Think before building on green space

• “FLASH flooding: If you live in a basement property, you may be at greater risk” – Mayor of London, July 2022.

Many of the residents who this week will have received the leaflet (above) will live in some of the more than the 6,000 street properties owned by Islington Council.

Two-thirds of these homes were brought back under direct housing department management in April when one of two PFI, private finance initiative, contracts with Partners for Improvement was ended.

Warnings about the borough’s flood-risk were made during the campaign to save mature trees and green space on the Dixon Clark Court estate.

The only green spaces available to residents – including their beautiful communal garden – have long since disappeared under concrete for a mixture of leasehold, for-sale, and council homes.

More such flood-absorbing spaces, local flood plains in effect, are set to disappear from the York Way and Bemerton estates; planning permission for the former has already been granted, the latter yet to come before committee. These are not the only “new-build” developments on the housing agenda.

It’s to be hoped that members of the planning committee will think carefully before granting permission for building on further vital green space, in the second most densely populated local authority in the United Kingdom, and with the least green space per head of population.

Former housing boss, now Islington’s executive member for finance, planning and performance, as well as deputy leader, lives in leafy Highbury where the Green Party now holds all the ward seats on the council. Cllr Diarmaid Ward would do well to listen to his elected representatives.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7