Behind the hoardings... a scene of utter devastation

Published: 18th March, 2011

• THE former National Children’s Home site in Highbury Park is barricaded behind tall hoardings covered with stencils depicting wildlife and trees. What lies behind is a contrasting scene of utter devastation and destruction. 

Where once there was a tangle of overgrown garden and never-built-on grassland, home to foxes and birds, now lies the demolished remains of buildings. In one corner a small fragment of transplanted grass lies pathetically behind a tall wire fence – no replacement for the green lung that has now disappeared for ever.

The developer consistently ignored the planning brief which called for “the retention of the mature gardens in their entirety and for 50 per cent affordable housing”. With imagination, the housing could have been clustered on part of the site already built on rather than scattered evenly across the whole site, ruining a final remnant of what Highbury grazing land was like before the city swept over it. 

By granting planning permission to a scheme that is destroying the mature gardens, while failing to deliver the required 50 per cent affordable housing, our councillors have demonstrated their willingness to capitulate to developers and a complete lack of understanding of the importance of biodiversity and green space for the health and wellbeing of residents.  

The Green Party, along with residents, campaigned hard to retain the grassland area. Councillors granted a minor concession to preserving biodiversity by asking the developer to retain a few square metres of grass. The inadequacy of this is glaringly obvious to anyone overlooking the site.
Caroline Russell
Islington Green Party