Forking out for gates

Published: 11 June, 2010

• IF you visit the Popham estate in St Peter’s ward, just off Essex Road, you will find that walkways have recently been fitted with very large metal security gates, which have made life generally much safer and quieter on the estate.

However, if you try to open one of these gates you will find they are extremely heavy. 

Residents have complained that old, frail, young and disabled people have difficulty getting through the gates. They were told at first that Homes for Islington (HfI), which runs the estate, didn’t have the money to get the gates improved, at which point they approached myself and Councillor Gary Doolan about the problem. 

It is clear that the gates do not comply with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) legislation. 

We  suggested that the contractor which installed them should be changing them at its expense.

The latest emails from HfI say it agrees that all doors should be DDA compliant, that it is going to fit “automatic openers” to the doors, and that this work is out to tender, which means that HfI is going to pay more money to get the doors put right, when it is responsible for getting them put in wrong in the first place. 

This is an incompetent waste of public money, and we still can’t get HfI to tell us how it happened. We intend to find out.

CLLR MARTIN KLUTE 
Labour, St Peter’s ward