Good reasons for saving these mature trees. Photo: Alex Hofford

• “ONE mature tree is worth 10 saplings”, writes a former Islington Council conservation officer and signatory to the excellent collective letter you published, (The reasons why the Dixon Clark Court trees must be saved, April 25).

What is perhaps less widely known about the proposed Highbury Corner residential development which would see seven mature trees removed and supplanted by a stand-alone private block of flats is that the council, as owner of the land, is itself the developer of the site.

So why has our council, which prides itself on being progressive, giving planning permission for a proposal that separates the social and private elements of the scheme?

Why not a design which combines both types of housing tenure within the same physical structure?

Across the borough, on estates, in council-owned street properties and within Dixon Clark Court tower itself, mixed private and social dwellings already coexist, as a result of Right to Buy.

Indeed, it’s often been said that the most positive – some would say only – gain from the controversial sell-off of council properties has been the resulting social mixing and end to housing apartheid.

Architect James Dunnett’s question about where to build London’s much-needed social housing, also posed on your Letters pages last week, is another one that cannot be shirked, (Planting trees elsewhere is no substitute).

It would be good to hear publicly the views of local housing boss, Cllr Diarmaid Ward, on this important matter.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7