Protest at the Town Hall

FRUSTRATIONS bubbled over at the Town Hall this week after a decision on a “death sentence” development was deferred for a third time.

Residents heckled a meeting about Lion Portfolio Ltd’s plans to demolish Castle and Fitzroy House, Bunhill, and replace it with an office block four storeys higher with two new basement levels.

The decision was deferred for a third time following fresh concerns about light loss from the planning committee.

“If this goes through, I’m leaving Islington,” said Isabelle Babak, who lives in Epworth Street. “I’m not staying here. I don’t want my children to be raised here any more.

“Nobody was here to represent us. Nobody. Where’s the support? I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s so frustrating.”

Graham Price, who has lived in Epworth Street for 10 years, said: “They had the grounds to reject it, they didn’t reject it, and I’m at the point where I’d be quite happy for it to go to an independent judicial review.”

Mr Price told the planning committee that the developers have behaved in “utter contempt” of what they had been asked to revise.

The ‘death sentence’ sign

He confronted planning chiefs saying: “Labour is supposed to care about the people, care about the environment. If you show you don’t care, why would we ever vote Labour again?”

Diana Casson, another objector, compared the scheme to “Trump Towers” and said the development was a “great, lumpy thing pushing its way into our lives”.

The developer told the meeting that the top two floors of the building had been set back which reduced its visual impact.

The new scheme was “a refined and amended building which directly addresses the concerns raised in October,” Zvi Noé said, speaking on behalf of the applicant.

He said the changes made “greatly improves the outlook for the residents” and in order to meet full daylight compliance they would need to reduce the building’s volume by 30 per cent, saying that “doing so would be contrary to the objectives set out in the local plan, asking for the intensification of office use, and would not be practically deliverable”.

Mr Noé also said that the developer would be happy to “work into legal agreements” ways they can benefit the ­com­munity.

Councillor Paul Convery said the committee’s understanding of the loss of light from the proposals was “unacceptably high” and recommended a third deferral of the decision, to “ask the applicant to come back with some amendments which deal with these problem transgressions.”

Councillor Martin Klute, who chairs the planning committee, clarified that the developer must specifically improve the loss of daylight for the Clere Street residents, and noted “the committee has determined to defer this application again for this very specific reason.”