A coronavirus testing centre will be set up outside the Sobell Centre

A NEW walk-in Covid-19 testing centre is to be set up in the borough, the Tribune can reveal.

For months Islington has been one of the only boroughs in London not to have its own centre, leaving residents with little access to tests.

But as of this Sunday a new testing hub will be established in the car park of the Sobell Leisure Centre, in Hornsey Road, Holloway.

Council leader Richard Watts told the Tribune: “We are getting a testing centre. I think it is good news. Certainly a lot of work has gone into securing this. I am concerned that one centre on its own isn’t going to be enough, given the level of demand in the borough, and frankly it has taken far too long and been far too complicated to get the centre.

“But I do welcome this as the absolute minimum that Islington needs.”

The seven-day average of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Islington, as of September 23 – the latest date available – was 12.7. When the virus was at the peak of its first wave in April, Islington had a seven-day average of 16 confirmed cases. However, testing capacity has increased dramatically since then and it is likely that April’s actual figures were higher.

Council leader Richard Watts

The new site will be open from 8am-8pm, seven days a week, for the next six months.

As the Tribune previously reported, in the last few weeks children have been sent home from school either because someone in their “bubble” has tested positive or because they have flu-like symptoms.

This has led to parents spending days on the government website desperately trying to get hold of a test that would allow their child to return to school, and many have had to make do without a test. This week parents of children at Winton Primary School, in Killick Street, King’s Cross, received letters telling them to keep their children at home until Monday as there had been two confirmed cases.

Cllr Watts said: “About four weeks ago it transpires that a decision was taken, because of what was going on in the North East and the North West, to shift lab capacity that was processing London’s test results out of London and give it to the North East and North West.

“That’s why two weeks ago it transpired that in London there was much less testing than there was at the end of August.”

London was placed on the government’s Covid “watch-list” last week as testing capacity returned to the capital and the scale of the rising positive cases was revealed.

Cllr Watts added: “A letter has gone out to local residents in the area around the Sobell Centre. The centre and car park remains open and the whole area is being made Covid-secure.

“There is no extra risk to residents. It has absolutely been planned carefully to make sure residents are protected through this.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are targeting testing capacity at the areas that need it most, including those where there is an outbreak, and prioritising at-risk groups.”