An inspiring new partnership for London…
Bob Crow of the RMT has shown an early and unlikely solidarity with new Mayor Boris Johnson, by insulting the people of Liverpool. Brilliant.
Archive for Neighbourhood
Essex Road Post Office: victory!
We finally got the news today!
Post Office Ltd have issued this announcement: “Public consultation has been held on a proposal to close Essex Road Crown Post Office in N1 but Post Office Ltd announced today it has been decided not to proceed with the closure of this branch at this time as discussions with a potential franchise partner are now underway. If these negotiations are successful there will be a six week consultation on a proposal to franchise this Post Office® branch.”
It’s a triumph against the odds (and against the government) and a tribute to a great team effort. We made it very clear that we did not want Essex Road post office to close.
I can’t believe it’s a year since we launched the petition with Jo Swinson MP; since then thousands of Islington residents have signed up to our campaign against the closure. We’ve also had fantastic support from local businesses, voluntary groups and the Council.
It’s also a bittersweet victory as other branches in Islington are still set to close - part of the government-backed restructuring voted for by Labour MPs, including Emily Thornberry. But we’ve saved Essex Road for our community - and that’s something to celebrate. !
Business as usual?
On Saturday we went for a stroll in Islington. Instead of leaflets to deliver, we had Eggs royale at Med Kitchen, overlooking Islington Green; bliss. Then on to Camden Passage, where we bought something lovely & vintage for my sister in law Ros (a belated birthday present). I’m not going to say what in case she reads it before she receives it...
Camden Passage is seeing the arrival of more chains (albeit upmarket ones - Reiss, FrostFrench, LomBok) replacing some of the independent antiques traders that give the area its unique character. Now there are lots of reasons why London’s upmarket international antiques trade has been suffering; weak dollar, fears of terrorism, modernist decor, economic downturn etc. And if an individual trader chooses to relocate or retire that’s their privilege. But there’s a specific threat in Islington.
The Mall, home to dozens of small units, has changed hands, and the developer has applied for permission to knock out the internal partitions, effectively evicting them. Two or three of the units are already vacant as traders have anticipated the worst and moved elsewhere. But Islington Council is having none of it; last week the South Area planning committee threw out the application. They had to do it on historic building grounds; there’s no planning law protecting one type of retail over another. That’s something the Sustainable Communities Act could let communities change, but despite a waffly bit of guidance, there’s no sign of action to implement this from the Government yet.
Stormy weather
There’s a cracking thunderstorm over London at the moment. Which explains something about last night.
Around 5pm I started to feel quite headachey and became increasingly nauseous and light-headed. I sent my apologies to canvassing for once, took Syndol, sipped tea on the sofa, tried to watch the news but couldn’t – and ended up going to bed very early.
My Dad also gets sick headaches in the run up to a thunderstorm and I’m sure we’re not the only ones. But a bit like PMT, it’s only afterwards you realise why you felt so awful at the time….
Something in the air
As a politician, you worry about putting your foot in it. This morning, out delivering, I thought I’d done just that.
There was a definite pong. I stopped and sniffed, checked my shoes anxiously, and wondered if maybe Islington’s greenspace team had splashed out on some manure.
Tonight on the news, all was revealed. UKIP will be delighted…..
Enemy territory?
Another Saturday, another action day. With just under 3 weeks to go, the campaign is hotting up. The weather is less sure: we have sunshine and sleet in the space of a few minutes. With a team of 16, ranging from students to veteran councillors, we got all our deliveries out in record time. A friend from church came out of his house as I passed; his son turns 18 this week, so will be able to vote for the first time on 1st May. The whole family are debating their choices for Mayor; it seems to be mostly Brian with a bit of Boris. I reassured him that with the 2nd vote system, you can have Brian then Boris, if you insist.
At lunchtime we went to the Duchess of Kent pub. The food was good as ever - I had the mushroom and spinach pancakes - but the service was more than a bit off. Maybe they couldn’t handle that number of hungry Lib Dems all at once.
With deliveries done, we started canvassing in pairs, hitting different streets and estates over the neighbourhood. I end up on BoJo’s own street. You remember those shots of him jogging in disgrace and a bandana? Then finding himself locked out of the house? That’s the one. It is a lovely place, elegant houses with enough arched windows to delight anyone brought up on PlaySchool, and cherry blossom on the trees. There were not a lot of people in, but the cute cat count was high. A pretty butterscotch one even hopped on my shoulder and stayed there, parrot style while I rang their owners’ doorbell and posted my leaflet through the door. Don’t try this at home... “If only I had a camera” said my colleague.
This street is arguably the most Tory in Islington. Not only does Boris Johnson have a house there, but opposite there used to be the Conservative party hall, until they sold it off a few years ago. So we were braced for lots of Boris votes; not the case. What’s interesting is the genuine uncertainty among voters: “I normally vote Labour/Conservative, but....” is the common theme. So we met a mum who normally votes Labour but thinks Ken is a hypocrite; and a young man who stopped us in the street to say he’s basically a Tory but can’t take Boris seriously. Then there was the EU citizen who likes Brian and hadn’t realised he could vote. So good news all round.
I wasn’t the only one canvassing in possible enemy territory today. I’d just got home at teatime when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find a nice looking young woman with a Labour sticker. Her: “Are you Bridget Fox?” Me: “Yes“. Her: “Oh, I guess I shouldn’t have called here....“. Me: “I think you can safely assume I won’t be voting Labour 
“.
Mind you, we started it. Earlier this week I was out with our GLA candidate Meral Ece and our Barnsbury team. We’re reminding people that they’re electing assembly members as well as the Mayor. Our standard question - “do you know who your Assembly member is?” - usually has a 100% non-recognition rate for the incumbent; after 8 years, that’s reason enough for a change, as voters agree! So Meral was surprised to find one guy who instantly knew the name of our mystery member. I checked the card: he works for our Labour MP.
No satisfaction…
Generally working from home is great. But today I’ve been trying to work while getting music from upstairs at full blast. Currently I’m getting an earful of the Stones. It is indeed true that you can’t always get what you want….
New Holloway
Richard & I had a normal Saturday morning today (shock, horror) including food shopping, laundry, picking up Percy’s Frontline prescription and unblocking the vaccuum cleaner. We know how to have fun... Then with Rich heading off to catch the old firm game, I caught up with the campaign team for lunch.
We had teams out in Holloway and St George’s, and ended up lunching just over the border in Camden at Rustique Cafe on Fortess Road. It’s a lovely bohemian cafe with sofas, wooden chairs, warm walls and a great good value menu. I can heartily recommend the pancakes with apples and cream cheese. There are similar cafes I love at Newington Green and Hazelville Road but nothing quite like it nearer home, certainly not on Upper Street.
After lunch, James Kempton & I went off to deliver letters to the new flats on Eden Grove and Hornsey Street. These are a mix of private and affordable homes, plus a gym, studios and the inevitable Tesco metro, as well as an attractive new open space between the D-shaped blocks (designed by Piers Gough). For as long as I can remember - certainly since I was a student at North London Poly in the late 80s - the site was a largely-derelict and inaccessible industrial estate. Now it’s completely transformed.
While most of the buildings are completely new, there are some older ones, all vaguely ecclesiastical. The development has preserved the old Mount Carmel school on Eden Grove, a victorian building with gothic windows that’s now converted to flats. Tucked away at the west end of Eden Grove is Sacred Heart church which dates from 1870. Next to it is a fascinating facade: “Vestry of St Mary, Islington” above, “Electricity Generating Station” below. This dates back to 1894 when the Vestry, the predecessor of the borough council, ran its own utilities. Over a century on, James is enthusing about the Council developing new green projects for local electricity generation; this is an idea I floated when I was a councillor so I’m delighted it’s still on the agenda.
Meanwhile we had a great opportunity to see the buildings in action as lived-in homes rather than the building sites or half-empty developments we’d visited before. I wondered if the private flats would be one of those gated communities that are cut off from their neighbourhood by choice or design. We were pleasantly surprised. The concierge was welcoming once he’d established we were legitimate callers. Wherever you go delivering, you find the pizza leaflets have got there before you. In this case I actually met the pizza man, complete with pizza, wandering around the central courtyard looking for a particular flat... There is an active residents’ association, with a sociable outlook (a pub crawl features among recent events). I also had the chance to chat to some of the residents who were genuinely pleased to have us seeking their views. New Holloway is not New Labour! I’ve already picked up one issue where we can get some results for them. So we’ll definitely be back for more.
Hail and history on Good Friday
This morning my delivery round took me to the network of streets between City Road and the canal. These are some of the oldest streets in the area, and there are little bits of history at every turn.
On 32 Haverstock Street, now a private house being refurbished, there is a plaque saying ‘Seminary for Young Ladies’. On the corner of Coombs Street and City Garden Row is a plaque marking the boundary of St Luke’s parish.
Another church, St Matthew’s, used to be nearby on City Road. It was destroyed in bombing in 1940, and Langdon Court now stands on the site. Behind it in Oakley Crescent, the former vicarage survives. It’s now called St Peter’s House; when I first came to Islington in 1992, the then curate of St Mary’s church, Pete Ellem, was living there; we enjoyed many evenings of coffee, philosophy and gossip in his attic flat. What I didn’t know then was that another former tenant was the French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire. Perhaps Islington should put up a plaque?
Even the street names are full of history. Nelson Street and Nelson Terrace were built in1802; Nelson was already a hero from the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, years before Trafalgar. Elia Street is named after the pen-name of the essayist Charles Lamb who had a cottage nearby on Colebrooke Row. City Garden Row evokes the time when this land was a recreation area just outside the city boundaries. Other streets like Graham Street, Noel Road and Vincent Terrace are probably named after the developers’ families (as are Matilda Street, Muriel Street and Rodney Street in Barnsbury). We like a bit of history. Today’s developers, who seem to go for empty names like ‘The Island’, ‘The Base’ and ‘NorthPoint’, should take note….
Despite being just off City Road, the streets were surprisingly quiet. In fact the only noise came from the refuse collection and recycling teams doing their rounds. On a Bank Holiday? Yes, thanks to the Lib Dem Council and the hard-working binmen. We also have a Friday collection in Morton Road and I’m glad to say both our bins and our recycling were collected as normal today.
The weather this morning was much better than forecast, and perfect for delivery. That changed this afternoon. About 5pm I was picking my way around the steps and basements of Packington Street, when the sky suddenly went dark, and then hail struck. I lurked in a porch while the ice bounced off the pavement and thunder rumbled.
Today is of course Good Friday. As a Christian, I should have gone to church, indeed would have done if I’d not had my deliveries to get out. My church organises a procession on Good Friday; carrying the cross along Upper Street to St Mary’s, starting at noon. They’d have had good weather today. On the first Good Friday, the Gospels record that the sky went dark and the earth shook. So the hailstorm gave me pause for thought as well as a pause in my delivery.
The storm passed and I carried on delivering, albeit with bits of ice inside my collar and making their way down my back…. Still it did make our post-delivery meet-up for a drink all the more welcome. To quote Apollinaire, “La joie venait toujours après la peine”; pain is always followed by joy. Not a bad thought for Good Friday.
Springtime for Packington
The spring air is chilly and May day may seem an age away, but it’s just six weeks to the London elections. Thanks to the efforts of my Liberal Democrat council colleagues, virtually every estate now has entrance security, meaning deliveries have to be done in the early morning “tradesman’s” slot. Even though the post now often arrives mid-afternoon ... So my morning routine now includes an hour or so of trotting round with leaflets before work. Who needs the gym?
Yesterday I went along the canal, sharing the towpath with cyclists and joggers on their way to work, passing sleepy ducks who seemed untroubled by this very civilised rush hour.It’s fascinating to see familiar buildings from the other side; like the NarrowBoat pub, small and quaint at street level, which shows its elegant glass walls over the canal.
Alongside the towpath are the hoardings surrounding the Packington Square estate. Packington used the same panel-built design as used for Ronan Point. Ronan Point famously collapsed after a gas explosion. Under Labour, Islington Council failed to make the necessary checks that the buildings met modern standards: they don’t. The Liberal Democrat council made the estate safe by taking out all the gas appliancies. And now the estate is finally being pulled down and rebuilt. The residents have chosen a traditional street pattern; ironic, as that’s what the planners swept away when the estate was first built. It marks the high tide of post-war estates in Islington; after Packington, residents and councillors revolted and refused to demolish any more streets.
Beyond the hoarding, the first blocks have already come down, with one lone lift tower opposite Cluse Court still standing. Packington has been crying out for action for years. Neighbours on my estate were rehoused from Packington twenty years ago when their homes became uninhabitable. The original estate layout with quarter mile corridors in the sky was a hotspot for crime; so the estate security here was particularly welcome, but it cuts the estate up into fortresses where each staircase and landing is bisected by fences; one former resident calls it Colditz.
The optimistic illustrations of the new housing association estate are a total contrast: they show sunlit streets, with happy residents and even Eames-style chairs on the balconies. But it’s not too sanitised; on one of the drawings, an enterprising campaigner has stuck a Stop the War sticker so it appears like a banner over the balcony. Radical Islington lives!
