Letter: Anna Carrdus expresses her delight as a member of the Caledonian Park Friends Group that Islington Council has received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to build a visitor centre in the park (Landmark go-ahead, December 16).

Anna also says she respects the views of those who opposed the council bid. But the truth is that few people opposed the bid that will restore the clocktower and repair the railings. However, hundreds of people in our community opposed the visitor centre being built at the north gate of the park, just 15 metres from people’s homes, where it will create more road hazards, parking problems and anti-social behaviour.

Anna should also be made aware that the Caledonian Park Friends Group initially supported the building of the centre at the base of the clocktower – a logical location. The group appealed to the council to reconsider its plans as late as October last year, asking them to relocate the centre to the south gate – another logical location.

Anna might also like to ask the council where it will get the £90,000 a year needed to run the visitor centre after it’s been built, blighting our park and homes. The council is cutting jobs and social services as a result of government budget cuts, so who will pay?

I, and many of my neighbours are also members of the Friends Group, but we see a future where an unaffordable, unwanted, unnecessary and unloved building will be unsustainable, becoming unused.

It will become a white elephant, and a monument to the grandiosity of Councillor Paul Smith and what is his “personal project”.

MIKE POWER
Clock View Crescent, N7

• Keywords
  CLOCK TOWERS, LETTERS, PARKS
• Geographical keyword
  CALEDONIAN PARK [Open Space]
• Persons keyword
  Caledonian Park Clocktower Residents Group, Mike Power, Paul Smith, Caledonian Park Cally Clocktower Visitor Centre, Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)