Dixon Clark Court. Photo: Alison Gosper. 

• RESIDENTS of Dixon Clark Court, by Highbury Corner, can be forgiven for raising an eyebrow or two on learning that Islington Council is backing the Forest for Change (F4C) project.

According to its organiser, it aims to “help green our streets, housing estates and schools, increasing children’s access to much needed greenery and the health benefits offered”, (We’ve got a tree-mendous idea, June 25).

Sitting next door to Dixon Clark Court is Canonbury primary school. Along with the protective mature-tree cover of its “little forest” (pictured, above, from the ninth floor of the block), Dixon Clark Court lost its garden earlier this year after a 12-month struggle during which activists occupied the site and slept in the trees’ canopy for four months.

The gate to the garden was padlocked by council officers at the start of the pandemic, preventing the children, along with their parents and carers, enjoying the lush outdoors. Residents do not have private gardens.

It would be churlish to doubt the well-meaning-ness of those behind the F4C scheme, but it’s obviously better to protect and retain the public trees we already have than remove and replace them (with privately-sponsored ones). This is particularly so when these are on the direct route to a school.

Alas, the Canonbury children passing the site daily and those living on Dixon Clark Court have lost for ever their precious green and environmental amenities – for a block of leaseholder flats and 25 right-to-buy council homes.

No wonder the Town Hall backs the F4C scheme, paying for the planting and maintenance of any of its trees. It’s good diversionary politics, and will surely please those Islington senior officers involved in City Hall’s London’s Green Spaces Commission Report.

Undertaken prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the report’s authors stress in a brief, updated, introduction that: “public realm includes… green areas in housing estates… essential for [the city’s] biodiversity and in boosting resilience to climate change” (August 2020).

Oh, the irony! Seems like someone’s been reading the local press…

Like those of Dixon Clark Court, other Islington residents stand to lose their green spaces and environmental amenity as planning permission has already been granted, or is under consideration for, “infill” housing on many more of the borough’s estates, and across London.

This is in response to another City Hall document, Building Council Homes for Londoners (2018). Like the commission report, this was drawn up in pre-coronavirus pandemic times.

Commenting on the F4C project, Islington’s lead environment councillor, Rowena Champion, was quoted as saying: “We are facing a climate emergency, which is why we’re working to become a net zero carbon borough by 2030. Collaboration between the council, local people, business and community groups is essential if we’re to meet our ambitious target”.

Destroying trees and green spaces on council estates, home to some of the poorest and most vulnerable residents, is no way to further that aim.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7