Keep out of my kitchen

Published: 6 May, 2011

• HOMES for Islington, Islington Council and National Grid have just about managed to destroy the look of my lovely home and my estate. They have made the estate look like prison blocks and my walk like an underground car park with big pipes going in all directions.

Now, they want to replace the gas laterals and we are left with two options – either outside my front door or coming over the back of the houses. Neither is acceptable. 

I suggest that the work waits until it may actually need doing – in about 13 years from now. By then I expect they will have decided on a more acceptable way forward.

Since I am stuck in this prison, I decided to make my life a bit more cheerful. I treated myself to a designer kitchen, which cost me more than £25,000. It is just finished and it is beautiful.

Should National Grid and HfI decide to carry out the work at the back of the house and bring a gas pipe behind my kitchen cupboards to reach the gas meter I will not allow workmen in my kitchen. 

SHEILA CASEY 
Freeholder, Popham Street
N1  

• OVER the past few weeks, readers will have seen reports and letters regarding the gas lateral installation on the Popham 1 estate. At a meeting with National Grid and Eamon McGoldrick, of Homes for Islington (HfI), we were promised the official report detailing that the works were essential and that our estate is under threat of gas leaks.

The report, a letter from National Grid, states: “The existing pipework that National Grid replaces does not present an immediate risk or danger to any customer.” So much for National Grid’s previous scaremonger tactics that our lives were in danger if this work was not carried out.

National Grid says the work is being carried out following analysis on National Grid’s mains replacement decision tool, a computer program which covers the whole country and which can be wrong if wrong data are entered.

While at the beginning of its letter National Grid says there is no immediate risk or danger, it ends by saying “the essential works will ensure residents continue to enjoy a safe, secure and reliable gas supply”. We already have this, and National Grid has confirmed this. 

So why the work? You tell me.

The sooner HfI goes and services are brought back under the control of Islington Council, the better.

MARTIN RUTHERFORD
Chair, Popham 1 Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association