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Fresh from becoming a recognised neighbourhood forum, Mount Pleasant Association will hold its first public meeting on Tuesday.

The application by the community group to become a neighbourhood forum was approved by Islington and Camden councils last month.

The association last year announced detailed plans to buy the Royal Mail Group Mount Pleasant site and build more homes that are affordable, challenging a bid approved by London Mayor Boris Johnson for a luxury development on the site.

Under the Localism Act, forums can shape development in their areas by producing neighbourhood development plans. “We’re delighted the local authorities have trusted us to develop a neighbourhood plan,” said association secretary Edward Denison.

“We look forward to working together on local plans and now more efficiently combining this effort with our wider plans for the whole site. We are now closer than ever to realising a cost-effective, socially acceptable and popular alternative to the RMG’s universally disparaged scheme.”

The alternative proposal, which has been backed by investment firm Legal & General and housing association Circle Housing Group, would see a resident-led group buy the Mount Pleasant site and build “more of the types of homes that London desperately needs” – including 10 per cent more affordable housing.

The association is expected to submit a planning application for part of the site within six weeks. The bidding process for the purchase of the site is expected to start in late spring.

Royal Mail’s plans to build 15-storey towers with more than 600 luxury flats on the Clerkenwell site were given the go-ahead by Mr Johnson in 2014, despite fierce opposition from residents, who were dismissed by the Mayor as “bourgeois nimbys”.

The meeting on Tuesday will be held at the Appletree pub, in Mount Pleasant, at 6.45pm. To find out more, contact mountpleasant@email.com, visit www.mountpleasantforum.wordpress.com or follow the group on Twitter via @MtPleasantForum.