No place for a family

Published: 25 March, 2011

• AFTER three decades of radical change at Charles Rowan House in Clerkenwell, it is heartbreaking to end up quarrelling with a Labour council over the use of one possible flat. Ironic that the same week as our community rooms are being taken away to house a family, a Tory council in Westminster announced the completion of the first new council housing in London for 25 years, which will house ten families.

Ten years ago we helped plan our amazing courtyard. Now, it is still used as an efficient place for our caretaker to work from, and a convenient place for our tenants’ and residents’ association to meet and store gardening and other community equipment. All this materially benefits 95 households.

The space works fine for meeting and storage, but has endemic problems it would be cruel to force a family to live with day in and day out. 

At the same time as council stock has been decimated by right-to-buy, we’ve watched six “luxury” developments of nearly 400 flats go up on three sides of Charles Rowan House. Out of these only 25 are “affordable”, and many are second homes. 

Surrounded as we are, Councillor James Murray’s and Homes for Islington’s plaint on behalf of the homeless might sound more convincing if the council requisitioned some of these, and left our space alone.

BARB JACOBSON
Chair, Charles Rowan House Tenants’ and Residents’ Association