to be all single aspect, prone to overheating. Also sample internal layouts are provided but two out of three illustrate single aspect homes.

Sunlight information: The information provided showing sunlight percentages in the site is unexplained and risks being highly misleading.

It suggests high percentages of sunlight in spaces that are on the north side of tall buildings, which can’t obviously be the case.

Consultation: The consultation is only being run for three weeks, with no public meetings for explanation or discussion of the plans.

The content of the questionnaire itself is woeful, including disgracefully coercive questions that makes any unknowing respondent support the scheme unless they say that they need more information or don’t agree with the aspirations.

It is poorly drafted, including duplicate questions, and appears to be specifically designed to avoid collecting meaningful information on topics that the community are most concerned about.

Some of the questions are downright misleading. For example, stating that building heights are reduced when in fact some buildings are taller than proposed in the last masterplan.

There appears to have been no attempt made to improve on the diversity of the consultation, to specifically include less well-represented communities.

Community Plan for Holloway engaged extensively. Peabody should correct the deficiencies in their consultation, and rerun it, giving more time for the community to understand what is being proposed and respond in a meaningful way.

The community will have lots of comments on the proposals but it is incredibly embarrassing and disappointing that first we have to overcome the twin hurdles of poor presentation and poor consultation.

Community Plan for Holloway is holding a public meeting, online, on Monday July 19 at 6pm to discuss. Please email engage.plan4holloway@gmail.com for more details or go to https://plan4holloway.org/news-comments/.

JONATHAN WARD
Member
Community Plan for Holloway