Islington residents are fed up with the gas main works at the Angel bringing the traffic to a halt. Particularly the buses backing up along Upper Street and Essex Road.
Now National Grid have told the Islington Gazette that they ‘anticipate being able to clear the junction by the end of this weekend’.
Meanwhile the first thing you see when you check National Grid’s website is that their share price is up. Glad someone’s happy…..
An article in today’s Indy pointed me to these amazing aerial photos by Jason Hawkes.
The night-time shots of London include the Emirates stadium and Old Street.
Local girl Terri Maggs is doing the Cancer Research Race for Life on 31st May.
To sponsor Terri, click here.
I’ve blogged before about Whitecross Street’s shops and market.
The street has a fascinating history. John Strype’s 1603 History of London dates the street back to a hospital founded in the reign of Edward I, and given as a monastery house for the Brotherhood of St. Giles by Henry V. There were also almshouses founded by a former Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham.
By the 19th century the street was more residential. In David Hughson’s 1806 History and Description of London it was described as “noble, wide, and well built, inhabited by persons of property.”
One of them, a Samuel Baylis of Whitecross Street, was a founder member of the Radical Club, a fore-runner of the Liberal Party, along such famous names as Daniel O’Connell, Joseph Hume, Francis Place and Sir William Molesworth.
The Guildhall Library’s print collection shows some of the fine buildings on the street, including the Lord Mayor’s stables, Lady Holles’s School House, the Great Northern Railway Goods Depot, and the City Weights and Measures Office. For most of the 19th century the street was best known for the debtor’s prison.
Like much of the area, parts of Whitecross Street were firebombed in the December 1940 blitz. And the southern end has since been transformed by the post-war developments of the Whitbread estate and the Barbican.
In recent years, the street has had a makeover with new lighting and paving. Now the revived market and the great mix of shops, from grocers to galleries, serve a very diverse neighbourhood in Bunhill ward.
One blot on the west side of the street is a run of empty properties opposite the Peabody estate. They have shop units on the ground floor and potential for housing above; the run of shops previously included cafes, a nail salon, and a record shop, but now they are just a semi-derelict eyesore.
Now the local regeneration project EC1 NewDeal and the Council are proposing to take over the properties with a compulsory purchase order, and plan to sell them on to a housing association; and if that isn’t possible, to sell them to a private developer. The Council may actually lose money on such a deal given falling property prices and all the legal costs involved in a CPO; so the partnership with EC1 NewDeal could make all the difference.
A good letter in the Islington Tribune from Lib Dem Cllr Marisha Ray on the subject of Kings Cross access.
As she says, why should Islington residents be treated like second-class citizens when the station is rebuilt?
I’m pleased to report that Islington Council’s Lib Dem leadership has agreed to fund a further study into access to Kings Cross from the Islington side. It’s easy to talk about support, harder to put real cash forward. I hope that this real commitment by Islington to the issue will galvanise Transport for London and Network Rail into playing their part.
That’s just one of many great anti-censorship quotes listed here.
Well, as predicted, it was close.
On Wednesday night Parliament voted on the Government’s plans to expand Heathrow by building a third runway. Liberal Democrat MPs and most Conservatives attempted to put a stop to the Government’s scheme by voting it down. 57 Labour MPs had previously said they opposed the plans, so what happened on the night? 28 Labour MPs rebelled, but the rest either abstained or voted with the Government, meaning that the motion was defeated by just 19 votes.
Our local Labour MP Emily Thornberry was one of the 57 – but when it came to the vote she was nowhere to be seen. Her absence, and that of other Labour MPs who claimed to oppose the plans, but then bailed out on the vote, has effectively given the green light to this very un-green project.
With a third runway, Heathrow will become the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the UK. The planning process alone is costing millions of pounds that could be much better spent as Britain faces recession.
So many groups and individuals in Islington have done all they can to fight Heathrow expansion. Not least because our borough lies directly under the flight path. I’ve become co-owner of a plot of land where the new runway is planned to be built. Islington’s Liberal Democrat council joined the 2M group of councils who are fighting the Government over Heathrow.
We can all sign petitions, go on demos, lobby and campaign. The one thing we have to rely on our MPs to do is to use their votes in Parliament. The Heathrow motion may have been tabled by the Tories, but it wasn’t a party political game.
MPs from all parties united to vote with their consciences and against Heathrow. Some Labour MPs even sacrificed their government jobs to take a stand. Emily Thornberry didn’t even have to do that. All she had to do was vote. But she still bottled it, putting petty party politics ahead of standing up for local people and the fight against climate change. Just as she did with Post Offices, the 10p tax rate, and funds for social housing.
The government’s support for Heathrow expansion leaves its green credentials in tatters. And any claim by Emily Thornberry to be a strong, independent voice for Islington is in tatters too.
Despite the lure of the big screen, we’re not about to get a plasma TV.
It’s not (just) the money. We’ve nowhere to put it. We don’t have a fireplace to hang it over, the living room walls all have sofas or shelves, the current TV sits under the window.
Plasmas aren’t green. In fact they’re so un-green they may soon be banned.
And then there’s the cat. Percy has taken to sprawling on top of the TV, one paw dangling in front of the picture, thus combining his desire for elevation, warmth and attention.
A flatscreen just wouldn’t do.
There’s been some debate, reported over at the Wardman Wire, on the effectiveness or otherwise of Greenpeace’s latest lobbying technique.
Greenpeace wants to ensure, quite rightly, that the 57 Labour MPs who have said they oppose Heathrow expansion actually act on their words and vote that way in Parliament. So far so good.
But now Greenpeace has set up an option on their campaign website to mass email MPs. While mass letter-writing or phoning is time-consuming and expensive, mass emailing is quick and easy for the sender, but a nightmare for the recipients.
For what it’s worth, I used the Greenpeace email as a prompt to lobby my own MP, Emily Thornberry, who is one of the 57 currently targetted. I didn’t use the mass mailer as it could be counter-productive.
However I think it would be utterly pathetic for any of the MPs to use criticism of Greenpeace’s tactics as a reason to vote for Heathrow expansion, or sit on their hands and abstain!
