Duped over parking

Published: 4 June 2010

• AS the fourth side of Arundel Square reaches completion and we welcome our new neighbours to our little corner of Islington we are very concerned that the developers United House, Family Mosaic Housing Association and Islington Council are going back on commitments made to us that the scheme would not place additional, unsustainable strains on parking in the square.

Arundel Square Tenants’ and Residents’ Association supported planning permission for the decking over the railway line and the construction of the new flats.

We recognise that Islington needs more homes. We did so, however, on the basis that our new neighbours would add substantially to the parking problems.

Consent was given for an underground car park and a restriction placed on the scheme to prevent new residents obtaining parking permits for the public roads.

The new scheme has an underground car park and a private, gated road. Originally, the underground parking was to be sold in a “package” with the flats. Some parking spaces were to be reserved for Family Mosaic tenants within the new development.

Due to an oversight on the part of the council, these restrictions were never written into the planning restrictions.

The developers then announced their intention not to allocate parking within the scheme but to sell parking spaces separately at £30,000 each.

New residents would not be restricted from applying for parking permits on the public streets as this restriction had not been written into the planning consent, as it should have been.

We now discover that  Family Mosaic apparently intends to sell the parking spaces it has been allocated for its tenants. This is completely unacceptable.

We aren’t Nimbys who wish to halt the development.

We merely wish the commitments on which we gladly supported the new development to be met.

At the moment we feel we’ve been duped.

We now need the new Labour-led council to deliver on the comments its candidates made before the election.
STEVEN POWELL
Chairman, Arundel Square Tenants’ and Residents’ Association