Letter from local resident condemning proposals for a visitor centre at Caledonian Park: "My thanks to Richard Rosser, whose letter offered Islington Council a way out of the hole it has been digging for itself for the past 18 months over the Cally Park visitor centre scheme (Scrap the visitors’ centre, then claim it as a victory, April 15). Our local community has tried many times to get the council to engage in a proper, meaningful dialogue with us, but we have been consistently ignored or brushed aside by our councillors and council officers.

The Holloway community elected councillors Paul Smith, Diarmaid Ward and Rakhia Ismail to represent us. But instead of speaking for us they speak at us. Therefore, when we disagreed with them about the location of the visitor centre they colluded with council officers to create a kind of Orwellian truth. They manipulated the outcomes of public consultations; they produced a bogus, dishonest petition; they concealed information; they refused to respond to a Freedom of Information request; and they produced superficial, insubstantial, cosmetic reports. This is the way it seems to work in Islington’s one-party state.

Their arrogance in power means they know what’s best for us, and they insist on getting their own way. Evidence for all of this has, as Richard Rosser notes, been covered in the Tribune for more than a year. I won’t use unparliamentary lang­uage and accuse them of lying, but they have been extremely economical with the truth.

It required a leaked document from the Town Hall before we discovered the outcome of the major public consultation of last July, which revealed that more than 60 per cent of the respondents opposed their scheme. So its cover-up wasn’t total. But still the council steamroller has driven on, and it has made a planning application despite local opposition.

Our Holloway councillors tell us that their proposal is a one-off opportunity to get Lottery funding, and that without it the much-loved clocktower will be boarded up. They know that is not true and they are bullying and scaremongering local people into acceptance.

The Heritage Lottery Fund would consider other proposals. But one requirement of the current Heritage Lottery Fund offer is that Islington Council has to guarantee to maintain visitor centre funding for the next 20 years. This would be at an estimated cost of £90,000 a year. Are Islington council tax-payers happy to foot this enormous bill at a time of severe cuts? Are they prepared to spend so much of their hard-earned money on what Cllr Smith calls his personal project?

Hopefully, Islington’s people will now ask two key questions that Cllr Smith and his friends need to answer:

• Will you publish your business plan for the visitor centre?

• Will you publish your agreement with the Heritage Lottery Fund?

Meanwhile, the council should withdraw its planning application for the visitor centre and instead consult properly with our community to find a better location for a smaller, more appropriate building. We are keen to take part in any way to improve our park and its clocktower. It would indeed be a victory for the council to act in this way, as Richard Rosser suggests."

MIKE POWER
Vice-chair, Clocktower
Residents Group

• Keywords
  PARKS, CLOCK TOWERS, LETTERS
• Geographical keyword
  MARKET ROAD, NORTH ROAD, CALEDONIAN PARK [Open Space]
• Persons keyword
  Caledonian Park Clock Tower, Metropolitan Cattle Market, Mike Power, Caledonian Park Clocktower Residents Group, Caledonian Park Cally Clocktower Visitor Centre